By Ana Arntson and Jeff Gutowski
“I’m grateful to be in a room with you all. To be in an industry with people with the same passions is amazing. BUT to be in the same room with these people who truly want to help each other be better is truly heartfelt. Thank you all for sharing yourselves.” — George Mihalchick, Ponds By George
The Pond Professionals Alliance private contractor Facebook group is abuzz with sentiments like this one following the 2026 Pond Builders’ Retreat. When Craig McBride and I co-founded the Pond Professionals Alliance (PPA) in late 2023, we dreamt of bringing pond builders together to share in supportive resources. We didn’t want to preach one right way of doing things. We wanted to uplift the diverse methods that make our small businesses unique. We wanted to unite pond builders so no one feels alone in this world of small-business water feature entrepreneurship. Over the years, we’ve watched the PPA grow to nearly 500 members, and our yearly Pond Builders’ Retreats are the pinnacle of what the PPA is all about.
This year’s retreat brought pond builders, industry leaders and our team of business educators together at Stillwater Reserve in Newaygo, Michigan, for three days in September. We gathered to learn, connect and relax. The learning sessions sent attendees home fired up, and we will get to those. But the connection and relaxation were the real heart of the retreat. Time to fish, soak up nature and ease into honest conversations about the challenges and wins in our businesses is rare for a contractor. It is also exactly what makes these retreats special.
Stepping out of the grind
Over and over we heard the same thing from attendees. It feels good to step out of the grind, take a breath and remember why you fell in love with this work in the first place.
If you build water features for a living, you know the grind well. Spring hits and the phone does not stop. You are in the mud by seven, on the phone with a supplier at lunch and writing estimates at the kitchen table after dinner. There is never a good week to leave. That is precisely why the retreat matters. The pause is not a break from the business. It is the thing that lets you steer it.
Attendees told us the pause gave them room to reorient. To ask where they want their business to go next. To decide what to say yes to this winter and what to let go of. And then to build the momentum and gather the resources to actually move. The resources at our fingertips are key. More on those in a moment.
Learning both sides of the business
Success in this industry requires two things: knowing how to build a great pond and knowing how to build a great business. The retreat was built around both.
Sessions on the latest in ozone technology and lake management sat right beside sessions on running the back end of your company. Clayton Graba of Kaeru CX walked through systems that take the chaos out of scheduling, following up and getting paid. Jeff Gutowski of Break The Image, the PPA’s web and marketing partner and the muscle behind the PondPros.com website, covered how to make the most of your website and the rest of your web presence. His session produced some of the most talked-about takeaways of the weekend, and we share them below.
Community is the ultimate resource.
Between sessions, the retreat center was brewing over with ideas. Someone would leave a talk on ozone and end up in a 40-minute conversation at the fire pit about how to price it. Someone else would hear about a scheduling tool and find three people who already used it and could tell them what to watch out for. That is the part no slide deck can give you. Community is the ultimate resource.
It is in community that we process what we are learning and talk through our hesitations and excitement about putting it into practice.
It is in community that we find the support and motivation to turn what we learn into action.
It is in community that we realize we are not in this alone but are widely supported in our goals.
We can all find countless educational resources for growing a water feature business. But without a supportive system, those resources leak through the cracks like a poorly built waterfall. The PPA aims to provide both the resources and the system that lets pond professionals put them to work.
What the room learned about being found online
Before the retreat, Jeff asked attendees to send him their websites. He spent weeks going through them the way a homeowner would, on a phone, with no idea who any of these companies were. Then, with their permission, he put several of them on the screen in front of the room and walked through what was working and what was quietly costing them jobs.
That is a vulnerable thing to sign up for, and every builder who did deserves credit. The room learned more from those real sites than from any example someone could have made up.
Here is what Jeff would hand to every pond builder reading this, whether you were at the retreat or not.
First impressions matter
Your first impression happens on Google, not on your website. Most homeowners never see your beautiful portfolio. They search “pond builder near me,” look at the first three or four results, read a couple of reviews and call someone. If your Google Business Profile is thin, has old photos or lists the wrong service area, you are losing the job before anyone sees a single waterfall you built. Fill it out completely. Add real photos every month. Ask for reviews after every install and reply to every one.
A pretty homepage does not win searches. Topic authority does. This was the core of Jeff’s session. Google tends to favor sites that clearly answer the question being asked. One page that says “we build ponds, waterfalls, fountains and do maintenance” answers nothing well. A separate page for each service, written in plain language, with photos of your own work and the questions homeowners actually ask, answers everything. Add a page for each town you serve. Write the blog post about why the water turned green in July. Over time, Google starts to treat you as the authority on water features in your area, and that is worth more than any ad budget.
Remember the objective is to get someone to call.
Your website has one job. Get the call. Put your phone number at the top of every page. Make it tappable. Keep your contact form to three fields. Show your actual work, not stock photos of someone else’s pond in a climate you have never built in. Every extra click between a homeowner and your phone number can cost you potential calls.
Reviews are content. A homeowner who reads a review that says “they built the waterfall in Sanford that my neighbors keep asking about” just learned where you work, what you build and that people like it. Ask for specific reviews. Then quote them on your service pages.
You do not need to do all of it this winter. The builders who got the most out of the audits were not the ones with the longest to-do list. They were the ones who picked the one or two changes that would matter most and committed to them. That is the whole point of an audit. It tells you where to start.PPA
Where we go from here
Now that this year’s retreat is complete, we are excited to keep deepening the resources and the support we offer when we are not all gathered in one place. Like our attendees, we are fired up about our next steps. The biggest one is the launch of the PondPros ToolBox, an extension of the PondPros directory.
The PondPros directory is a comprehensive directory homeowners can use to find a water feature builder. Businesses can register a listing for free, with paid tiers available. It is one of the biggest projects the PPA has undertaken, built with Jeff and his team at Break The Image.
The new ToolBox is a resource built exclusively for water feature businesses that want to improve their back end, their web presence and their day-to-day operations. It is packed with guides on how to revamp your website so it gets found and gets the call. Right now it is free, and we want every one of you to take advantage of it.
It starts with the same website audit the retreat attendees received. Enter your site, and Jeff personally reviews it and sends back a short, honest report that points you toward the improvements that will pack the biggest punch for your business. No sales pitch. Just the list. From there you can use the dozens of guides in the ToolBox to make the changes yourself or reach out to Jeff if you want a hand.
Vote on the Resources You Want Developed
Because we truly are all about community, we also want your voice to shape what comes next. Visit the PondPros ToolBox and vote on the resources you want developed. The requests already go well beyond web presence. Employee training. Pricing. Hiring your first crew lead. Getting paid on time. Tell us what would help you run your business tighter, and we will build it.
Entrepreneurship can feel solitary. You are the one who signs the checks, answers the 9 p.m. text about a leaking skimmer and lies awake wondering if next season will be as busy as this one.
But you are not alone as a water feature professional. There are hundreds of us gathered in a Facebook group and dozens more who came together in person this September, navigating this solo road together. Become part of the PPA community and experience the support and the resources that are freely available to you.
We will save you a seat by the fire next year.
Become a member for free at pondprofessionalsalliance.org/membership-1.
