Category Archives: Pool contractors

Top 100 pool estimate request zips – 2013

At Swimming Pool Quotes we help pool customers and pool contractors connect for the best swimming pool information, designs, estimates and more. Because we work across the country with over 2000 pool professionals and over 500,000 current and future pool owners, we collect a lot of swimming pool data.

One of the interesting things about the pool business is that it is always hard to match supply (the location and number of homeowners that would like to get a swimming pool estimate) with the availability of swimming pool contractors. A few of the hurdles are:

(1) Time of Year: The swimming pool industry is still seasonal in many ways. We generally say the season starts are the Super Bowl and ends on NFL opening day. We receive about 300% more estimate requests from March and August than between September and February.

(2) Location: California, Florida and Texas are by far the most popular States for Swimming Pool estimates. About 80% of the most popular zip codes for swimming pool estimates are located in these states.

(3) Economics: The pool industry (especially new pools) tracks the housing market and to a lesser extent the jobs market. In 2008-2009 the industry lost about 1/2 of its size from its peaks in the 2002-2007 during the great housing boom. As finance options have started to return and housing prices have stabilized we are seeing a noticeable uptick in the industry.

Be an ACE contacting your prospects

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How to be an ACE with swimming pool customers from Swimming Pool Quotes.

Research shows that speed, diligence and consistency are the key things to remember when you are reaching out to prospects. The sooner you start the follow up process the better and It will take 6 plus contact attempts to maximize your contact rate,

(1) Call the pool customer immediately, leave a voice mail and send an email if you do not reach them.

The voice mails and the emails should be short and to the point as well as helpful and non-committal. Make sure that the pool customer has your best contact information. If you do not reach the prospect on the first call, call again between 30 minutes and 1 hour later. On the second call do not leave another voice mail. Call again between 2 hours and 4 hours, do not leave another vmail. If it is a mobile line, send a text asking if there is a good time to get them their free pool design and information.

Hello XX – This is XX calling you from Swimming Pool Quotes. I am here to provide you with basic information about swimming pools, answer any questions you might have and provide you with a custom estimate and design now or in the future. You can call or text me at this number which is XXX-XXX-XXXX.”

(2) On the next day, call the pool customer in the morning and leave another voice mail, it should be about the same as the first voice mail.

It is important to stay concise and keep the same message. Think of it like a commercial, you need to hear or see a commercial 10-15 times until you start to remember it. On the 2nd day (like the first day) you can call again in the afternoon but do not leave another message.

Continue to try to contact the pool customer on day three through five.

On the third day once and do not leave a message. On the fourth day call once do not leave a message but send another email. On the fifth day call once and leave a voice mail and you can also send a second text message if you have mobile number.

After the fifth day, take a break.

After the fifth day, you should wait between a week and 10 days to call them, leave a message and send an email. You call them back once more the next day, then wait another week and call once.

After that call the customer should go into your drip marketing campaign.

Your drip marketing last continuously. Over 50% of your lead contacts will happen after the prospect joins your drip marketing program.

Since 2004 we have worked with over 3000 swimming pool professionals. Our program is absolutely free for Swimming Pool Quotes pool builders. For more information contact me directly or complete our pool builder information request form.

Be an ACE with your swimming pool customers

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What is the ACE program for Swimming Pool Contractors

We have connected over 500,000 pool customers with thousands of local pool contractors for free swimming pool estimates and information. About 150,000 of these customers have built a pool. About 200,000 of these customers are still considering a pool. One of the top 3 reasons they tell us that they have not purchased a pool yet is because “they have not gotten an estimate” or “did not get ‘follow up’ from the pool contractor.”

Pool Customers want to talk to you

The first thing to realize is that even if the customer does not reach out to you, they want you to reach them. When we ask customers, almost all of them ‘appreciate all of pool contractor efforts’ to reach them and some even acknowledge that they have been difficult to reach. The single most important thing you need to do is make actual contact with the pool customer.

Once you talk to a customer on the phone, or share text/emails with the pool customer, you build your business network and increase your chances to build more pools. We designed our ACE follow up process to help you connect with as many pool customer as possible.

Crafting your messaging to pool customers is key to reach them

The ACE program is about crafting and timing your communication with the customer. By carefully crafting your messaging you may increase your prospect to customer contact rate by over 100%. Similar programs used by Fortune 500 companies have also reported this level of success. So we know that you can use this program to get more sales.

Connecting with pool customers is a two way street

In addition to refining your follow up process, With the ACE system, we make sure that our pool customers actively know about you. We message the pool customer right away via email and social media to let them know about your company and how to contact you. Also, our phone and email confirmation team will pitch your company directly to our pool customers on the phone.

The ACE program is absolutely free for Swimming Pool Quotes pool builders. For more information contact me directly or complete our pool builder information request form.

Jeremy Gold
VP, Business Development
Jeremy@swimmingpoolquotes.com
(510) 332-8116 – mobile

The ACE program for Swimming Pool Pros is all about being in the right place at the right time to reach your customers.

Compliments from Swimming Pool Quotes customers

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Swimming Pool Quotes is as awesome as this shot

At Swimming Pool Quotes, we only do one thing – Get you the best swimming pool estimates, designs and information for free. Swimming Pool Quotes works with swimming pool pros and swimming pool consumers across the country. Here are some recent compliments we received on our free swimming pool estimate service from happy customers across the country…

Wow! Your service is great. I have 5 appts set up between now and Monday with different builder/suppliers. They [are all] legit sources…so…thanks again for performing what has been a vital service for me.

Best regards,

Steve (California)

We have already had the work done and are very happy with the job.

Curtis (Midwest)

We did receive three out four responses—and the three we’re all very helpful and responsive. Thank you for good service. I will recommend your site to others.

Toni (West)

Thank you Janet for the follow up I do not need further assistance. I received that quotes I requested promptly your service was great.

Jeana (East)

I was contacted within 24 hours by two contractors and have already received a quote back. Will definitely recommend your service to my friends.

Ken (Florida)

Pool contractors using the web to reach pool customers

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good phone call to a pool customer

Since 2004 Swimming Pool Quotes has connected over 500,000 pool customers with local pool pros for free swimming pool estimates, quotes and information. In that same time we have worked with thousands of pool contractors. We have learned a few very important lessons on connecting pool customers with pool contractors.

Most pool customers and pool contractors are hard to reach. The way to connect with pool customers in changing fast thanks for the internet and social media. It is important for both the pool contractor and pool customer to reach out quickly and often with as many tools as you have in your arsenal. You need to have lots of places where customers can leave you messages.

(1) Make sure that your website is a great experience for customers to leave you messages and make sure that it looks good on mobile. Almost 50% of web traffic is now mobile, if your website is not optimized for mobile it is not working.

(2) Send emails and make a call as soon as you can. Then make sure that you have a process set up for follow up emails and calls over the next 1-3 weeks, then every month or so. The Swimming Pool Quotes team will help you design a winning follow up campaign.

(2) Make sure that you have at least some presence on the social web. These are the most important in order.

A Facebook profile. This is important because, well just about everyone is one Facebook and Facebook profiles are starting to show up in more and more search results.
A facebook page, this is similar to a Facebook profile but is optimized for causal visitors to ‘like’ and share your page. Down the road have a good Facebook page will make it easier for you to reach out to past prospects.
Youtube – People love video and people love you tube. If you have any video you should set up a you tube channel and set it out there. It is not doing anyone any good sitting on your phone.
Pinterest is about pictures and getting a pool is about pictures. You should post as many of your pictures on pinterest as possible.
Tumblr is a blog (like this thing you are reading now). Like pinterest, tumblr is a lot about pictures.
Twitter is like emailing but to a lot of people at once and only with 140 characters. Eventually, Twitter might be number 1 on this list, For now there are just not that many pool customers actively on the service.
Google plus is like Facebook only run by the most important company online, Google. While not a lot of people use Google plus directly, Google is working on that and doing lots of things that will continue to make Google plus more important.

The elephant in the pool, inground pool cost

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Cost of inground pool - the elephant in the pool

Inground pool cost is the elephant in the pool.

Almost one half of the most popular swimming pool related search term have to do with swimming pool price or pool remodel price. This is what swimming pool customers most care about and this is the elephant in the pool for almost every project.

Top 5 swimming pool price related customer search terms, according to Swimming Pool Quotes search results. (1) cost of inground pool (2) cost of fiberglass pools (3) inground pool cost (4) cost to build pool (5) cost of an inground pool.

According to Karyn Greenstreet, Small Business Coach and Self Employment Expert it is important to have a pricing strategy. You probably already know the average prices in your area. Are your swimming pool prices in line? If your swimming pool prices are higher or lower make sure you can justify the difference. For a quick overview of pricing strategies check out this article.

Before discussing actual prices with a prospective customer establish that the prospective customer is genuinely interested in your services and expertise and a real swimming pool prospect by asking them

(1) details about their site (so you can understand installation requirements/resttictions and

(2) details about their project (so you can start to map the price based on what the customer wants. It might be helpful to explain that you can provide a range of pools with a range of prices depending on the shape, size and features that interest the customer. It might be best to get the ‘kitchen sink’ wish list from the pool customer so you can get back to them with an itemize estimate where they can add or subtract as they want.

If a customer requires pool pricing before the initial meeting but after you decide that they are a genuine prospect it is best to emphasize that every pool and every dig is different and that once you understand details about their swimming pool project, you can provide them with real value rather than a guess. If you must talk about pool pricing before you get an opportunity to understand their needs and their yard, talk in terms of least expensive / average price ranges.

Before your meeting, look up the location on Google maps ahead of time (aerial view) so that you know what the property looks like and what pool will fit even before you reach the backyard. This will start the meeting off on the right foot. Show up with a plan to discuss pools from basic/ least expensive to features and expensive pools so that that the customer can really understand how much any pool costs and how much swimming pool extras can cost.

What are some of the methods that you use to effectively handle this question?

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