The Green Pool Goldmine: How They Create Customers

A green pool is gross, loud, and inconvenient, but it can also be the best “proof of skill” marketing you’ll ever earn. We talk through why green pool cleanups and algae removal can elevate your pool service business, how the dramatic before-and-after builds instant trust, and why a single turnaround can open the door to better clients and even commercial opportunities when you’re properly certified and insured.

We get practical about the decision-making that separates profitable pool pros from burned-out ones: asking the customer why the pool turned green, spotting red flags in the story, and deciding whether the job should become a weekly pool maintenance account. If it’s not the kind of customer or equipment setup you want long term, we cover two clean exits that protect your reputation: being honest about your schedule or pricing the job high enough that you either get paid for the pain or you walk away.

We also dig into what makes a green pool cleanup succeed or fail after the water turns blue. Filters with old cartridges or worn DE grids, sand that needs changing, and pumps that can’t run hard for long can undo great chemistry and make it look like you “failed” when the equipment was the real culprit. You’ll hear how to set expectations, bundle bids that include needed upgrades, and use simple math to focus on the real win: converting a one-time cleanup into recurring revenue for your service route.

If this helps, subscribe, share it with a pool pro, and leave a review with the one green pool rule you never break.

We break down how green pool cleanups can make a pool service business look like the obvious choice, while still being one of the hardest jobs to execute smoothly. We share how we assess the real cause, price the work, and turn a one-time algae cleanup into a long-term weekly service account.  
• using green-to-blue turnarounds to build trust fast  
• documenting before-and-after proof for websites, SEO, and Google Ads  
• asking why the pool turned green and spotting red flags  
• deciding if the customer is worth keeping long term  
• declining jobs without looking unreliable, including strategic overbids  
• offering a cleanup discount to close weekly pool service  
• doing the revenue math on recurring service versus a one-off cleanup  
• requiring the right equipment, including new filter elements and reliable pumps  
• setting expectations so equipment limits do not damage your reputation  

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.

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Transcript

Why Green Pools Can Boost Business

SPEAKER_00 1:02

And welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you how a green pool can enhance your service. Green pool service, green pool cleanups, however you want to put them, and how this can really make your pool service shine and take it to the next level, believe it or not. 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. I kind of have a love-hate relationship with green pools. I really like the results of turning them around, but I really don't like the process of doing the green pool cleanups one bit. It's messy, it's smelly, it's time consuming, it can be a real headache. And it's one of those things where it's really satisfying when you become the hero to the customer. You did something that they never thought you'd be able to do. I had a plaster company that needed to replaster a green pool. And of course, here you couldn't drain a green pool into the street, or you couldn't drain it into the sewer. There was regulations, and he was by the book, so he hired me to turn this pool around. The only problem is he had to drain the pool like within like that week. So I got

The Love Hate Reality Of Cleanups

SPEAKER_00 2:28

there and I did my green pool cleanup method, and he was pretty amazed at the results. I mean, it was almost like you know, more or less to him a miracle that it can't turn out so good so quickly, so you can drain the pool and replaster it. But that's kind of what you set yourself up for when you do it correctly. It's one of those things where it can really enhance your reputation for your business. A green pool cleanup video or photo slide on your website really is impressive. So if you have a website you're building, I would really urge you to do a green pool cleanup, document it with a video, with photos from the beginning to end, you know, 24 hours later, 40 hours later, one week later kind of thing. It does probably enhance your website because a lot of people will be searching. You know, if you even tag your SEO Green Pool Cleanup Specialist, or if you're doing Google Ads and you want to advertise Green Pool Cleanup, having, of course, a website where you show that you can do this is a plus for sure. So if you're starting out in a business, a green pool cleanup or offering green pool cleanup services

Use Proof To Market Yourself

SPEAKER_00 3:35

can really move the needle in your service business as far as getting clients, getting a good reputation out there as someone who can do this. And you may even get some calls from commercial pools, you know, if they look at your website. A lot of times when someone's looking for something, a manager of a property, they're gonna Google. And if you have a Google ad running at that moment saying you do green pool cleanup, chances are the manager will actually click on your site, and there's a potential to be hired to do the commercial green pool cleanup and to bring that onto service. Now, of course, you have to be set up with the CPO certification, the right liability insurance, or be certified by the county health inspector before you do commercial pools, but that's also an avenue sometimes into the commercial pool market. So let me just back up a little bit and talk about a few identifying factors when you do a green pool cleanup, if this is going to be something that's going to enhance your reputation, or something that you simply probably shouldn't do and walk away from. The first thing that I would say is recognize that the pool is green for a reason. Now, discovering that reason sometimes is very easy. Just ask the client, and that's what I do. Oh, what happened to the pool? Why is it green? Simple question. The answer should be relatively simple. Now, if the answer is convoluted, they're going down rabbit holes, they're not getting you the facts of why it's green. One red flag right there. It's not a deal breaker if they don't understand why their pool is green. Some people don't understand why their pool turned green. That's

Why The Pool Turned Green

SPEAKER_00 5:12

that's normal if they're new to pools and don't understand the concept of how a pool operates. But you would want to know, you know, did they just buy the house and the pool is neglected? Were they trying to do it themselves and just couldn't do it, which is the case in a lot of a lot of the cases are they were trying to clean it, keep it clean, and couldn't do it. I remember doing this massive 30,000 gallon green pool cleanup. The the person's husband had passed away, the the boys tried to take care of the pool, couldn't do it, and it was pretty massively bad as well. You know, there was mosquito larvae tadpoles in the pool. They let it go a long time before they called in for someone to clean it. The only reason they called in somebody to do it is because vector control got involved, the city, and they told them they had to turn it around or pay fines and you know all these things. And this is very common, by the way, for some green pool cleanups, is that you have vector control in my area, that's what it's called, where the city may cite the customer and have wanting to turn it around. So if they don't get to that citation or that kind of thing,

The 30,000 Gallon Cautionary Tale

SPEAKER_00 6:20

they don't address it in some cases. Sometimes they do, of course, but some cases they don't. So in this particular pool, it had an undersized filter, it was a 48 square foot D filter, Hayward filter. I remember the details, and even even though it was like 15 years ago, I remember the details vividly because it was a mess of a pool to clean up because it was so big with an undersized filter. I think I cleaned that filter six times. I can't remember exactly how many times, but at least six times I cleaned that filter to get it back in shape. But the thing is, I was inexperienced when I was doing this, relatively inexperienced in converting it to a service account. And so I really took this pool on without the thought of making it a service account. And this was a mistake. I realized that all that effort I put into it, basically I did it just to get the city to clear it, the citation, and she tried to take care of it herself, and I guess she did a decent job. It probably didn't turn that green again, but it was probably something that I should have considered. And the first consideration, of course, is why the pool turned green. And the second consideration should be can you bring this pool on as a service client? I wouldn't want this pool anyway, so I probably shouldn't have done the cleanup because I don't want a 30,000 gallon pool with an undersized filter in the situation where the customer couldn't really afford to upgrade anything. So the second consideration is when you go to bid, find out why it's green, and then number two, would this be a good service account going forward for you? If that answer is no, you wouldn't want this pool going forward, then maybe you would want to bid this one pretty high. And so this is kind of how you get out of the situation when you go to bid a green pool, you don't want to do service on this pool. It's really not good business practice to flat out say, uh, I just don't want to do this pool. I I don't want to clean this pool up and find someone else. Probably don't want to do that, but you can do it in other ways that are less subtle. You could let them know that number one, you could just say, uh, you know, after seeing the pool, I could probably do it, but at this point I'm just a little bit busy, kind of overbooked. And I advise you to call someone else

How To Decline Without Damage

SPEAKER_00 8:55

to do it because I won't be able to get around to it for probably another week or so or two. And then you can also overbid it. And this is something that a lot of people do to get out of situations. So normally you look at the pool, it'd be $800 for you to do it normally. Just go ahead and bid them $1,300. No one really gets upset with a high bid because they know people are gonna bid high in certain situations, and you can just walk away. Now, if they accept the bid, then of course that's your benefit because now you can clean it and you're gonna get extra money, but you really didn't want to do it, so overbidding probably gets you off the hook, and someone else will come there and do it and bid that pool. You just don't want to leave a bad impression on the customer that you're flake or you're not a good service company. But at the same time, if you don't want the account, don't take that account. So, one and two, you covered that. And let's say that yes, it this is a pool that you would probably want to take on for service. So, what you want to do is approach the customer with the sales pitch. This is what I normally do when I see a pool. Let's say the equipment's in pretty good shape. The pool's green because they just bought the house and they forgot to hire a pool service. It's been four four weeks now, the pool turned green on them, and they would be willing to go on the pool service. Now, here's how you see if they're willing or not. Give them a quote for the green pool cleanup. I'll just use $800 as a quote. Tell them that you're gonna give them $100 off if they come on the weekly service. And a lot of times people will be like, sure, I mean I can't do this pool, and I realize that I there's no way I can do it. What's your service rate? You know, that's fine. Go ahead and start after you get the green pool cleaned up, going to start next month, not a problem. Perfect, you have an account, you can

Close The Cleanup Into Weekly Service

SPEAKER_00 10:45

clean up the green pool, and now you have a service account. I really think that is the goal of the green pool cleanups. It shouldn't be now, yes, if you do need it for your website, do it, but it shouldn't be just to do the green pool, get the money, and walk away. Because really the green pool is a good lead-in to a service account, and that's how you should look at it. Now, granted, if you're starting out and you need work and you're trying to do as many jobs as possible, doing a green pool cleanup and walking away is perfectly fine. But if you're trying to build up your business or build up your route, I would use the green pool cleanups as a lead-in to service for sure. And 100%, I wouldn't do a green pool cleanup. Let's say you have 70 accounts and you want to get to 80. I wouldn't really do the green pool cleanup unless they're gonna come on the service and then you have 71 accounts and then 72 so forth. Because to me, you would want to be you want to build up your weekly service, and doing this green pool is gonna take time and effort, and if there's nothing at the end of it except the paycheck, I would say pass on it because you really want to multiply this green pool into a yearly paycheck. And I'll just give you a quick example. Let's just say that your monthly service rate is 185 a month, and you get this green pool cleaned up, and you get them on for service as well. So 12 months of that is $2,220, plus you did the green pool cleanup for $700. So that green pool netted you almost $3,000. $29.20 is your net for that green pool cleanup. Much better than if you did the green pool cleanup for $800 and got nothing out of it. So mathematically, you're gonna focus on retaining the customer after the green pool cleanup or passing on that green pool cleanup, finding another one, and there's gonna be plenty of those out there by the way, especially in the summertime, beginning of summer. A lot of green pools out there. And if you are doing Google Ads and you have a green pool ad up there, you're gonna get hits on that for sure. So don't waste time. What I'm saying is don't waste time

The Math Behind The Multiplier

SPEAKER_00 12:48

on a green pool cleanup when nothing comes out of it and you can't get a multiplier out of it for future pool service. I'm gonna back up a little bit now and go back to the initial green pool assessment. Now, if you get there, and let's just say that the green it's green because of neglect. Number two, the pool customer, the client wants to come on for service. So right there you have one and two covered, but then you run into this problem, and this is very common, where the equipment is substandard for the green pool cleanup to be successful. Now, this is something that you'd have to try to approach the customer with to see if this was even feasible. And that is, I noticed that your filter, I'm talking to the customer right now. I noticed that your filter actually needs new elements for this green pool cleanup to work. I your cartridge filters need to be replaced. Here's the amount it would cost for me to install them, or I noticed that your filter needs new D grids for this process to work. Here's the cost of the grid assembly. I like selling the grid assembly by the way, because I'm not talking to the customer anymore.

Filter And Pump Upgrades Matter

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I'm back if the if you're wondering. I like selling the grid the grid assembly. I probably should do this a little cleaner because the grid assembly is the top manifold, bottom manifold, everything together. You just take out their old D grids and push this one in, put that one in there, and then away you go. Now, if the customer, you know, while you're approaching them to upgrade the filter, doesn't want to do it, then of course you're gonna walk away from this green pool cleanup because it can't be done unless they have new filter elements. You know this from experience that using the old cartridges is not gonna work even after the fact, the pool's gonna turn green again or get algae right away. The second thing is the pool motor and pump. This is especially important for the green pool cleanup. If you're not gonna do the flock method where you add aluminum sulfate, if you're doing the shock and awe method where you're running the pool 24 hours a day, even after the flock method, you want to run the pool a long time. So this also is a factor. If the pump and motor are on their last leg, you really have to approach the customer, let them know that one of the factors or one of the reasons why the pool may be green is because the pump and motor are not running effectively. And if you do the green pool cleanup, you might be able to be successful in doing it with the existing pump and motor, which you're gonna have to probably do in most cases anyway. But afterwards, they really need to upgrade their equipment, especially if they're coming on the service. So I would give them an all-around bid for the green pool cleanup, a new pump and motor, or a new motor, maybe, if that's the case. And then, of course, any filter elements they're gonna need, and then your monthly service rate. Now, if the customer is okay with all of that, then you've just got gotten a client because you can do the green pool cleanup and do all the other stuff. But if they're not okay with that, again, you'd have to pull the plug right here and walk away and let someone else handle the green pool cleanup because there's really nothing in it for you afterwards. You're not gonna get any pump and motor install fee, you're not going to get the account, you're just going to clean the green pool, and then the pool's gonna limp along after the process. And by the way, this may be a problem for you as well. After the fact, if you take on a green pool cleanup, you get it back in shape, but the customer does nothing with the filter elements or the equipment, there's a good chance that that pool will turn green again or have algae problems going forward, and then they're going to look at your company as well, you did the green pool cleanup, it looked blue for a while, now it's green again, or now it has a lot of algae, you failed in some way. To eliminate that, I would say, unless the customer knows all the variables, filter elements, you know, sometimes you have to change the sand in the filter if it's a sand filter, equipment upgrades, all these are factors they need to be aware of. Otherwise, they may look back at you as a company that failed them, even though you didn't fail. It's the equipment failure. But unless you point that out or clear about that, that could be a problem for your reputation in the area and for your pool service going forward. I think the big takeaway here is that the green pool cleanup process is not cut and dry, it's not really simple. You show up, you do a bid through the green pool cleanup. There are a lot of layers here that you have to unpack, and it's not something quite as easy as you think. Yes, turning the green pool around if you have experience is a pretty easy process, but there are these layers underneath that you have to address and be aware of. And if you don't look at it as a complete package and all these layers underneath it, you could set yourself up for some trouble and some failure. And so you want to be very clear to the customer, the green pool cleanup process, what you expect afterwards, what you want them to invest in. And ultimately, I think you could turn a lot of these green pools into clients, into making your reputation in the area really big and making you a green pool cleanup expert, I guess, quote unquote, and getting clients from that level

Protect Your Reputation And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 17:55

of expertise. And if you're looking for other podcasts, you can go to my website, swingpoollearning.com. On the banner, there's a podcast icon. Click on that, there'll be a drop-down menu with over 1900 podcasts you're listening to there as well. And if you're in a coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at poleguidecoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have you guys your week and God bless.