By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why can a pool build quote look fine and still lose money?
Most pool builders quote a build as one job, but it is really several jobs stitched together: excavation, the shell in concrete or fibreglass, pool fencing to meet compliance, equipment such as the pump, filter, chlorinator and heating, then council approval and the warranty sitting over the top. Each line can look priced right on its own, and the business can still end up short at the bank once the job is finished.
A pool builder who marks up a pump or chlorinator thinking that mark up is the margin is not getting that margin once the real cost of supply, freight and fitting is worked through. Labour-heavy trenching and fencing work carries one cost structure, equipment supply carries another, and high margin shell work carries a third. When a quote is built by habit rather than by what each line truly costs once labour, plant hire and callbacks are counted, it can look complete on the page and still leave the bank account short by the time the warranty work on that job comes around.
Why does generic business coaching not fit a pool installation and service business?
Most business coaching is built to suit any trade, and a pool builder's business does not run like any other trade. The build side carries excavation, a concrete or fibreglass shell, pool fencing compliance and council approval, all one-off and project priced. The service side runs on a maintenance round, with chemicals, water testing, pump and filter callouts, and resurfacing or renovation work that comes and goes with the pool's age rather than the calendar.
A coach who hands a pool builder the same pricing worksheet used for a painter or a landscaper is giving advice that was never built from this trade's numbers. It rarely survives the first quote, because it was never meant to account for a council approval delay sitting next to a servicing round in full swing.
What should a pool builder look for in a business coach?
Look for a coach who has run a trade business themselves, who starts from your own quotes, job costs and bank balance rather than asking you to explain the business from memory, and who fixes the root of a margin problem with a system rather than a worksheet filled in once and forgotten.
Greg Allan, who built his own trade business before coaching tradies, works this way: the coaching begins with what your own data shows about how your build and service work actually blend into one margin, not with a generic pricing formula. A coach worth paying for should be able to point at your own numbers and show you where a pool build quote stops matching the bank balance, not simply tell you to raise prices across the board.
What questions should you ask before signing with a coach?
Ask how they would use your own job and finance data from the first conversation, not after a long getting-to-know-you period. Ask whether they can explain, in your own trade's terms, why a fibreglass pool build can carry a healthy margin on paper while the business is still short of cash once council approval delays, retention and warranty callbacks are counted.
Be wary of a coach who leads with a sales pitch before asking about your business, who has never run a trade business, or whose advice would read the same for a plumber, an electrician or a landscaper. If every answer is hire someone, regardless of what your own numbers show, that advice was built for anyone and not for your pool business.
Could AI agents take over some of the office work a coach would normally flag?
Yes, and it changes what the coaching time gets spent on. An AI agent is software that does a job the way you would do it yourself, with your prices, your wording and your rules, so it can check a quote against true cost, chase a supplier invoice, or flag a service job priced below what peak season demands, without you doing that work by hand.
Data first coaching puts AI agents to work on exactly the admin that used to eat into a pool builder's evening: reconciling a maintenance round against actual chemical and part costs, or matching a renovation quote against the labour it really took.
Picture a pool builder whose service calendar fills every spring with pump, filter and chlorinator callouts as customers get their pool ready for the season, and whose crew ends up rushing from one job to the next with margins on that work not reflecting the demand. Once the business could see, job by job, what peak season servicing actually cost against what it charged, it set a separate peak season rate for service work, explained the difference to customers over the phone as a reason to book outside the rush, and stopped taking low margin supply-only jobs, fitting and warrantying only the equipment it installed itself.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching looks at a pool builder's own numbers first: how the quote for excavation, shell work, pool fencing and equipment supply actually blends into one margin once a job is finished, warrantied and invoiced, rather than how any single line is priced in isolation. Working through the Trade Business Intelligence, built from ten years of coaching trade businesses and powered by every member, Greg Allan starts from where the data shows a pool build or service round is really losing ground, not from a general pricing rule.
The how of fixing it, line by line and job by job, is worked through inside the Academy with members who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn, because the Trade Business Intelligence gets smarter for everyone the more owners put into it.
