Spotlight: Lifesaver Pool Fence aims to save lives with quality pool products

Protecting children is a worthy goal for any business. And that is exactly what Lifesaver Pool Fence What is the company hoping to accomplish with its line of protective pool equipment? Learn more about the company and its mission in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.

what business does

We sell pool safety supplies.

President Eric Lupton told Small Business Trends: Our main product is a high quality removable mesh pool fence that comes with a 100 year warranty. We also offer self-closing and self-locking gates, various alarms, pool safety covers, and AI camera monitoring systems. ”

Niche Business

Take concrete steps to help your family prevent drowning.

Lupton says, “Our mesh is of the highest quality and our fence poles are patented by Lifesaver, which is proven to be the strongest on the market. And we just install the fence and walk away. We at Life Saver educate families about the layers of protection and all the extra things they can do to protect their children and animals from pools. Our CEO is a nationally recognized leader in the world of drowning prevention. Many of our employees, dealers and franchisees are working with or starting water safety nonprofits.”

The beginning of the business

As a small family run business.

Lupton continued, “My parents started the business in their garage in 1987. My mother answered the phones and looked after my brother and me during the day, and sewed fences at night. My father worked… I created a paper route to earn money for advertising and sold and installed fences during the day. The business grew and when my father retired in 2003, I took over the day-to-day operations. Now, I’m the CEO and my brother is the vice president of research and development.

Biggest win

Establish an online presence early.

Lupton explains, “Probably Life Saver’s greatest advantage is how quickly we established an online presence. When I was still in high school, a friend and I started a business building websites and writing marketing copy. One of our first clients was Life Saver. I secured a domain name and launched the Life Saver website in 1998, when the web was young. This early presence was extremely helpful in establishing our company as a leader in the industry. Anyone who goes online can see that we’ve been in business for over 10 years already and that we have a national network of authorized dealers that is still growing. We have customers who found us online, bought a fence from us, and then became dealers themselves.”

Biggest risks

Invest in quality.

“When the U.S. economy took a nosedive in 2008 and competitors began looking for ways to cut costs, it became a race to the bottom to see who could make the cheapest pool fences,” Lupton said. I didn’t want to win that race and find myself building a terrible fence that wasn’t reliable, so I decided to do the opposite…spend the money to build the highest quality pool fence on the market. I decided to spend it.

“We would have had to raise prices to compensate, at the risk of alienating customers from Lifesaver, but they responded extremely well instead. We learned that people are willing to pay a little more for high quality products, especially to protect their children. Taking that risk made it clear that Lifesaver was serious about its mission to end childhood drowning, and it’s what distinguishes us from our competitors to this day.”

Lessons learned

Surround yourself with quality people.

Mr. Lupton added, “Almost every employee in my office was a friend of mine before I was an employee. Because I spend so much time at work, I’m already a talented person who I enjoy working with.” How about being surrounded by people like you?”

Team Traditions

Daily lunch outing.

“We all eat lunch together every day and take turns choosing food,” Lupton says. “We’re in South Florida, so sushi and Cuban food are by far our favorites!”

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Image: Lifesaver pool fence