Irrigation girl

It’s no secret that the irrigation industry is dominated by men. But there are a growing number of women who are proving themselves just as successful. Carla Poe, CEO of Atlanta-based Millenium Irrigation is one of them. She runs one of the only – if not the only – solely female-owned irrigation companies in Atlanta and has proven she is more than capable. And what started as a joke, referring to herself as the “Irrigation Girl,” has actually caught on with her customers and become a successful marketing technique.

“I was in a store and had a Millenium shirt on and heard this little boy say ‘Hey – there’s our irrigation girl,’” Poe said of the day her nickname was born. “I thought that was pretty funny because there aren’t a lot of other women doing irrigation work. You hear people say the term ‘irrigation guy’ a lot but I’d never heard ‘irrigation girl’ and I liked it. So I started blogging under that name and it just stuck.”

Poe said that it’s common for people to refer out services by saying they have a “guy” for that. She likes that she is changing the lingo a bit. “It really just started as a joke but has taken on its own life,” she said. “It’s sticking with my customers and they seem to like the nickname. I see it as another way that we become memorable to people.”
Men and women alike are using her new catchphrase. “Just today I was out to lunch and overheard a gentleman say: ‘That’s our irrigation girl,’” she said. “More and more customers are starting to remember me that way and they’re sharing it with their friends.”

While Poe calls Irrigation Girl a “tiny division” of the company she said it will never truly be a division. It’s really just a component of marketing. “It’s not only memorable, but I see it as another way that people can find us,” she said. “If you google ‘Irrigation Girl’ we pop up. New clients don’t even have to remember the company’s name –they just have to remember that their friend referred them to an ‘Irrigation Girl.’ It’s worked well as a marketing tool.”