Podcast: 38 Years in Water Treatment. Here Is What Pete Van Cleave Has Learned About Getting Leads.
Pete Van Cleave did not plan to spend his career in water. He spent 17 years climbing through corporate sales at Lever Brothers, managed the foods division for the entire South, and left convinced he could run something better himself. He looked at a pickle business, then a sponge import operation, and eventually landed on water treatment because he saw an opportunity that others were missing.
Thirty-eight years later, Water for Life is one of Atlanta’s longest-running water treatment firms, earning Angie’s List Best in Category honors eight out of the last eleven years and generating a 20-to-1 return on its primary marketing channel. In a recent episode of Everyday Excellence, Todd Baldwin of Everyday Media Group sat down with Pete to talk through the marketing decisions, the AI shift, and what nearly four decades in a specialized service business actually teaches you about getting and keeping quality leads.
Who Is Pete Van Cleave and What Does Water for Life Do?
Water for Life is a family-owned, locally operated water treatment firm based in the Atlanta area, serving north and middle Georgia from Griffin up to the state borders with Tennessee and North Carolina. Pete is the owner and sole operator, supported by a team of four. On a typical day, the company handles four to five service calls or installations.
Pete holds a Master Water Specialist certification and is a certified installer. The company carries more than 20 brands and over 110 different water treatment solutions, all selected to address the specific characteristics of local water rather than applying a one-size-fits-all national approach.
That local specificity is the foundation of everything Water for Life does. Atlanta sits in the roughly 15 percent of the United States that does not have hard water. Most national water treatment companies, including Culligan, Rainsoft, and the newer entrant Leaf Filter, built their product lines and marketing around water softeners. In the Atlanta market, that emphasis is often the wrong tool for the local problem. Water for Life carries the solutions that are actually designed for the region.
The Story Behind the Mission: Why Pete Became a Fierce Protector
Pete describes himself as a fierce protector of other people’s families. That language comes directly from a personal experience that shaped the culture of the entire business.
Before Water for Life was established, Pete’s middle daughter contracted Giardia from the Marietta municipal tap water. Giardia is a waterborne parasite that attaches to the small intestine and, when it breaks open, causes severe gastrointestinal illness in otherwise healthy people. Pete’s daughter missed eight weeks of school. She was put on six different medications. The doctors were treating symptoms without identifying the source.
Pete understood, in hindsight, that he had products that could have prevented the contamination entirely. At the time, he was focused on commercial accounts and was not taking his service into residential homes. That changed. Now he goes into homes every day and considers the education of every client part of his responsibility. He passes that same passion down to every member of his team.
Why Consumers Are Confused About Water Treatment (And What to Do About It)
Pete has a clear-eyed view of the challenge his industry faces in marketing. The core problem is invisible. You cannot see the contaminants in tap water. You cannot smell them. You cannot taste them. The things that can cause harm are measured in parts per billion and parts per trillion. Put a glass of tap water and a glass of purified water side by side and a homeowner cannot tell the difference by looking.
Water for Life addresses this with a side-by-side TDS meter demonstration. A total dissolved solids meter dipped into local tap water typically registers between 45 and 65 parts per million in the Atlanta area. The same meter dipped into water treated through reverse osmosis, deionization, or distillation registers close to zero. Legally purified water, by the pharmaceutical definition, measures at 20 parts per million or less. That number is objective, visible, and immediately understandable to a homeowner who had no idea what was in their tap water a minute earlier.
The demonstration removes the abstract nature of the sale and replaces it with evidence. That approach has been central to how Water for Life builds trust with new clients since the very beginning.
The Affordable Healthcare Case That Changes Every Conversation
One of the most compelling points Pete raises in sales conversations and in the podcast is what he calls affordable healthcare. It is backed by research, not opinion.
A 2023 study published by the National Institutes of Health tracked 11,500 seniors from their sixties through their nineties. The research examined the relationship between hydration levels, measured by sodium serum concentration in the blood, and long-term health outcomes. People who consistently drank insufficient quantities of water were more likely to develop high blood pressure, experience strokes and heart attacks, and develop diabetes. People who drank sufficient quantities of water lived an average of 15 years longer.
Pete connects that data directly to the quality of the water being consumed. Drinking sufficient water only matters if the water itself is clean. Contaminants at the parts per billion level, invisible and tasteless, can undermine the health benefits of hydration entirely. Clean water is not a luxury product. In Pete’s framing, it is the most accessible form of preventive healthcare available to a homeowner.
The Marketing Channel Producing a 20-to-1 Return
When Todd asked Pete what is driving leads for Water for Life, the answer was direct and specific. Angie’s List has been their most consistent lead source over the long haul, and the return on that investment currently stands at 20 to 1.
The leads are paid. Pete is not getting Angie’s List referrals for free. But the cost per lead is low enough relative to the average project value that the return remains strong. He has maintained that channel consistently for years and credits it as the single most reliable source of qualified inquiries the business has.
Beyond Angie’s List, Water for Life generates leads through a set of distribution channels built on industry relationships. Contacts in the office coffee service business refer water quality inquiries. Well drillers who work with homeowners on private water sources pass along clients who need treatment solutions. These referral networks are informal but durable, built on years of trust between businesses that serve overlapping client bases.
What Google and AI Are Starting to Contribute
Pete acknowledged that organic search and AI search are still developing channels for Water for Life, not primary drivers yet. But the early signals are encouraging. A recent client called in and told Pete his business had come up number one when they searched on an AI platform. It was the company’s first confirmed AI lead.
Todd framed why that signal matters. AI platforms like Claude and ChatGPT are pulling trust signals from across the web when they decide who to surface in response to a local service query. Reviews matter. FAQ content matters. Authoritative content that genuinely answers the questions homeowners are asking matters. Water for Life is already working on its website backend to strengthen those signals.
Pete’s team has also been using Claude directly to ask questions about optimization and implementing the answers on the site. Todd confirmed that this is a reasonable starting point. The businesses that are positioned well for Google organic search, with strong content and consistent trust signals, tend to be the same businesses that start showing up in AI recommendations. The underlying requirements are similar even if the platforms are different.
Why FAQs Are Critical for AI Search Visibility
Todd made a point during the episode that applies directly to a service category like water treatment, where the sales process is deeply educational. AI platforms are increasingly receiving long-form, conversational questions rather than short keyword searches. Homeowners are typing things like: what are the contaminants in Atlanta tap water, is reverse osmosis worth it for a home, what is the difference between a water softener and a water filter?
Businesses that have website content specifically addressing those questions in clear, authoritative language are the ones AI platforms recommend. For a company like Water for Life, whose entire sales model is built around education, that is a natural fit. The challenge is getting that knowledge out of Pete’s head and into structured, indexed content on the site.
Why Local Always Wins Against National Water Treatment Companies
Pete made a point worth examining in detail for any home service business competing against national franchise brands. The national companies bring name recognition and marketing budgets. They cannot bring local expertise.
In the Atlanta market, water softeners are the wrong solution for most homeowners because the water is not hard. National companies built around softeners arrive with the wrong product emphasis and sell it anyway. Water for Life arrives with 110 solutions calibrated to the specific water chemistry of north and middle Georgia. That precision is not available from a company running a standard national playbook.
On price, the local advantage is equally clear. Water for Life does not pay franchise fees. That cost reduction flows directly into the ability to sell equivalent or superior equipment at lower prices while maintaining healthy margins. The comparison against Culligan or Rainsoft is not difficult to make on a side-by-side basis.
How Team Culture Showed Up When the Bank Asked the Hard Questions
Pete shared one of the clearest illustrations of team culture paying off in a practical business situation. When Water for Life wanted to expand and open a showroom in another part of Atlanta, the company needed a $125,000 bank loan. Pete did not give the pitch himself.
He put each member of his team in front of the bank to explain the business from their own role and perspective. Pete coached them briefly beforehand, but the presentation was largely theirs. The bank approved the loan. Pete says it remains one of his proudest moments in business, not because of the money but because of what it revealed about how deeply the team understood and believed in what they were building.
Passing the same passion for water quality and client education down to every team member is not a management principle Pete talks about abstractly. It showed up in a room with a bank and produced a tangible outcome.
Key Takeaways for Home Service Business Owners
- Know your single best performing lead channel and protect it. Pete has maintained Angie’s List as a consistent lead source for years and gets a 20-to-1 return. Many businesses abandon what is working in pursuit of what sounds new. If a channel is producing qualified leads at a strong return, it deserves continued investment.
- Build referral networks with adjacent service businesses. Well drillers, office coffee companies, and other businesses that serve overlapping clients are a durable source of warm referrals. These relationships take time to build and are difficult for competitors to replicate.
- AI search is producing real leads now, not eventually. Pete received his first confirmed AI lead during the recording period. Businesses that are building authoritative content and strong review profiles are the ones showing up in AI recommendations. The work required to rank on Google and the work required to appear in AI results is largely the same.
- FAQ content is the most direct path to AI visibility. AI platforms receive conversational questions, not keywords. Building website content that answers the specific questions your ideal client is asking is how a local service business earns AI recommendations in its market.
- Local knowledge is a competitive advantage that national brands cannot buy. A franchise company cannot recalibrate its product line for the specific water chemistry of north Georgia. A local business with 38 years of regional experience can. That specificity is a marketing asset worth communicating clearly.
- Let your team demonstrate the culture when it matters most. Pete’s bank presentation did not succeed because of his pitch. It succeeded because his team understood the business deeply enough to advocate for it themselves. That kind of culture is built slowly and is almost impossible to fake.
Listen to the Full Episode
This episode of Everyday Excellence is available on the Everyday Media Group podcast channel. Pete Van Cleave and Water for Life can be reached at waterforlifeonline.com or by phone at 770-652-0076.
If you are a home service business owner looking to strengthen your digital presence and attract higher-quality leads, connect with Everyday Media Group at everydaymediagroup.com.
