Kelly Hare began helping out her husband, Tim Hickey, when he started a stamp-concrete business. As that business grew, he began building pools. And as he built more pools, more customers began asking about hot tubs. “We started selling Rotospa from our home,” Hare says. “And then it grew from that to taking on Arctic Spa and opening a store.”
The store is only two years old, but referrals are already its No. 1 source of leads.
“We have spent a fair chunk of change on advertising, but I don’t really find any one works better than another,” Hare says. “But the one that works the best for us is word of mouth. Then they know what to expect when they come in the door, and they’re here because they want to be here — because someone sent them. Then the relationship with them is much better right from the beginning.”
Hare says that the relationships they build with their customers is likely the reason its customers tell everybody to come there, “as opposed to the place up the street.”
“We really try to get to know our customers,” Hare says. “I know their dogs’ names, their kids’ names, what kind of hot tub they have, how often they use it and how much they like it.”
As the company grows, Hare hopes to keep things simple so they can continue to provide that one-on-one attention.
“We like having few employees and one crew to send out to put pools in,” she says. “We like to have control of every crew and have my husband on each job; that’s something we’ll probably always do.”