Stop Selling the Bottle—Sell the Outcome

Specialty chemicals are not the enemy. Phosphate removers, enzymes, clarifiers, sequestrants, scale inhibitors, flocculants and stain treatments can all deliver real value—when they address an actual, diagnosed condition.

In this episode of the Talking Pools Podcast, Rudy Stankowitz explains why the bottle should never become the protocol. Before adding any specialty chemical to a pool, service professionals should answer three questions:

•  Will it meaningfully benefit this customer? 
•  Will it become a pain in the ass for me or my technicians? 
•  Can my company make money providing the treatment? 

Rudy breaks down the hidden costs that are often ignored: return visits, filter cleaning, vacuuming, fuel, labor and the time required to explain an expected reaction to the customer. A $20 bottle is no longer a $20 treatment when it creates another hour of work.

He also explains why specialty treatments should not automatically be buried inside a flat monthly service rate. Customers are not paying for possession of the bottle. They are paying for the professional who knows when to use it, how much to use, what conditions are required, what side effects to expect and what to do when the treatment does not behave as planned.

The episode also includes a message honoring the 2026 Top Ten Pool Industry Mentors and Rudy’s final thoughts about his Reflecting Pool coating analysis reaching the White House—proof that sound technical work can matter far beyond the pool industry.

In this episode

•  Why mentorship means teaching people to think—not creating dependence 
•  How specialty chemicals establish added value 
•  Why every treatment should begin with a diagnosed condition 
•  The danger of mistaking a visible reaction for proof 
•  When phosphate removal makes professional and financial sense 
•  Why predictable follow-up work belongs in the treatment price 
•  How flat-rate chemical inclusion can hide value and destroy profit 
•  Why pool professionals should sell outcomes—not bottles 
•  Separating chemical problems from circulation, filtration and equipment problems 
•  Why chemistry and physics remain unchanged by politics 

The three-question specialty chemical test

1.  Will it benefit the customer? 
2.  Will it become a pain in the ass for me? 
3.  Can I make money on it? 

Specialty chemicals are tools—not miracles, substitutes for proper maintenance or acts of absolution for neglected pools.

Sponsored in part by Service Industry News, AquaStar Pool Products and BluRay XL.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Now that the top ten pool industry mentors have been announced, I want to say something that's been on my mind. Our industry recognizes a lot of things. We celebrate successful businesses, new products, certifications, awards, accomplishments, and you know what? Those things move the industry forward. But there's one thing that clearly does not get nearly enough recognition. The people who quietly invest in someone else. The ones who answer the phone when they don't have to. The ones who take an extra fifteen minutes to explain why instead of just giving an answer. The ones who teach critical thinking instead of creating dependence. That's mentorship. Mentor isn't someone who makes themselves indispensable. A mentor is someone who helps another person become capable enough that one day they won't need to call anymore. That's success. When the hosts of the Talking Pools podcast decided to create this recognition, we didn't do it because we needed another award. We did it because, in our opinion, this is the most important recognition our industry can give. Not because mentors are more important than builders, manufacturers, service companies, educators, or innovators, but because every one of those people got where they are because somebody took the time to help them along the way. Every successful career in this industry has a mentor somewhere in its story. Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes it's someone nobody else has ever heard of. Sometimes it's a competitor who answered a question instead of protecting a secret. Knowledge can fill a room. Mentorship changes a life. Products will be replaced, equipment will evolve, technology will improve, companies will come and go, but knowledge passed from one person to another keeps this industry alive. That's why this recognition exists. So, congratulations to this year's top 10 pool industry mentors. More importantly, thank you to every person who has ever taken the time to teach, encourage, challenge, and invest in someone else without expecting anything in return. You might not ever receive an award. You may never stand on a stage, but you've probably had more influence on the future of this industry than you realize. And that's exactly why we chose to recognize mentorship. God bless the pool pro.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

God bless the pool pro.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Welcome to Friday. I'm Rudy Stankowitz. This is the Talking Pools Podcast, and today I want to talk about specialty chemicals. Not because specialty chemicals are bad. Phosphate removers work, enzymes work, clarifiers work, metal sequestrants work, scale inhibitors work, flocculants work, stain removers work. This episode is about something more useful. How you decide whether a specialty chemical belongs in your protocol of care. And more importantly, should it be included in your base service price? Because specialty chems are supposed to be special. That's what the word special means. Special. The bottle is not the protocol. A protocol of care should tell you what you are trying to accomplish. There's a difference. A real protocol starts with the pool. What are you trying to prevent? What are you trying to correct? Then decide whether a product has a role. Once you add something to your standard service, it becomes an expense. Then it becomes an expectation. Every chemical should have a specific purpose. Every dose should have reason. Every reason should be explainable to the customer without resorting to the phrase, that is just what we do. That is just what we do is not a technical explanation. You can't look at every white cloud and declare victory. Sometimes the cloud is not confirming your theories. That does not mean the phosphate remover failed, it means the interpretation failed. We see a reaction and immediately assign it to the story we wanted. The water clouded, therefore the product found phosphates. The filter pressure increased, therefore the treatment worked. The pool cleared, therefore the thing we added was responsible. Maybe. Chemistry is not just noticing that something happened. Chemistry is knowing why it happened. So here's the framework. Look at every specialty chemical you think might fit in your protocol of care. Then ask yourself three questions. Will it benefit my customer? Will it become a pain in the ass for me? And can I make money on it? So let's break it down. Question one: Will it benefit my customer? That's not theoretically, not according to the brochure. Will this particular product provide a meaningful benefit to this particular customer in this particular pool? That's a much harder question. Does the customer have a recurring problem that the product addresses? Can you measure the results? Can you explain it? Can you tell whether the product is still needed three months from now? If the customer has iron-rich well water as a question, it may make sense. If the pool has an extreme oil and cosmetic load, an enzyme may have a place. If the customer has reoccurring scale in a salt cell, despite a properly managed saturation index, a targeted control strategy might be worth discussing. If you have a one-time clouding event and filtration needs help capturing fine particles, a clarifier might be useful. But the answer begins with a diagnosed condition. Question number two will it become a pain in the ass for me? Because the cost of the product is rarely the full cost of using the product. Let's say the bottle costs you 20 bucks. Great. You add it, the pool clouds, the filter pressure climbs. Now you got a return visit. You clean the filter. Maybe you backwash. Maybe you vacuum. Maybe you explain that the clouding is expected. How much did the product cost now? It cost the bottle. It cost the drive. It cost the labor. It cost fuel. It cost filter cleaning. It cost time. It doesn't mean you should never use it. It means you should price the entire treatment. You should not price the liquid. Every specialty treatment should include the likely labor that follows. Will the filter need cleaning? You've added phosphate removers before. You know damn well that filter pressure is going to rise quick. Will the pool need vacuuming? That's a possibility as well with a phosphate remover. Let's just stick with that for a minute because ask me, did I use phosphate removers? You are damn right I did. Why? Because removing the phosphates makes the pool less likely to have an algae problem. It is a method of algae control. Is that a benefit to my customers? Yes, it is. Can I test for it? Yeah, I did. And I ran the test and I only added phosphate remover to those pools that did show a phosphate level greater than 500 parts per billion. That's it. It was as needed. But I did add it as needed because it was a benefit. I only needed to do it a couple of times a year. And yeah, I could make money off of it. So sue me. But take all of those things into account. Could the specialty chemical, whatever it is you're you're adding, could it make your technician's next visit harder? That's operational cost. Then you need to consider if you can make money on it. Because if you can't, let it go. Listen, dudes, dudettes, you're allowed to make money. You're supposed to make money. Profit is not greed. If a specialty treatment costs you 30 bucks in product and 45 minutes of labor, you cannot charge the customer $35 and congratulate yourself for being fair. You aren't fair. You are ripping yourself off. You are kicking your own ass. You are unfair to your own company. You charged less than the work cost. That's not customer service. That's charity. That is financial self-harm. The price should cover the product, should also cover the labor. It should cover the return visit if a return visit is predictable. It should cover filter cleaning if filter cleaning is part of the freaking process. It also needs to cover your expertise because you are part of the value. And of course, after all of that, there should be some fucking profit. You're not charging because you own the bottle. Customer can own a bottle. You're charging because you know when to use it, how much to use, what conditions have to exist before it's used, what side effects to expect, and what to do if the treatment does not behave as planned. That's the value. This is exactly why specialty chemicals should not be buried inside a flat monthly service price. If they're buried in the rate, the customer does not see their value. You do not recover the real cost. Then six months later, you're standing in the distributor wondering why your chemical expense looks like the defense budget of a small country. Charge separately. Explain the condition. Explain the proposed treatment. Explain what the customer should expect. Explain whether follow-up service is included. Then let the customer make an informed decision. That, my friends, is professional. It also forces you to decide whether the treatment is genuinely necessary before recommending it. Flip straight to the horror file. The weird installs, the absurd finds, the stuff only pool pros ever see. Then I'd go back and read the articles. Service Industry News is a twice-monthly trade publication for pool and spa service text, 24 issues a year, emailed free to over 10,000 texts and available on their app. Every issue covers nationwide industry news and real technical content you actually will use. Get your free subscription at serviceindustry news.net. Again, that's serviceindustry news.net. Do it now. Build a decision tree. What is the observed condition? What test supports the diagnosis? What basic maintenance issues have been ruled out? Is there an equipment problem pretending to be a chemical problem? Then ask whether the specialty product is the best intervention. Sometimes the answer is a specialty chemical, no doubt. Sometimes the answer is that there's a problem with the circulation system. That's the frustrating thing about good pool care. Don't sell the bottle. Don't sell the stuff. Sell what the stuff will do. Sell the outcome. Customer wants a clear pool. They want fewer stains. They want equipment protected. They want the water ready when their family wants to swim. We identified metals in the source water, and I recommend a treatment designed to reduce the risk of staining. That makes sense. Explain what you found. Explained what you recommend. Explain the cost. Explain the limitations. Do not promise miracles. Specialty chemicals are tools. They are not absolution. They do not erase neglected filters. They do not replace sanitizer. So before a specialty chemical goes into the pool, stop. Hold the bottle. Look at it and ask, will this benefit my customer? Will this become a pain in the ass for me? Can I make money on this?

SPEAKER_04 14:56

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SPEAKER_06 15:31

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SPEAKER_02 15:39

We can do that. Make it happen. Let's make it happen. There you go. Awesome. Thank you, Julius the Pool girl. Again, Office Star Food product pipeline filters.

SPEAKER_06 15:50

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SPEAKER_05 15:57

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SPEAKER_00 16:26

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SPEAKER_01 17:03

He's the President of the United States. I'm a pool guy. But think about how surreal that is for a second. A guy who spent his entire career teaching water chemistry, troubleshooting pool failures, and helping contractors solve technical problems suddenly finds himself knowing that his analysis reached the highest office in the country. That's not something I ever expected. And honestly, pretty damn cool. Because it proves something I believed my entire career. Good technical work matters. Sometimes far beyond the swimming pool industry. If the exact same coding appeals off the bottom of a municipal pool in California, same investigation. Hotel in Florida, same investigation. The address doesn't change the chemistry. The owner doesn't change the physics. The political party of the property owner does not change how adhesion works. My job never changed. Look at the evidence. Ask questions, follow the facts wherever they lead. There are legitimate questions about construction, materials, workmanship, quality control, inspections, and project management. Those are technical questions. I'm qualified to investigate coding, so I stay in my lane. Because politics changes every election, chemistry doesn't. Problems don't get solved by blaming the customer. I looked at the reflecting pool the same way. I never saw this as a question of whether President Trump was at fault. I saw it as a question of why the coding failed. I'll tell you something else. One of the coolest parts of this experience wasn't being quoted. It was realizing that the work I'd done at my kitchen table, reviewing publicly available evidence and evidence supplied by the Washington Post, reconstructing a timeline, thinking through failure mechanisms, reading material TDS forms, actually became part of a national conversation. My analysis was included among the information considered as the story moved through the reporting process and ultimately reached the White House. I do have to say this, and I thought this was hysterical. In the article written by the Washington Post, they stated that they spoke with four swimming pool industry experts. Then they listed myself and three other people. When the Washington Post shared their article on Facebook, there had to easily be a thousand comments. And I didn't scan through them all, just the first few. But one made me laugh because one stated in completely unrelated news, four swimming pool industry experts go missing. And I just thought that was fucking hysterical. That's all I have for you this week. I'm Rudy Stankowitz. This is the Talking Pools podcast. Until next time, be good and be safe.