Founded by Australian CEO and entrepreneur John O’Brien in 1992, Poolwerx has grown to become the world’s largest pool service brand with over 570 service vehicles and more than 160 stores across Australia, New Zealand and the United States. With significant investment in a professional development strategy, recurring revenue streams and a technology-driven and scalable model, Poolwerx is lengths ahead of its competitors.
Looking beyond retail
Amid tough operating conditions brought on by the triple threat of bushfires, coronavirus and extreme weather events, Australia’s retail sector continues to languish. Now more than ever, diversifying earnings is key.
2020 will likely continue to be a tough year for traditional bricks and mortar retail, but will also be a great opportunity for businesses that provide additional revenue streams. For example, Poolwerx’s business model offers three avenues:
- Retail shop front
- Residential pool servicing
- B2B offering servicing commercial pools and establishing partnerships.
Having a business model with multiple revenue streams helps safeguard against troughs in each sector. It provides an opportunity to increase overall profits – which should be a key priority of any franchise brand – but also helps future proof a business against a likely retail downturn, for example.
A changing path to franchising
Traditionally, Poolwerx franchise partners would start off with a mobile solution, and then transition into owning a retail store once they had achieved a critical mass of regular customers and sales. This strategy has evolved over the years and today, the brand is finding more and more franchise partners come on board with a simultaneous entry into retail and mobile.
The profile of Poolwerx’s franchise partner has also evolved. When the company started out, those coming into the business were often traditional blue collar workers keen to get off the tools and into business, starting out with a van operation. Today’s franchise partner ranges from the first-time business owner to experienced entrepreneurs who might skip the mobile van stage and go straight into owning multiple territories with multi-million dollar turnovers.
In recent years, Poolwerx has seen several entrepreneurs come into business without any technical knowledge. With strong business acumen and through training, many have grown their footprint into multi-million dollar businesses in a short time.
Poolwerx’s sophisticated training facilities in Brisbane and Dallas, Texas, provide industry and government-accredited modules to support franchise partners and their staff through this growth. But when it comes to recruiting franchise partners, tech and business skills are not the be all and end all. A connection to the brand is critical. In the back end, the processes and systems are easily learnt, especially with the support of the strong network and our commitment to training. But a passion for all things pools, health and wellbeing and sustainability is essential.
Sustainable growth
When franchise partners are ready to take the next step and grow their footprint, Poolwerx reviews growth areas in conjunction with its B2B industry associates and pool industry database statistics in order to generate a viable territory size in conjunction with geographic mapping tools. With Australians installing 20,000 new pools every year, there is plenty of room to grow.