industry trends
I’ve spent considerable time in recent days chatting with watershapers about the way things are going — just touching base with old friends, mostly. These conversations generally start with curiosity about
Last year was the worst I’ve endured since I was a novice in the pool and spa industry. At the time, I found myself taking comfort in the fact that I wasn’t alone, that the recession was to blame for my ebbing sales and that we were all
I know for a fact that there are better times ahead for professionals who design and build with water. How? Well, it has nothing to do with psychic powers or a crystal ball. Rather, I know because my own experiences both as a child and an adult tell me
One theme we’ve worked into these pages more often than any other through the past 30 months has to do with the thought that we all need to find ways to respond to the rapidly evolving market conditions in which we find ourselves. You’ve heard that message from our columnists and many of our feature writers: Across the board, they’ve argued that outlasting the recession – and, more important, coming out on the other side poised for success – is a matter of adapting and actively developing skills that make sense in light of today’s
Now that it is generally accepted by experts, economists and pundits that the recession has come to an end, there’s a great deal of curiosity about what the recovery will look like and, more specifically in these parts, about how
Let’s begin this discussion with a question: What if you were so bad at your job that a person in a related field decided, for the good of his own business, he had to learn your business and replace you rather than cope with your incompetence? Most people would say that this would be a justified response to the fact that you do lousy work. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it), this very thing is happening in the pool industry – or, more accurately, to the pool industry. For years now and with increasing frequency, landscape architects have decided they’ve had enough and are entering the pool industry. They are doing so because
An Interview by Lenny Giteck In the six years since Dr. Tom Lachocki became CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation, NSPF has given more than $3.5 million in grant money for scientific research into aquatics, a figure that represents
By now, most of us have noticed or at least heard news of the onset of a much- anticipated rebound in the economy. Most watershapers I speak with confirm that it’s true (although to widely varying degrees) and that they are indeed experiencing increases in business – both with new contacts and old leads that have come back into play. I write those words knowing that you may or may not be convinced that this is the real thing. After all, we’ve learned some tough lessons during this recession, not the least of which is to be wary when pundits offer predictions that they seem perfectly willing to adjust from week to week. At present, however, most of these economic gurus are
Watershapers Must Grow or Go!