Freedom Isn't Free... Neither Is Running a Pool Business

In this special Fourth of July bonus episode, Kelly and Dan celebrate Independence Day by tackling a topic every pool professional feels at the pump—and on the balance sheet.

As fuel prices rise and suppliers introduce surcharges, many service companies immediately wonder whether they should pass those costs on to their customers. But is that really the answer?

Drawing on four decades of industry experience, Dan breaks down the real numbers behind operating a service vehicle, revealing that fuel often isn't the financial monster many believe it to be. Instead, the discussion shifts toward something even more important: knowing your costs, pricing your services correctly, and building a business that can weather temporary economic swings.

The conversation also explores venture capital's growing presence in the pool industry, the dangers of competing solely on price, and why reputation, education, and customer service remain the greatest competitive advantages independent pool professionals have.

It's a timely conversation about business, freedom, and the value of doing things the right way.

In This Episode

•  A special Fourth of July conversation 
•  The real cost of operating a service vehicle 
•  Why fuel prices aren't always the biggest expense 
•  Breaking down vehicle ownership costs 
•  Fuel surcharges: when they make sense—and when they don't 
•  Why your pricing should absorb normal market fluctuations 
•  Understanding your true hourly operating costs 
•  Why many pool companies undercharge 
•  The danger of pricing based on competitors 
•  Venture capital and corporate acquisitions in the pool industry 
•  Competing against large national companies 
•  Why reputation beats low prices 
•  The importance of customer service and education 
•  Building a sustainable pool business 
•  Marketing your certifications and professional training 

Key Takeaway

Temporary increases in fuel prices shouldn't force a well-run business into panic mode.

The companies that succeed over the long term aren't the ones with the lowest prices—they're the ones that understand their costs, know their value, and refuse to compete solely on price.

In the end, your greatest asset isn't your truck, your chemicals, or your equipment.

It's your reputation.

Happy Independence Day! 🇺🇸

From everyone at the Talking Pools Podcast Network, we wish you and your family a safe, relaxing, and enjoyable Fourth of July.

Thank you to the pool professionals who work long hours throughout the holiday weekend helping families create memories in clean, safe water.

Have a wonderful Independence Day, and thank you for all you do for our industry.

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#TalkingPools #FourthOfJuly #IndependenceDay #PoolService #PoolBusiness #SmallBusiness #FuelPrices #PoolIndustry #SwimmingPools #Entrepreneur #CustomerService #PoolProfessional 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hey you guys, it's Kelly with Talking Fools Podcast. We have another bonus episode, but today's bonus episode is extra special because I have a co-host and it is Dan.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hey Kelly.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Hey Dan.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Thanks for having me back.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Wow. I know it's been so long. It's been a really long time.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Always good to be with you.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

It's believe me, it it I miss you when I I do these episodes, and it it's definitely different. But I'm glad that I can have you today. So today we're gonna talk a little bit about probably if you know how we are, we just start saying we're gonna have a topic and then we go into these you know tangent tangents and keep going around and around until we end somewhere. But we wanted to start with talking kind of about how costs affect our businesses, and we will talk a little bit about how the gas prices, how they really did affect our daily costs of running vehicles. Um, Dan is, of course, the spreadsheet king, and he finds out this information and really analyzes it and is able to break it down to where we can, you know, probably sleep a little bit easier at night.

SPEAKER_07 1:31

Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

In this new crisis, we have a like duty. In 1776, we waged war in behalf of the great principle that government should derive its just powers from the consent of the government. In other words, representation chosen in pre-election. In the century and a half that followed, this cause of human freedom swept across the world.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Would you like to kind of get kickstarted there?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

For years of, and this is um uh I I guess a blessing that this is my 40th year in the industry, and um very early on I started looking at costs and trends and and all that kind of stuff. So I've been analyzing everything you can think about in in terms of operating uh a business in our industry forever. And when looking at the cost of of moving people around for service or construction, any things like that that we're doing, I've always for a long time taken into account everything. So uh being primarily in the Midwest here, um, you know, we our Midwest market tends to have a little bit more travel than most markets will, especially the the Sunbelt markets anyway. Um where Kelly's at, I think you're probably pretty comparable, I would say, or could be comparable to what the Midwest does. The Northeast might be might be similar. But as far as the Midwest goes, if we most of the vehicles used for service in the Midwest are um fairly expensive service vehicles. They're van chassis, uh usually like a a three-quarter or sometimes even a one-ton chassis with a I'm gonna call it a KUV utility um back end to it. So it's got storage compartments all the way around the outside. The inside is like a pickup truck bed, but it's covered over the top, so it's a significant piece of equipment. Often it's a dually rear end on the thing, stuff like that. Um the cost of those vehicles is considerable. You know, most of them are in the say eighty thousand dollar range, and by the time you take those vehicles and wrap them and get them equipped, uh a lot of companies will put them through uh uh like a bedlining process, um, lining the interior of them to help prevent from chemical damage and rust and all that kind of stuff. The uh aspect of of that all-in on those vehicles usually gets you know eighty-five, ninety thousand dollars. Well, if you take a loan out on that vehicle over the course of a five-year window of time, your payments usually come around to somewhere around $1,500, maybe $1,600 a month. Um in the Midwest, we're usually putting $14,000, $15,000 miles a year on those vehicles, and they get around 12 miles to the gallon. So not a great scenario when you're thinking in terms of fuel prices and cost increases as a result of that. So the uh you know, when when we roll all of that into uh uh math, if you will, um you know, we're we're using somewhere around 1200 1300 gallons of fuel a year. Um you're you're paying for maintenance on the vehicles, you're getting oil changes, uh, you have routine repairs that need to be done, tires, brakes, um, you know, name, name all that kind of stuff. And if you pull averages on the vehicles, cost of insurance and all that kind of stuff, and roll it all into uh an annual cost. Um when I plug in, so before gas prices got kind of crazy in the Midwest here, we were between 350 and 375 a gallon. So if we were to take the low end and say 350 a gallon, the annual cost of operating that vehicle for everything I just described is just over $29,000 a year. Now, most of the Midwest service is something that we we spend up to a thousand hours a year driving those miles that we're putting on it. So I try to always, and there are many ways you can look at stuff, but I try to look at things in terms of a per hour cost. That's how we pay our employees is by the hour. Um Workman's comp insurance is always based on an employee cost, so ultimately it does boil down to an hourly or can boil down to an hourly factor. Um so the vehicle, I kind of work it in the same kind of a realm for how many hours is that vehicle moving every day, every week, every month, every year, and what is it costing me all in to move that vehicle? So, you know, at 350 a gallon, 12 miles a gallon, the per hour cost is about $29 an hour. Now gas got up as high as five dollars a gallon here in the Midwest at its peak. And when we move that that needle up to five dollars a gallon, it's putting us at $31 per hour. So we're moving from $29 to $31 per hour. Now that's not every hour of the day, that's only the hours that that vehicle is actually being driven. So, you know, if we're driving three hours a day, it's costing us, you know, six dollars a day more to move the vehicle. Now to me, that isn't a cost that I need to be concerned about passing along, and that's an increased cost of of six dollars in in a typical day, five, six dollars. I don't feel the need to push that cost out to the customer in some kind of a a fuel surcharge. I should be charging enough for our services that I can absorb when the market does these kinds of things. If we're not pricing ourselves to be able to absorb minor fluctuations like that, then how how are we accounting for when it takes an extra ten minutes to clean that pool this week? Or um you had to do a detour because of construction, or name whatever instance may come up that causes you to have additional expense. To me, a uh a buck or two an hour over the course of a two or three hour driving time during the day isn't enough to pass along.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

The following companies have stepped forward to support education, leadership, and mentorship across the swimming pool industry. These are the sponsors of the 2026 Talking Pools Podcast Mentor Award. Title Sponsor, Blu-ray, XL, Title Sponsor, United Chemical, Gold Sponsor, Lamotte Chemical, Silver Sponsor, Revved Up Apparel, Supporting Sponsor, Aqua Comfort Water. Thank you for helping us recognize and celebrate the mentors who continue to shape the future of the swimming pool industry, and God bless the pool pro.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Now, when you're thinking about that, as you said, when it comes to at least the service, may that may not be really necessary to increase, but what about what how do you feel about when we get these uh gas surcharges from distribution? Uh or let's say if you're in construction, the concrete company is like, oh, I have to give you a fuel charge. When is when do you think it is appropriate to increase that cost to the consumer?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, so I I guess you need to look at how you are pricing out what you're doing for people. And you know, I I hope everybody is trying to have flat rate pricing for everything we're doing. The the one area where it may be tough to pass those along is the routine weekly maintenance. Usually you're in some sort of an agreement, hopefully a written agreement with people that says we're going to charge you this much per visit, this much per month, whatever the case may be. Um if you're getting those kinds of fuel charges passing along, and it is something that you feel that that you can't absorb, hopefully you have your agreement has wording in it that helps to protect you, give you that option to pass those increases along. Um most soiler sort of boilerplate agreements will have verbiage to that point. Um, you know, became much more prevalent during COVID because of the constant increase in prices, period. That you know, prices couldn't be guaranteed for any prolonged period of times and surcharges would be added, and you know, I know building pools. It was often that we wouldn't know what the price of a pool would be, especially in the one-piece fiberglass markets, until that pool showed up on site during COVID. So we we made sure our agreements accounted for being able to pass those along if if need be. And I I still fall back on if the the supplier is adding a surcharge, most of the surcharges I've seen from distribution and such has been relatively minor increases, a point or two. Um I'll I'll still fall back on we should be charging enough from the get-go to be able to absorb that. And if you're not, then you you really should do a deep dive into why you're not charging enough to absorb a couple of months of a couple of percentage of a fuel surcharge on a product. So, you know, whether it's buying chemicals or buying equipment or whatever it is, and I don't know, Kelly, if you've seen many of these surcharges from distribution, but the and manufacturers even have had increases as well that have been noted to be fuel surcharge increases, but they're usually like one to two percent.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Um yeah. Um the I personally haven't had any fuel charge increases except for, like you said, where the manufacturers like, oh, we're increasing it x amount of percent. And what one of the factors is gas. Um I do hear while I'm at the supplier when people are putting their orders in that periodically I'll hear them say, Okay, there's gonna be a fuel charge on your invoice when we deliver all of this stuff to its destination. Um what where else? I've heard my concrete company for Dex tell me that there was after we started getting that major increase in gas price, they started doing a fuel surcharge. Um they said that they were only going to do it temporarily while the gas prices were where they were, but they were charging extra for their trucks to come to the job sites. They said that they were seeing such a significant increase, at least on their gas bill, that they couldn't eat all that cost.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Well, in certain businesses have the the moving of vehicles is one of the the primary line items on their expenses. Um so you know, when you get into shipping and logistics, you get into concrete and stone delivery. Uh that's that's pretty much the majority of their costs. You know, stone delivery in the Midwest, you pay more for the delivery by far than you do for the material itself.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

You know, if you're buying a semi of the I was actually just telling I was actually just telling a client uh for a pool build they want to do a grotto, and they're like, we know that there's fake rock and there's you know real stone and going over those things and they're like, well, you know, what's we don't really know what the cost difference is. And I was like, Really the cost difference is is uh it's the same if you do regular stone, at least in my area, because we have such a great resource in our foothills uh for rock. I was like, they cost about the same because one takes you know, people building it in time and all of that, and the other one it's a matter of can we get it into your yard and can you find the rock that you want? I was like, it gets expensive to deliver stone to your house. And I was saying in different areas compared to ours, you know, they they have to ship in the stone because it's not you know from their area, and then the cost gets higher.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Well, and that goes for you know the large stone, small stone, everything. It it's the the shipping costs uh even before fuel surcharges is the biggest part of the expense. So in those uh types of businesses, that's where fuel surcharges really are more prevalent because it is a huge part of the bottom line. But in our industry, yeah, and and again, if we we look at the numbers I was just throwing out, that basically 30 bucks an hour is what the vehicle costs to move it. All in repairs, fuel, the cost of the vehicle, everything that you got going on. Um it's significant, it's only the amount of time that the vehicle is moving, and depending on how long people are working every day, if you know, seasonality, I would hope this time of year people are working no less than 10 hour days, probably much more than 10 hour days. But if you, you know, to make the math easy, it's uh in a 10-hour day, if if you're driving two or three hours of it, you know, you can kind of break it all down into a an overall hourly cost for the day on top of what you're paying your either yourself or your technicians in the field. And all of those kinds of factors should be rolled into what we're charging. I I I think that's where the real you know from from the service and construction end of our industry comes from is that people don't have a real good understanding of what they're charging relative to what their all-in costs are, how to break it down into a meaningful number to apply it to the things that you're doing. And you you really need to analyze your business closely and look at all of those factors to be able to know you're charging enough. And you know, we all see people, you know, businesses, you know, $75 a month, chemicals included for maintenance, right? Or uh uh, you know, crazy things like that. And and you know, here in the Midwest, that just spins our heads around because we we get twice that per visit and and charge for chem on top of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Um I do find it interesting how many people you can ask how much they charge for a service, and they're and I'm like, well, why? Like what how do you come to that number? And they're like, well, that's what everyone else charges.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

That doesn't mean you get to charge that because you have to look at your costs. Um I'm surprised at how much pool services still are in that ancient thing of you know they're really good at their job, but they're really bad at their books.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah. And and how so many businesses in our industry don't track any of what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

They they don't it's like, oh, I need six thousand dollars to pay my bills a month. Okay, so I only need six thousand dollars worth of bulls. Well, no, you you need more than that. You need enough for a cushion, you need enough for growth, you need enough to, you know, not just pay your bills and sit in your house.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yeah, it's it's definitely uh, you know, you you and the you know in conjunction with that, you need to be looking at your yourself, your your own business in terms of the the marketability of what you're doing and uh the the value projected of what you're doing. If you're selling yourself on price, there are a whole lot of street corners in the darkest parts of town that you can go stand down at night and make more money than what you're doing out there working on pools. Um so you know, don't pour yourself out, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah and get paid.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Well, I think it's hard because I'm starting to see in my area prices are not everyone, but there are some people who've gotten bought out by purchasing groups, I guess you'd call it.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, but there are a lot of venture capitalists and such that are buying investing service sector at a a significant rate.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Um then you see a price decrease on the service for that company. And it's like that's not what we want for our our industry. Like, don't look at it as just a fact sheet. You have to look at it longevity. And if you drive the price down, how are the rest of us going to give quality service and not freak out when we have a you know $6 an hour increase temporarily for operating?

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah, and you've you bring up a good point, and this is happening across the country. The the venture capitalists coming in and buying up small service operations. And you know what they target primarily are operations that are um they've got a decent client base and they're not running their business well. That's really what they're after. So um what they bring in their systems, they bring in their sort of management controls and put it into play to help the business function better. None of these venture capitalists are in it for the long haul. That's not the nature of what they do. They're they're looking to do a five-year or maybe 10-year turnaround and sell it off to somebody else, and they have to show growth during that period while they're doing it. So they start with a business that's established and has a decent reputation, but maybe isn't doing as great a job of managing themselves, and that's where they their forte is is in the management aspect of stuff. And with what you're talking about in terms of the prices coming down, when they move into markets, one of the first things they look to do to provide growth is expand the customer base. They come in with a pile of cash and they're willing to lose money the first year, the second year, if need be, to build the client base, to then turn it around in years three, four, and five because they're doubling or tripling the client base in that market. So when they walk in the door, they not only are walking in the door with a pile of cash to buy the business and to pay for marketing, but a big part of their marketing and growth is based on underselling so that they get the homeowners that want to pay $75 a month chemicals included, instead of the ones that are going to pay $150 chemicals included, because they're okay losing money. Most of those of us doing this that are lifers in this industry aren't able to lose money for a year or two and and still be doing it. So it it really forces you to take a look at your business, find ways to be efficient at managing it and effective at managing it, and to prove yourself in your market to be the one that everybody wants to reach out to when they need service. People will pay for that, you know, five-star Google review company over someone else who is undercutting the market to establish a base to simply flip it, like buying an old rundown house and dumping money into it and flipping it uh to make a profit in the end. And you know, if if we're just gonna if we're gonna run up and down the street being the cheapest guy or girl on the block, uh you're gonna go nowhere fast and you will not be able to compete with the venture capitalists that have millions of dollars in their back pocket to throw away.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

Well, I think it's interesting because I think what sets apart from these bigger, cheaper companies is the fact that smaller companies can give better service. Example, I just finished a remodel where they had Leslie's as well. The pool service prior to the remodel, the company that they originally had got bought out by Leslie's locally. And I guess Leslie's now has service. Well, they the customer has said that you know service, the quality of customer service significantly went down when that purchase happened. And they just kept them around because they they were like, we really didn't know anyone else. They're doing a half halfway decent job. And that was about it. As the the remodel went down, went to closer to being finished, they were like, you, you know, they called and asked to do if they wanted us to do the startup. And their startup is not a real startup. It's we come for five days, we but get all the chemicals in, and then we take, we'll just treat it as regular service after that first five days. And I was like, well, your startup is included in your price of this remodel because I take care of it. And I would prefer I do the startup because you know it's on me if something goes wrong. And so they're like, okay, no problem. And this is an elderly couple, they're in their 80s, they can't be doing all the brushing. So they were like, you know, can you can you do the brushing? I was like, I can't personally, because you know, three times a day for that first, you know, week or so, that's a lot for me to go clear across town. But I was like, I do have a pool service I can recommend, and I talk to them and they will they will do it. Well, this is now a smaller company, back to a family-owned company, one employee, and they they've had to jump in and help with the brushing. They had to jump in because the landscapers trashed the pool yesterday, and they're getting they the customer has commented how they feel like they're getting better service from the smaller company. And I think that a lot of our pool service companies should you know promote that, promote that even if you have 10 employees, you're smaller than these, you know, the big huge corporations or you know, purchasing groups or whatever you want to call them, investment groups, you know, because like you said, those ones are looking at the bottom line. Theirs is always the dollar. It's not necessarily the reputation anymore or the customer service.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

And you know, the last thing you said, reputation, that's that's really kind of key. The the people that are are buying the companies, as I said, usually it's a five, maybe ten-year thing. Um, I mentioned this is my 40th year in the industry. Uh, those of us that are professionals in the industry, our reputation is everything. And not that reputation isn't important to the investors that are buying these companies, but the bottom line is the most important thing. So when they come in, they look to double the number of routes they're doing in the the, you know, a year in. Well, you're not going to double the number of routes with the same staff. So you have to bring in more staff. All of us that have brought in staff know what it takes to get somebody qualified enough to replace yourself on a route. It's not an easy thing to do because you care about your reputation. You care about providing that high quality service to your customers. The investors that are doing this, they care, but only care enough to keep the reputation afloat long enough that they can continue to do what they're doing. And the staff that they bring in to fill the gaps when they're growing is not going to be someone that you would typically employ because they're not going to be well trained, they're not going to look professional, they're not going to care as much about the job because it it sort of has a trickle-down effect. It's a numbers game that is being run. And when you as an employee feel that it's about the numbers, you to them feel like a number, and you don't care as much. I've talked for years about how the whole aspect of uh venture capitalists and and even to a certain extent the branching out of existing companies into, I'll say, foreign markets, markets outside of their own, where they don't have the ability of having the same sort of control over what they've been doing, isn't great for the industry because that opens the door to poor quality work. And we've all seen it through some of the big national chains, if you will, uh, on the service side of things or even the construction side of things. Um it's a hard thing to do, and it's a much harder thing to do well. So we need to utilize that as the smaller, you know, say mom and pop businesses, the smaller individuals in the industry who really care and and to a great extent market as much as we can that, yeah, you're dealing with a smaller entity, you are gonna pay a little bit more than that, but we're we're not the Amazon of the world. We're you know we're we're a very detail-oriented, highly skilled, highly trained professional, that you're entrusting in many ways your your life to us, right? And there's so many things that we could do poorly that could cost someone dearly. Um we we want to make sure that your pool is safe, that it's sanitized, that it's clear, that it's warm, that you can enjoy it. Um and that takes a skill set that we have, and that costs a little bit more than than someone walking in the door and just running out and and splash and dash or run through the motions.

SPEAKER_03 32:35

Would you say that so in my area, the companies that I know got bought out or are considering being bought out, some of them are using it as a way to get out. Like they've been doing this for 40 years, like you, 30 years, you know, they they're tired and things have changed than what they thought. Do you think that these companies and these owners should be more considerate of who purchases their company?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

I mean, I would love to say yes, but in in the end, if if you know there isn't any more family that wants to be part of it and and so on and so forth, um great, great, great concepts, uh not concepts, I mean uh functioning is uh like employee-owned opportunities, but you know, you have to have employees to consider going the route of, hey, when I want to step away, I want my employees to take over, and going either through you know what's referred to as an eSOP or or other methods that people will uh empower their employees and have them be employee owners, which is a very, very um good way of of keeping quality people, of having them have a vested interest in what's going on and and truly giving 110% every day. Um you know, but not not many people are are even even know how to get started down that road or or have the um you know the employee base to be able to make it a worthwhile thing. That's that is taking things to another level. So when someone walks in your front door with a pile of cash and says, Hey, you know, here you are, Mr. 45, 50 year of pool owner, pool company owner, and I I got a pile of money that's gonna set you up for the rest of your life. Um I don't think you or I would tell them, well, no, I'm gonna wait for the right person. Because that opportunity probably isn't gonna knock on your door a whole lot of times uh when you get to that point in your career. Probably. So I would love to say yes, they should, but the reality is that no. I mean, you look at other things going on.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

If the dog if the amount is worth it, it is.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

It's it's gotta be something that you know you you've built the business, it is your reputation and so forth, but uh I I would never fault someone for for selling to anybody. I would um I would hope that the the people selling might be able to be involved for some short period of time after the purchase to make the transition smoother, and maybe they could have some influence into the direction that the business will go, especially if it's retaining their name on it at all. Um but even with all that, there's only so much, you know, if someone walked in with with a hundred million dollars to your to your front door today, Kelly, and said, I'm I'm buying your business, um, are you really gonna care if they probably not probably not.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

I'd be like, okay, here you go.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Not that a part of me is what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

I can live off a hundred million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Could I could I live off a part of that too with that would be probably have enough for generations, absolutely, and that's often often things that you know it's it's life-changing stuff, whether whether for those, you know, in the immediate uh part of it or or the the legacy of children and grandchildren and generations beyond. I mean, there are some life-changing things happening out there, but uh so no, I would never fault someone for selling to anybody. I would I would uh actually congratulate them.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

I think, and I don't know how it is in other I don't know how it is in other area like uh industries, but I do know people who are like, well, they shouldn't have sold to this person, they shouldn't have done this, and it's just like okay, why do you think that? And they're like, well, I wouldn't do it, and I want better for the industry. And it's like, I think, like you said, when you show up with a big pocket of money and you're ready to retire, or you know, you have health issues, or you know, want to spend more time with your family, like you're gonna strongly consider that money. There might be what 1% that actually do weight and hope that they get the the right person. But how many people are buying pool companies right now? Like individuals.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

That's the thing. It's not something that often is uh it it doesn't usually look lucrative to individuals buying existing companies.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

It's it's really these bigger they'll buy they'll buy a restaurant, but do they know to buy a pool company?

SPEAKER_00 37:24

You know, my my in-laws are uh I I live in a rural very rural community of farms all over the place. My in-laws farmed forever ever, and they had retired a few years back, but they still own the property and it's you know rented out and it's still farmland. But in the area, there are tons of uh things going on with solar farms and uh you know shipping logistics centers and all this kind of stuff. And in a town over from us, uh a family that were generations of farmers sold their property to a uh data center, right? All of us using Chat GPT and name your AI, that everyone wants to have that ability to use that service, but the data centers always get bad raps, probably legit, you know, legitimately so, because of the the what they do to the environment when they move in. But at any rate, um someone knocked on their door and said, here's uh I don't know, 50 or 100 million dollars, and we want your farm. And uh, you know, of course, in this area being rural and and all the rest of it, are a lot of people are all up in arms, like, oh, they should never sell, they should only sell to another farmer. No other farmer is ever going to buy that property for that type of money because it's not worth it to farm corn and beans. Um and uh it is a life-changing thing for the the current family and for generations beyond when you're talking those those kind of numbers. So I you know it's the same thoughts I have to that goes into when it happens in our industry that you know, more power to you. If you can get it for yourself and and you can sail off on a a boat in the Caribbean for the rest of your days, then go for it. And uh and I wish you well. Just hope that the rest of us can keep making the industry better through what we're doing. You know, if if we're very good at what we do and we can achieve the dollars that we need to to keep growing, to keep the lights on, to keep becoming better, then those who come into our areas and try to undercut us and try to sell on price and try to buy up the guy down the street and all the rest of it, they're gonna have to compete with us. And they're gonna have to raise their own bars to a point to make themselves viable in the market. Try to control your market by being the best that you can be and charge accordingly because you're working.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Yeah. Reputation and education are what's gonna set apart. What and advertise that. There's nothing wrong with advertising, you know, that you that's what you strive for, that's what you do. You know, my clients, whenever they find me and they they're referred to me and they look me up or whatever, they'll see the education that I have and things I do, and it does it does pay off because they're like, okay, if she's doing all this, that means that she's on top of it. And the chances that we're gonna get the best service possible is right is great.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah, and and keep investing in yourself and keep promoting those investments that you make. Let everybody know that you're a CPO or a CST or a certified builder or a you know, whatever your your qualifications are, put them on the side of your truck, put them on your website, put them everywhere so that people see, and then explain what that means. That oftentimes that these monikers of things don't mean much, if anything, to a consumer. Explain it to them. Um, hey, you know what, I'm a CPO, and and all of my staff that comes out to take care of your pool is trained under my guidance um as as a CPO, and I'm teaching them the right way to do things so that we can keep your pool safe and sanitary so that you never have to worry about it. Um promote them because that is often a big difference between some of what's going on with uh the the local markets with some of the bigger players coming in.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

But well, I think we had a great little space.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

I think if you really drill down to it, the influence on what it's doing to you is is not as significant as you may feel it to be.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

And I think that has to do with a lot of things um that we have as expenses.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Yeah, it does. I mean, it you know, certainly you need to be aware of the expenses, and when the expenses get to a point where you have to pass them along, you have to pass them along. But um this is one that I think when you really get into the nuts and the bolts of it, the overall effect on your bottom line is not gonna be as great as you may think.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

And if it is, then you do have to stop.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

Thank you, Dan. I really enjoyed this. Well, yeah, I think when you have a tab that goes up a dollar, it's a little different. So, well, thank you so much, Dan. I really enjoyed having your little chit chat. Hopefully, everyone learned a little something uh about all of that today. And then uh please like, share, uh, download so we know that you're listening to us. And I hope to see you next month. Have a good day, everyone.