$1.8M to $12M: Contractor Marketing Insights with Bo Kort

Audio Transcription

Mark Lamberth
Hello, and thanks for coming to another episode of The Contractor Grow Show. My name is Mark, I’m your host, and today I have Bo Court from Aquatic Pools and Landscape, Bullhead City, that these guys may be the funnest guests that we’ve had on the podcast so far. Done a ton of research. These guys are got a great company. Bo thank you for being with us today.

Bo Kort
Yeah, appreciate you having me.

Mark Lamberth
Fantastic. So, man, maybe before we jump into all the, the fun stuff and the, the cool like team and marketing and the strategy and different things you guys are doing which is is vast. Maybe just tell us a little bit about the history of the business, kinda how long you guys been around and what you guys are up to these days.

Bo Kort
Yeah, honestly, I’ve been a serial entrepreneur ever since I was a kid. Never in contracting or anything like that. I had a bread company bread distribution company, which I still own today. And then got into contracting. And when I was 30 years old, I’m 52 today, so about 22 years ago my brother-in-law had hit me up and wanted to build a fiberglass pool in his backyard. So I helped him out with it. Ended up going into partnership with him 20 some years ago. And bought him out probably about 10 years ago and scaled the company from doing about 1.8 a year to last year. I think we did 12 million. We do a little different from a lot of markets. Started with fiberglass pools and then evolved into doing Shock Creek pools along with fiberglass, landscaping, outdoor kitchens, anything to do with the backyard.

I went through oh eight and then we were just scrambling to do anything and everything we could to try and bring revenue into the company, which was a bad thing at the time. Anybody that went through the oh eight crunch as a contractor or an investor or anything. But but actually a good thing at the same time, good things come from bad times, right? I mean, Uhhuh <affirmative> separates mice from men, and so we figured it out. We did everything from garage floor epoxies to we do anything we’ll paint your house if you wanted to, but anyways, got through those times and started scaling from there. Did a lot of big custom projects. We built ’em for casinos large lavish backyards. We’ll do driveways. We do concrete, we do anything and everything, and we build everything in-house. 90% of our staff or of of our construction crews or in-house, we do sub out certain aspects of the business, but we we’re big on culture. We’ve got a lot of big people that have been, they’re like family to us, and we’re big on culture and that really attribute our success to good people.

Mark Lamberth
That’s incredible, man. So you guys are doing $12 million. I mean, we took a look, you got a big team. What’s the size of your team right now?

Bo Kort
We’re about 53, 55, somewhere around there on any given day. And those are all full-time employees. And then come the summer months, we’ll probably pick up another 10 or 12 people.

Mark Lamberth
Okay. Amazing. And then, I mean, what has been kind of the growth path? I mean, has it been steady? Have you guys had like a big surge of growth growth here the last few years? We had Covid and stuff. I mean, what’s it been like the last five years or so, kind of steady growth or has it been, you know, kind of really scaling?

Bo Kort
I always think Covid Covid blew up. I mean, we, we were all scared to death. I think any business owner was scared to death whenever Covid first hurt to wonder, you know, are we gonna get shut down? How was it gonna work out? Our, we just hockey sticks. I mean, it just took off. We couldn’t increase prices fast enough. Employees had other opportunities to make more money than come work for me on an hourly basis. So it’s, that’s where culturally plays in and keeping people focused on, Hey, this, this is, this is today, but where’s it gonna be at in one year or in two years from now? So I had a lot of very loyal employees that stuck around, worked through the hard times. I didn’t make as much money as what we should have during Covid, but you know, we didn’t hit the margins that we should because everything was just, it was just crazy going through those times that we couldn’t raise our prices fast enough, took us a lot longer to build a pool than what it had in the past.

But I would say for the most part we’ve been very steady in the industry and, and a lot of times people complain about, well, this is going on, you know, on the political agenda, or they wanna blame it on interest rates, or we just, we just take the approach that every day is a Super Bowl. You just get out there and bust your ass and we’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna push for more sales, and if we need more revenue, we’ll go find more revenue. My thing is, I, I like to find good people and then satisfy enough revenue to come to the company to keep everybody busy, and then the profits will come at the end.

Mark Lamberth
Oh, man, I love it. So, yeah, so I mean, COVID, you know, shut down, you know, certain businesses, you know, really suffered, you know, a business like pool installation thing. I mean, you guys I mean, you guys are outdoors and people wanted to entertain at home and stuff, so I mean, was that why things grew so well? Was it kind of a niche thing or, I mean, it sounds like you guys take care of your team really well. I mean, what would you, what would you attribute the kind of hockey shirt stick growth that you guys had during Covid?

Bo Kort
Well honestly, I think doing the right thing for a long period of time, we were prepared for it. I mean, as much as we could be. I feel that we are in a niche market, so a little bit’s luck. We live in the tri-state area, so we’re in Arizona, it’s just on the outskirts of, of California, Nevada where, where they all meet. And so we had an influx of people that, you know, maybe they wanted to retire and get out of outta California, and they were planning on retiring in the next three to five years. Well, COVID kind of forced them into retirement, and so they pushed into our area. So we were able to we were able to maximize, you know, the opportunity of, of taking a lot of retired people coming from the California market to come over to our area.

So that helped out quite a bit. But we’re, we’re, we are prepared for it. I mean, we’re always talking about trying to grow the company. I mean, we’re in a small community, so to do 12 million in our community, we’re probably one of the, the largest construction companies in the area. And we do a vast array of things. You know, we, we do everything from outdoor kitchens to fireplaces, to fire pits, to, to landscaping, to any type of pool from a little cookie cutter pool to the most custom pool you’ve ever seen. Will do.

Mark Lamberth
I see. Okay. I mean, I saw you guys have got number one pool building company in the tri-state area. Yeah. I mean, you, you are in a small community there. I mean, what’s it been like getting that award and you know, what, what’s kind of been the process of that, of, of kind of winning that, you know, that kind of status for that title?

Bo Kort
Honestly, the, the biggest reward is, is is sharing it with your team. You know, keeping the camaraderie up, letting, I mean, everybody thinks that the assumption is that it’s all money, it’s all, you know, getting out there and making money and, and but, but you gotta be happy. You gotta be, you gotta, you gotta provide goals for people. I mean, it’s not just wash, rinse, repeat. I mean, it, it’s not that you can pay somebody whatever you know, a huge sum of money and they’ll, they’ll dig a ditch, build a ditch every day. You’ve gotta have a means to an end. You gotta have a scoreboard up there. Not just my scoreboard being the bank account, but it’s the scoreboard of, of the reward of everything. I, I like I said, I’m big on culture. I throw a nice big Christmas party for all my staff and their family and their kids every year.

We just, we provide an unbelievable experience, a work environment experience for our employees. And from a customer standpoint, we provide the most unbelievable pool buying experience. We are, we are not allowed to sign a contract with somebody unless we take them out and take them around the backyards to go take a look at a backyard so they can touch it, feel it, smell it, see everything, and understand exactly what they’re getting. We don’t want any misunderstanding. Yeah. I mean, you’re not gonna buy a car without test driving it, right? So why would you buy a pool without one out looking at one? I

Mark Lamberth
Love it. Yeah. So I noticed, man, that you, you guys do some kind of extracurricular stuff. I mean, it looks like, you know, you personally looks like you guys are big in a CrossFit yeah. Looks like you, you guys, you know, do some traveling stuff. We saw some photos from Greece, right, with you and Yeah, maybe some, you know, other, other folks, family or some other friends. I mean, when you’re running a team that size and you’ve got a really successful business, and I mean, sometimes, you know, contractors we talk to, I mean, they can just be, spend all of their time in the business and it’s easy just to be, you know, knocking out, you know, 12, 16 hour days. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of those. Yeah. But I mean, how do you balance kind of your family and especially, I mean, I’m actually really curious about fitness, because that’s something that sometimes really suffers and, you know, people struggle with. I mean, how do you kind of prioritize things that aren’t just the business when you’ve got, you know, so much going on in the business?

Bo Kort
Yeah, honestly, you gotta prioritize it, but I hold myself accountable and then I bring staff members on to hold myself accountable and hold them accountable at the same time. And then once you make that commitment, I think that’s a big thing in business, whether, you know, every business to me is a lemonade stand. You know, it comes back to customer service and taking care of your people. Do what you say you’re gonna do. And so if I’m showing up at my office every day, and I, I have expectations of everybody, I can never let them down. I can never let them see me on point. You know, I my business partner in some other real estate investment, he goes, he goes, I look at Jay Leno whenever I was a young man and watched him every night and every night he performed.

And you can imagine everybody has tough times in their life, right? Maybe they were in a fight with their wife, they had a death in their family, their dog got ran over, they have a sick kid. But every night, you never let anybody know. You just go out there and you perform. And I look at myself going to work every day. I gotta be that same Jay Leno mentality, man. I gotta perform. I’m on stage. And so I never wanna let my people see me ever be off. I’ve always gotta be on. And so I think just holding yourself accountable at the same time, when you’re a young business guy, when you make money you got that assumption, like you don’t want to share or show anybody that you’re making anything, or you’ve had some successes, because then they’re just gonna, what, they’re gonna want a pay increase.

They’re gonna want to feel like they want more money. I got past that when I was 30 years old. It was like, if you want more money, become more valuable to me. I mean, that’s the way it is in my company. If you wanna make more money, then you gotta make it to where the company cannot live without you. So bring the value. And so I’ll show you, I mean, I got to the point where I, I wanna post my bank account right up on the wall. Anybody wants to see what I got going on? There it is. I got nothing to hide. You wanna see what the other guy next to you makes Right there it is on the wall. There’s no secrets in life. Uhhuh, if you want more, you wanna get more of what he’s making, become more valuable. That guy’s the most highest paid employee.

’cause He, he’s the most valuable asset to this company. And so I think when you just kind of show people up your skirt, this is, it is what it is. I kind of set you free. And it, and, and I got nothing to hide. I, I, my guy’s got me on a tracker. I got them on trackers. They know where I’m at at all times. I know where they’re at at all times because I got nothing to hide in life. Bring it on, man. I was in Greece for two weeks. Yeah. I didn’t pay for it this week. I paid for it 30 years ago when I got my ass out of bed every morning at four o’clock and went and delivered the bread right there. I’ll show you the path. Everybody wants. Everyone wants to be where it’s at. And no one wants to, to necessarily take that path. And I’m not expecting everybody to, but if you, if you do, I’ll show you the way. And I got a lot of killers that work for me. And guess what? I’m still working today. Not because I’m trying to make more money. I wanna make them more value. I want, I wanna see them earn the wealth that I’ve been fortunate to earn in the business.

Mark Lamberth
Man, I love it.

Bo Kort
Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
That is awesome. So you guys got a ton of great reviews, man. Got a lot of Facebook reviews, a lot of, you know, positive Google reviews. You know, we saw some reviews actually, of some folks just really like, just really talking you guys up. Like, I mean, these guys have done an amazing job. I think someone posted like a, a like a, a note or a letter that they had written to you, right? Yeah. Just telling what a great job you and the, and the team has done. I’m just curious, like for reviews and stuff, I mean, to build up a, a great review portfolio. I mean, this is just kind of a tactical question because, you know, we talk with contractors who have been around for a long time and they just haven’t ever gotten around to, to sort of getting reviews and getting reviewed out there.

I mean, you guys have any kind of process of, you know, going back to folks and saying, Hey if we did a good job, would you be willing to since review? Or is this all just, you know, over time these have just kind of poured in and you guys have been at it for a long time. I mean, do you have a process of, of kind of getting reviews, whether they’re positive or negative, and going back and asking people, Hey, listen, would you give us sounds, reviewers? Just what people have been doing that you guys have been, you know, building?

Bo Kort
So, so whether it’s reviews or anything you’re doing in your company, if you really want it to happen, you can make it happen. But you have to, you can never let off the throttle. You can never have one meeting and talk about asking for reviews. And the reason I know it is, ’cause I was subject to it, I was the guy that would say, Hey, we need to get reviews. Everybody asked everyone to give reviews. And then if you leave the meeting and you expect everyone’s gonna go do that, then well, they’ll do it for a short time. But it’s like eating with your left hand, it’s hard. And so you have to act like you’re getting up every morning and eating with your left hand. If you really wanna make a change of something, you have to stay consistent. You have to talk about it all the time.

And you gotta let ’em know that it’s a standard every day you have to do that. So I went 15 years going, damn, these guys won’t get reviews. They won’t get reviews, I’ll get reviews, I’ll talk about it, and then they won’t get reviews. But you know what, I, I look back at myself. If they’re not getting reviews, it’s my fault if anything happens within my company, you gotta turn back and look at yourself. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Because people only do what you allow them to do to you. And so if it’s a staff member, if it’s a sales member that I ask them to get reviews and they’re not getting reviews, I don’t get mad at them. I’m allowing them not to get reviews. So we press hard. I mean, we have things that 15, you know, 10, 15 years as you get older, you just, the crystal ball of life and business and contracting that crystal ball should get clearer.

You should understand and, and, and understand how to maneuver in your business if it’s not getting clearer. It’s not that people around you that, I mean, you can blame it on them all day long, but it’s just an excuse. You gotta look back at yourself. You’re not crafting whatever you want the way that you want it to get the, the result that you, that you’re wanting. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And so if you’re not, you’ve always gotta look back at yourself. So reviews, it is hard to do, but you have to demand it of your people. And then if you’re not doing it, you, it’s never one meeting. You know what I mean? It, it, it’s one of those things, you gotta put it on the agenda for that repeated meeting that you have until it’s just, then they’re, then they’re doing it. Like, you know, like getting up and having breakfast, taking a shower every morning, you know, going to the gym, whatever it is that you do on a reoccurring every day without being asked to do it.

You can get anybody to do a review or anything like that, but you just have to set the standard that it has to happen. And I get it because I was on the other side where I would just complain that we’re not getting reviews like we should. And then, and then you’re gonna get some shitty ones too. You gotta deal with it, man. Sure. You gotta take it head on. You gotta call. Those are the people that’re all called all round. Everybody up in the room, everyone’s uncomfortable. What are we gotta bat review? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna combat it? I’ll tell you how we’re gonna combat it. Everybody get in the room together, let’s pick up the phone and let’s run at it full speed. And here’s the thing, you know, half of ’em are valid. Some of ’em are just a crazy customer that we all get those, and you gotta deal with it. But at the same time, if you run at it full speed and, and rip the bandaid off, you’ll handle it. And then you’ll, you’ll get 95% good reviews,

Mark Lamberth
You know? Oh, that’s

Bo Kort
Awesome. And people are gonna read through it.

Mark Lamberth
Awesome. So man, you’ve, you’ve been at this for a long time. You’ve got a successful company, right? By, you know, by, by any, any standard, right? You’ve got a lot of you know, team members that are really loyal. Let me ask you this, this is a question I haven’t really asked as much to, to, to, to, to podcast guests. ’cause You know, I I really appreciate the, the forthrightness. Why do you keep going? What keeps you motivated? Right? <laugh>? I mean, we can kind of imagine, you know, and we, we all got a sense of, you know, where, where things are at. You know, we can kind of infer things with, you know, the size of the business and whatnot. I mean, you’re doing some real estate investing, you know, you’ve got things figured out and sounds like you have for a long time financially, right? At some level, and that’s what I think some of our listeners are interested in, and I’m interested in as well, what keeps you motivated and keeps you wanting to get up every day and go you know, work with the team, deal with the stress, deal with the you know, long days dealing with the hassle, right? What keeps you you going, man, <laugh>?

Bo Kort
You know, hon, honestly, when I was a young guy in that, I think it started with my mom and dad. I never wanted to let him down. Just, you know, even, even like, whether it was in sports or in school or, or keeping my truck clean or my room clean, I just, I was, I never wanted to let my parents down. And then it just kind of evolved into, you know, you get married, you don’t wanna let your wife down, then you have kids. You don’t wanna let your kids down, and then you have employees and you don’t wanna let your employees down. I just never want to let anybody down. And and I’ve got a strong drive for money.

I mean, from the time I was, you know, a 12, 14-year-old kid riding around with my dad, I was like, how much money you make this your dad?
What are you doing with it? How much is Bob your best friend making? And what, what’s he doing with it? And I always had that entrepreneurial spirit and that I always put myself under the gun. I mean, I think a, a true entrepreneur puts himself in tough, awkward positions. And I think that I’ve always done that. I mean, aside from the pool company, I, I’m partners in 43 different companies. We have fabrication companies, motor sports, all kinds of different stuff. <Laugh>. And it’s like, what? And my wife’s like, what are you doing? Like, what? Oh

Mark Lamberth
My God.

Bo Kort
But, but we love it. It, it’s the chase all the time. I mean, we, we fly back and forth to Houston. A lot of our real estate investment and other companies and stuff are in the Houston market. But I’ve always just taken on more than you can chew. I mean, I, I’ve always tried and put 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag, man. And and I like doing it because I like, p people tell me, you can’t do that. That’s not gonna work. You can’t. And then I like to, I like to prove people wrong. Like, I’ll, I’ll show you. I’ll, I’ll put it together. I’ll, I’ll make it happen. And I’ve had failures too that, that didn’t play out. But to truly answer your question, I think, I think I just put myself in tough positions to always challenge myself. I like, like I, I, I bought a cold plunge.

Everyone was cold plunge. And I’d see Rogan’s talking about cold plunge and all these guys. So I bought a cold plunge in November of 23. I’ve never not got in my cold plunge in the morning when I’m home, if I’m on vacation, it gives me a break. This morning I was in a cold plunge for three minutes at 42 degrees. And every day that I’m home since, since I bought one, I’m gonna do it. But once I make a commitment to myself, I’m putting myself under the gun and I tell myself I’m gonna do something. Or I tell everybody else I’m gonna, I’m doing something. I don’t care who’s watching, I’m doing it. You know, I got a thing with with my employees that I give them a speech of. ’cause I played basketball all through junior high and high school and college.

And I, I give a speech about like touching the line. Everyone played sports at some point in time, or they’re in PE and they had to run suicides. And so when you’re running suicides and it’s a line full of guys, half the guys are touching the line, half the guys aren’t touching the line. The coach goes to take a piss while you guys are running suicides. They, they shortcut it or whatever. But I never didn’t touch the line, man. I always touched the line. Didn’t matter if the coach was watching. ’cause I knew I, I’m only letting myself down. And so I tell, you know, guys that work for me, I go, I’m not asking you to be the fastest to win the race. I’m just asking you to touch the line every day. And if you touch the line every day for a long period of time, good things will come.

And and I truly believe that, and it, and it’s happened in my life, man, my, my life just took off. I’ve, I’ve got a badass life. I can do whatever I want whenever I want. And the freedom that, that it’s allowed me by staying disciplined is I, I, I wish it for everybody. Not everybody wants it. And I get it, that it not everyone’s brain tweaks like mine does. But, but I, and sometimes I wish it didn’t. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to get in that cold punch every morning. But <laugh>, I said, I made a commitment to myself. So I’m doing it, you know?

Mark Lamberth
Oh man. Awesome. Amazing. So Remi, you have a few kids? One, one. How many kids you have?

Bo Kort
I got three kids. I got three kids and six grandkids. So it was I met my wife. It is funny. I got a kid that works for me and he was, he’s like pattern out his life. Okay, boss, I want, I want the money. I want a a wife, I want all these things, you know? Funny, he even told me I probably too much information. He’s like, I want a virgin. I’m a virgin. I wanna be a virgin. I’m gonna find me a, I go, dude, I, I respect whatever you got going on. Best luck. It’s 2025, dude. But <laugh>.

But I go, I wanted to find the perfect girl that had never been married and this, that I go, I met my wife at 22. She was 26, had two kids and had been divorced twice. Well, now we’ve been together 28 years. We had one more kid together. I adopted the first two. ’cause They were only four and seven today they’re 37, 32, and 25. They all got badass partners. I got six grandkids and my wife and my family and everything could not be more perfect. Everything has really worked out for me well, believe me, whenever my assumption was not to find a woman that had been married twice with two kids. So, but sometimes shit plays out. And it was the best thing ever happened to me. You know, we got mad appreciation for one another. I got good kids. They got good mates and, and amazing grandkids.

Mark Lamberth
That is awesome, man. What an amazing success story, dude.

Bo Kort
Yeah, been good.

Mark Lamberth
I love it. Well, all right. I mean, we could talk, we could talk for hours. <Laugh>, I know you got a lot going on here, man. Bo folks wanna get in touch if they want, you know, they’re looking for a pool or some outdoor landscaping work. In your area, what’s the best, you know, in, in Bullhead City, Arizona, kind of the tri-state area there in Nevada, California. What’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Bo Kort
Obviously reaching out by phone is, is always easy. It’s 9 2 8 7 0 4 7 6 6 5. Or if you DM us on Instagram it’s aquatic pools and landscape. But if you DM us on Instagram, we, we got a policy, if you call us or you DM us, we got five minutes to get back to you. So if you reach out to us and somebody didn’t get back to you in five minutes, I’d be really surprised. It’s, it’s our company policy. But, but we’re good about getting back to people and following through. So, like I said, 9 2 8 7 0 4 7 6 6 5 or dms on Instagram at aquatic pools and landscape.

Mark Lamberth
Amazing. And of course, the website is aquatic pools and landscape.com. Yes, sir. Fantastic. Well, Bo I mean, he got, he got a lot going on, man. I, I feel honored to, to get on your schedule here, for you to be here and teach our listeners some great stuff. You’ve shared some great information, shared some of the numbers, right? Not everybody’s willing to do that. Talked about the size of the team and actually the size revenue of the business, a lot of your kind of personal motivations, you know, your life history and the history of the business. So it’s been great. We’re gonna take notes here and you know, this episode will be out here in the next few days. Thank you for being here, man. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Bo Kort
Perfect. Yeah, no, definitely. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. It’s been good. Alright. Alright. My.