“It was very difficult to convince people in Saskatchewan to sit in a hot tub outdoors at -20 or -30 degrees; it wasn’t a thing they wanted to do,” says Mike Patterson, owner of Sunset Bay Hot Tubs in Regina, Saskatchewan, about his early years in hot tub sales. While initially they sold many indoor hot tubs, he says that now probably 99 percent of their new hot tubs are outdoors thanks in part, to what he describes as “our greatest form of advertising.”
“At the old store [they purchased their own building in 2003], we had a hot tub out in front of the store, which was probably our greatest form of advertising because we’d sit in there after work. It was right on one of the main thoroughfares in Regina, which isn’t the biggest city in the world, but the traffic count was about 35,000 vehicles a day. And then one of the local TV stations did their weather reports out of there on occasion.”
Patterson, a lifelong salesman, got into the hot tub business by answering a newspaper ad that led him to working at one of the four original Blue Falls Manufacturing stores in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Once he got started, he was having too much fun to stop, moving to take over ownership of the Regina store in 1998.
“Where else can you have people give you a check for $10,000 or $12,000 thanking you? We have a huge customer base now and you actually become friends with a lot of the customers. So, it’s a very gratifying business in that respect. There’s the bumps and bruises and it can be stressful at times, but generally it is a very enjoyable business.”
As one of the first hot tub stores to open up in Regina (it opened in 1994), Patterson has learned that the key to longevity for them is to provide excellent service and make follow-up a habit.
“Follow-up in any business is very important,” Patterson says. “We try and touch our customers, reach out and touch our customers, on a regular basis.”