Sometimes the best business relationships start with a broken pool.

I met Zack because our pool company couldn’t fix our pool.

We hit it off almost immediately, probably because we share a similar sense of humor and because both of us tend to do what we say we’re going to do.

Then my pool heater caught on fire.

For the record, that had nothing to do with Zack. It was a faulty switch. But what he did after that told me a lot about him. He got us back up and running incredibly fast, right at the beginning of summer break, when my kids and family were pretty desperate to get back in the pool.

They were ecstatic.

I was impressed.

And over time, I got to know Zack beyond the guy who had fixed our pool.

I learned that he had learned the trade from his grandfather. That led to a bunch of conversations about our grandfathers and how, in our eyes, they were basically MacGyver before MacGyver was MacGyver. They could build things, fix things, figure things out and usually solve a problem with whatever happened to be sitting nearby.

That history stuck with me because it explained a lot about the way Zack approaches his own work.

After enough conversations, I finally said something pretty close to:

“Dude, let me fix your website.”

That’s more or less how the relationship started.

The website was the first piece, but it quickly became clear that Sondgeroth didn’t just need a nicer digital presence. We started looking at how the business wanted to grow, what kinds of projects made the most sense and how marketing could support the way Zack actually wanted to run the company.

That expanded into social media, Google Ads and a much more deliberate approach to the upcoming pool season.

One of the more interesting parts of the strategy was geography.

Getting more pool projects sounds great until the builds are scattered all over the map. Travel time, crews, equipment and scheduling all become harder to manage.

So instead of simply asking, “How do we generate more pool leads?” we started asking a better question.

That led to tighter geographic targeting and campaigns designed around specific territories. The goal was to create opportunities closer together so Sondgeroth could reduce unnecessary travel, improve scheduling and make better use of the team’s time during a very seasonal business.

That is the kind of thing I love about digital strategy.

Advertising is not just about getting more leads. Sometimes the real opportunity is using marketing to help the business operate better.

The website followed the same philosophy.

People shopping for a pool obviously want to understand the products, construction process, options and investment. But that is only part of what they are buying.

They’re buying summer.

They’re buying Saturday afternoons with nowhere else to be. They’re buying the place where the kids bring their friends. They’re buying family time, evenings outside, parties, quiet mornings and the view out the kitchen window in July.

That became a big part of how we approached the Sondgeroth brand and website.

I didn’t want the site to feel like a construction catalog. It still needed to show craftsmanship and explain the work, but it also needed to give someone enough room to imagine what their backyard could become.

And because I knew Zack, I didn’t want to turn Sondgeroth into some polished version of a company that didn’t actually exist.

The humor, history, expertise and straightforward way he works are part of the business.

We wanted the digital side to feel like that too.

That is also why I don’t believe every website redesign needs to erase what came before it. Sometimes the best approach is to figure out what is already good, clean up what is getting in the way and build around the character that made the business successful in the first place.

Sondgeroth had that character long before RK showed up.

The website, social media and advertising just gave us better ways to tell the story and put the company in front of the right people.

Funny enough, it all started because somebody else couldn’t fix my pool.

And then my pool heater caught on fire.

Not exactly the traditional agency new business funnel.

But I wouldn’t change it.