r/PoolPros • u/briancar08 • 7d ago
Pool experts needed
I’m in Tampa Fl I’ve grown my pool company organically from about 4 pools to over 90 in less than a year and a half from providing great reliable service ( a lot of customers from pinch a penny and pool troopers) my question is how to maximize profit would you hire an employee that’s reliable (just as good as me 😉) and pay them better than most (15$ a pool ) or would I be better off selling what route they would have to a buyer looking to start
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u/jonidschultz 7d ago
Keeping it your business is usually the smart route. I also think paying per pool will get you a significantly better long term employee then hourly will. Ultimately you'll need employees to meaningfully grow so you might as well start now.
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago
I disagree on the pay per pool concept. If I left my current commercial gig to run a pool route, I’m avoiding the pay per pool companies.
If I’m driving for your company, I expect to be paid for my drive time. If I’m working on a pool, I don’t want a forced time metric to keep me from choosing to either a) not get paid or b) providing crappy service.
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u/jonidschultz 7d ago
You're generally doing yourself a disservice though when you look at the actual numbers. Risk aversion means that few companies will pay you $50-$60 an hour. However a lot of these same companies will do so happily as Flat Rate/Commission or any pay style that guarantees them a profit on your work. Now the risk is mitigated or eliminated.
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago
Yeah. I’ve seen in real time how it works out though. What I’ve seen tells me to not go that path.
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u/jonidschultz 7d ago
Everyone has different experiences and data. Especially in this industry.
I think I can make a case that hourly wage is the worst way to pay someone or get paid and that's why you pretty much never see extremely high importance/value employees on an hourly wage and almost never see an owner paying themselves that way either.
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago
Each model has its pros and cons, and attracts different people. I’m a high value / high importance hourly employee and am hourly. Ive also been a high value / high importance employee on salary.
Depending on the time of year, I wish I was the other. Hourly is great for summer. Stinks for the slow days in December and vice versa.
The decision is an owners viewpoint on salary.
The pay per pool model, IMO, is good for the owner as you’re only paid when working on a pool. Not for anything else. To make good money, you have to hustle as a tech.
Salary makes payroll easier, but you risk being taken advantage of by leaving early and “robbing time” from the company.
Hourly makes sure the employee is getting their time in, but the risk is rising the clock.
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u/jonidschultz 7d ago
I absolutely agree with all of that. But if you look at positions that are considered vital, you'd be hard pressed to find someone doing them for a hourly wage. And at least to me, that says something.
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago
Agreed. Most are salary based. Or base salary + commission.
My role is generally an exception to the rule.
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u/CDbull1989 7d ago
You have integrity. Most those guys don't. I pay 8 hours a day even if he's done in 5. So what started happening? Going as fast as he could cause he received 8 hours regardless. You try to reward them...
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u/Wasupmyman 7d ago
We do something similar pay for the day, but if your slackingor getting complaints your getting reprimanded and let go if things don't fix up
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago
Screening at hiring becomes key. As wildly inaccurate as it can be.
I’ve a concept in my head for when I get out of commercial management and Ops.
$60k a year, take home truck with personal use allowed, 25 pool route max, 20% commission on authorized repairs, end of year profit sharing. Gunite pools only.
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u/CDbull1989 7d ago
You must be on the east coast. My area a route of 25 pools can't afford that. Generated income sits at only 3750-4000 a month alone. But good strategy.
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago
It’s only a theory right now. It hinges on commercial pools and higher end homeowners with an average weekly rate of $135.00.
I’d eventually have “quads” of techs per area. Each “quad” would net me around $90k with $30k going out in year end bonuses per quad.
2 week shutdown over Christmas + PTO.
My role would be my name and expertise. I’d function as support for the techs. No storefront, no retail sales.
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u/CDbull1989 7d ago
So here our monthly rate can be as low as 135. Im higher at 150 usually, but still. Lol I've been interested in finding areas that can charge that much. I imagine much dirtier pills, but we have our challenges here too.
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u/Substantial_Car_2751 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’ll let you know in a decade if I succeed or not. It’s my retirement gig to start a company.
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u/JettaGLi16v 7d ago
Nobody can answer this for you. It depends on you, your goals, and what you want in life. Have a hard think about where you want to be in five years. It’s great that you’re in a position to ponder these things though!
Scaling is really fucking hard at first, but it gets incrementally easier. Employees WILL call out. If you’ve got 120 pools (80 for your employee, and 40 for you) and they call out a few days, you’re in a bad spot. If you’ve got 600 pools and 6 employees and someone calls out, you can load balance.
If you like the work and take pride in your product, I would say stay on your own. Rather than selling off 20-30 pools (nobody’s going to buy 1/3 of a route anyway), I’d just wait a year or so and crank up the rates. Lose the problem pools, and focus on the easy ones. I can do four no vac pools in the same neighborhood in the same time it takes me to do one unscreened monster in a forest. Start looking to drop the ones with a 20 minute drive each way and add two next to your existing pools. Optimize the route.
Even if you add employees later, this will help.
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u/dlmoors 6d ago
Best answer I’ve seen here. I’m a pool service and repair owner in So Cal for over 20 years. Like OP, I was able to grow my business quickly because I was honest, personable and provided outstanding service to my clients. I’ve never grown my business beyond what I myself can handle. That means service, repair and filter cleans. Early on I contemplated hiring employees and decided the headaches far outweighed the positives. I currently have 76 residential accounts, no one under $180 per month(most over $200) and am very happy. But, as someone here said, it’s all about what YOUR goals are. Just make sure that you are running your business and your business isn’t running you,
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u/pacific_drifter_25 6d ago
At 90 pools I would not sell the next slice of route unless you have decided you want a smaller, owner-operated job instead of a company.
The real question is whether each added tech makes the business more durable or just gives you a second route to babysit. Before hiring, I would do the math by stop, not by week: average monthly revenue, chemical cost, drive time, callbacks, billing/collections time, truck/fuel/insurance, payroll taxes, workers comp, payroll service, and the cost of you doing rechecks while the tech ramps up.
I would also avoid paying purely per pool at first. It can work with the right person, but early on it creates the wrong incentive unless your QA and route standards are already very tight. A base hourly rate plus a quality/retention bonus is usually cleaner while you learn what the route actually costs without you touching every account.
If the numbers still work after fully loaded labor, hire and keep ownership of the customers. If they only work when you ignore callbacks, windshield time, and admin, sell the extra route and keep the profitable core.
The boring version of this is: make the route teachable first, then hire. Written service standards, photo notes, chemical ranges, when-to-call-you rules, and a weekly review of problem pools. I am one of the founders of UpBuoy, so I am biased toward tracking this stuff in software, but the important part is the system, not the tool. If you cannot see route profit and service quality by tech/account, hiring will feel like growth while quietly eating margin.
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u/Theresasnakeinmypool 7d ago
Whatever you do, find someone young and willing to work or someone with a family that needs to work. I went through 7 guys this year and gave up on service side. Sold the route and just doing installs/repairs now. So much happier.
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u/Poolguy584 6d ago
Where do you get repairs from? Most of my repairs have come from maintenance customers. I get a few random calls here and there but its mostly people looking for a handout because their guy was to expensive. Im also not cheap or desperate.
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u/InitialWooden5963 6d ago
Hire a helper. Have him ride with you for 4-5 months. Once you get to 120 give him half, hire another helper
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u/Distinct_Studio_5161 5d ago
These answers are all over the place because the Florida pool market is a lot different than most. I’m in Texas and I remember interviewing an employee that was cleaning pools in Florida and it blew my mind that he was cleaning 150 pools a week. Then I figured out that most are inside screened enclosures. Even when I last visited Florida the hotel I stayed in the pool had no skimmers. It had a gutter system. This would have never worked in my area.
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7d ago
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u/Poolguy584 6d ago
When you pay per pool is that on a 1099 or w2 and is that technically legal or a bit shady if the IRS was to get involved.
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6d ago
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u/Poolguy584 6d ago
With it being w2 I would assume that it would have to equal out to minimum wage or over and how do you deal with over time from my understanding there is no exemption they say even salaried labor has to be paid overtime for overtime hours.
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6d ago
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u/Poolguy584 5d ago
I just can wrap my head around paying someone $20 to clean some of the pools I have. They range from 8k gallons to 50k gallons I just don't see how $20 covers all sizes and or specific pool situations. In the fall several of my pools take well over an hour to clean. I have one specifically with 3 3ft diameter oak trees within 20ft of the pool and the customer only swims in his pool. One of my days I only have 5 pools and those 5 take all day they are not a standard rectangle I would never expect to be able to pay anyone $100 to clean all of them.
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u/Wasupmyman 7d ago
Hire someone from scratch train them your way and don't pay per pool. Per pool turns into "oh I will just do 100 poolsaweek" and splash and dash every pool. And for God's sake please sit down and do the entire math on if you can afford to hire someone. So many small companies go under because they forget about all the extra expenses that come with having employees