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Welcome to the Top 50 Builders issue.
Over the years, this edition of the magazine has become a powerful brand that’s eagerly read by builders and manufacturers alike. Everyone wants to know who appeared on the list and what their placement is compared with the prior year.
However, this issue of the Top 50 marks an ending as well as a beginning. For eight years, Pool & Spa News has been ranking builders solely by revenue. While this is certainly an important criterion by which to judge a company, it’s not the only one.
Thus, the Top 50 has always been a double-edged sword. On one hand, many builders gladly participate because a spot on the list carries prestige and can be used as an excellent marketing tool.
Conversely, I’ve been told again and again by industry members that revenue doesn’t necessarily imply quality. These builders argue that for a list to truly represent an industry’s best and brightest, it should contain a number of different standards.
Never has that been more true than today.
To compete in the current market, Top Builders must excel in a variety of areas, each one requiring its own strength. Going forward, Pool & Spa News will be capturing some of those benchmarks as part of the ranking system.
In today’s sales environment, much of a firm’s ability to remain profitable lies in its capacity to create satisfied customers, skillfully utilize technology, and achieve a positive standing in the community. We are excited to be bringing all of those principles into play next year. As an added bonus, this new model of gauging Top Builders allows us to feature companies that might not have qualified in prior years using only the yardstick of revenue.
Over the next few months, I will be reaching out to some of you for feedback on our upcoming format, as well as how the new standards should be implemented.