A New Era at POOLCORP: John Watwood Focuses on Customers and the Fundamentals

For John Watwood, taking the helm of POOLCORP represents something of a full-circle moment.

More than two decades before becoming President and CEO of the world’s largest distributor of swimming pool supplies, equipment and related outdoor living products, Watwood was learning the business from the ground up as a young participant in POOLCORP’s Manager in Training program.

“Right out of college, POOLCORP was my first career move,” Watwood told Pool Magazine. “I came in as an MIT. I was young. Loved the industry.”

His career would eventually take him outside the pool industry and into the bearing, power transmission and fluid power sector, but Watwood continued following both POOLCORP and the industry he had left behind.

“I always kept up with it. I always kept up with POOLCORP and what they were doing and where they were going, because I just thought it was such a unique industry, and it just kind of fit who I really was.”

One piece of advice from his first stint with the company proved particularly prophetic.

“My boss at that time, a guy named Bill Adams, who’s still with us, he told me, ‘Once you’re in the pool industry, you never get out,’” Watwood recalled. “And I guess that ended up coming true after 20-plus years, and I found my way back.”

From Management Trainee to CEO

Watwood certainly wasn’t thinking about eventually running the company during those early days. Asked whether becoming CEO had ever crossed his mind while participating in the MIT program, his answer was immediate.

“No. At that point, I think I was just trying to make sure I got to work on time,” he said.

The experience nevertheless left a lasting impression. Watwood spent roughly 90 days working in the warehouse, learning products and becoming familiar with the nuts and bolts of the distribution business.

“There are still a lot of part numbers that stuck with me from that original stint to this very day that I can easily rattle off,” he said. “Somebody comes in, they’re asking for a two-inch 90 slip. Man, I know exactly what that is and where to go.”

Decades later, Watwood returned to a dramatically larger organization and an industry facing a very different set of circumstances.

He stepped into POOLCORP’s top leadership position following several difficult years for the pool industry. Elevated interest rates, reduced housing turnover and a slowdown in new pool construction have placed pressure on builders and the broader supply chain, while the large installed base of existing pools has made service, repair and renovation increasingly important areas of the market.

Watwood doesn’t minimize those headwinds.

“We’ve got some challenges here for sure in the industry, and we’ve got some things we’ve got get better at POOLCORP for sure,” he said. “But overall it’s been great.”

Rather than arriving with a sweeping transformation plan, Watwood said his first months have largely been spent listening.

“My focus is to listen more than I talk,” he said. “I spend a lot of time in the field with our teams, at our sales centers, on calls with customers.”

Those conversations have centered on understanding what POOLCORP already does well, but perhaps more importantly, identifying where customers encounter friction.

“There’s just nothing you can do to replicate being in front of a customer and just listening to what their pain points are and what they need from us,” Watwood said.

That connectivity, he said, won’t simply be part of an introductory listening tour.

“The organization just has to be super connected to the industry, to our customers, to our employees, so we’re really listening to what they need us to be and where we need to go.”

Moving Beyond the Supplier Relationship

For a company whose scale has long been one of its defining competitive advantages, Watwood sees operational execution as a strength POOLCORP needs to preserve.

“We’re really good at the hard stuff,” he said, “when it comes to the operations, the four walls, POOLCORP’s really good at that, and has been for many years.”

But being an effective distributor is only part of what Watwood believes customers will require from POOLCORP moving forward.

“Can we be a better partner to the industry and the businesses out there? Of course we can,” he said. “Not just being a supplier, but being a business partner is just critical to the success of POOLCORP now and in the future.”

That distinction runs throughout Watwood’s strategy.

When considering what success should look like over the next 12 to 24 months, he isn’t pointing toward one massive initiative designed to reinvent the company. Instead, he describes himself as a “fundamentals guy,” with an emphasis on sales excellence, pricing and supply chain, operational execution and strategic M&A.

“I don’t think there’s any big super transformational thing POOLCORP needs to do here,” Watwood said.

From the customer’s perspective, however, he identified several straightforward benchmarks.

“We’ve got to be easier to do business with,” he said. “We need to find new ways to help them grow their business, not just supply them, and we have to continue to build trust with them.”

Reliability remains central to that equation.

“If they need something from us, they have to know it’s there. They’ve got to know we can get it to them and get it out the door quickly because time is money in this industry.”

Finding Opportunity in a Difficult Market

Exactly where those opportunities lie varies considerably across POOLCORP’s customer base.

New construction remains the most obvious trouble spot.

“That’s been the most challenged,” Watwood said. “It’s been a really tough environment for the last few years. Higher rates, less housing turnover. We all know the reasons why. It’s really slowed down new pool starts.”

The issue, from Watwood’s perspective, is larger than any single manufacturer, distributor or builder can solve independently. Getting the middle-market consumer back into the market will require cooperation throughout the industry.

“I think it’s gonna take a collective effort of all of us, supplier, distributor, dealer, builder, to really talk about what we can do and what we can impact,” Watwood said.

Those discussions are already happening. Watwood said conversations with large pool builders have focused on how POOLCORP can become a better partner and help move more pools, including addressing costs that may be keeping middle-market consumers on the sidelines.

Service and retail present a considerably different picture.

“Service and retail, that’s probably the most near-term opportunity I see,” he said. “There’s millions of pools already out there, already in the ground. The repair and remodel business has been pretty strong for us. The service business remains strong as well.”

For those businesses, Watwood sees opportunities for POOLCORP to expand its programs for chemicals and construction building materials while finding additional ways to help customers become more sustainable and profitable.

“We’ve got lead generation and joint marketing programs, really being linked up on the supply chain side,” he said. “That’s what everybody’s looking for as a partner right now, and they should be.”

Still, Watwood makes no secret of the fact that a healthier new construction market would benefit virtually every corner of the pool and outdoor living sector.

“We all wish the industry would be a little more robust, right?” he said. “It would really help us out if we could get that new pool construction 20, 30% more than what it is right now.”

New pools built today eventually become tomorrow’s service, repair and renovation customers, making construction an important feeder for the industry’s long-term installed base.

When that rebound arrives, however, remains difficult to predict.

“I honestly don’t have a crystal ball to say when the market is going to turn yet,” said Watwood.

Helping Pool Professionals Grow

Against that backdrop, Watwood believes POOLCORP’s responsibility extends beyond keeping products on the shelves.

He pointed to the company’s Retail Summit as one example of how POOLCORP can help dealers improve their businesses rather than simply sell them more inventory.

“We bring dealers in, we teach them how to run a more profitable business, how to merchandise better, how to think about their season differently,” Watwood said. “That’s us, really investing in their success, not just moving product.”

Technology represents another component of that strategy.

Watwood highlighted Pool360, which gives customers visibility into POOLCORP’s broader distribution network and the ability to check inventory beyond their local sales center.

“It’s not just an ordering tool,” he said. “It gives dealers visibility into our entire network so they can access inventory, manage their business, serve their own customers better than they could by just working off the local supply.”

Product training and marketing support also factor into the equation. Watwood said POOLCORP wants customers to have the knowledge needed to confidently sell and install new products while helping them compete more effectively in their local markets.

The objective is to identify the particular challenges confronting each type of customer rather than treating every business the same.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s retail or service or builder,” Watwood said. “They all have, as we were saying earlier, different friction points there that they’re trying to work through and we typically have a way to help them work through that.”

POOLCORP intends to continue refining the platform and reducing what Watwood described as user experience friction. At the same time, he stressed that some of the company’s most important improvements may be considerably less visible.

“How easy is it to place an order? How fast somebody gets an answer when they call in? How simple it is to check pricing or account information? How do we remain consistent in those areas?” he said.

“None of that’s flashy, but when it comes to distribution, the basics matter. The foundations matter. That’s the stuff that builds trust over time.”

Ultimately, Watwood said, customers want consistency. Technology can help create that experience, but Watwood’s view of distribution remains decidedly grounded in fundamentals.

“You got to be in the right areas. You got to have the right product in those areas. You got to have knowledgeable people working the counters, and just build upon those relationships.”

Authenticity, Transparency and Listening

Watwood’s approach to leadership follows a similar philosophy.

Among the first messages he delivered internally was the importance of authenticity.

“You’ve got to be authentic,” he said. “Who you are is who you are, and you can’t act one way towards one person and another way towards another person.”

Closely connected to that is transparency, something Watwood believes becomes increasingly important as both POOLCORP and its customers adjust to changes in the marketplace.

“The industry’s changing, we’re changing, customers are changing,” he said. “We need to be open and honest about what those changes are, where we’re going, and what we need to do to get there.”

That also means being willing to question practices simply because they’ve worked historically.

“Whatever we’ve done in the past for 20 years, maybe that’s not what we do moving forward.”

Watwood has asked the company’s executive leadership team to encourage that transparency internally, and he wants the same candor from POOLCORP’s customers.

In fact, some of the conversations he values most are with companies that don’t currently do much business with POOLCORP.

“I go and visit customers that don’t buy a lot from us because I learn a lot about the reasons why,” he said. “Probably I learn as much from those customers as I would any customer that does buy more volume from us.”

It’s an approach that requires hearing criticism as readily as praise.

“If we made some missteps in the past, I need to know those things,” Watwood said.

For an executive whose career with POOLCORP began at the warehouse level, that willingness to listen may ultimately define his tenure more than any individual initiative.

His message to builders, service professionals, retailers and dealers is that POOLCORP ultimately has to prove its value by adapting to what its customers need.

“POOLCORP is their business. It’s their company,” Watwood said. “This is a business that needs to adjust to be what they need it to be, and that’s being a true business partner.”

There are areas where POOLCORP already excels, he acknowledged, and others where the company has work ahead.

“But at the end of the day, if we don’t meet the customer’s needs, how and where they need to be met, then what’s our value proposition?”

For Watwood, the path forward comes back to the same principle that has shaped his first months in the job.

“We’re going to continue to listen. We’re going to continue to adjust and adapt,” he said. “And I think you’ll see a POOLCORP that gets even better as we move into the future.”

Ready to take a deeper dive?

Listen to our entire conversation with John Watwood, President and CEO of POOLCORP on the Pool Magazine Podcast.