Before You Start a Pool Service Business, Listen to This

Everyone loves the freedom of owning a pool service business until the scary questions show up: “What if I fail?” “What if I get sick?” “What about health insurance and retirement?” I walk through the most common negatives people bring up about the pool industry and give you the unfiltered reality, including the parts I can’t sugarcoat.

We start with the small business failure myth and why it’s often less about the industry and more about basics like experience, customer service, and having an actual plan. From there, I challenge the idea that a W-2 job automatically equals security. Layoffs, automation, and AI have changed the game fast, and I explain why hands-on service work like pool cleaning, chemical balancing, and equipment problem-solving is far harder to replace than many “career” office roles.

Then we get into the real hurdles: self-employed health insurance costs, what happens if you’re injured, and how to think about retirement when you don’t have a 401k match or pension. I share practical ways to reduce risk, including building a six-month emergency fund, using monthly service billing to create breathing room, and setting pool service pricing that covers the true cost of running your business. If you’re thinking about starting a pool route or scaling your existing route, this is the mindset and strategy check that keeps you from overthinking and underpricing.

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We name the biggest negatives people say about the pool industry and separate real hurdles from fear-based noise. We also share practical ways to protect yourself with pricing, savings, and long-term planning so pool service stays stable and scalable.  
• why the “8 out of 10 businesses fail” stat misses what actually causes failure  
• how competence, planning, and customer service change the odds fast  
• why “no safety net” applies to most jobs now, including white-collar roles  
• why service businesses like pool service are harder to replace with AI  
• building a six-month emergency fund to reduce stress and risk  
• the real downside of self-employed health insurance and how to price for it  
• what to do if you get sick or injured, including scheduling realities with monthly billing  
• replacing a pension mindset with consistent investing and scalable income  
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Transcript

0:14

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to go over some negatives you may hear about the pool industry. I'll cover some of the reality of that, of course, and I'll kind of counter some of those things because this really is a great industry to get into, but there are some true hurdles as well. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. One of the first negatives that you hear a lot, and this goes probably across the board with small businesses in general, is that 8 out of 10 of them fail within like the first five years, which

Welcome And What We Tackle

1:03

there's some truth to that. But those businesses that fail are kind of obvious why they fail. For example, you've probably been to like a mom and pop burger place where they open up, they're relatively new, but they have like zero customer service. The food is subpar. It's probably better just to go to McDonald's in that case. One of the things that you'll notice is that they probably don't have a lot of experience running the business, and that business will be closed within a year, more than likely. But you've also gone into mom and pop places where they just started up, maybe they bought an older business and converted it, and they're just everything about it is great. They're firing in all cylinders, and you can tell just by sitting there that they're going and eating the burger that they're going to last a very long time in this business. And I'm not saying that you can't fail in pool service, it just takes just as much effort to fail, I think, in my opinion, to as to succeed in a business. And if you put all the

The Failure Myth And Why Shops Close

2:05

things in place, you're going to be very successful in your business. So I wouldn't let the fear of failure scare you away from starting a pool business or buying a pool route if there's one available in your area that's reasonable. I would say that if you're competent and you know a little bit about business and you have a plan and you are in an area where you can grow that business, failure is something that I wouldn't really be concerned about. And that statistic, of course, yes, businesses fail, and there's a lot of reasons behind it. But the main thing about pool service is that if you do it right, you will be successful in more cases than not. It's not a 20% success rate by any means. Another one you hear kind of tied to this is that if you have your own business, there's really no safety net. And that's true, but there's really no safety net in your profession as well. I have a friend that worked at Amazon, it was kind of a career job. He basically what he did it for the company, he was a white-collar, I guess not an executive, but he was in a pretty high position there, and they would do a lot of logistics with the returns that they get in. And if you've shopped on Amazon lately, or if you've been to the site and did a return, you know that everything is pretty much automated now, even if you have a problem and you can find a way to contact Amazon, which is virtually impossible. But if you do find the chat box and get talking to it, there's no longer a human there on the chat box either. It's all AI. And it's the same thing when you call, a lot of times the computer will kind of solve the problem before you get to a human.

Job Security Is Not Real Anymore

3:38

And the thing is, his job was eliminated, and along with 8,000 other people in his department, and now they're out there looking for work in the computer science field, which is a very finite field to be in right now at this point. So there really is no true job security, there really is no safety net no matter what job. He thought this was a career job, he even moved to another location to get this job, and it was going to be a job he would retire in, supposedly. But there's really not that safety net anymore in this kind of economy that's kind of changed a lot over the years. And I would say that as far as a service business, there's a much bigger safety net in the service business than any other field, in my opinion. Electrician, plumber, landscaper, pool service, hospitality, any kind of service, it's gonna be hard-pressed to replace that with AI. You know, the pool robot that's gonna come clean the pool probably would be pretty good until it falls in. Or, you know, it's one of those things where the cost of developing it, and this is where I think the fear of AI is a little bit overblown because the cost of creating infrastructure to replace certain jobs is virtually impossible at this point, but the cost to replace some jobs is is really easy. So certain jobs can be replaced very easily with AI, but other jobs like service cannot be replaced, and it may be a very, very long time before that even is feasible. So I would say that your pool service business is safe. And as far as the safety net, yes, there isn't a safety net with your own business. If you go out of business or if the business fails, or if you start losing money, then you're actually going to lose that business and have to find another job somewhere else. But that's just like anything else. If you're working for in a tech department and you lose your job, you too have to go out and find a job as well. So it's not like this no safety net thing is something that should worry you because that's how it is in any field or any kind of job you have. I had a friend who's a computer teacher at a school, and they were talking about cutting certain electives, so it was a computer and there was other electives on the cutting block, and so he was really concerned. I mean, like, you know, he would have to go look for a job and he would lose his job. But fortunately, that particular department was kept, and other another elective was cut, and they let that particular you know department go or the teachers in there go. So even like something that feels like really secure is not. So I wouldn't again be overly concerned about like there's no safety net. You should have an emergency fund, you know. I would say at least six months of expenses, so that if you do have a problem in your business, something kind of goes haywire, you have six months of expenses covered. A lot of times the pool service pro has a spouse that's working also at the same time, and so it's not like a total disaster, but there are ways you can avoid that, and a emergency fund of six months of expenses would be a great thing to have in place when you start your business, so that if you do have again a major hiccup, it's not going to put you out of business. This one is a little bit of a true hurdle, and it's something that I experience as someone who's self-employed, and that is the cost of health insurance. This is really one of those things where you can't whitewash it. If you're working a W-2 job for a company, if you're working in the healthcare field or as a teacher, you got great benefits, and you don't have to pay worry too much about insurance, premiums, paying insurance. Here we have covered California and my state. It's really, really bad insurance. I mean, it's terrible if you have to use it. My insurance has like a 30% copay. I think it's like a deductible of $12,000. And so until I get to $12,000 in bills, my insurance pays nothing. So I'm basically paying a monthly premium here. I think it's somewhere around

Health Insurance As A Solo Owner

7:36

$600 a month. I can't remember exactly. It's a pretty large amount of money I pay every month for my insurance. So I'm paying this premium, and yet I don't get any benefits out of it until I reach $12,000 with the copay of 30% and then a deductible of $12,000, or something like that around $12,000 is deductible. And then I think I do get like one free physical or something, or something like that, but it's really terrible and it's really expensive. So I really can't say, you know, realistically, that if you're self-employed, you're going to get really good health insurance or going to be able to afford affordable health insurance. That just doesn't exist, I don't think, out there. There's like these plans, I've seen them, or like groups of people get together and they form these conglomerates. It's kind of like you know, you pull your money in here, it's not really health care. So if you do have to go to the emergency room, you kind of draw on this fund that everyone pays into and that pays the insurance bills, but again, it's not health insurance. So the reason I have it is, of course, for something catastrophic. You know, if something happens and is more than twelve thousand dollars, at least I'm covered at that point. But yes, health insurance is a really big hurdle and something that I really don't have an answer for for you. You're gonna pay more for health insurance. The only benefit that you're gonna have as being self-employed is that you can build into your pricing to cover the health cost or the cost of the health insurance, I should say. So you can add some money per pool to cover the cost of your health insurance. So it's not a total loss, but yes, you have to pay the premium, and you're gonna have really bad insurance in most cases. But the flip side of that is that the cost of your business should cover that kind of thing, and it's something that you should have built into the pricing structure of your business. Another negative that I hear a lot, and this is another one that I can't really argue against, is that if you get sick or hurt, what are you gonna do? Because if you're working a W 2 job and you get sick and hurt, you're gonna get workers' comp and you're gonna get some kind of unemployment pay if you lose your job as well when you're you know the safety net thing we were talking about earlier. So there are some things that will cover you as a W-2 worker, that as a self-employed person, you don't get those benefits. So what happens if you get hurt or sick? Well, one of the good things about the pool service business is that you're building you're billing the customer monthly, but in that course of the month, there are extra days. There's five service days, sometimes on a Monday or a Thursday. So you actually have one whole month basically of extra service that you provide without billing the customer for.

Getting Sick Hurt And Staying Paid

10:21

If you get your head around that, look at a calendar, flip through it. You know, if you look in certain months like June, there's two Mondays. There's five Mondays and five Tuesdays. I'll flip the next one over to July 2026. You have five Fridays, five Thursdays, five Wednesdays, and so that extra service that you kind of put in your pocket, and you can use that for vacation, of course, because you again you have that month, 48 weeks you're working, and there's a 52 weeks in a year. So you have that four one-month period. I wish it was four months. That one month period where you can take some time off, either sick days or vacation days. So if you get hurt, you break a rib or something, you need a week off, you have that week available from your customers because they're not being charged for that extra service day. If you bill monthly, that is, and not weekly. Another thing also is that if you do get sick, you could take a day off here and there if you need to. Now, if you get injured, that's another whole wrinkle to the business where it's really tough to say what you can do. Now, there are certain groups that do have sick route coverage, like Ipsa, that's one that comes to mind. They'll cover your route, I think, for up to two weeks. It's not like something they're gonna cover for like two months. But if you do get hurt, you could get a relative to ride with you. I have a friend who did that when he got hurt. He had a relative ride with him for two months during all the work. He just kind of drove to the stops and let the other person do the work. That's perfectly fine. You can do that as well. But again, it's a big hurdle. If you get hurt, it's a big risk out there, and so you just gotta try to be as safe as possible. I know that sounds kind of like circular logic to avoid injury, be safe, but it is true. Just don't take any chances and try to be as safe as possible and think safety first with everything you do. And chances are you're not gonna get injured to a point where you have to stay off of work for two or three weeks. Here's another one that you hear a lot is that well, when you work for a company, you get a 401k and you get retirement, and then sometimes you get a pension, which is true. If you're a fireman or police officer, you work for 25 years, you get a pretty good pension. Military, same thing. But it's one of those things where you do put a lot of time into that job, and yes, the pension is good, don't get me wrong, but as someone who's self-employed, you can also invest yourself, and you can actually create passive income beyond what you would get with a pension as a fireman or a police officer. I wouldn't say fairly easily, but over the course of 25 years of investing consistently, let's say you buy a rental property every two years, you have money and you know a Roth

Retirement Without A 401k Or Pension

13:05

IRA, you can actually create a pension, so to speak, with the money you invest over that 25 years to be greater to or equal to someone who's working in a job that gets a pension for life after they retire because you're building it up yourself. There are a lot of ways to do that in the pool industry because we're in an industry here, and this is one of the really cool benefits of it, is that you can actually scale the business. You can bring in an employee, you can expand your route and increase your income, or you can scale your business outside of the pool service industry. I have a a I know of a pool service company here in my area where he has three coin laundry companies that he bought and he's he's running it on the side. He doesn't really do anything. He has someone managing the machines and collecting the money, but he's scaling his retirement through these businesses and the income he's getting from those businesses. You can do real estate, you can do a lot of different things to have another whole business on the side while you're doing the pool service. You want to stay small, do 70 pools a week, not have any employees, but you have you know 25 hours extra a week to invest and do other things. You could definitely do that in this industry, which is great because you couldn't do that if you're doing a nine to five job. There's not a lot of room there to scale besides overtime, maybe and working a holiday, getting double pay. But you can really scale this and you can really increase your income. There's a real estate YouTuber that was a police officer, and he said he tried to scale his work at one point by working like 80 hours a week, and he just got burned out. But then when he started doing real estate investing and managing properties and selling real estate, he was able to scale that business by working less than 40 hours a week. So you can scale certain businesses without really increasing the amount of hours you work. And pool service is one of those businesses where you can scale it either in the industry by bringing on an employee or two, and then having a bigger route with more income, or staying small, but having that free time that that doing pool service provides to you to get into other businesses, coin laundry, real estate, and then scale that in 25 years. If you do it correctly, you'll have a pretty good retirement fund, bigger than a lot of pensions with people that work a 95 95 job and have that. And those pensions, yes, I guess they're guaranteed, but you know, they're shaky too. And there's lots of talk about reducing payout and people go on strike all the time. It's one of those things where that's not guaranteed either, or either. And same thing with your investments. If you invest yourself, there's no guarantee, but you have full control over it, and you have the ability to scale the pool service business to increase the money you invest outside of it. So it's a it's a win-win, in my opinion. And I wouldn't say that you shouldn't do pool service and get a job that has a pension because that's going to provide for your future. I think you can do pool service, scale it, or scale it in a different industry and just have has of as much money as someone again who worked 25-30 years for a company that has that retirement benefit. So, yes, there are hurdles getting into the business. There are things to understand that are out of your control as far as cost, insurance, things like that. But you should have a price strategy where everything is built into it, and you should have your business set up in a way that if you get hurt and you're out for a week or if you're sick, you have that time off and you're still getting paid by your customers through the monthly service rate without worrying about it. So setting up the business correctly is the key, and really there isn't much to worry about. If you run your business correctly, these hurdles can easily be overcome, and they're overcome every day by pool service company owners out there, and it's one of those things where you can't overthink it. Really, you can't overthink this thing, and you just have to put those

Price It Right And Stop Overthinking

17:06

negatives aside. And if you are going into the industry or trying to expand, go for it. Looking for other podcasts, you can find those by going to my website, swimming for learning.com, clicking on the podcast icon, there'll be a drop down menu with over 1900 podcasts there. And if you're just in the coaching program, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a rest of your week. God bless.