2022 Fast & Serious Winners

#36 America’s Swimming Pool Company

Swimming pool maintenance & repair

The key to sustaining growth year after year at America’s Swimming Pool Company is never getting out over the skis—or diving board. “From day one of franchising, we’ve always made sure that our corporate office is not being outgrown by our franchisees. We have methodically hired the right corporate staff along the way, and we never sold more territories than we could support,” said co-founder and COO Stewart Vernon. That means capacity to bend with the market, not break. His team was able to spot supply chain issues with chlorine and doubled down on orders when a key industry supplier suffered a fire. Being ahead on digital tools was instrumental through 2020 as well. People wanted a nice pool, but not much face-to-face contact. “Our franchise owners liked the digital tools before the pandemic,” said Vernon. “But it’s one of those things that you don’t appreciate until you don’t have it or really need it. So, they grew to love it.” The acquisition by home services franchisor Authority Brands in 2018 has proved helpful in securing key franchise sales talent to lean into the spike in franchise interest. “That’s something that Authority Brands helped with. We didn’t have that talent search before and they led us to a great sales guy,” said Vernon. “You can’t sell franchises without a good sales team—we’ve been there. We have since sold the most locations than we ever have.” The brand grew units to 333 in 2020, up 25.7 percent from 2018.