[Stonehenge]

- or - This Is Where Your Money Goes

I just got the latest Inc magazine in the mail the other day. The headline on the cover is "Fun! It's the New Core Value." Pictured is a guy opening his shirt to reveal a Batman suit underneath. Among several small captions is one that says "Aqualand - The company no one wants to leave. Even on weekends."

I didn't think much of it until I was later leafing through, looking for a good read when the name Greg Wittstock caught my eye. As it turns out, Aqualand is the corporate playground for Aquascapes, including yoga rooms, nap rooms, a sports complex and a hut tub and swimming area/pool.

Don't get me wrong - I like having fun on the job. I think that providing some outlets for your people can be a great thing, and if you can afford to lavish them with goodies, kudos to you for doing it.

But when I read that article, I didn't think "Cool! That's why I like Aquascapes so much!" Instead, my first reaction was "No wonder a $45 piece of plastic costs $400! I'm funding an indoor soccer field, batting cages, yoga room, eight nap rooms a 20-person hot tub and other stuff!"

I was mad.

I thought back to the first few ponds I did, and how I had to cut my margins to be able to land pond projects...little did I know I was making it possible for employee #347 at Aquascapes to take a nap in a room decorated like a hunting lodge.

So I'll say again - kudos to Wittstock for making his employee working environment as fun and comfortable as possible. But this just cements in my mind that when I buy from them, I'm paying too much. I'll continue to shop elsewhere (or fab it myself) when we're building our water features.

Have you seen the article? What do you think?

[papercutter]

I'll play devil's advocate (without reading the article). I wonder, if you break the cost of these extras down, if it's still more cost-effective to use these things for employee retention versus overtime and inefficiencies due to short staffing, as well as the costs of job searches? I'd love to see some hard numbers... I mean, I've heard of several companies (mostly tech companies) with stuff like this- I find it hard to imagine that all these managers think they can justify this spending to clients and stockholders without a tangible benefit.

That said, *I* got excited when my last job provided me with free polo shirts, so what do I know?

Dave

[NCSULandscaper]

ive wondered why their products were so high compared ot others, and now i know. Ive quit using Aquascapes because of the price and they dont make good on their warranties with all the bad pumps they were selling.........i prefer Savio over Aquascapes now, or just make the stuff myself

[Dale Wiley]

First off in todays market, those "perks" for keeping employees is a bit over the top , on an economy of scale. No way can that be quantified.

It is a monument to themselves, as were the pictures of his personal residence and the huge lake etc...blahblahblah...

If you need that level of security and self reinforcement, don't flaunt it. Don't let your customers see that unless they have a similar level of affluence.

I don't let my clients know I have a pilots license unless they are a pilot themselves. There is this perception that flying is a rich mans sport. Hell.. I am looking for a plane and a used older suitable model will cost less than a new pickup. But I don't volunteer that information., or that I have a second piece of property, just property, no house or anything, just some growing grounds at the Oregon Coast, that we can camp at. And I certainly see no need to use it in any advertising materials....

I am with Jeff on this, you must be paying too much for the products if they have that much extra cash to throw around.

I used their products on time and the pump were and they would not stand behind them.

I use Savio and other products and pocket the margins myself.

Humility and being humble go a long way in my book, and that is not it.

Perception is reality.

[jwholden]

Nothing pisses me off more than people who are more successful than me.

Shame on them!

They must be doing something right in finding their target market and meeting (or dare I say exceeding) it's expectations. The target market of Aquascapes is people who want the product to work right out of the box.

Kudos to Aquascapes for creating a company that is the American dream (atleast for some of the population). I hope they keep their eye on the ball and remember what got them to where they are.

[Mac]

Im somewhat with JW on this one. I look forward to the day when I can give my employees extra perks and share our successes with them. I certainly would not have flaunted it the way Aquascapes has, putting it in Inc, but I would like to have it none the less.

However, Jeff, I definately can feal the burnt fealing knowing you helped fund this lavishness with your margins.

[johnkeegan]

Capitalism generally has a way of weeding out unnecessary perks, inefficencies etc. that lead to overpricing.
They may have found that in this day of limited QUALITY employees, that these perks are cost-effective in retaining professional employees.
Instead of feeling envious (sorry, it sounds like that), I prefer to look at successful companies and absorb from them what I think might apply to my small business.
Remember, I'm sure alot of our competitors think we are also overpriced.

[papercutter]

I'm not what you'd call a fan of Aquascapes (at this point, I use almost all Russell Water Garden products- awesome stuff!), but I'm still on the mailing list. Every time I get something new in the mail, it reinforces my belief that Greg is nothing if not a brilliant marketer. It's for this reason that I don't see how anyone can view that Inc. article as not a planned move. Maybe the goal is to try and cement the perception that Aquascapes is the dominant player in the field by saying "hey, we offer the same environment as Yahoo! and Google, and look at them!"

As far as the issue of $400 for a $45 piece of plastic... it's a specialized component. To me, it's like the old joke where the guy takes his car to a mechanic because it's making a horrible noise. Mechanic listens to the engine, pulls out a wrench and WHAM! hits the engine and the noise stops. He shuts off the car and says "that'll be $300." The owner says "$300? It took you $5 worth of labor!" The mechanic says "yeah, but the other $295 is for knowing WHERE to hit it with the wrench."

Not saying I agree with the way everything is priced, but if you developed it, patented it, manufactured it, and (let's be honest here) really helped make the pond market what it is today- price your stuff at whatever the market will bear. That's business.

Dave

[VoodooChile]

"No wonder a $45 piece of plastic costs $400! I'm funding an indoor soccer field, batting cages, yoga room, eight nap rooms a 20-person hot tub and other stuff!"

Nope! It costs that much because that's what the market will bear.

And I'm willing to bet most of us would have never tried pond installations if it hadn't been for Whitstock and Aquascapes.

That said, we've stopped using their overpriced junk too.

[Raj Venugopal]

There's more to it.

To be an employer of choice and retain staff, incentives are necessary. They also are proven to increase morale, which increases productivity and creativity. I grit my teeth a bit when I see some of Aquascapes' prices, but they've done a lot to make ponds easier to sell, source and install.

They're like oil prices. We don't like where they are, but we need them until we find something else that serves our needs and budgets. That's the beauty of a liberal democratic economy...free market pendulum always swings between high prices/high demand, low prices/low demand.

Speaking of oil, remember, all that rubber and plastic is petroleum based.

As for "fish friendly silicone"....$169 bucks a tube or whatever they'd charge sounds like a deal.

[trees]

I'm always so torn when I hear anything about Aquascapes. First, as has been mentioned here, they have done good things for the watergarden market in this country. Their system works pretty well, if not great.

Greg Whitstock is a world-class marketer and has single handedly made his company into the driving force behind water gardening services in this country. Aquascapes is the reason that other, better companies (like Savio) can make good margins on their products.

Unfortunately, I have met the man on a few occasions and find him to be an intolerable (insert defamatory name here). He's simultaneously the biggest asset and liability the company has. He is self-aggrandizing and speaks poorly of, in fact rails against and simply dismisses, ideas that work outside of his framework.

I don't buy his stuff and won't, but I have to give him grudging respect for the work he's done on mainstreaming a part of the industry. Frankly, if suppliers of other product lines (pavers, firepits, wall blocks, etc.) had the same imagination and aptitude that Aquascapes has, it would make what we do a lot more attractive / sexy / hip / whatever and would benefit the industry as a whole.