Rudy Talks Marketing & Product Reps with Laci Davis of the 'Grit Game'

Laci Davis, President of The Grit Game, discusses her role as a manufacturer rep firm in the pool industry and the unique approach they take. The Grit Game represents multiple manufacturers and focuses on empowering potential within the industry. They differentiate themselves by having a limited line card, allowing reps to have in-depth knowledge of each product line. They also operate on a national level, streamlining communication and making it easier for manufacturers to work with them. Additionally, The Grit Game offers marketing services, helping businesses in the pool industry improve their online presence and reputation. In this conversation, Laci Davis discusses the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and how it can help businesses improve their online visibility. She emphasizes the significance of including location keywords in online content to attract local customers. Laci also provides tips for creating engaging social media videos and highlights the three E's of social media: education, entertainment, and emotion. She discusses emerging trends in the pool industry, such as the need for modern and authentic marketing strategies. Laci advises aspiring entrepreneurs to be prepared for the challenges of starting a business and emphasizes the importance of adding value to customers and employees. Lastly, she encourages pool professionals to reach out to manufacturer reps to learn about new products and take advantage of special deals.

keywords

pool industry, manufacturer rep firm, empowering potential, limited line card, national rep firm, marketing services, online presence, reputation management, SEO, search engine optimization, SEO, online visibility, location keywords, social media videos, three E's of social media, emerging trends, marketing strategies, entrepreneurship, adding value, manufacturer reps

takeaways

• The Grit Game is a manufacturer rep firm in the pool industry that represents multiple manufacturers and focuses on empowering potential within the industry.
• They differentiate themselves by having a limited line card, allowing reps to have in-depth knowledge of each product line.
• The Grit Game operates on a national level, streamlining communication and making it easier for manufacturers to work with them.
• They also offer marke

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Transcript

Rudy (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Talking Pools podcast. I am Rudy Stankowitz here with you today. Looks like the lights are going out. I've got some thunder going on. So if you hear some loud crashes in the background, that's what's going on here in Florida. We're getting beat up a little bit. Speaking of Florida, I have a guest with me who's also from Florida. Am I correct? Lacey Davis, president of The Grit Game newly appointed president.

Laci Davis (00:20)
Absolutely.

Rudy (00:28)
of the Grit Game. And I keep seeing these things pop up and I know it's related to our industry. I think Grit, think John Wayne, think true Grit. That's what comes to my mind. Lacey, what are you guys about? What is this Grit Game?

Laci Davis (00:42)
So the Game is a manufacturer rep firm. Basically, you have your factory reps like you would know your Hayward rep, your Pentaire rep, your Jandy reps, but a manufacturer rep firm is going to have a long list of manufacturers that they represent. And so it's a really great resource for you to use to have more than one manufacturer to talk about. You can kind of learn some different things to add to your portfolio. And the Grit Game specifically is kind of taking that role in that kind of an agency and doing it

a little bit differently, kind of bringing it into a little bit more modern times and taking some strategies and some different approaches to how the rep games been played in the past.

Rudy (01:21)
new to the Talking Pools podcast, how's your day been going so far leading up to this?

Laci Davis (01:27)
it's fantastic. mean, it's Florida. It's another day in paradise or a storm, but I mean, it's about an hour difference either way.

Rudy (01:34)
What's a morning in the life of Lacey look like?

Laci Davis (01:37)
So my husband is the CEO of Great Game, and we get up every morning, we go to the gym, and then when we get back, it's tackle the emails, talk to manufacturers, get on the calls. We pretty much live in this kind of environment all the time, right, where it's a video call, let's check in here, let's check in with the team, let's put out some fires. I had my Midwest rep this morning, she's at an AquaGon tent sale, and she said,

They didn't put me on the special flyer. said, let me make one for you really quick. And so we have that capability in -house to make a lot of those marketing materials. So we get a lot of those last minute, I need this, I need this. It's like, okay, kids, here you go, run with it.

Rudy (02:14)
you represent manufacturers. That's not your only customer though, is it?

Laci Davis (02:19)
No, so it depends on how you look at it. So the Grit Game is our partners. We partner with several different manufacturers. Our team, they have their customers, their service guys, their retail store owners, their builder network. Those are customers. Then we also have

a company, Grit Game Marketing, where our customers are everything in between from the manufacturer to the retail store owner, the builder, the service guy. And so we kind of cross over. We're in a little bit of everything.

Rudy (02:51)
I saw that in your prior lives, many prior years ago, you did work for Disney. I wanted to ask, do they actually have that herd of army cats that come in in the middle of the night and kill all the mice?

Laci Davis (03:04)
I've never seen the herd personally. I will say I've been in the tunnels. The tunnels exist, but I'd never seen the herd. I cannot confirm nor deny.

Rudy (03:12)
Okay.

I saw Ryan Gosling actually commented on that about those cats saying he didn't understand why the army of cats came in at a facility to kill mice that was built on the back of a single mouse,

Laci Davis (03:24)
a little odd if you think through,

Rudy (03:25)
what's the most embarrassing thing that you've ever done that you're terrified to say was you?

Laci Davis (03:32)
It's not that any one thing came to mind. There's a lot on that list, if I was going to be frank. We have a very interesting family Game night in my house. And when I say family Game night, it very rarely involves family. It's more like those friends that are family. And what we do is we build up a Jenga tower and we write, we number them with markers one through.

Rudy (03:37)
I'm someone.

Okay.

Laci Davis (03:56)
25 there's about 40 ish blocks in a jenga tower and So one through 25 and then whoever's playing we make a list and everybody has to agree to the list number one What's your dare number two? What's your dare and depend on who you're playing with? It can get very

a lot very fast. could just be wholesome fun, but we there are two people who are walking around with tattoos now because it ended up they ended up playing family Game night with us.

Rudy (04:25)
So you've taken the old traditional Game of truth and dare and taken truth out of it. left, you've taken truth completely out. All it is is dare, right? That sounds super scary actually.

Laci Davis (04:32)
Taking truth out of it, it's only dare.

All there.

Well, it depends on who you play with, right? you were the house, so we're always very neutral. It's everybody else's. So we've just gone to the tortilla slapping Game. Like if you pull this one, you're playing the tortilla slapping Game with the person across from you, right? It's we've got ones where you pull it out, you pull it out. OK, what's this one? We take a jump. We take a group photo where everybody's jumping in the air and we can only stop when everybody's feet's off the ground for the photo, like when we nail the photo. So it can be really fun and lighthearted, but.

Again, there's some people out there with tattoos now because they played Family Game Night with us.

Rudy (05:13)
like your logo for your family on their arm or something. I lost to a dare family Game night at Laci's house The Grit Game.

Laci Davis (05:20)
My best friend leads into that conversation with his tattoo link. I didn't pick it for him, but he he's definitely like I played Game night at Laci's house when he shows his friends

Rudy (05:30)
and what's the craziest thing you've ever done at the grocery store?

Laci Davis (05:34)
at the grocery store.

I want to say I'm cool and fun and I've done weird things at the grocery store, but I don't know that I have. didn't...

Rudy (05:40)
You've never hit that person in the ankle with your cart that cut in front of you. You've never done that. Have you wanted to?

Laci Davis (05:45)
No, no.

Rudy (05:49)
Alright, so we're going to take the fifth on this one. That's awesome. So I was going to ask many.

Laci Davis (05:55)
Do you get a lot of people who do weird things at grocery stores?

Rudy (05:59)
There are a lot of people who do weird things at grocery stores. That's true. You're going to have to listen to other episodes I want people to listen. I was going to ask

Laci Davis (06:05)
I get my delivered, that may be part of the problem.

Rudy (06:08)
you can't really tackle the Shipt person on the front step. I was going to ask you how many chickens it would take to kill an elephant, but I'm going to go ahead and speed right past that one unless you actually had an answer.

Laci Davis (06:11)
Mm -hmm

Rudy (06:20)
And I was going to say since we'll go ahead. Did you have an answer? No, none whatsoever. All right, ladies. I'm my own. All right. So Lacey, you've founded two companies within the last 20 months in the pool and spa industry, correct?

Laci Davis (06:24)
No sir, you're on your own.

Yes, sir.

Rudy (06:37)
So you have the Grit Game and Grit Game marketing. Can you share what inspired you to start these ventures and what the journey has been like so far?

Laci Davis (06:46)
Sure. So prior to the Grit Game, Johnny and I were at a company in the pool industry. Johnny was there for about 16 years and I was there for about six. And it's primarily an e -commerce site in the industry that sells swimming pool kits. They sell vinyl liner kits to homeowners as a DIY project. They also sell them to builders to sell to their customers. And

During that time when we were there, we learned so much, we're doing so much. But at one point, Johnny just kind of looked up and said, we were at the, we were at the international show in Vegas. And he said, you know, I'm making all these plans for the direction this company is going to go on. And I always thought this was my baby, but I actually don't think it's going to go in the direction that I've been envisioning. And if that's the case, then I don't know that I have a place here.

because he's very much a trailblazer, he's very much a visionary. And I said, okay, well, what do you want to do about that? He's like, I think I want to pin in my two weeks notice. I said,

Rudy (07:49)
Surprise.

Laci Davis (07:51)
Maybe you should sleep on that. Maybe you should just sleep on it. See how you feel. And he did. And the next morning, he put in his two -week notice. And there was no plan. There was no, are we going to do next? And he was an executive at this company. so all in right off the bat. And

Rudy (07:56)
Okay.

Wow. So all in right off the bat.

Laci Davis (08:10)
He said, I'm going to do consulting because I've been successful at taking a smaller to mid -sized company and turn it into something very profitable, very successful, very heavy on the tech side, very heavy on, you know, staying up with the times on what we provide people. And I said, that's great. You do consulting. He's like, I think you should come with me. And I was like, listen, you talked me into the pool industry once. think, I think that you need to establish yourself and let me just keep having a.

Rudy (08:31)
And here you are.

Laci Davis (08:37)
know, steady stream of income while you figure this out. And push came to shove that wasn't in the cards. So we, we ended up doing the Grit Game. And again, it was supposed to be consulting. We, we wanted to help these smaller to midsize businesses. And, you know, we, didn't, the story behind the name is we really loved Angela Duckworth's Ted Talk on Grit, which is the power of perseverance and how, you know,

Rudy (08:40)
Okay.

Laci Davis (09:06)
when studies are done on the people that are successful, it's not IQ, it's not good looks, it's their Grit, how willing are they to do what it takes day in and day out to be successful and not give up. And so I told him, said, know, Jay, whatever we end up doing, we're going to have to have serious Grit to be in the Game. And he just kind of went.

That's it. That's the name is the Grit Game. said, okay, here we go. Let's go. It's a lot of fun. so we're

Rudy (09:25)
That's awesome.

Laci Davis (09:28)
Talking to our friends in the industry, we are talking to manufacturers we have relationship with. And at the Atlantic City show, we had made promises to this one manufacturer at our previous role and said, hey, listen, we said we were going to bring you into this e -commerce platform. We were going to help grow your business. We were going to put your lines on our pull kits. We're not there anymore, but we still want to make good on that promise.

We were thinking about offering them some kind of back -end NetSweep development to help them and consult with them. they're like, could you, they're Canadian company. They said, could you represent our product? And we looked at John, yeah, we can do that. What area were you thinking? What territory? We're in Florida or Tennessee at the time. And they're like, the US.

Rudy (10:12)
So this is how you got into being a rep group correct? Okay.

Laci Davis (10:15)
This is how, this is exactly how that happened because they gave a team of two individuals who were not reps, had never been reps, the entire United States to represent their product in. The Grit Game as it stands today is literally us trying to fulfill that promise to be their national rep firm. Now, a national rep firm in its entirety truly doesn't exist yet. There's another company that's coming close.

Rudy (10:23)
Hmm.

Laci Davis (10:42)
We are not really Uber present out West, but we're getting there, right? So as it stands, the Grit Game is currently international because we have lines both in the United States and Canada. So there's that piece of the puzzle. so strong on our marketing, because what I did at the last company is very marketing heavy,

Rudy (10:56)
Okay.

Laci Davis (11:04)
people were reaching out to us constantly, can you help with marketing? Can you help with marketing? And it became such a high -end demand that we had a partner with a very good friend of ours who has his own marketing agency and said, can you help us do this? He said, let me partner with you, we'll do it together. And so, Great Game Marketing was born to service the high demand on the marketing side.

Rudy (11:22)
Okay.

let me roll it back just a minute So now we're repping products and you have more than one line at this time,

Laci Davis (11:31)
yes.

Rudy (11:33)
what's the core mission of the Grit Game and how is it different than other rep groups aside from the national side from the international at the core of what you're doing?

Laci Davis (11:42)
Yep. No, that's a great question. Our mission statement is to empower potential. And a lot of people could look at that and say, well, is that the power, empower the potential of the lines of the manufacturers you represent? Yes, but it's also empowering the potential within our people, within the industry as itself. How do we help the end user? How do we help the builder? How do we help the retail store owner empower their potential and make more money as a whole as well? And so we have a couple of different value added propositions that kind of set us apart.

from some other rep groups in the Game. And one of them is having a limited line card. So when a manufacturer looks at bringing on a rep firm, one of the things that they have to into consideration, well, how many other lines do you represent? Because how much time is my line gonna be in front of this dealer, in front of this customer, right? If a rep firm has 30, 40,

Rudy (12:31)
Exactly.

Laci Davis (12:33)
plus lines, one, you can't put that manufacturer in front of as many people. Two, your reps can't be as knowledgeable on every single line. They just can't. That's too much information right out the gate for one person to take on. That's why factory reps do so well. Your Hayward rep, he needs to know Hayward. He needs to know the in and out of Hayward. Your manufacturer rep,

They need to know anywhere from 15 to 30 to 40 different product lines, and that's hard. So we specifically keep a limited line card.

Our company as a whole has 18 lines right now, but any one rep has anywhere from seven to 15. It's a massive difference as far as the time that you're gonna get in front of the customer, because we believe that product line should not really fit in. They need to stand out and be in the spotlight. And we ensure that by having a limited line, so reps have to talk about.

all of their lines. That's one part of it. The second part of it that kind of sets us apart is we're not a regional firm, right? We are national. We are getting to be national. And so whereas manufacturers in the past, they have to say, well, we're going to work with this group in this area of the states. We're going to work with this group, this group. All those groups have different ways of working. They have all different ways of tracking their commissions. They have all different ways of requiring information and sharing and communication.

Rudy (13:27)
Okay.

Laci Davis (13:52)
The less people you have to work with, the less hands in the cookie jar, the easier it is for that manufacturer to work. Now, there's also benefits on the flip side of that because I have a lot of friends in these other companies and so I don't ever want to say...

one's better than the other. There's different reasons to have different ones, right? So if you chose to have multiple regional reps, those reps have been in that region for a very, very long time, right? They know their customers. They're very saturated in their regions because that's what they know. They don't have to worry about what's going on on the other side of the country. For that reason, our actual third value prep value added proposition is that at the Grit Game, we only hire industry veterans.

Rudy (14:24)
you

Laci Davis (14:34)
We only hire people who have been in the swimming pool industry for X amount of time minimum, right? So Gina Harris, our VP of business development, she's been in her whole career. She's been in it for 30 plus years. Our South Central rep, he's got over 20 years in his pocket. So two of our Midwest reps are over 17 years a piece. So we may be the newest rep firm in the industry.

But we are not made up of new people. Combined experience, we have over 250 years just in swimming pools and spas. That's it. And we've been around for less than 20 months. So to say we have that kind of oomph behind us, I think it means something. Because what we do is one of our core values is we have to have our people embody an entrepreneurial spirit, meaning that

When they have their area, that's their business. It's up to them to make their business successful. They had to have the connections already. They had to have the positive relationships. We do deep dive homework on all of them to say, what's your reputation like in the industry? Are you a go -getter? Can you manage your own space without having a lot? When we call and ask, hey, who knows about this person, this person, this person? It's, they're hungry. They go after it. They know how to work. They put in the app. Okay. They have Grit.

Rudy (15:49)
What would you say is the main driving force behind the folks that contact you in regards to marketing

Laci Davis (15:55)
lack of knowledge in all honesty, marketing, when you think marketing, no two people are gonna think of the same thing. So when we said that, somebody may have thought social media, somebody else may have thought website development, somebody else may have thought SEO, right? So everybody, every single one of our discovery calls on the marketing side is truly unique because everybody comes to us with a different problem.

I don't know how to get in front of my local market. I don't know how to be the trusted voice on my topic. I don't know how to rank for page one on Google. I don't have a social media presence. And so it's really, I could sit here and somebody could call me and say, I want a marketing discovery call. Great. I'm not going to tell you what you need. You're going to tell me what you feel is missing. And then I can help you fill in the blanks as to what can get you there.

Rudy (16:40)
Do you do reputation management?

Laci Davis (16:43)
We can. What you need? What you need, Rudy?

Rudy (16:45)
Okay. Rudy's good. Maybe Rudy's good. I don't know. Read the reviews. So on the podcast, but yeah, I was just curious. A lot of times folks start out, maybe we got started. Good person starts out on the wrong foot, didn't know what to do, burn some bridges, got a bad rap. How do we fix it?

Laci Davis (17:01)
Yep. We,

We just signed a client this morning actually and part of their marketing is doing a little bit of reputation management. They had some product come out that had some issues with a batch and it kind of gave them a little bit of a bad rap, but it was truly a batch and not them. And they've done everything in the world to fix it and make it right. And they've done a lot of really good things. So now it's how do we fix that and tell that story correctly and get

that out into the industry versus, you remember this bad batch they had. Well, let me show you how many amazing things they did to fix that for you and all the things they're willing to do to make it up for you and how much happier you're gonna be with this relationship because that's the kind of people you're working with is people that are willing to make it right.

Rudy (17:49)
What would you do about helping a service person or service people go about breaking the stigma in the market That old Walter Mathow bad news bears drunk who failed miserably. This is his last resort so he cleans pools. The image that a lot of society unfortunately has because it's been put out there What would you do to help somebody with that in an area in a market?

Laci Davis (18:00)
Mm -hmm.

Mm

So you have to think about using your social media as your portfolio, right? So instead of taking photos of, look at this ugly pool, look at this terrible wiring job, look at this bad pump, use it to do one of the three E's in marketing. So you want to either be entertaining, which can be hit or miss, right? You want to be hidden emotion, which is kind of hard to do, but everybody can educate.

These if you're a pool guy, if you're a service guy, you have so much stinking knowledge in that brand of yours. You know so much about what's going on and why this pool is doing that and why that customer has a problem with this. You know that. So if you present that in an educational like, hey, somebody who does this really good is Dylan's landscaping on social media. He does pool service. does landscaping services and he is very educational with what he puts out there. So you can break the stigma by being the

trusted voice that people come to, right? You can pepper in some emotional or some entertaining factors, but if you're educating your audience, and you can do that either through social media,

Or you can do that by adding blog content to your website. Now it's very easy to add a blog to a website. Why would people want that? Well, a couple of different reasons, right? If you write your blog, an article on why your pool algae, if your pool algae looks like this, this is what that means, right? You can get SEO, which is search engine optimization. So if you included your area that you service, hey, I'm...

Joe and I service the greater Austin, Texas area and here's why your pool is turning green. Next time somebody goes to Google and says, hey, my pool's turning green and their location, their geo -targeting is Austin, you're more likely to pull up. That's more likely to be your customer because, Joe knows what he's talking about. Joe, are you taking new customers? Great, I wanna be one.

Rudy (20:04)
Radio advertorials, are they good for small businesses?

Laci Davis (20:08)
It depends on the station, right? Because is that station going to play you in the middle of the night? Is that station highly listened to? Right? I don't usually recommend radio ads. There's a place for them and there's a right kind of business for them, but more often than not, it's getting the name out there. So what, what a lot of different companies do, right, is

Think about when you go to your stadium for your local sporting event. There's somebody plastered all over that stadium, right? Let's take Chase Bank, for example. Chase Bank has this great advertisement. What are the chances that anybody in that stadium is looking for a bank at that point in time, right? It's more so when they are, it's there. It's kind of guerrilla marketing. It's throwing your name out there as much and much and much as possible. So unless you have the budget to kind of do that,

I don't strongly recommend radio ads. I'd rather see that budget go to things like creating your SEO, updating your website, because we live in an age right now where you've got millennials and Gen Z's coming up. They're the next round of pool services. A lot of millennials now are getting pools. That's your customer. It's no longer the boomers. Well, those folks are highly, heavily dependent on a good web experience. They're heavily looking into you based on your social media platform. So they're looking to see

What's your portfolio? Can I trust you? Do you provide clean work or are you just kind of a mess? Does your platform look like it was created in the 80s? Can I trust you with doing the best job versus keeping it clean and professional looking? Or fun. It doesn't have to be super clean, super buttoned up and suit and tie. If you've seen our platforms, we're a little weird. We're a little crazy. We got some fun pants floating around, but.

But people know what to expect that either drives or it doesn't. So you can still be you, but make sure it's up with 2024.

Rudy (22:03)
true or false, I ask you a true or false question. You can expand on this if you want to, It's okay for a service company to bash their customer in a group on social media because it's good to have the opportunity to vent.

Laci Davis (22:15)
False. If you're going to vent, do not say who it is. Do not add specifics. Do not add names. It's fine if you're in a... Because we're all in swimming pool groups on Facebook. I mean, everybody's in at least one. And we've seen them. We've seen that if you want to keep it anonymous, not you, but who you're posting about, keep it anonymous. If you're like, guys, can you believe? Look what I found in this skimmer today. That's fine.

That's fine, share away. But to talk about a specific customer, to talk about a specific thing, that's only gonna make you look bad because what if somebody screenshots that? What if somebody screenshots that post and your competitor says, no, look what Joe's pool says, da da da, it just makes you look tasteless.

Rudy (22:59)
What's the weirdest thing you wish you've never seen? Either inside or outside the industry.

Laci Davis (23:04)
My brain's being slaughtered with ideas right now, with visions that you are bringing back to me. The weirdest thing.

Rudy (23:07)
Hahaha

did

Laci Davis (23:12)
I hope I have time to think about this properly.

Rudy (23:14)
Do you want to get back to that? Okay, you touched on SEO a few moments ago. That can be a complex topic for many business owners. Can you break it down even further what that is?

Laci Davis (23:16)
Yeah, if you don't mind.

So SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What is a search engine? That's Google.

But what people don't understand is the second biggest search engine outside of Google is actually YouTube and most of the ones Instagram is a search engine anywhere that you have a search box. It's technically a search engine. So optimization How do you make that search engine? How do you make it easier for that search engine to find you to find your website to find your post so that

that connects with your ideal audience. So search engine optimization is putting in keywords, right? What I feel like the number one thing small businesses and even mid -size businesses fail to understand is putting your location, putting your location where you service is on anything and everything you can is highly, highly needed for you to be successful. So take your...

Take your social media platform. Let's take somebody who has an Instagram, right? An Instagram handle. When you look at your bio, the very top is your name, and then there's a line in bold. Usually people put pool guy or like Lacey, Renee, pools, marketing, what have you. That bolded piece is actually searchable by the search engine.

Rudy (24:29)
you

Laci Davis (24:50)
So it would be wiser for you to have Joe Pools is your name, Swimming Pool Services, Greater Dallas, Texas. Searchable. That's searchable.

Rudy (24:59)
Okay.

Laci Davis (25:01)
So because what happens, somebody puts in on Google, I'm looking for a pool guy near me. Well, your geo -targeting knows you're in Dallas, Texas. So anybody that's saying, writing those blogs that include Dallas, Texas pool service has social media that their caption, it doesn't even have to be your hashtags. Your caption involves service Dallas, Texas.

And it just is a way to bring your actual customers closer to you. Most people think that it's all about how many people you have following you. Well, if you had 10 ,000 people following you but nobody in your local area, how valuable is that? So search engine optimization, how do you make it easier for things searching to find you and connect to you with your customer?

Rudy (25:42)
Aside from tagging location and listing location, what are some other basic essential steps that a business owner should take so that they can be found on social media?

Laci Davis (25:55)
Good question. Tagging, tagging your location, adding your SEO. Hashtags aren't as big a deal as people think they are, but if you're going to use them, again, use them for your location base as a local business, right? If you are doing any kind of posts at all, you're ahead of probably 80 % of your competition.

If you can do video posting, you're going to be ahead of the other 95%. Videos are what's selling these days. Videos are what's grabbing people's attention. Now the problem with videos is where do you start? How do you get going? Know that your video has to grab somebody's attention and stop them from scrolling within the first three seconds or it's not going to be watched because the video content, let's say that you put a video out into the world and you're like, it didn't do well. Well,

The number one thing for videos isn't how many people liked it or how many people commented on it. It's actually how long somebody watched it for. So if somebody's, if you're constantly posting a minute more videos, it's gonna be really hard for you to get traction because it's really difficult to hold somebody's attention for that long, right? So doing really short videos with something that grabs them, makes them stop, that scroll goes, what? What is this? What am I looking at?

that gets them to stop long enough, increases your watch time, it's gonna push your video further. What people don't also know is that when you post a reel, what's called a reel, a video on Instagram or Facebook, that gets pushed to your non -followers. Whereas your traditional posts, if you do a story, that's only the people already following you. But if you post a reel, that's got a higher percentage, it goes out to people who don't follow you as well. So video is how you're gonna attract new people to you.

Rudy (27:43)
One of the things I've seen this year on social media that I've seen more this year than any other pertaining to videos is that people, at least on the longer videos, have been going into the video, taking a copy of the meat out of it, putting it right at the beginning. So you have the gist of it right at the start. Then we have the buildup to that story. What would you call, what is that called? Just an intro?

Laci Davis (28:03)
Mm -hmm. It's kind of like a little intro. Well, it's kind of like an intro, right? It's kind of like, it's saying, hey, this is what you can expect to get. And so they are like, ooh, what's that? And then you're like, okay, let me show you how we got there. Like, hey, I bet you're wondering how I ended up in this position. Let me show you. So it kind of sets those expectations.

you've got something in it, it's like, my gosh, and you're pulling this out of the skimmer like what is that? And then it stops and it goes, hey, this is Joe's pool. Let's show you what kind of crazy things if it's a longer video, you've given that person enough meat to say, let me stick around and see what's happening here.

Rudy (28:38)
Did you see the reel I posted yesterday?

Laci Davis (28:40)
No, what'd do?

Rudy (28:41)
You'll have to go back and look at it. It's actually about manufacturers who exaggerate on their products. So it's kind of fun. So you'll have to go back and look. It's on Instagram, I might throw it in as an interlude somewhere in this one with you, because it's fun.

Laci Davis (28:47)
Okay.

I'm here for this. I will.

I like it.

Rudy (28:59)
I keep hearing about the three E's of social media. What are the three E's?

Laci Davis (29:04)
Okay, so it's kind of the same thing that we talked about. It's that education, entertainment, and emotion. If you can hit one of those, you're doing great. If you can find a way to tie in two in one post, all three, three's hard, three's really hard, but it can be done. But that's how you're gonna get people to care about what you're posting. If you can get them to go feel an emotion, like, my gosh, wow, that's so sweet, or they get angry, or if you can get a reaction out of them of any level, keep it.

if you can entertain them. these, if you're a pool guy and you're really comfortable with your choreography and you've got some rhythm, know, try some of these TikTok dances and people will be like, what's this? This is my pool. yeah, go pool guy. Like people want to support you. They do. They just want you to see that you're you and you're fun.

Rudy (29:49)
That is the last thing in the world I should ever do. It's the last thing in the world I should ever do.

Laci Davis (29:53)
I support you. I'll send you a couple videos for inspiration. Be like, can you do this? Can you do this? And then the last one is the education piece, right?

Rudy (30:01)
I'll tell you what, if you do, I'll try it. So the last one, education music.

Laci Davis (30:04)
bet buddy. Yeah, yeah, education is how do you learn a pool choreographer dance? You know, like how do you get in the pool and do like synchronized swimming to get like, I'd stop and watch that.

Rudy (30:16)
That might be the answer to the question that I asked you before. What's the worst thing you wish you've never seen?

Laci Davis (30:17)
How do you stop the scroll?

It depends on what that speedo looks like Rudy.

Rudy (30:29)
So let me ask emerging trends that you see in the pool industry, in the pool and spa industry, look at it from both a rep and a marketing firm and if there's a different one for each, but something that everybody should be paying attention to right now.

Laci Davis (30:45)
Sure. So in marketing, it's all about bringing it up to speed, right? So it's no real secret that the pool industry is kind of the redheaded stepchild as far as.

coming up into and keeping with the times a little bit. So you're looking at ways to connect with this younger audience of homeowners and pool owners. And that's going to be making sure that you're up to date and you're up to speed as far as on your marketing. And that kind of stays with us. It's new and emerging every single year. It's the same thing. It's how do we connect with that homeowner? And they want to see clean. They want to see modern. But what's great is they want to see authentic, which I think is something

something new that we haven't seen in the past. Whereas before it's they want to see that really, know, buttoned up and cleaned up presence. Now they want to care about your brands. They want to know what do you care about? What's your so what kind of social status are you carrying as far as what you care about in the world? Are you if somebody is green, like somebody really cares about recycling, they care about the planet that and your advertising that you use eco friendly products, that's going to resonate, right?

But on the other hand, somebody who just wants to say, I just want to see a real human. I don't want to be sold to. And that's where industries like the social media is coming into play. They want that authentic. They want to know who they're buying from. And it ties back into something that's always been true is people buy from who they like. But now you have to be authentically yourself. And that's a little bit of a shift in what we're seeing from when we were dealing with other generations into the new ones. As far as with your in the industry from

Rep side of it. I think what we're going to start seeing is

Let me be careful really quick. I do think that we're going to start seeing people who are... No, I can't say that. My NDA doesn't allow that.

Rudy (32:33)
go ahead and it.

Laci Davis (32:34)
I can't. I can't. We are. OK, I can say this without getting in trouble.

things are gonna change. Things are about to take a shift in the rep side of the world. There's some things coming down the pipeline of collaborations that I think in the past, the rep side of the industry has been friendly fire, if you will, right? Like everybody knows everybody, but it's been a little me versus you.

And what I really like is we've seen a lot of collaboration that, you know, I've heard has happened a long time ago, but hasn't happened in a while. For example, we rep a product called Hurricane Filters. They are very comparable to Plico in quality, but they're about 20 to 30 % of the cost. We rep them on mid and east coast.

We also partner with Warm Water Sales, which is another rep firm in the Northeast. They also have Hurricane. So this manufacturer has brought on two rep firms in the same area. We also just took on Stellar Sales Alliance in Florida with Fernando, and they're repping Hurricane, which means now you have three rep groups representing the same product, getting to work together.

Rudy (33:45)
Okay.

Laci Davis (33:53)
and say, okay, what are you doing this week? Where are you going? How do our reps get together? What do you need from us to make you successful? Because we're more worried about how we're making our manufacturer successful than we are about.

me versus you and the amount of conversations that are being had on that front about how do we collaborate, how do we do something together, how do we, I do think that that's a shift in the manufacturer rep firm and I truly do think that's going to benefit everybody in the industry is when we come together and we start working together.

Rudy (34:23)
That is interesting, and I do know Fernando very well, but He's great guy. He really is. So, he is. As a successful entrepreneur in the industry, what advice would you give to somebody who's listening that's thinking about starting a business in the industry?

Laci Davis (34:28)
He's a good human.

Well, so my husband, Johnny, my husband, Johnny would tell you that he's glad he didn't know how hard it was going to be or he never would have started. I come from a background where both of my parents were entrepreneurs. They both have their own businesses. So when he said, I want to do my own thing, I said, I support you, but you have to know this will take over your life.

Rudy (34:41)
Run?

Laci Davis (35:02)
will be no weekends, there will be no nights off, your phone will ring every hour of the day, every holiday, and that's just how it's gonna be for the first several years. So, I don't say that to discourage anybody because there's nothing like owning your own business, there's nothing like entrepreneurship, there's nothing like saying this is my baby, and being self -employed is the only time you truly get paid your worth.

the only time in history you're gonna get paid your worth at the job you do is when you're self -employed. Now, as an entrepreneur, that means you don't make anything for the first couple of years if you're doing it right because all your money is funneling right back into your business. But I say all this to say, if you kind of have that expectation, you know it's gonna be hard, you know it's gonna be long nights, you know you're working weekends.

there's nothing better because yeah, there's stress, but it's a whole different kind of stress than when you're working for somebody else. And it's so rewarding, especially if you're in the kind of business that you get to bring on team members. So maybe if you're a service guy and right now you're a one -poller, how do you grow your business and grow the number of pools you're servicing to be able to afford to hire somebody else? And then you start being able to see these other people

that you get to pour into and you get to work on their development and you get to make sure, hey, Bob, thanks for coming in today. Here's what we're doing. How are we making Mrs. Smith's experience better? If you're constantly thinking about your end user and your employees, how do we add value to them? Your business is going to naturally do better than if you were just solely focused on how do get my business better? How do I make more money? How do I do this? Those things will start to just kind of fall in naturally because you're doing such a good job.

Now you have to be savvy with numbers, you have to make sure you're pricing yourself correctly, you have those right margins, right? But as long as you're somewhat, and there's so many tools out there to help with that, right? ChadGBT coming along and all these AI tools, you have so much free availability to help you in this, it's a great time to consider doing your own thing.

Rudy (37:12)
You're in Florida. You've been here for a while. I'm in Florida. Let's look at Florida for a second. Florida's pricing is notorious across the country, at least in some areas of Florida. And I know what happened. Somebody came in, undercut the market.

devalued the product, then the new folks or the existing folks, now the market, what the market can bear is much lower than it was yesterday. And this continually happened and whittled it down, whittled it down, whittled it down. Can you help someone that's in this scenario trying to bring their pricing up, justify it in one of these markets?

Laci Davis (37:51)
Absolutely. So when we got a pool guy, which it sounds crazy being in the pool industry, but with us being a rep firm, we traveled around the road constantly. I needed a pool guy. Well, we got his pricing and Johnny looked at him and said, you're too low, but it's Florida, right? Florida is a race to the bottom on everything. Well, he's like, I can't justify raising my costs. we told him, we sat him down and we said, if you raise your costs,

Just a little. How many customers that you've had are you actually going to lose? You're probably going to lose the ones that's already a pain in the butt as it was. And because of the increase that you're doing, even if you lose those people, you're still making the same amount of money now than if you charged less and kept your full lineup. So charge a little bit more, be willing to lose the ones that are going to be like,

I can't understand why you raise pricing. Not to mention everything in the whole world's pricing is raising. Your customers are already used to it. They understand inflation. They understand they're coming off COVID. They understand all these different things. Pricing, when you go to the grocery store, your prices are higher than they used to be. When you go to anywhere, pricing has gone up and you have to raise your prices to match that. Inflation is happening. It costs you more for your products than it did two years ago.

You have to raise your pricing to come out the same. You have to raise your pricing to start making money. And your customers understand that. You're not going to lose them. They're already used to seeing it across. You raise it a little bit this year, maybe a year from now. You raise it a little bit more. It's inflation.

Rudy (39:25)
And then the customer is also used to the fact that the price is going to go up. Instead of spending five years without a price increase and all of a sudden, what the heck is this?

Laci Davis (39:30)
Yes, they don't hire anybody like this. Exactly. Right. They're already dealing with it. Nobody's going to hire you and expect your prices to be the same 10 years later. But how many of you have changed your prices in the last five to 10 years?

Rudy (39:45)
So if there's somebody listening, a pool service professional listening right now, and they're in that spot, they're in an area where the market has been whittled down, they can't really get what they feel they deserve. They want to, but they just don't feel that they can.

Can you help people in that area as well?

Laci Davis (40:07)
We can do market analysis for sure and things like that. mean, it's not, but this is something that you can do basically on your own as well because you know who your competitors are. Even if you don't, you know the city you're in, right? Look up your city, look up the average price for pool service. Where do you fall in? Survey, it's called benchmarking is when you look at your competitors and see where you fall in comparison.

is very easy to do what with Google these days, but it's very easy to do even with chat GBT. You know, put in your neighborhood, put in what you're doing, put in the services you provide and say, what's the average cost for these kind of services? Now,

Instead of thinking about your price from that aspect, what value do you add? How do you stand out from your competition? What do you do that maybe they don't? Do you offer a lighting upgrade service package? Like, hey, yeah, I can clean your pool. I can get your pump working. I can do these different things. But I can also give you this PAL lighting brochure that tells you how you can update your entire backyard experience without having to renovate.

just based on your backyard lighting. Like, what are you adding to your portfolio that makes you a better option for that end user than your competitor?

Rudy (41:24)
How do I know as a manufacturer, of the reps is not talking about my product when they go see customers? Aside from stagnation in sales or even a drop in sales, what would I look for?

Laci Davis (41:26)
Hello.

let's take Manny Sanchez, my rep out west. He probably has the lowest line card. think he has seven lines that he talks about. He has really good relationships with people, so he may be getting to talk about all seven lines on most of his calls.

But more often than not, he's probably getting to choose two, three, four lines at a time to really dive deep into. And the rest of them are like, by the way, we also have this. Is that an interest for you, right? So it's about finding that right customer for that right product. We don't want to push products on everybody because that's not a good fit. Nobody comes out a winner from that. So if you were a manufacturer and you're like, well, I don't think my reps are talking about me, you also have to take into account

What time of year is it and what's your product line? Because we hear this a lot. Are your reps talking about us? Well, you're a new construction or you're building material or something. What time of year is it? Does it make sense to be talking about your product right now? Is this a completely new product that has never been seen before, a pioneering line, but yet it's June and everybody is busy with their...

with their track record and they're building their pools and doing all these fun things, they're not gonna listen about adding something on this time of year. So it's not so much how do I tell if I'm talking about my product, it's are you sure that they should be right now? And that sounds like a weird thing because it's not always time to talk about your product. So we have a couple different lines that they get into the door.

Rudy (43:01)
That's great answer.

Laci Davis (43:04)
Right? So maybe somebody will talk to us because we rep pal lighting and they want to know more about pal. But because we get that now we get to talk about these other products that that customer wouldn't have let us in the door for. Right. So we have to have those initial here's what you called me about that get us in the door and then maybe the smaller manufacturer that's like how come I'm not getting talked about as much as the big guys you're going to get talked about.

But it has to be that right customer. It has to be quality. We could talk about you at every single possible chance that we get. But if that customer doesn't have a need for your product, then we're just being a nuisance and we're just being annoying versus saying,

Hey customer, I'm going to make a great relationship with you. I'm going to solve your problems that you have today and build this relationship. And that way, when you know you can trust me and I've helped you and I've grown your business, then you're going to turn around and say, Hey Lacey, what else do you got? What else could help my homeowner? What else can do this? I'm so glad you asked. Here's some great options for you. And you know, not everything on my line card is going to be needed for that customer, right? If I have Sunbelt hot tubs, but

you don't have space in your retail store to have a whole line of hot tubs, we're probably not going to spend a lot of time talking about that. But, you know, when we present our line cards, we put everybody on there. We don't exclude anybody. And that's something that's a little different from other rep firms too. Every single one of our lines is on our line card. We leave that with that customer. Maybe we didn't get a chance to talk about your product this time, but that customer has that. And when they have that need, they know exactly who to call.

Rudy (44:38)
What so far has been the most rewarding part for Lacey of this journey that you're on?

Laci Davis (44:46)
My team, my team, 100%. I I'm like, I don't know, but it's my team. Being able to see how just this little dream of mine and Johnny's has affected other human beings and their families depend on us and the relationships that we've gotten to.

Rudy (44:54)
you

Laci Davis (45:09)
get with these people who have been in the industry for so long and have these amazing, incredible backgrounds. And they're calling us saying, can you help me with this? you know, we survey them. We were in a rep for magazine not too long ago. And I sent out the to the team and I said, hey, guys, if you want to they want to know about our interviewing process and hey, we're new.

Rudy (45:36)
Is there anything that we didn't touch base on that you want to leave the folks with today?

Laci Davis (45:41)
Yeah, I'd say if nothing else, understand the value and the benefits that you have working with your manufacturer reps. So I would encourage anybody listening today, no matter what area you're in, learn what reps are in your area, learn what reps are in your region and your territory. Contact every single one of them.

every single one of them. There's so many pool professionals. We can't see everybody, right? We there's especially in Florida, you throw a stone and they're everywhere. But you can always reach out to your rep and you can say, Hey, I would just want to know what's your line card, because I promise you, they will add value to your business. You never know what's going on with these different with these different manufacturers, these different product links, for example, how lighting it's it's compatible with all automation.

So if you have problems with hair wordlets, have a problem with Janie, you have a problem with whatever, they have a solution and it already works with your automation, every automation. Can that help you? Maybe, maybe not. But you will learn so much more about the different manufacturers in the industry and it's all geared towards how does that help you and what you're at.

adding to your homeowner, what kind of value can you add to your homeowner? It's a way for you to educate yourself on what options you have. know, nobody the same age as a pushy use car salesman, right? They're all there to how can I solve a problem for you? So if you contact your reps and you say, tell me about your lines, tell me everything there is to know, you just made a best friend, right? Because they're so used to saying, I don't have time, I don't have time.

call me later, the decision maker's not here, right? So if you called them, you said, come tell me about your stuff. One, you just need to be a buddy. Two, you're gonna know about the best possible deals on their lines, because they have them. They know how to get you the best deals through either your distributor or direct, depending on the product line, right? They can tell you, hey, go into SCP, use this coupon code, go into Heritage, use this code. They have that for you, so why wouldn't you use that resource, right?

Rudy (47:52)
So Lacey Davis, president of the Grit Game, manufacturer rep, marketing firm. How do people get a hold of you?

Laci Davis (48:01)
I am obviously on all social medias. Me and a coordinator manage all of our socials. That's one way. I'm also at lacy at thegreatgame .com. Very easy. It's not hard to find me if somebody's trying to look.

Rudy (48:15)
All right, everybody. Thank you, Lacey, for being on with us. We really appreciate it.

Laci Davis (48:20)
Thanks, Rudy.

Rudy (48:21)
Everybody else, thank you for tuning in. appreciate you too. Without you, this doesn't exist. So please let me know your thoughts. Talkingpools at gmail .com. Leave us a review. Say nice things about us. Share us with a friend. Until next time, be good, be safe.