The Master Pools Guild has always had a very family type of atmosphere. Consisting of noncompeting members internationally, the group feels free to share ideas and strategies with each other.
It’s embedded in their culture. Members oftentimes refer to each other as brothers and sisters in the Guild. Friendships spring back decades, especially among those companies that helped found the group in 1962.
The organization has many formal programs in place to reinforce this sharing. It has its spring and fall meetings every year, where members network, attend classes and participate in sharing sessions. It offers other educational opportunities throughout the year.
But, on their own, many of the Guild’s members have taken this sharing to a new level. Members and friends within the organization often provide consulting services to each other. They might meet and visit at one’s facilities for a day or, in some cases, a member might work at another’s company for a week.
It’s just part of the culture, says Ed Gibbs, president of Toronto-based Gib-San Pools and Landscape Solutions.
“We’ve always been of the mindset that with group collaborations, we can learn and move forward at a much more rapid pace than individually,” he says. “It’s always about education and experience that others have that you can learn from. It’s along the principles of what the Master Pools Guild is about.”
Members report that these exchanges have made key differences for them.
Help for all needs
Chris Neuman, vice president of inhouse construction for Neuman Pools in Beaver Dam, Wisc., is one Master Pools member who has benefited from this generosity.
Neuman is another second-generation manager. His company is 43 years old and has been a member of Master Pools for about 35. Neuman has been with the company, started by his father and uncle, for about 22 years.
Technical skills are in Neuman’s DNA. In his grandfather’s time, most of the family were plumbers, so Chris Neuman’s father and uncle were raised with that discipline. They opened Water Technology Inc., then a pool and aquatics firm, as a way to expand their reach. About 30 years ago, the founding Neuman brothers split the business into separate companies. Water Tech remains a bastion of aquatics design, while Neuman Pools remains solid in the pool/spa market.
Like others in the pool and spa industry, the technical skills run deep. But Neuman looks for ways to improve his business skills. So Josh Henderson, vice president of sales with Memphis Pool in Memphis, Tenn., has visited Neuman’s operation multiple times, and he has hosted Neuman as well.
“There are a lot of us who are very technically smart — we understand how pools work and the technical side of things,” Neuman says. “And many of us advanced throughout our companies because of what we produced and how we produced ... but there are a lot of us who are really yearning to learn how to operate a business.”
Henderson has become widely known in the guild as a service/retail specialist. This has come in handy for several members who have been expanding and deepening their service reach since the Great Recession, in the name of diversifying profit streams.
When visiting Neuman, he would spend about a week at the company, essentially shadowing him. “I showed him how we do business, ran him through our operations,” Neuman says. “Then we spent a couple days with the technicians. On other occasions, Josh has done evaluations of the different roles in the service department.”
Even with a trusted friend and colleague, the process can prove uncomfortable at times. “In some ways, it’s like somebody coming and telling you how to raise your kids,” Neuman says.
But these members know the process ultimately will be helpful. “There’s really no expectation other than some honesty and looking for ways we can help each other,” Neuman says.
After doing that, Henderson gave his honest input, and the two devised strategies for improvement. In Neuman’s case, that largely involved developing standard procedures for many different situations, along with developing manuals and training programs.
“It’s really an open book,” Neuman says. “We just like to get an outsider’s view of how we operate and what we’re doing.”
Consulting strategy
Henderson has visited with a few fellow Master Pools members. The stays can last a day or two for up to a week. And he makes multiple trips for some, having visited and advised some companies as much as three times in as many years.
“It’s such a tight-knit group that I stay at their houses most of the time,” he says. “It’s not like they’re putting me up in a hotel and it’s non-personal. It’s quite the opposite.”
In working with fellow Master Pools members, Henderson has learned that speaking with the employees can be key to learning how a company truly operates. “A lot of it can go back to the morale of the team,” he says. “It’s good to get them in their element [and] really get them talking. That’s when you can learn a lot about what’s going on with an organization. ”
Of course, trust plays a key role in this process, so Henderson doesn’t ask any questions of staffers without the express permission of the owners or management.
When shadowing employees on a route, Henderson will look at how the service technician communicates with a client and office staff, how they clean and organize their vehicles, whether they maximize every service call for revenue possibilities, and how they manage their day overall.
If you ask those who have gone to advise their fellow Master Pools members, these experiences have proven as valuable to them as to those who sought the help. For instance, by visiting Neuman Pools, Henderson got to see how a company can serve a geographically wider market.
“They cover about a 400-mile radius, whereas ... 90% of our revenue is generated within 20 miles of our headquarters,” Henderson says. “That was a drastically different business model than what I’m used to. I may have been able to teach them a little, but it also helped me get a better understanding of that kind of operation.”
After visiting Neuman Pools, Henderson also made a change. “They send out a brochure in the mail taking chemical orders in bulk — we never did that before,” Henderson says. “That’s something we do now, so they’ll actually ship what they can ship to those clients.”
Henderson has instituted changes after visiting fellow Master Pools members. Not only does Memphis Pools now have GPS in all its service trucks, but it has a big-screen television to monitor them. “Everybody can see where the trucks are,” Henderson says. “That way, there’s transparency there.”
Collaborative spirit
For Michael Moore, president of Shreveport, La.-based Morehead Pools, the desire to take part in this sharing sprung from a desire to boost his culture.
So he reached out to fellow member Ed Gibbs of Gib-San Pools and Landscape Creations in Toronto.
“Ed has a culture at Gib-San, which ... if you’ve ever hung around him and his people, you get that they’re very close-knit and family-oriented. He just has a culture that I’m very envious of,” Moore says.
So he asked Gibbs if they could get together at one of their offices to discuss it. Instead, Gibbs invited Moore to one of his core team- and culture-building endeavors — a weekend retreat. “I said, ‘I would love that, but I would not want to impose,’” Moore recalls. “He said, ‘No, I think we can get just as much out of you guys and your team.’”
At the retreat in Arizona, Gibbs basically joined the two companies so they functioned as one team. When they performed team- and skills-building exercises, they didn’t separate the two companies. “That was the most important aspect of it,” Gibbs says. “That we learn from each other. We worked together, and we sold to each other to share techniques.”
Back at the office, Moore made a change that he credits with changing how his group sells. Every week, they hold a 55-minute meeting. For the first few minutes, the group updates each other on all sales leads, then they will learn something new.
Since participating in the retreat, Moore has seen a sales increase of 25%. “There are no coincidences in life,” he says. “The economy may be part of it, but I can tell the processes with my sales team, the accountability and the things that we took away from that week have improved our sales department ten-fold.”
While Master Pools members have historically felt comfortable to share with each other more than with the guy down the street, Moore believes exchanges like this will become increasingly popular in the future — throughout the industry.
“You talk about the generational thing: I think the old-school mentality in our industry is everybody has their own secret sauce, when in fact nobody has a secret sauce,” he says. “The collaborative nature of the next generation of the pool industry is a huge plus. They want to be held accountable, they want to collaborate, because they ultimately are striving for long-term success.”
