In this episode we had the opportunity to interview our good friend Tony Arredondo of The Pool Guys of Tampa Bay - Tampapoolpro.com. He has been a big supporter of us from the beginning and we were excited to finally get him on the podcast. Tony is a member of the National Plasterers Council and currently the President of the Florida Swimming Pool Association (FSPA) Tampa Bay Chapter. Tony shared his unique story with us of how he got into the industry. We discussed how the foreclosure market provided him with rapid growth when he first started, so much so that he had to stop taking on new customers at one point to readjust his business strategy. This allowed him to keep his reputation intact, while still providing the customers with the best experience possible. Something we had to do several times while running Brothers Pool Service. 

We also had a great conversation about the Tampa group which is an organization he is involved in, which is made up of industry professionals who are experts in different fields. They work with one another to provide their clients with the best customer service possible by making sure the right guy is in the backyard to do each job. This is a great way of coming together to lift the image of the industry and support one another so that everyone is successful. We were very impressed by what they got going on out there in Tampa and think it is something that more of this industry should be open to doing. 

The Pool Guys of Tampa Bay Links:

• Website: https://poolchasers.link/tampa-web-84

• Facebook: https://poolchasers.link/tampa-fb-84

• Instagram: https://poolchasers.link/tampa-ig-84

• FSPA: https://poolchasers.link/fspa-web-84

• Everything Under The Sun Expo: https://poolchasers.link/everything-under-the-sun-web-84

Book Links:

• 7 Habits: https://poolchasers.link/7-habits-84

• Gorilla Marketing: https://poolchasers.link/guerilla-84

• The Bowden Way: https://poolchasers.link/bowden-84

Sponsor Links:

• Pentair: https://poolchasers.link/pentair-pwu-84

• Anderson Manufacturing: https://poolchasers.link/anderson-pwu-84

• Primate Pool Tools: https://poolchasers.link/primate-pwu-84

Shownotes

• 2:09 Intro to Tony

• 5:09 Tony met his wife On-Line

• 9:49 Growing up in a Navy home

• 10:33 Tony's cousins number in the 100's

• 13:00 What Tony does for fun

• 21:24 Tony gets into the pool industry

• 25:30 Working with a real-estate broker

• 29:59 50-60 more and 40 more coming

• 33:10 Learning on his own

• 35:33 Running routes out of a spreadsheet

• 37:40 No paper invoices

• 41:28 Route management software saves so much time

• 44:25 Growing fast can be difficult

• 47:30 Invoices coming from multiple places

• 51:25 FSPA class that made a big impact

• 53:40 You have to know when to push back

• 55:07 your only going to be as strong as your weakest link

• 59:52 What is the Tampa Group

• 1:04:44 You are as good as the person you refer

• 1:07:52 Vetted 9 ways till Sunday

• 1:09:42 Got into FSPA to learn

• 1:12:29 Tony's dog bite story

• 1:18:04 Tony's book recommendations

• 1:21:21 Tony will be at Everything under the sun show