APSP Quarterly - Winter 2008 - (Page 30)

Over the next year, AQ will explore each of these behaviors through the experiences of a member of The Association of Pool & Spa Professionals. Johnson Pools & Spas is a 30-year-old company based in Huntsville, Ala., with a second showroom in Madison. According to co-owner Penny Johnson, the fi rm’s business strategy is to provide everything for the backyard: pools, spas, related equipment and recreational products, outdoor furniture, grills, gifts with a tie to the backyard—you name it, they probably have it! Johnson and her husband built the business from nothing, by challenging conventional pool and spa business practices at every stage. The business was founded in 1977 as G.T. Johnson Construction, a pool-building company. At that time, Johnson was working for a property management fi rm. In 1980, after the birth of her second child, she decided to join her husband’s business. “I spent 1980 learning the business and getting organized,” Johnson recalls. In 1981, she joined the company full-time and began to make some changes. A pool-building company ought to have a store, she reasoned, to sell pool equipment to existing customers and new pools to new customers. She rented a 105-year-old house in downtown Huntsville and set about fi nding out who in the community had a pool. After extensive research, she discovered that the building permit department in Huntsville had records of who owned pools. “I didn’t waste any time on who had taken out the permits,” she says. “People move, but pools don’t. I just wanted the addresses at this point.” Of course, she also needed the names of current residents. To get them she looked them up in a city directory found in the library. For almost three weeks she labored over the directory, creating a master list of leads with names, addresses and zip codes. Then she wrote a newsletter and introduced the business to everyone on the list. “I wrote about who we were. I explained that we were new in the business, that my husband had grown up in Huntsville, and that his family had lived here for 150 years.” Customers appeared, including an elderly gentleman who used to be in the pool busi- ness and knew how to maintain and care for the pool. Johnson made a deal with him: she would supply him with chemicals for his pool if he would in turn write a monthly newsletter. He agreed. By 1987, the 105-year-old house was bulging at the seams with pool chemicals, equipment and recreational products. Johnson built a 3,750-square-foot showroom, almost five times as large as the 850-square-foot showroom provided by the old location. Sometimes it isn’t easy to challenge what you have gotten used to doing. The move precipitated a crisis for Johnson. “The day we moved into the new facility I stared at that huge showroom floor and realized I was scared to death,” Johnson says. She went to her husband and told him that she would never be able to fi ll up the new showroom. It was just too big. His response shocked her: “Penny,” he said, “if you think you can move into this new location and do the same amount of business that you are doing now, you will fail. But if you think about this as an opportunity to grow, then I promise, you will grow.” 3 0 | AQ A P S P Q UA R T E R LY 346803_Gecko.indd 1 1/1/70 5:42:21 PM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of APSP Quarterly - Winter 2008

APSP Quarterly - Winter 2008 Contents President's Message Guest Editorial APSP Annual Report Hot Tub Council Initiative to Speak with One Voice Suction Safety Challenging the Process Industry Update Keeping Pace: Staying on the Cutting Edge With Lifelong Learning APSP News & Resources Advertisers' Index

APSP Quarterly - Winter 2008

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