Every January, Pool Scouts hosts a convention where the corporate team and franchisees come together to reflect on the past year and set goals for the year ahead. It’s also a great time for franchisees to share ideas with each other, and to get re-energized for the coming year. It’s a huge part of our culture that we pride ourselves on, and with COVID-19 impacting things this year, our convention was virtual for the second year in a row.
OUR CONVENTION THEME: CATCHING WAVES
We named the 2021 Pool Scouts Convention, Virtually Unstoppable, as Pool Scouts was able to thrive during the pandemic just like the pool service industry as a whole. While choosing the theme for the 2022 Pool Scouts Convention, we wanted to continue the momentum and tremendous growth that was established in 2021, resulting in the name Catching Waves.
While there are always endless hours of planning to ensure the convention runs smoothly, our second virtual convention had its own unique set of challenges. Some of those challenges included switching from an in-person convention to a virtual convention in less than 7 days with the sudden influx of COVID cases, making sure that from a technology standpoint everything functioned correctly, and also ensuring the content was engaging and interactive enough for franchisees to learn and stay connected throughout the different sessions. During the course of this two-day event, exciting and dynamic sessions were planned that kept everyone fully engaged.
NOTE-WORTHY SESSIONS
The State of Pool Scouts 2022
To kick things off, Bridget Rawls, Director of Digital Marketing at Buzz Franchise Brands, opened the floor with the Catching Waves Convention Playlist and some short introductions and fun facts to get to know each other. Next Pool Scouts president Michael Wagner welcomed the group, which had many new faces with all of the new franchisees added to the family in 2022. Michael went through the Pool Scouts 2021 year in review, and our Strategy For Winning in 2022 which lays out the goals we want to achieve over the course of this year.
Marketing That Counts
Lynlea Rudell, Pool Scouts Director of Marketing, and Chip Hall, Direct Mail Program Manager, took a deep dive into the layered approach the Pool Scouts marketing program. Lynlea and Chip dove into the numbers and looked at the system-wide results in terms of value per customer, cost per acquisition, and ROI. This session reiterated the importance of the marketing investment.
Building Culture
During the Building Culture session, franchisees and corporate team members used Zoom’s Break-Out Rooms feature to split up into smaller groups to discuss various aspects of culture within their businesses. Some of those topics included communication, employee motivation, trust building, and problem solving. While discussing within the Break-Out Rooms, each team assigned a Team Leader to take their discussion points and ideas back to the full group. This session gave franchisees the opportunity to see what others were doing with their teams, brainstorm with each other, and get ideas to bring back to their own teams.
The second virtual convention went off without a hitch. People shared ideas and inspiration throughout the course of the sessions and stayed highly engaged. We were even able to maintain margarita happy hours and a little dancing. Our new franchisees were able to get to know everyone better, and take great ideas back to their business to put in place. While we are thrilled with the turnout of our 2022 Catching Waves Convention, we hope to be back in Cancun next year!
