How does a pool service really work?

[red-beard]

A Facebook friend posted the job listing:

Manning Pool Service is now hiring for the position of maintenance technician. We offer a great place to come to work and feel welcome. Our technicians get to enjoy the outdoor elements as well as being their own boss.

Our techs handle 40-45 pools per week. We do not shove as many pools on your route as possible (60-75 pools a week) like our competitors. We do not see the point in rushed or sloppy work, all to get another dollar. Instead, we pride ourselves on taking our time and doing thorough job. Cleaning the pool, and balancing the chemicals to our standards which provides a safe, fun, and relaxing swim for our customers.

Techs start at fourteen dollars per hour.
Guaranteed 40hrs per week.
Techs drive a company truck and use a company iPad.
We offer PTO as well as sick time, after 90-days.
Health, Dental, and Vision insurance, after 90-days.
We celebrate all major holidays with a paid day off.
Monthly cookouts to celebrate our Employee of the Month!
Weekly Team meetings to go discuss topics and concerns.
Plus much more!

No previous experience necessary as we will put you through our four week training course. At the end of the training you will be able to safely handle the chemicals we use and understand their properties. You will also be able to follow our steps for a perfectly clean swimming pool!

Must have a valid Texas DL.
Must have own transportation to work and back.
Must have a working cellphone.
Must be able to pass a background and Driving Record.

Please DM me if you have questions.

We are waiting for you to join our team! =D

So, a "good" company only assigns 40 pools a week to a technician. That person has to test, balance and clean each pool and get to the next one, all inside an hour. And only once per week. I could see this is possible with a Salt Water Pool, but not one that needs chlorine. Even if you are using the devil's candy tablets. Do these people have robots and the guy is cleaning them out? Or do they have leaves in the pool all week. I just don't know how you could possibly properly take care of that many pools in a week.

I don't test everything every week, but even getting a sample and testing FC, CC & TC plus pH takes a few minutes. Calculating the correct adjustment means knowing the pool size for each pool. And it takes a minimum of 10 minutes to brush my pool properly.

The worst part? The tech gets $14/hr but the pool company charges $30-50/week? Am I in the wrong business? Is it possible to make a proper business? Or are these guys just sharpers taking people for money?

I've never had a service. And The methods here work and become easy for anyone. And with a Salt Water Pool, super easy. I just don't get the whole pool service thing.

 

[PoolGate]

These companies basically service the ignorant and/or those that just simply do not want to do anything and would prefer someone else do it for them. Ignorance is not an insult, we are all ignorantly of something. And I am not saying they are all bad, they fill a need. That said, managing 10 pools per day isn't too bad but under an hour per pool. So not likely they are doing a too thorough cleaning, if cleaning at all. I suspect they do basic testing (possibly electronic) and fling whatever chemicals in that they think are needed and move onto the next pool.

 

[Newdude]

I myself stretched many a weekly cleaning to several weeks by quickly sweeping the pool to a general area, giving it 5 min to settle and sweeping a second time before a quick vac in the dirty area. And they have hammerheads which are much quicker.

The chemistry quandary is a while another story. No doubt they have to shock the pool to SLAM or above levels and hope it doesn’t drift down below safe levels before their next visits. Also no doubt they will use tabs. They can easily get a season or two before the CYA is sky high and the customer has to drain. It works at first and the next time the cycle repeats the customer is happy because ‘it worked last time..... it must be right’. Some people will make it many cycles before realizing enough is enough. In those 4-6 years they got enough new customers to start from scratch and the system keeps rolling.

The truely hands off customers who can’t be bothered might make it 10-15 years.

 

[Newdude]

Now, If the once weekly methods were at all helpful, why would they need to suddenly and violently cause such a disturbance. Because the patient is DOA and they need the paddles.

 

[JamesW]

The tech gets $14/hr but the pool company charges $30-50/week?

The people cleaning pools are not any sort of “Tech”. They really are not qualified to do very much other than clean the pools.

When you look at the charges to customers, you have to factor in a lot more than just the pay to the person cleaning the pool.

The real cost of an employee is about 1.333 x the actual pay. So, $15 per hour is really $20 per hour.

Sometimes there are two people. So, the pay is now $40 per hour.

The techs get paid from the time they clock in to the time they clock out. They might get paid for 10 hours, but only be on jobsites for 7 hours by the time you account for time spent in the shop, traveling to various places to get parts and supplies, and time on the road.

If you pay $40 per hour for 10 hours and only charge $50 per hour for 7 hours, you’re paying $400 to make $350. That’s a loss of $50 before you get to other expenses.

You have to account for costs related to sending someone back for free when a customer complains about the work done by a 4 week trainee.

When a pool goes green, you're cleaning it for free including all time, labor and chemicals.

Then you have all of the operational costs including the vehicle and the associated costs of gas, insurance, maintenance, tools, equipment, supplies, repairs etc.

You have costs for the office and warehouse including rent, insurance, utilities, phone, internet etc.

You have costs for business software for accounting, field service etc.

You have costs for professional services like accounting, taxes, legal, regulatory compliance etc.

You have costs for employee health insurance.

You have costs for computers, cell phones, ipads and the associated wireless plans.

You have office staff including a bookkeeper, CSRs (Customer Service Representatives), a service manager, etc.

You have costs for marketing and advertising.

You have costs associated with chasing down people who don’t pay including accounts that you have to write off.

You have various taxes and regulatory fees.

Of course, these businesses are seasonal.

So, what do you do with the people in the off season?

Service businesses are much more difficult than most people know.

Right now, all trades are having a serious problem hiring people to work because most younger people today just don’t want to do these jobs.

 

[JamesW]

Anyone who has ever owned a small business can tell you how difficult and expensive it is.

You go to buy a wedding cake and wonder why it’s so expensive. The ingredients don’t cost that much. It doesn’t take that long to make. Why does it cost so much?

You’re paying for the entire business cost divided by the number of cakes or widgets or whatever they sell.

If you sell 50 cakes per week, the entire cost of the business is divided by 50 and added to the cost of each cake.

It’s the same thing for big companies like WalMart, Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and Microsoft.

The big difference is that the big companies divide bigger expenses over much bigger sales for a lower cost per unit to the end customer.

Ford might spend $100 million on a new car model. If they sell 1 million cars, then the cost per car is $100. If they sell 10,000 cars, the cost per car is $10,000 per car.

 

[JamesW]

In addition, people who are good at a trade are virtually always bad at the business part of it. If you are a good baker, electrician, plumber, painter, HVAC tech, pool tech etc. you will almost universally hate and be bad at any sort of “paperwork”, administrative or clerical type of work.

People who do physical work are usually diametrically opposed to the tedious paperwork involved in running a business.

The paperwork is usually done manually at tremendous expense in time and effort because they don’t know how to do it and can’t afford to invest in the systems, processes, services, software etc that would make things faster and easier.

This means that the paperwork is usually done poorly, incomplete and late in most cases.

Most small business owners work 60 to 80 hours per week to try to make $50,000.00 per year.

If you work 80 hours per week and make $50,000.00 per year, you are making $9.62 per hour.

(9.62 x 40) + (9.62 x 1.5 x 40) = $50,024.00.

Most of the business owner’s time is spent trying to manage all of the information about what was done, what needs to be done, what needs to be billed etc.

Your $14 per hour tech is not going to be very concerned about documenting everything they use. They will routinely forget to note that they used parts, equipment etc, which means that it’s a loss to you.

They forgot to note that they used $10 worth of chemicals, $10 worth of parts etc? That’s a $20 loss on just one customer. They added 3 bags of salt and replaced a pressure gauge but forgot to note it on the ticket? That’s your loss.

Oh, and now their truck broke down and it has to be towed to the service center, which is going to cost $500 and you have to get them another truck to keep going.

 

[Jimrahbe]

@JamesW

Thanks for your spot on diagnoses of what it costs to run a business..

Jim R.

 

[Newdude]

^^^^ every last bit of that.

Sadly it is what contributes to the fleecing of customers. They are onsite weekly to pounce when the pump has a small squeal. BOOM, $2k with a free install for purchasing.

The treating weekly when it needs daily isn’t working ? BOOM. $384 in magic potions that only make it worse. Ohhhhhh, man. The flocc messed up your sand filter. Here, have a $50 bag of new and improved sand. It goes bad anyway you know...... And don’t worry about the green coming back, I shocked it. Which reminds me, that was $85 and we’ll send the bill in the mail.

 

[JamesW]

Sadly it is what contributes to the fleecing of customers.

This goes for most professions and small and large businesses. Doctors, dentists, Veterinarians, attorneys, car mechanics and pretty much anyone who has overhead to cover has an incentive to find ways to charge for unnecessary or questionable overpriced stuff.

Sparky needs this special medicine and that procedure and it's only $500. If you don't buy it, Sparky will die a horrible death. You love Sparky, right?

Every business has hidden, unnecessary charges.

You have extra luggage, that's an extra $50 plus a seat fee and a meal fee and a fuel charge. Oh yeah, there are terminal fees, gate fees etc.

Every bill you get these days has loads of undecipherable cryptic charges that no one can explain. They just make them up out of thin air.

Your new car, dealer fees, markup fees, destination charges, undercoating, overcoating, fabric protector, tire polish, paint protection all for an extra $1,000.00 for a little bit of ArmorAll.

 

[Newdude]

#preach.

 

[JamesW]

You’re at the hospital and you tell the doctor that you have a headache and you get an aspirin.

Everything has a code no matter how small or ridiculous.

Diagnostic fee.....$177.00....code tr23456nfg

Prescription fee.....$125.00....code brt4078aer

Pharmacist fee......$135.00.....code wsot58475nfh

Delivery fee.........$89.00.......code rtyr456503nghf

Fee to administer the medicine (nurse hands you the aspirin)......$85.00.....code eotiuyu96874ngh

Drug delivery device (little paper cup that the aspirin was in)...... $50.00.......code trhsyf850792hdyg

Special liquid to wash down drug (cup of water)..........$79.00.....code dhgyt67838956jhhg

Pain management medicine...$87.00.....code trou09365mbjh

Follow up.....$99.00......code wuty20678773gfyt

Cost to hospital for one aspirin = $0.001

Your cost = $926.00.

 

[JamesW]

 

[Newdude]

Your cost = $926.00

Don’t forget the $1k in healthcare premiums for the month so that i had the privilege of *only* paying $926 for a Tylenol pill

 

[Jimrahbe]

All.. Let's get back to Pool Service

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Katodude]

Those pool service companies are in a no win situation. Down here in Florida its crazy. For a little over $100 a month they will come 4 times and throw some chemicals in and brush the pool. Truck+gas+time I dont see how they make money. Also people are unwilling to pay someone to come multiple times a week. So there is no way they can do a good job.

I do have a neighbor who pays to have their pool guy come twice a week so they have a slightly better chance at the pool not being a mess.

 

[ralphsyv]

This is why I said adios to our pool service. We paid $95/month for a not so great service.

 

[red-beard]

Crazy. I've never used a service and I can't understand why people can't do the work themselves.

 

[JamesW]

People pay for lots of different services that they could do for themselves.

Lawn care, pool cleaners, housekeeping, painting, dog walking etc.

Just because you can do it doesn't mean that you want to do it or have the time to do it.

The whole point of any business is to do things for other people.

Some things are things that people can't do themselves and some things are things that people choose to have done even though they can do it themselves.

People can grow their own food or catch fish but it's usually easier to buy food.

 

[Newdude]

Crazy. I've never used a service and I can't understand why people can't do the work themselves.

I have one friend in particular who will loudly boast that he paid $500 to clean his windows (or other ridiculously easy service). He will be overly proud that he got out of the chore. Ummmmmm. Bruh, it takes 2 hours to clean all your windows and you don't make $500 in 2 days after taxes.

He doesn't care. He got out of the chore and he will gladly go to work for 2 whole days to pay for it. I'd rather spend the 2 hours doing it myself and take 2 unpaid days from work if thats the case. (Of course i go to work still so there is money for something else, or just the regular bills)