The Grit Game spent the last month asking pool pros across the country one question: “What is stopping your business from being the best it can be this year?”
The answers were, in true industry fashion, brutally honest and pretty darn consistent.
One of them told us this is shaping up to be the best year his company has ever had.
The other told us he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through spring.
But buried in those 100 answers was something we didn’t expect — a pattern that has almost nothing to do with what pros are facing, and almost everything to do with how they’re describing it.
None of this is surprising. People, costs, and the economy are squeezing nearly every pool business in the country right now. Construction costs are up more than 30% from just a few years ago. Tariffs move prices up, down, and back up again. Labor costs are outpacing what homeowners are willing to absorb. And homeowners themselves are changing — delaying projects, shopping harder and questioning every line item.
Real. Universal. And unfortunately, not going away this year.
BUT HERE’S WHAT STOPPED US
A handful of pros answered the question completely differently than expected. When you ask a negative, leading question, you expect answers in kind.
But they said things like:
- “We’re on track to have the best year we’ve ever had.”
- “There’s no major obstacle holding us back.”
- “Only the weather can stop us, and our processes get better every season.”
- “Nothing’s stopping us from being our best. We just need to keep fine-tuning.”
They’re not in a different industry. They don’t have secret access to a better candidate pool or cheaper equipment. They’re hiring from the same thin labor market and selling to the same cautious homeowners.
Same pressures. But opposite conclusions.
When we read all 100 responses side by side, the difference wasn’t in the problems — it was in the grammar?
The pros who felt stuck used language that pointed outward: can’t find people, homeowners won’t spend, competitors keep undercutting, suppliers don’t communicate, the economy.
The pros who felt in control used language that pointed inward: our processes have come a long way, we’re fine-tuning our pricing, we’ve identified lead tracking as the next thing to improve, we brought more work in-house so we control the project.
The first group is naming forces they can’t control. The second group is naming levers they can.
When a pro says, “I can’t find good people,” it may be true — but they’ve also, without meaning to, handed the problem to someone else to solve. The labor market. The schools. The generation.
When a pro says, “Our business breaks too easily when someone leaves,” it’s the same pressure — but now the problem lives inside the four walls. Which means it’s something they can actually work on.
Nothing about the hiring market changed between those two statements. But the pro’s ability to do something about it did.
That was the single biggest pattern across all 100 responses. Not systems versus no systems. Not big versus small. Not strong markets versus soft ones.
It was perspective — where each pro chose to stand. It was where the sentence ended.
THREE SHIFTS WORTH MAKING RIGHT NOW
Same pressure, two sentences. See which one sounds more like yours.
1. “We can’t find good people.” → “Our business is too dependent on every hire being great.”
Seven in 10 pros named people as their biggest issue. And that’s a real problem. The candidate pool coming into the industry, and the trades overall, is thinner than it’s ever been.
But the businesses that aren’t feeling that pressure aren’t hiring better candidates. They’ve made themselves less fragile to average or even beginner candidates. A first-week checklist or workflow for new techs. A water-test script that sounds the same whether it’s delivered by your newest hire or your best employee — a.k.a onboarding that doesn’t live in the owner’s head.
When your floor is high enough, a B hire produces A-level work on day 30 instead of day 300. And when someone leaves — because someone always leaves — the business doesn’t start over.
Same labor market. Different response to the same reality. You systematize.
2. “We keep getting undercut.” → “We haven’t made the difference visible.”
Low-bid builders aren’t going away. But they only win when the homeowner can’t see the difference between what you offer and what they offer. When the difference isn’t visible, price becomes the only comparison left.
So instead, here are two moves everyone on your sales and leadership team should be able to make:
Sell the outcome. Homeowners don’t buy components. They buy the 20-year experience, the finish that still looks good in year eight, the call that gets returned in year four.
Sell the cost of cheaper. The warranty that evaporates when the underbidder closes shop. The six-week build that turns into 18 months of torn-up backyard. The heater that fails in year four with no one on the other end of the phone. Cheap isn’t cheap when it costs more in three years — but most homeowners only learn that after the fact. And it’s a well researched fact that most buyers will purchase to prevent pain than they will to obtain pleasure.
Quick test: Ask three people on your team, separately, to explain in one minute why a homeowner should choose you and what the cheapest bid actually costs them. If you get three different answers, the positioning gap isn’t the customer’s. It’s yours.
3. “We need more leads.” → “We’re losing the ones we already have.”
One in five pros named lead generation as a primary hurdle for 2026. But what happens between a lead coming in and a contract going out is where most businesses lose more revenue than they ever do at the top of the funnel.
Before you spend another dollar on ads, tighten the middle:
- Speed. The difference between a response in under an hour and one the next day is often the difference between a real conversation and a ghost. That’s why more business owners are turning to AI voice agents and online chatbots. Instant replies create immediate opportunities — not a list of eight voicemails that one person has to find time to return, only to realize the customer has already been taken care of.
- Consistency. A simple rhythm — respond within an hour, follow up the next day, and make a third touch within the week — will out-earn a bigger ad budget almost every time. Work your existing pipeline. And as a bonus, ask your existing customers for reviews and whether anyone they know could benefit from your services.
- Skill. If your team knows the product but can’t explain why it’s worth the price, the gap isn’t technical training. It’s sales training.
The cheapest lead in your pipeline is the one you already have. If you’re not working those, you’re leaving money on the table.
YOUR MOVE MONDAY MORNING
Notice what none of those three shifts required. Not a better economy. Not a bigger candidate pool. Not a cheaper vendor. Not a miracle marketing channel. Just a different perspective when looking at the same problem.
Possibly the most useful thing to come out of this survey is this 15-minute exercise:
Grab a piece of paper. Write down the top three things stopping your business from being its best this year. Exactly how you’d say it out loud.
Now look at each sentence and ask: Where does this sentence end?
If it ends outside your business — with the economy, the candidates, the competitors, the supply chain — rewrite it so it ends inside your business.
“I can’t find good people.” → “Our business is too dependent on every hire being great.” Which means you likely need stronger systems, clearer processes and onboarding that’s actually written down.
“Homeowners are shopping price.” → “We haven’t made the reason we’re worth more obvious enough.” Which means it’s time to get intentional about it — research your market, sharpen your positioning and train your team to communicate it clearly. Where else are they shopping in your area? What do you do better? What’s the real cost of choosing someone else?
“The economy is soft.” → “Our sales process isn’t strong enough to close a cautious buyer.” Which means it’s time to invest in sales training and simple, repeatable scripts. Your team doesn’t need to sound robotic — they need a guide. A baseline for what every customer hears, every time, that they can make their own.
Same pressure. Different hurdle. But now it’s one you can actually clear. The pros having their best year didn’t get a different market. They just stopped pointing outside the building and started taking control from within.
