Pat recently got me an iPad for my birthday and I love it. When I’m home at night it rarely leaves my side. It’s the newspapers I read, the book I’m reading, as well as the ones I’ve read and my connection to the world through the internet, email and social networking – even the TV shows I’ve missed; all in my hand. Another use for it when I have an idle moment is traveling the world with Google Earth. What do I look for you ask – same thing as you do of course… pools!

One night I decided to take a “trip” to my brother’s house in Florida. We were close growing up, enjoying sailing and fishing together and when he moved to Cape Coral from New Jersey 23 years ago, I thought that I would hardly ever get see him. Funny how things turn out - I think over the last 23 years, I’ve spent just as many nights staying with him when I visit southwest Florida as I have in hotel rooms elsewhere.

I easily located his house by the eight west facing collectors. As I zoomed out, I pretty much saw what I expected - a lot of houses with a lot of pools. But it seemed a lot of the houses with perfectly good roofs didn’t have any collectors. So I started to count; first the houses with pools on his street – 66. Then I went back just counting houses with pool collectors – 22. Wow, I thought – a nearly perfect example of the age-old rule of market saturation, which says generally the most folks you’ll ever get to buy a product they can use are 35 – 40%. That adage also tends to hold true for markets with at least three competitors – rarely does one have more than a 35 - 40% market share.

Then I turned my attention to my neighborhood here in New Jersey. Within a half-mile I counted 100 pools – how many with solar you ask? One. I kept zooming out, counting the new pools as well as solar heaters I could find. I stopped at a little over a mile when I hit 500 pools – and how many solar heaters? Five. Now that’s a long way from the rule of market saturation.
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The point is that with today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to apply the age-old number one rule of successfully marketing solar pool heating systems – know your market.

Lastly, make sure to check-out the Products News and Updates section of the AI Network. You’ll find an <a title="Update: Aluminum Header Clamps &amp; 2″ Molded Couplers" href="http://www.aquathermindustries.com/portal/news/?p=321" target="_blank">update on Aluminum Outlet Header Brackets and the 2” molded couplers</a> plus a first-look at a <a title="New Patent-Pending Mounting Accessory" href="http://www.aquathermindustries.com/portal/news/?p=327" target="_blank">new patent pending mounting accessory</a>!

Dave Sizelove, President

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