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If you met Tom Walsh, you might assume he’s spent a lifetime in the pool service industry. He has the kind of no-nonsense, unflappable approach to his work that often comes from decades in the field and is known among his employees for repeating, “It’s just pools,” as a mantra any time someone seems stressed out.
But in fact, less than a decade ago, Tom’s professional life looked much different than it does today. Back then, he was working in a “stressed-out corporate environment” as the Vice President of a consulting firm that specialized in technical documentation. By 2018, he’d had enough. Burnt out and sick of working in an office job, he quit. And when he did, he also decided to leave the industry.
While Tom was happy to be done with the corporate chapter of his life, he also wondered what was next. All he knew for sure was that he needed a radical change. “I kept looking at different things, and I kept stumbling across pools, and it kept looking too easy,” he says.
Still, Tom kept returning to the idea of going into pool service until finally deciding that maybe “too easy” wasn’t so bad. He bought a pool route with 72 pools, and Integrity Pool Service was born.
Easing into pool service software
In the early days of Integrity Pool Service, things were pretty easy. Believing in simplicity above all else, Tom chose a company name that accurately represented his service philosophy: show up on time and do good work.
“It was just me, with my brother-in-law helping me out part-time,” says Tom. Compared to the previous 20 years, his new daily schedule was satisfyingly predictable. “I had index cards in the truck, and each day had a paperclip around it. I had my 20-25 pools for the day. I wrote down what I did, and my customers knew I was there every week. As long as their pools were blue and clear, everything was fine.”
It didn’t take long for Tom to become known as the kind of pool service professional that “you could set your watch to.“ And as a self-described creature of habit, he was thriving. In fact, when he started looking for pool service software, it wasn’t because any part of his work felt unmanageable.
As Tom describes it, “The reason I ended up taking the leap was to more accurately track what I was putting into the pools and how much it was costing me.” With precise insights into his chemical consumption over time, he’d be able to adjust his pricing accordingly. And so he set his sights on finding a tool that would let him continue to do his best work—and charge for it accordingly.
Finding a top-tier tool with Skimmer
Tom’s search didn’t last long. Taking the same straightforward approach he always does, he wasn’t willing to weigh the pros and cons of a handful of competitors. “I’ve always believed in getting top-of-the-line products,” he says. As far as he was concerned, he just needed to find out what the best tool was so he could purchase it.
After talking to a few other pool service professionals about which software they used, a clear winner emerged: “Skimmer was the name in the business,” says Tom. “I knew it was the best, so it was the only one I looked at.”
From there, getting started with Skimmer was easy. “I’m very comfortable on computers, so I could easily export all my contacts from QuickBooks, and I was on my way,” Tom says. And while he’d always been confident in his decision, once he started using Skimmer for his daily tasks, he knew he’d never look back.
In a matter of weeks, Tom was using Skimmer for much more than just capturing his chemical costs. “Having the GPS pop up was great. I really started seeing the value of it quickly,” he says. “I’ve always been very efficiency-driven in planning up my routes—I either set them up to be tight or circular—and being able to visualize it on a map helped me out in that respect.”
But it wasn’t until Integrity Pool Service entered a new growth phase as a company that Tom realized just how much Skimmer could help him level up Integrity Pool Service’s operations. “Once I started to hire people, it was a no-brainer,” he says.
“Grow or die”
Until 2022, Integrity Pool Service remained a one-man operation (with some part-time help). But eventually, Tom realized those days were numbered.
With just over 100 regular customers, Tom knew he’d reached a tipping point. He wouldn’t be able to take on any more work without compromising the reputation he’d been building for four years. “I finally got to a point where I needed to grow or die,” says Tom. “I chose to grow.”
Tom knew exactly the kind of employees he wanted to hire. He wanted to find dependable, consistent technicians who would follow his lead, show up on time, and do a great job. “Too many people in this business don’t do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it,” he says.
With a clear vision in mind, Tom hired his first full-time employee. Not long after, he hired another. And while it was great to have more help, Tom was soon reminded that delegating work is always different than doing it yourself.
“It took an adjustment,” he says, “Because in the beginning, I would look at Skimmer constantly to see what was going on.” Having always been the kind of person who’s at his first pool when the sun rises, Tom felt the urge to meddle with employees who weren’t doing the same.
But he soon realized that while he could technically use Skimmer to track his employees’ every move, that wouldn’t be the best use of anyone’s time. After all, he could also see that his employees were completing their tasks and that they were doing them well. “I realized that as long as my guys were getting the job done and people weren’t complaining, it was enough,” says Tom.
In other words, as Tom would say, it was just pools.
Uncovering efficiencies every day
With Skimmer’s help, Tom has successfully transformed Integrity Pool Service into a well-oiled machine that still lives up to its name.
Today, Tom doesn’t worry about what his employees are doing, but he does step in to help when they need it. “I can look at Skimmer and see if people are struggling, then tag other people in to go help out,” he says. And because he’s an early bird, he admits that “Sometimes that person is me. I can take five or 10 pools off the end of someone’s day, especially if there’s bad weather coming.”
But overall, Tom’s role within Integrity Pool Service’s fieldwork is more relaxed—and less involved— than ever. He uses the route feature to plan his employees’ workflows, but aside from that, he spends a lot more time on the business’s back end.
Part of that work has been implementing customer reports, something Tom was admittedly reluctant to try at first. For a while, he says, “I thought reports would invite more questions and, therefore, more issues with customers.” But after acquiring a route from someone who was sending reports through a Skimmer competitor, he realized those customers expected it and turned on the feature.
Once he implemented reports, he saw that they actually had the opposite effect of what he’d expected. Because his customers were getting a full summary of what was done, they rarely followed up with questions. “Every once in a while, a customer will call and say they didn’t see a certain employee. Being able to send a report is great because you have proof of work done,” says Tom. “I can say, ‘He was here at this time, this is what he put in your pool, and this is what your readings were.’”
Tom has even realized that he can use reports as a sales tool. “I see much more value in it now,” he says. “If we see that a customer needs a filter, we’ll put “Needs a filter” on the report, and they’ll say, ‘Go ahead, how much?’”
Overall, Tom has been pleasantly surprised by how much more efficient Skimmer makes his team. It allows them to perform at their best, with or without him.
Building a foundation for the future
In 2024, Integrity Pool Service reached an all-time high of 400 weekly service customers. Tom also hired his third full-time employee. Before purchasing Skimmer, this scenario would have been nearly unmanageable. But today, he’s back to running his business in the same worry-free way he did back when Integrity Pool Service was an operation of one.
When thinking about his goals for the business, Tom is as straightforward and realistic as ever. “We’ll get to 500 pools next year and then maybe 1,000 pools after that.” But having recently hired a route manager, Tom is happy to say that soon, he’ll no longer be “doing pools” full-time. Instead, he’ll be settling into a more behind-the-scenes role, where he’ll be growing the routes, training new people, running the back end, and focusing on the repair side of the business.
Plus, Tom has another new chapter in life to start planning for: retirement. “My plan is to build the business big enough to sell it and retire,” he says. “I know what those numbers are, where I want the business to be, and when I want it to be there.” For Tom, that looks like “going full boar for the next five years or so” and then winding things down.
Ultimately, Tom is most excited to know that he has the right foundation in place to bring the business to where it needs to be, then step away knowing it will continue to succeed. There’s no use worrying about more than that. It’s just pools.
