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Pinterest For Pool Pros
If you haven’t heard by now, Pinterest is taking the Internet world by storm. This young startup, with a brilliant but simple idea, is now one of the biggest and most talked about social bookmarking sites in the world. What’s more important is that it can help your spa and pool business.
What Is Pinterest?
Before I dive into the idea behind Pinterest, you must first understand ...
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Chris Brady Discusses The British Backyard Industry
Chris Brady, 1 Stop Spas, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. Chris Brady sells spas across the Atlantic in Lincolnshire, serving a customer base that covers a huge area — pretty much the whole eastern half of England. Customers there call his products hot tubs, he prefers to call them spas.
How's the weather there? It's about 80 Fahrenheit here.
We're probably about 10 degrees more than it should be, ...
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APSP's Bill Weber On The State Of The Pool Industry
Bill Weber, President and CEO of The Association of Pool & Spa Professionals. Bill Weber has been President and CEO of APSP since 2005.
Is it fair to say that business is finally improving?
There seems to be every indication that's true. I've been on the road quite a bit this spring and almost everyone I talk to is saying business is picking up. Even in areas ...
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Paying Forward
This blog really doesn’t have anything to do with aquatics, but I’m thinking it’s worth sharing anyway. So I humbly beg your kind indulgence.
I grew up in southern California, which unfortunately has more than its share of homeless people. As a result, like most, I’ve been confronted countless times by these down-and-out souls asking for money. (These days, I live on California’s central coast on ...
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NSPF Offers New Online Safety Training Courses
Six new online compliance training courses are now on the National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) website and may be accessed at www.nspf.org. The courses are Hearing Conservation, Lock and Tag, Forklift Safety, Fall Protection, Scaffold Safety, and Ladder Safety. An additional course, Personal Protective Equipment, previously introduced in English, is now available in Spanish. The courses are $19.95 per registrant, per course.
“Effective workplace safety is ...
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Business Briefs: Anthony & Sylvan, DeltaUV, CoverLogix, Water Tech, American Home Shield
Anthony & Sylvan Pool Corporation has opened an online retail store at www.anthonysylvan.com. On the new site, customers will be able to purchase a wide variety of products, including Anthony & Sylvan brand chemicals, maintenance equipment, pool parts and toys. Customers can also utilize the site to schedule their next service appointment in areas where available, as well as learn more about pool maintenance programs, ...
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Spotlight: Alicia Stephens, education manager, BioLab
Alicia Stephens teaches chemistry, product knowledge and selling skills for BioLab, based just north of Atlanta in Lawrenceville, Ga. A BioLab veteran of 12 years, she has a bachelor’s degree in biology and began managing the company’s training and education programs in 2003.
How can small business owners use educational resources to help them succeed in this economy?
Using education for business success is a three-pronged approach. The first piece is using training ...
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Builder Voices: Mike Farley
Mike Farley, Landscape architect, designer and project manager, Claffey Pools, Southlake, Texas. Mike Farley has been designing and building custom swimming pools and surrounding landscapes for more than 20 years in both California and Texas. He holds a degree in landscape architecture from Texas Tech University and is a graduate of Genesis 3's Level 1 design school.
What signs of growth have you seen from the ...
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APSP Sets Agenda For Industry Summit
The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals (APSP) will unveil the results of a year’s worth of consumer research during its 2012 Industry Summit, scheduled for Aug. 14-15 in Chicago’s Hilton Rosemont Hotel.
The event, which the association hosts every two years, will focus on research done for the industry by the Harrison Group, a company that’s worked with clients such as Microsoft, Motorola and American ...
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World’s Slowest Swimmer Returning to Olympics
I’ve always loved the Olympics, both summer and winter — for a hundred reasons and for stories like this: Twelve years ago at the Sydney Summer Olympics, Eric “The Eel” Moussambani became a cult hero when he won a 100-meter freestyle heat by swimming the slowest time for the event in Olympic history, 1:52, more than a full minute slower than the world record.
How does ...
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Feedback: Get Together (Or Fall Apart)
A reader wrote in response to “The Backyard Industry Needs To Come Together, Or Risk Falling Apart.” a blog posted by Matt Giovanisci on April 10.
I have seen firsthand over the last 30 years many attempts on a grass-root level to organize and try to send a message to manufacturing that the small pool service companies, builders, retailers and distributors needed help with advertising, promotion ...
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State Of The Industry Survey: Service Sector — The Star of the Recession
When the curtain came down on the U.S. economy in 2007, the vast majority of builders and retailers took quite a beating, as financing became difficult and homeowners hunkered down in survival mode.
However, many of these homeowners already owned pools and tubs, and it made sense to continue to maintain them. So service departments at pool retail stores were generally able to avoid personnel cuts, ...
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State Of The Industry: Retail Still on the Rebound
Though the housing market still stinks, too many people are out of work and consumer confidence is shaky, the Great Recession (I think it merits upper-case treatment) is over. In fact it’s been over, if you use a strict definition, for a couple of years.
That academic end to the recession did little for pool and spa retailers, whose customers didn’t go on spending sprees when ...
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Feedback: ADA Is A-OK
I swim at a private/public pool which has met the 2012 rules since it opened in 1995. The HVAC has required much more maintenance than the chairlift, which is used at least 10 times a day, seven days a week. I'm a disabled person who loves the water, where I can exercise freely and splash with my friends.
I plan my travels based on access to ...
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Genesis 3 Holds First Educational Summit
Genesis 3 recently hosted its first-annual Educational Summit meeting at the Riviera Palm Springs Hotel, in Palm Springs, Calif., attended by G3 members and sponsors.
According to organizers, the meeting covered recent changes within the Genesis 3 structure, including the roles that the Platinum Advisory Board and Education Council will play moving forward, as well as association-synergy plans with Hanley Wood, AIA, ASLA, APLD and media ...
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