A Seasonal Strategy Guide

Hosts: Steve Sherwood & Wayne Ivusich

• Overview of seasonal pool maintenance, especially the critical "100 days of summer" for pool companies in the Northeast.

Startup Procedures for Pool Service

• Importance of preparation from the previous season for a successful pool opening.
• Challenges faced with new clients and their equipment.

Types of Pool Covers and Their Impact

• Comparison between solid and mesh covers: benefits and drawbacks.
• Introduction of super mesh covers for better efficiency and client satisfaction.

Efficient Pool Opening Strategies

• Step-by-step preparation for a smooth spring pool opening.
• Tips to avoid revisiting issues and prioritizing timely service.

Client Management and Scheduling

• Balancing recurring clients with new ones.
• Transitioning responsibilities to employees while maintaining quality standards.

Safety and Testing

• Importance of accurate water testing and keeping testing kits updated.
• Emphasis on safety compliance and standards.

Automating Pool Maintenance

• Modern tools and technologies to streamline tasks and improve client retention.

Pricing and Communication

• Strategies for fair pricing while ensuring business sustainability.
• The significance of clear communication and feedback loops with clients.

Conclusion

• Summary of best practices for seasonal pool service.
• Encouragement for listeners to adapt and innovate in their businesses.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:54

And happy Wen happy not Wednesday. God, it's Thursday. God, this whole week has been just all screwed up. Happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome to Steve and Wayne on the Talking Pools Podcast group. Glad to have you aboard and listening to us. We hope we uh can pass along some good information today. We're gonna talk about uh maybe a couple of different things today, uh, but I think the most important thing, and and Steve and I were talking before we started recording, was that it's that time of year. We're recording this particular session uh early April. And for uh those parts of the country where your pool season is relatively short as opposed to year-long, um, now's the time that people are starting to gear up and do doing their startups from from from the um from the get-go. So um uh I've kind of picked Steve's brain a little bit before we started, and and I wanted to go through the the typical average startup procedure for a service person and their client. What would they look at? What would they do? What would they make sure is done? That that kind of thing. Steve, you you want to jump on in and and give us your views on this?

SPEAKER_04 2:04

Sure. So happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome to the show. Um, I did want to address one thing before we got started, Wayne. I did read something that the Talking Pools podcast, there was like a list of podcasts that Rudy had sent out the other day.

SPEAKER_06 2:18

That is right.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

And they had put us number one. So that was kind of cool. So congratulations to us and the whole Talking Pools podcast. Um, and that just means that obviously they think we're putting out a you know, a quality product, which is what we're trying to do. Um, so that's something right. So, like I said, when when we're doing this here, Wayne and I, we always go back and forth, and you know, it's just me and him in the room, right? So we you know, we love that you guys are listening. And like I said, we we kind of finished off the last show just gushing about how how much we we really love doing this, but you know, there is a time to step back and just say, wow, we are doing a really good job, and let's continue to do that. So, Wayne, you know, you're a big part of that. So thank you. All right, so get to what we were talking about, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Wayne and Steve are here at the knowledge begin.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

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SPEAKER_00 5:56

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SPEAKER_04 6:23

I lived in New Jersey for 10 years, right? I'm sorry. So I actually just saw a post, somebody just posted on Facebook, and they they have the striper migration.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

I swear it is the one thing that I miss about New Jersey. So not just New Jersey, but the East Coast, you know, not the Northeast so much is the striper runs and you know, fishing for your striped bass. And you know, they run in and out of the bay, and then they run all the way up to Maine. And uh it's like the one thing that I really miss. The one thing that I do not miss, guys, is opening and closing pools. But let's be realistic here. Like uh, you know, the hundred days of summer that you have in the Northeast is, you know, the time of the year where if you own a pool company in in that area, that's where you're gonna make your money, right? So it's uh it's really important that you put out a good you know service and you put out a good opening and you guys are timely with all of your stuff. So before we even get to the to the real opening, um, you really have to set yourself up with success or for success, right? So the season before, if this is your client, now obviously you walk into all sorts of shit storms with uh, you know, the a new client where you don't know what's going on, or they might have a different you know, water bag covers or different things like that. But the biggest thing is the covers. And when I first started in the industry, um, there was two types of covers. There was a solid cover and there was a mesh cover. And the mesh cover was great because when you lowered the water level down, the rain water over the winter would fill the pool back up. So normally when you got there in the spring to open up the pool, you have this nice full pool, you just take off the cover. The problem is that the water is black because the cover lets through the sunlight and it also lets through the water. So you're coming to a black pool more or less. The other option is to have a solid cover. The solid cover now blocks out the sunlight, so you're gonna have a clear pool, but it doesn't let the water in. So now you have to have some sort of a cover pump on it. Uh, if you live in an area where it rains a lot or it snows, you have to be very careful with this because you could actually, you know, break the cover with the amount of weight on it because you don't, you know, you do drain the pool down underneath it, right? So then they came out with these super mesh covers or pro mesh covers, and those are the best of both worlds. And the reason being is they're woven so tightly together that it lets the water through, but it doesn't let the sunlight through. So now you have this lightweight cover that blocks out the sunlight and is a few thousand dollars more than your regular cover. Uh, but having your clients purchase this type of cover makes it so much easier to come into your job in the spring. Right? So now you close your pools, you know, you put in all your stuff, you winterize everything the way that it's supposed to, and now you cut now spring comes. So the biggest thing for us, and Lee talked about this in the down under show a few weeks ago, is not trying not to double back. And you know, in in New Jersey, I had clients that we were their service client and their openings, but there was a lot of people where we just opened and closed the pool. So we were only responsible for opening the pool, fixing whatever it was at the opening, like if it was the pump or the filter or whatever. And then they're on their own. So it's a bit harder to get back to those pools because maybe that one is a pool that you took and it was 40 minutes out of the way. You know, where there's no way you would have serviced that as your everyday or every week client, weekly client, but to go there one time to make, you know, a few hundred bucks or whatever it is on your opening, it's worth your while, right? Especially with commercial pools and stuff like that. So what we did at the beginning is we normally would go out with two guys. Um, what I found out is by adding a third guy to the mix with a second truck, you can get so much more done in one day. Now, obviously, like the scheduling and all of that stuff is super important um with how you schedule it, how you sack your stuff. But no matter what, like what it comes down to is you're gonna have a list and it's gonna have, you know, a hundred names on it or 50 names on it or whatever. And you gotta open, you just gotta cross cross these names off the list as you go down, right? So you're gonna get as much as you can done, you know, no matter what in that day. So that's why I always say, you know, pack your lunch, pack your coffees, pack your waters, because you're not you're not coming back for 12 hours, you know, you're not coming back to the office, you're you're out, you're out opening pools all day long. So when we added this third guy to the mix, um, it made things so much easier because now you had a third person to help you pull the cover. Um, a lot of these covers sometimes also like, are you cleaning these covers off? So these covers get extremely dirty during the they've been sitting there for six to eight months, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

So is there uncleaned for you know a hundred days-ish, you know, so when you roll that again, you've got another problem to deal with.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

Yeah. So what we used to offer was an additional service where we would say, Hey, do you want us to clean and dry your cover off before we store it? Or do you just want us to fold it up and store it? You know, which is free. But if you want us to take it out to the driveway and wash it off, then that's extra. Um, the way that you fold the cover is so, so super important. For you guys that have never folded a cover before, when you take the cover off, you can't just rip the whole thing off. So, what we used to do is we used to take off all of the, you know, all of the anchors on the one side, and then we would start to accordion fold it. So we would pull it back and kind of fold it onto itself, onto itself, onto itself, right? Um, and that would then we would be able, you know, another thing that we did is a lot of these covers are um symmetrical, right? So they look, they look the same on all four sides, right? So you can't tell which which side is which or which side is sometimes is up and which side is down. So what we used to do is we would tie like a an orange piece of string or like a yellow piece of string um to the deep end middle anchor. So now anybody who came, like it wouldn't know if it was me or if it was one of my guys or my anybody on my team, they would know that, like, yo, this is the deep end. And it's so important when you put the cover on at the end, because if this cover gets in the water and it's a solid cover, like you're fucked.

SPEAKER_06 13:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Like now, yeah, now everything's getting wet, you're getting wet, it might be cold out. Um, so it just turns into a problem.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

So it's heavy too, because remember, water, one gallon of water weighs about 8.3 pounds. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Um, and for the solid covers, there's this one thing that I actually really love. There's this uh there's this pump that you can get, and instead of hooking up a whole 50-foot hose to it, it's got like this elephant trunk to it, and anytime it turns on, it just like spits the water out, but it like throws it like 15 or 20 feet, like onto the grass or whatever. Um, but now I'm big on cordless stuff, right? So I'm you know, those those work really well. So now you've taken the cover off, you've accordion folded it, um, and you're gonna store it. So my advice is that if they have somewhere for you to store it, obviously you want to store it in like a garage, but like a lot of people have like sheds and like weird stuff. So if you're gonna put it in a shed or something like that, um, I've always found it best that like if they had an extra wheelbarrow or a shelf or something, that you could put that cover on that shelf or in the wheelbarrow off of the ground. And the reason being is because mice and snakes and all different sorts of you know, critters and creatures are going to be all the things Andrea would love to play with, right? Exactly. They're all you know, they're gonna get in the cover itself. So what are you what does this pool look like? You know, like there's a million different ways that this pool could look when you get there, but most of the time it's probably gonna look pretty bad, right? So I always don't want I always want to turn the pool on, but I never really want to vacuum through the system if I can help it. If it's clean, then it's not a big deal. But like imagine having to vacuum this pool and you have to backwash it 15 different times. Like nobody has time for that, right? So what we did is we bought like an external pump that we changed over and put a plug into, you know, so it's got a 110 plug on it. And we would bring that with us, and now everything that we're vacuuming is gonna go straight out the waistline to the street. So, with that though, you have to pre-plan, so you have to pre-fill the pool up. Um, so now you're taking all of your stuff out of the skimmers, you're making sure that uh, you know, your anti-freeze held during the year. Um, and then you're gonna, you know, shock the pool and bounce it out. And you know, a lot of times you're gonna have to put in the ladders and the anchors and stuff. Um, I can't tell you how many times we went to go like open a pool and the like uh the ladder buttress or whatever it is, like on the leg, um like the cover, it's gone, you know, and now you're missing a cover. So I can't tell you how extremely important it is to when you're opening and closing pools to like hold stock of some of these parts, like inch and a half plugs and uh you know, all different things like that, where you know, the plugs for the pumps. And it doesn't have to be specific to this, it's just like it's a quarter-inch plug, right? So like any of them are gonna go to any of them. So as long as you have a uh you know a bunch of them, you should be good. But then, like, you know, having flu sensors and having high limit uh sensors and flow sensors and things like that on the heaters, you know, there's not that many heaters out there. There's like three or four different types of heaters that people are gonna have. So, you know, having a good stock of parts and not having to go back to this job to, you know, because we can't start up the pool because we don't have the the drain plug for the filter.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And like it's I have something on this one that's totally on my on my level. Go ahead, yes. Particularly in areas where you're where your season's relatively short, is that you want to make sure that uh that the testing system that you're using, whatever it is, uh I don't care, well I care, but I don't care. But whatever testing system you use, the the the reagents, the discs, the tablets, whatever are fresh. Because if you end your pool season in September, in say say September, okay, and you put your testing system, your kit, your whatever, your spin on on a shelf, okay, and and ignore it all winter long, fall and winter, and you come back in the spring, you really can't expect that those reagents are still going to be viable. Even though you might have an expiration date of say, you know, a year or two in the future, how you store them is a big, and I mean really, really big part of uh re reagent and and and and test kit freshness. Um so I I I always recommend it when people would call me is that um even though we say you know two years is is on average say for a liquid reagent, same thing for test strip, the discs are about the same. Um get something fresh because you don't know. You just don't know. And you need those reliable readings at the get-go, like you mentioned, to see what you need to add, other than simply, of course, shocking the pool to clean it up initially. You know, you need to test for everything. So you've you've got to have fresh product in order to do that and get the right answer. You don't screw up the pool and add something that you didn't need to add in the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 18:45

Sure. So what so how let's talk about this for a second then? Um where should you store your and what like what's realistic, what's not, because like most people, you know, especially in the northeast, like, yeah, it'd be great if we if you had a warehouse, you know, that was climate controlled, but like most guys are gonna have their garages. Right, right. Like, is it okay to store it in your garage? Is it better to store it in the trunk of your car?

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah, ideally, ideally now. Um you you should keep your your product your testing systems between as best as you can between 35 and 85 degrees. Okay. So the sweet spot during the off-season would be like 50-ish, 50 to 55, which means don't store it outside, don't store it in a in an unheated shed. Uh if the garage is heated, yeah, that's probably not a bad idea, but keeping it inside in a relatively ambient room temperature is going to be the best way to store it. Now, if life hits you in the face, and what if and and I we would get this all the time, what if you're using liquid reagents for whatever test and they freeze? What do you do? Okay. Well technically you can let them thaw out. Thall out at room temperature. I know some some people used to stick them in the in the uh pockets of their of their jeans and whatnot, and you know, let their leg warm them up, but not the greatest way to do it. Um but let them thaw out naturally, uh at ambient temperature. Don't nuke them, don't put them in an oven, you know, that kind of thing. I've had people do that before. Oh god. Um so you just let it thaw out. And if there's no after they thawed out, and you can tell this, particularly with the clear reagents, like uh um say DPD number one, the buffers. And any kind of buffer. It's usually clear. If if you look at it and there's nothing floating inside, you're good to go. If you see little floaties in there, that means for some reason something is breaking down, and you probably shouldn't use that uh reagent or get it fresh. Um now with via distribution, um all of those distributors have bought product from the manufacturer, usually as an early buy. So they're ready for they have a large inventory of of whatever available for you uh once your season starts. So the re so the products are gonna be a few months old anyhow, but they're gonna be good. They're gonna be fresh. And if your season again is short, you're gonna be using all those products by the end of the season, anyhow. Um unless unless you have to do a lot of testing for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

Got it. But I I have a question, I guess. So what we used to do um is we would have like four test kits, right? So let's say I had like four guys show up at this, you know, at this place and we all had our trucks with us because like we all had to go to this job, I would say, like, all right, test kit check, and we would all come and test the water, all with our four test kits and see like was everybody kind of you know the same. And that was just like our kind of quick way to check, you know. Um, but I do know that obviously if you really do need to check it, or like, guys, if you have like 10, 12 employees and you're blowing through test kits like it's going out of style, buy the reagents that are the the precursors and shows you exactly that the alkalinity is at 70 or the calcium hardness is at 100 or whatever, and you buy a quart of that and you just keep it, and now you can test all your test kits all the time. Um, and I'm getting to the point where we're getting big enough where we're gonna have to start doing that because like I think last year I we probably two or three different times during the year, we like found someone's test kit was no good. Because I was like, I I I would go to the pool and I'm like, why do you keep why do you keep putting a hundred? I'm like, it's at 50. Right, like that's not even close. I'm like, and you know, and my I'm like, did you not test the calcium last week? And that's that's that's how I'm coming at them. You know what I mean? I'm like, hey, I'm like, did you not do this? And it was just so one of the times it was my test kit. Uh I'm yelling at Eddie, and I'm like, Eddie, you know, I'm like, I can't believe you know, uh I'm like scolding him, and uh we find out it's My task here.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Well, and remember also that the most uh liquid reagents are available in a variety of sizes. So you've got normal uh usually pints, quarts, and gallons in some cases. Okay. Um so it is gonna depend upon the manufacturer, but generally the most reagents are available in all sizes, some you can't because of DOT regulations and things like that. Um but yeah, you get bigger sizes. So if you have a big crew, a lot of people out there, and they're doing a lot of testing, they can buy the larger sizes and repo into the smaller bottles. Now, what I usually recommend on repours, you've got to be really careful because if the reagent in your bottle is going going bad or is bad, and you don't empty that and rinse out the bottle and the tip and the cap, you're pouring fresh reagent into an already contaminated reagent, and you've now contaminated what you poured in.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Okay, so we want to change our we want to refill our um reagent, it's almost finished. You're saying good practice is to really just dump it out, wash it, wash it with warm water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Well, ideally, you should be doing rinsing it out with distilled water. Okay. Ideally, and you can get that at any grocery store, you know, any any probably drugstore nowadays, you can get it.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

Uh humidifiers and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Exactly, exactly. And and do that and let it air dry. Don't wipe it down with anything, just let it air dry. And then you can go ahead and repo. The kicker is if you're repoing from a say a quart container into um a two-ounce bottle, the two-ounce bottle label is going to be the information will be the same as far as what it contains, but the expiration date's gonna be different. So you have to usually handwrite it or get a magic marker, magic marker, right? Show my age, get a marker and put it on the bottle like when when you did that, so you can have a rough idea of you know how how good the stuff is gonna be, assuming it's been all stored properly. Um then now I just lost my training. Oh, the freezing thing, yeah. Um if you ever question the the the the validity of a reagent, contact the manufacturer. Okay. Most protest manufacturers also have something called standard solutions. So I didn't think I was going to get into this today, but um standard solutions are just exactly what it is they sound like. They're they're um um uh usually it's a pint bottle of something that is designed to read a specific value. So for example, there's a standard solution for an alkalinity of 100, cyanuric acid at 50, a pH at 7.2 or 7.4. And you would use that as your sample and then do your test. And then if it comes up to whatever the standard solution says it should, within you know about 10 parts per million either direction, you're good to go. If it's way off, either the the the the liquid reagent you're using is bad or your technique sucks. You know, you're not holding the bottle straight up and down, you're holding it off the side, that kind of thing, but then that's I'm getting picky now. But they're available. So contact your manufacturer if if you ever question that. It it that they have the most up-to-date and valid information.

SPEAKER_04 26:06

No, that's not that's not being picky though, Wayne, because I I'm on my guys all the time about it, and I we talk about it in CPO class, and that's the one most important thing is that when you're putting in your drops, that the bottle is you know straight up and down, and you're getting a big ball of one, you know. So I want to talk about how you know these test kits have changed changed my life in a in a in a positive way. And when we started doing, and that you know, there's a titrametric test, um, and there's a color metric test, and the color metric test is where you put in you know five drops of this and you put in five drops of that, and now you shake it and you look at it on a white background and you say it looks like one ppm free chlorine to me. Looks like three. But the problem is you could look at it and say, it looks like three, somebody else could look at it and say it looks like five. And you know, these are just facts. It's like I think over like 36% of guys out there are are colorblind, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

So I'm colorblind is called red green, which means I'm really I really suck at looking at reds and pinks and things like that. Um, but but you're right, and and and I do want to slap you on the wrist a little bit. Never, never, never, never shake uh a sample to mix it. Okay, the only test that tells uh the the only test that you should be shaking to mix it would be for cyanuric acid test when you're mixing um that reagent with your sample. All the other ones you just you know cap it and then turn it upside down a couple times. You never shake it. That's what I meant, I guess. Yes. Very good, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

Very good. So turn it upside down and then turn it back the other way. My point is I don't do that test anymore, so it actually doesn't matter. Because I changed because I didn't like the fact that um we were going to these pools and we're saying it's one, but it also kind of looks like three, but it also could be five. So, like, is it one or is it fucking five? Like, that's a big difference, right? So, what we started doing is the you know, the FAS DPD um the drop test, right? The drop test, right? Where it's now a titrametric test where it goes from one color to another color. So it starts out pink and it goes clear. Um, there's a few different ones that they have out there that'll, you know, that'll but basically uh when I test for chlorine, I want to know that it's at 5.5 or I want to know that it's at 13. I don't want to know that it's at 10 and it's high. It's like, yo, how high is it? Right. You know, and that's part that's part of the problem where when you have these test kits that only go up to 10 and you're doing uh you know color comparison, now you have to do a dilution test, and it just it's not very finite of what the actual readings are, right? So we found a way to make this just a lot easier. And if you guys aren't out there using a titrametric test for your free chlorine, you're leaving money on the table.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

And it's really what not only that too, but um, you know, the the Lamac spin lab will will read the same way, okay? And it's kind of sort of the same methodology involved, it's the the the technique is a little different, but it's gonna give you that exact number as opposed to trying to guess what it is between one and ten.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

But no, it's that's really what we're that's really what we want to know, right? Like you're coming in this person's backyard and you're being the you know the professional and the expert, right? They're looking to you to take care of the water. And I I can't tell you how many backyards I'll go into, and I'm just like, this guy's not really paying attention to the the long-term you know markers and indicators. And the you know, we talk about this all the time, but the long-term stuff is the cyanuric acid, the total dissolved solids, and the calcium hardness. Those are the things that over time they build up, and the only solution to pollution, pollution, right? So, you know, the only way to bring that those levels down is to is to add fresh water to the pool. So again, find out exactly where your chlorine is at because it's uh ten dollars a gallon, eleven dollars a gallon now, and guess where that price is gonna go this year? It's gonna go up, you know, with everything going on with the with the tariffs and you know, just the climate of our political situation in the country right now. Um we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. And my guess is that it's it's gonna go up, and you know, you can't stockpile this stuff, but like just some light math that like if you have 20 clients and you put in an extra half gallon into each of their pools, that's 10 gallons a week that you could be wasting. That's a lot, you know, and in a in such a slim margin business that we're in when we're doing service, you really just need to pay attention to what's going on. So to reel it back in a little bit and and go back to you know opening these pools. Um, the biggest thing, like I said, that changed it for us was having that third person there. And the reason being is I would always have like a lead tech, and he was the guy that after the cover was off and stored, he would go and uh do all the equipment. So he would put all the equipment back together. If there was pieces missing, he'd go to the truck, and you know, then the other guy would start testing the water, and the third guy would be setting up the vacuum. And what would happen is after those first two guys got finished, they would go to the next pool and get started on that. And that third guy, he would stay behind and finish the vacuuming because I can't tell you how many times I would have one guy sitting there watching another guy vacuum and nobody can go anywhere. That's right. You know, and now you're I I can't I just can't stand when we're standing around and like we're watching water fill. You know, like that's one of the things where I just get I don't get upset, but I'm just like, okay, so now what? Yeah, now what do we do? You know what I mean? You're gonna watch water right now. You need to stay there for an hour. And and I talked about this last show. That's why I got all my guys those water timers. And whether you want to fill people's water or you don't want to fill people's water at the beginning when you open their pool, the pool needs water. You need to turn it on, and you need to make sure that you're you're gonna turn it off. So the way that we got past that was we started getting these automated water timers, and if we need to leave, we would just put it on the spigot, and it could go on for up to two hours, and it's got like a little internal timer on it, and it shuts itself off. And like if we needed to do that, we could leave water on, and that was a game changer for us, you know. So now you can do because if you spend an extra half hour at each of these pools and you get four pools done, you've now spent two hours of wasted time maybe having your guy sit around watching your guy vacuum or whatever. So now that that one guy could stay behind and do his vacuuming and uh you know put the chemicals in and then brush and do all that stuff. And a lot of these places are gonna have return visits, right? Like a lot of places, hey, the pool is up and running, but we need a an anchor for we need an escushing for the ladder, you know, and that's not because the escushing is broken or whatever it is, and those are the little caps that go around the um, you know, where it goes into the ground, right? So a lot of times you're gonna have to go back to these pools. So you want to make your return visit worthwhile, you know, and it's like the same thing that I'm doing today. Like when I get done with the show, I'm gonna go up to the Palisades and I need to drain a pool because my plaster is gonna do a renovation for one of them, and I have to drain it through the P trap and stuff. And like I made all of my appointments. I have two other appointments that I'm going to people's houses to check them out, all on the same day. Um, and one of them was like, Can you come on Wednesday? And like, you have to not let these people dictate your schedule. And at the beginning, I was too people pleasing. And I would say, Oh, like you need you need to be there, you know, like you don't need to be there. As long as I have access to your backyard, like I will call you if I need you, you know, and I don't mean to be rude, but it's like, what are you gonna do? Like, you're gonna stand out there and just watch me work, you know, and that's that's what I have to say to people, especially like they're like, Oh, can you come check out my pool? Like, we want to be there. And that's why it's so essential that you when you get these clients that you're interviewing them at the at the beginning, and you're making sure that this is a good fit because all of a sudden you could get yourself into a situation where you know, you bend over backwards one time and you come over, you know, this week on a on a Friday, and now they're like, Well, we really love having the pool, you know, clean for the weekend. Like my wife and I spoke about it, and we thought it would be great if you could change our day to Friday, you know, our service day to Friday. And it's like, yeah, I want fucking two million dollars, you know, but like uh there's some things that aren't gonna happen. Right. And this is another thing that like I just read on Facebook, and it was a discussion where in one of the groups people were going back and forth and saying, like, if you're on Friday service, like you should be charged more money. It's a premium day, and you should actually be paying for premium service. And I have had to where like one of my guys was in school, like he was part-time and doing college. Um, and like his, you know, now this it's the second semester and his schedule changed. And like everybody is so like, this is my guy. And you know, if this if someone else comes. So this was the problem at the beginning when I was doing the pools and I was transferring them over to my employees, they were like, wait, like you're not coming anymore, you know, or the initial visit, like, I'll go and they'll be like, Oh, you're gonna be the one that's coming, right? And I'm like, absolutely not. I'm like, I'm just here to to meet you and put you, you know, you know, onboard you more or less, make sure that what there's not, you know, do a safety inspection and then get you tied in with uh, you know, Eddie, Emilio, Carlos, Carlitos, one of my guys, you know, they're they're gonna be your guy. Um and some of them just like won't accept that. And you you have, you know, and now you're in a position, and this is uh a perfect example. I have a really good friend of mine, and he lives in Key West, Florida. Okay, and he has an amazing pool service. He takes care of like everybody's pool in Key West. Okay. The problem though is everybody there is so used to him doing the pool that now that he's trying to get people to do it for him, they're saying no. He's getting like too much pushback. So now he's like, I don't know how to get out of this. Like, I need to stop working. I need to stop, I you know, he's working in his business and not on his business, right? Right, right. And that's the whole thing that everybody talks about, where you know, when you get to a certain point and a certain level, it's not doing you anything, it's not advantageous for you to still work in your business. You need to step outside of your business and work on your business. Um, so what I do with that is, and even at the beginning, I set the expectation at the beginning. And this is at the first time that you meet them, you tell them, hey, like I will be doing the pool right now, but I am in the process of hiring someone. And as soon as that person gets hired and he gets trained and he gets all of his certifications, we're, you know, I'm gonna give you him. But it's super important that when you do this transition, that you don't just have this guy go out there on his own. And like I just talked to one of my employees that he like tried to switch days with one of my other employees and like talked to him about it first. And then that employee called me and was like, oh, like I'm gonna do this pool that day. And I was like, fuck if you are. I'm like, you don't even, I'm like, you didn't you didn't get your LA County technician's license yet. And like, you can't go to that pool. You know, I'm like, you're not licensed for that pool. I had to call the other employee back, and I was like, hey, like you, you, this is not your schedule to move around. I'm like, if you're gonna move this around, I'm like, you need to ask me first. And I would have told you, not only does he not have his LA County license, which he does now, this happened a year ago, um, because he was just too new. Um, a lot of our clients have like really tight security where like we have an individual code to get into their place. And uh they've told us like if you deviate from like a you go straight to the pool and you go straight to the equipment, like if you even go to walk around to go to the bathroom or like actual because they have a bathroom, they were like, don't even go anywhere near the house. They were like, if you go anywhere near the house, there's gonna be armed guards that are gonna come and they're gonna be, you know, guns drawn, more or less. So we got that warning. Um, so some of these clients here are just super high profile and they're they're private and they, you know, they don't want that. So you have to, you know, go with your guy, introduce them. Have the, you know, make sure that you're going at a time when the client is gonna be there. Um, you know, have now where you can clean have the guy cleaning the pool and you can talk to the client. One of the things that like really hurt my time was that when I was doing the pools, everyone wanted to come out and talk to me. And I didn't mind talking to them because this is my client, and like I love you know, making a rapport with them and some the you know, the the small talk and getting to know them. And that's important too. Like, is this guy a lawyer? Is he a doctor? Like, what does he do for a living? You know, and like uh not everybody's gonna act the same, not everybody's gonna treat you the same. Um, so it's not like I'm like looking for the doctors. Like, I have guys that own construction companies and are just as cool and just as awesome, but all of them aren't gonna do anything with the pool, you know, and that's really what it comes down to that uh you know, you're gonna be the professional in the backyard. So you really have to set the tempo and the tone. Um, and that has to happen at the beginning, you know. Um, and I it's hard because at the beginning, you're not in a position where you can be picky, right? Like you might have just started your company last year or you know, two years ago, and like maybe you got a wife, maybe you got a kid or two, and like that changes the game, Wayne. Like when you got mouths to feed, shit gets scary, man. You know, um, and like when this yeah, when this money's going towards diapers and towards food and you know, towards school and stuff like that, like you have to know how much you need to be bringing in. And that's why it's so important to price these jobs out before you go to them. Okay, and not only price them out correctly, price them out with enough buffer that even if something did happen where chlorine went through the roof this year, or you know, chemicals and products went through the roof, you can still maintain and and be successful. And by being successful, I mean making money, you know, because it took me a few years to really figure out. And you get so attached to these clients. At the beginning, I was so attached. You know, like if somebody left, I was like, why did they leave? Like, you know, like uh and I I still call and I still say, hey, like, and a lot of people it's about budget. A lot of people, it's like, hey, um, my neighbor's pool guy um, you know, is gonna take take it over because they're less expensive. Most of the time it has to do with cost. Um, a lot of times it'll have to do with your with the guy that you're sending, you know, or the fact that you've sent three different guys there in the last two months, you know, and they don't like having that many people in their backyard. Um, but if a lot of times they won't say this to you, and then at the end they'll be like, oh, well, we're already cutting ties, and it's because of X, Y, and Z. And that's why it's so important that you really are checking up on your guys' notes and you're making sure that they're they're doing a good job, because it's a lot of times the the constructive criticism that you're getting back, you're not gonna get it unless you actually ask for it. So when I go to the these pools, like I might go to look at a heater, or I might go to oversee something, or sometimes I'll go with my guys and I'll just go out with them. And if the client's there, I'll ask them, like point blank. I'll be like, How's everything going with Eddie? You know, like you think he's doing a good job, or you know, is there anything that we could be doing differently? Or is there anything that you've like that you've seen that you've been upset about, or that kind of rubbed you the wrong way that you like, you know, that you didn't address? Like you can address it now. And I've had people where they've said, like, hey, like your guy, and this isn't Eddie now, but uh like your guy, your guy comes and it just seems like he's in a rush, you know, and like he's actually running around the pool. And uh like you really have to, I didn't realize that. And I had to say to my guys, like, hey, you really need to, like, I don't mind you being efficient and being good at your job and like you know, having a little hustle in your step, but like nobody wants to see you be in and out of their pool in 15 minutes, you know, and the truth of the matter is that when Jen and I we started this, we started going out on our own, and we would be like, let's take our time, like let's do this the way it's supposed to be done. We're gonna do the most thorough job, and we're gonna see like how quickly we can get out of here. And it was it's two of us, and we'd still never be in and out in under 25 minutes. So it it befoggles my mind that your technician could get in and out of this pool in 13 minutes. Like, what is he doing? You know, and look, some people like like we learned with The guys from down under and Lee, they do once a month service. So like I get it. A lot of you guys are doing splash and dashes where like all you're doing is the chemicals, and then the client is going to vacuum the pool and uh backwash the filter and do all that stuff, right? Um, but we're providing like a full service. So I think it's really important that at the beginning you talk about like what your service is going to entail and basically what they're going to expect from you, and then what you're going to expect from them. Because again, I've said this before, and I just don't understand how all of the people in Australia care about their pool enough to go out there and do it. I've had over a thousand clients, thousand different clients, you know, like since I've started. And I've never met a person that no matter what they did, like they don't they don't do anything with the pool. Even if they say, like, oh, like we're super proactive, and you know, they no, like you come and it's uh the leaf basket is overflowing, you know, the skimmer basket is overflowing with leaves, the pump basket is overflowing with leaves. And like the pump basket is our job, right? But again, like if you're in an area where there's a ton of foliage and uh leaves and overhanging oak trees and stuff over the pool, you know, you you have to let these people know that, like, hey, if you don't do anything at this pool, it's consistently gonna look like shit. You know, and that's the thing. Like, people, that's why it's so important that when you're at the pool itself, that you actually communicate to these people what's going on. And my number one thing is like if there's algae or the pool is really bad, like there was a windstorm and there's stuff all in the pool, I'm sending that picture to the client, not in our capture app, I'm sending them a direct text message and I'm saying, hey, this is what your pool looks like. It looks like shit. Right? So, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to finish it or do you not want me to finish it? You know, and then they can tell you what to do. And now when they get that extra, you know, they're getting charged extra money for that extra service, nobody feels bad.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

Right. Either they know they know ahead of time.

SPEAKER_04 47:22

Right. So is there any instances for you, Wayne, where like you you've had to go back and you know, where kind of like that, where like you there was just like a misunderstanding of like what you were supposed to be doing or what they were supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Well, my my my my situation, yeah, what was a little different. Of course, yeah. Yeah, um, because 90% of what I did, I did on the phone with customers or emails, sometimes in person at trade shows and things like that. So a lot of times what will happen is somebody would call in with a technical question or there was a problem, and and I'd walk them through the problem and I said, here are the steps that you need to do in order to fix whatever it is that needs fixing. Then I get a call back two days later, well, it didn't work. Well, did you follow what it did? Well, no, after the first time first thing, I I kind of went on my own. They don't listen. You know, and you you can only tell them things so many times before it it doesn't you know and it doesn't sink in at all. So it's it's very frustrating. And and uh your situation being, you know, you're more one-on-one, you know, in in in with the person than than I am. I'm just uh I'm just a voice. Really, that's all I was for 30 some years was was a voice to them. But I always took it upon myself that you know I was telling people used to we used to write our instructions on a third grade reading level uh for a reason because you wanted to make it as simple as is possible for people to understand what to do. And uh even though it it's very simple, very detailed, this is you do this, you do that, you do this, they don't listen. They'd rather go on their own. And and oh, I know, I know how to do this. I saw a YouTube video or something like that. It's like, oh God, one of those deals. But you you you you just have to reiterate and and be patient, at least with what I did, as far as passing along the right information and what to do. Now, I I had a lot of people that would call me back as regulars, would call me back once a month or or a couple times a season or like that. And it was kind of nice to talk to them because you remembered them and things like that. Um I I I can't I don't believe I did this, but when I started doing uh uh taking questions over the phone back in the early 90s, I kept a spiral-bound notebook and I have them sitting now underneath my desk here uh from 32 years of technical questions. I every one I documented. I must have 40 or 50 spiral-bound notebooks of everybody who's ever called and what the what the basic problem was so that I could always refer back to it or learn something about what happened so that I can pass that information along to somebody else down the line.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Did you guys ever have something happen where you told someone to do something and then something happened and that changed your policy? And you were like, we don't say that anymore, or we don't do that anymore because of this. And think on that for a second. And the reason that I'm asking that is because one of my clients, who was one of my first clients, um, called me yesterday, and he was like, Hey, he was like, uh, I had someone fix a I had like a handyman come over and fix this leak. Um, he's like, now every time I turn the pool on, the spa is draining. And I was like, Oh, I'm like, I know what's going on, but I'm like, do I want to talk this guy through? You know, so I was like, all right, FaceTime with me, and he had to go over to the Aqualink system. And I was like, all right, put it into service mode. I'm like, put it over from you know, from pool mode to spa mode to spa fill to spa drain. I'm like, let's see while it's off, let's see these things spin. And I was like, shit. I'm like, I don't know your system intricate enough to like know which way is which, because there's like lines coming from all over the place and they're all they're all plaques, they're not labeled. Um, so I was like, let me see if I have a picture. So I went in my notes and I have a picture of what it's you know, just a random picture of his equipment, and it shows the way that the valves were, which I would assume was in pool mode. So I was like, oh, snap. I'm like, that's the answer. I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like, let's get it to that when it's in pool mode. And when it was in pool mode, sure enough, the suction valve was, you know, turned 180 degrees or whatever it was. So it was an easy fix. But it was like 10 minutes of me going through with him, like trying to figure it out with him. A lot of people, I would not have done that because he's smart enough to be, he can mess with stuff on his own. He like turns his own heater on, you know, like he's he's a decently mechanical. Most 90% of the people, if they called me, I would be like, Oh, we need to make a service call for that. And I would not tell him to touch stuff because then if something happens um and he got hurt, like you know, now I'm the one that's responsible for telling him to touch that or whatever it is. So anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Not quite like that. Uh, but uh I think a a lot of what would happen to us was that say we we we um we we uh bottled a reagent, doesn't matter what reagent, okay? And we sold yeah, a thousand of these or ten thousand of them. Come to find out, quality control found out that something was wrong with the reagent. Okay, so we did a recall. I can count on one hand the number of recalls we had to do in the 30 some years I was there. And that's a that's a big thing for us, is is particularly if it's a reagent that's used a lot, like say a pH indicator or something like that. But uh the we we had a uh policy we not policy, we had a procedure on what to do and how to do it and how to correct it and how to replace it and and things of that nature. But the the as far as like uh people calling in, I'd say that the clear majority of people thing just help. The clear majority of calls I would get would be from some service people. Okay. I would say 60% service, 30% homeowners, 10% 3% from Steve.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

3% from Steve. I used to call you all I used to call you all the time.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

You're you're on my speed thing over here. No, um and um there are really some really stupid people out there who who for some reason don't want to listen to you or don't believe you. That that was the other thing. Um, you know, you would tell them, oh, it's probably because of this, this is what's causing it, this is how you correct it, and they don't believe you. Or they say, Oh, that doesn't sound right, I'm just gonna do it my way. Oh well, you know, there's not a whole lot you can do, you know, that kind of thing. But you you tell them you know what to do and how to correct the situation, but they don't follow through for whatever reason. Okay. That's and then you get the call back, well, you told me this, and you're when uh well, wait a minute, this is why I keep notes. And you flip back to it, says, No, I told you this, I told you that, and then they kind of shut up and hang up usually. But uh it's it's it's a it's a different atmosphere than than what uh you're you're involved with, uh, than than what I was involved with. Uh but still you get those problems. Um you get you know, now I remember the longest tech call I ever had was two and a half hours long with a service guy out in of all places Oklahoma. And he just literally what you said, he would he was on the phone and um he was at the pool and he's and he did the the FaceTime thing, and he said, wait a minute, let me FaceTime it. And he would show me the pool and he would walk around over there. But it was it was almost two and a half hours. But in that two and a half hours, I gave him the right information. He solved a number of different problems, um, some of which were not chemistry related, some were equipment. But um it was beneficial. So, you know, you you you uh you now obviously you can't spend two and a half hours at a customer's location, it's not economically feasible. But it it it you you do what needs to be done in order to make the customer happy. And I think that's what it boiled down to. Again, different circumstances, different different atmosphere, but the the whole idea is is essentially the same. You you want to do your job, you want to do it right, you want to make the customer happy, uh, you want to entertain that customer, that kind of thing. And and whatever you can do reasonably to keep that relationship, you do.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

Right. And I I I agree with that, and that's why I made the decision yesterday when this guy called me at 1030 on Sunday morning to number one answer the phone, to number two, give him the advice that he needed. But like I said, if it was someone else or like a new client or something, I would have said, like, hey, uh I'll come out there, but like I'm gonna charge you emergency service on the so like I could have made you know an extra 250 bucks or what you know, whatever whatever it was. But for me to drive out there on a Sunday, like I number one, I didn't want to do that. Um, number two, like I knew what the issue was and I knew it was fixable. I just we needed to go through a troubleshooting process to figure that out, which I didn't mind. Um, but I have had instances where people took it too far. And I'm on the phone with them and they're like, well, just walk me through it. And I'm like, no, I'm like, I don't feel comfortable doing that. I'm like, number one, like this is my job. Like, so you're telling me there's a problem and like you want it fixed. Like, I'm telling you that I'm gonna have someone come fix it, but like you're it's gonna cost you money for that to happen. Like, this is my career and this is our jobs, and like uh this stuff isn't it. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_06 56:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:54

Um and then there's like other like I have some companies that actually will pay me quarterly just to answer the phone for their employees. They have like 20, 25 employees, and they'll call. And like I had one of those calls that went in a circle the other day. They called and they were like, hey, the heater says that the the gallons per minute flow is at six. And I'm like, okay, I'm like, that's weird. I'm like, it usually has too much flow that so we put a bypass on there to like to, you know, to with a ball valve on it to back the flow down or make it more. And I was like, all right, first things first. I'm like, you've closed that valve, you've closed it over, and like that number doesn't go up. And he's like, no. I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like, have you taken the flow switch out of this, you know, this Raypak ET3 electrical here? I'm like, the, you know, it's inside the outlet piece. You need to take the union off, you need to pull it off, you need to pull this piece out. I'm like, have you backwashed the filters? I'm like, is there anything clogged in the lines? I'm like, take the check valve apart. So we do this like whole troubleshooting. And I had just gone to that Raypak class, so I called my Raypak rep who picked up right away. And he was actually at a training, so he grabbed the head trainer and like now I have them involved. And they're like, I'm sending them pictures, and they're like, you know, this is a dumb question, but like that check valve isn't, you know, broken. And I'm like, no, they're like, you back. Well, we went through the whole fucking thing again. Like, ask me all the questions that I asked this kid. Right. So I finally tell the owner of the company, I'm like, dude, I'm like, honestly, I'm like, what you're what's going on? I'm like, this is stupid. I'm like, this should be a problem that is easily fixable, and I do not know, like, we are missing something, like something is wrong. You know, I was like, you go to the pool, because I couldn't get it. It was in New Jersey. I was like, you go to the pool. I was like, you nearby? I'm like, you go. I'm like, let's look at it together when you get there. So he gets there, and I'm like, first things first, I'm like, that valve that we were talking about on the floor, the bypass valve. I'm like, close it. He's like, Whoop, GPM flow is now 40 gallons per minute. I was like, holy shit, I can't believe we just went through this, you know, what turned out to be over 90 minutes of troubleshooting, two hours of troubleshooting for um, you know, for us for someone to go there and change a valve. So again, when you talk to someone, um, you know, I I asked him if he did this, and he said yes. And like we were talking about the same thing. Like, it wasn't like he was like, Oh, like I thought you were talking about this. Um, and then we followed up and we asked the kid again, and like I do believe that he did move the thing, but like maybe it wasn't moving. Like, sometimes it'll move without the the piece moving underneath. Um but there's like situations like that where it's just like uh was that wasted time? Like it's it's not wasted time, it might have been wasted time if I wasn't getting paid for it. Um, but that's a situation where like I'll bend over backwards for them to do whatever they need. But if like you're just a regular client and you don't have, you know, and you want me to explain something that like we're supposed to be doing, uh I don't know if I'm comfortable showing you how to backwash the filter over the phone. Yeah. You know, because what if you what if you touch the multi-port um or the push-pull valve while the pump is on? You know, and the thing breaks and it hits you in the face. And then whose responsibility is that?

unknown 1:00:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:14

Uh it would obviously be our responsibility.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:15

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:16

You know, so that's why you know you guys, you you really have to say, like, I'm gonna be helpful on the phone, but at the same time, like I'm not gonna get taken advantage of. And you guys have to know when to say, like, hey, you know, like we're gonna send someone out to take care of this, you know, like this isn't something that you should be taking care of yourself. Um, and sometimes that's a hard thing because like a lot of these people don't want to hear that, you know, and it all comes in the name of like safety and and liability, and you know, that you're the last pool professional on site. So if anything were to happen in any of these people's pools, um, you're gonna be on the hook for it. So that's why it's so important that every time you go to someone's backyard, you're looking at the electrical bonding and grounding. Um, how many of you guys out there have pools that have you know main drain covers that are missing or are are pre-anti-vortex covers, and they're not the right covers? Or expired covers, too. Expired. Yeah, and expired covers. You know, not everybody follows this, and this isn't going to be a history lesson, but there's the Virginia Graham Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, right? And it's a law that came out in 2007, was enacted in 2007, came into law 2008, and all of the commercial pools in the whole country had to change out their main drains. And the reason that they had to do this was there were these two girls, one of them uh in the early 2000s, one of them got her hair stuck to like a side main drain in a spa, and another girl sat on a in a waiting pool. There was a pipe, cover was missing, she sat on it and it eviscerated her. And what that means is it took her intestines out of her body and put it into the pump basket, right? So they wound up, you know, her, I think it was it was either her mother or the other girl's mother. They were lobbying in Washington and they got this this law passed. But the law isn't just for commercial pools. So it's for commercial pools, but the what they said is that all residential pools are kind of grandfathered in, but you have to change the covers no matter what. And when you have a single main drain for a pool or a spa at a residential pool, when you renovate the pool, you have to dig up that single main drain and make it into two dual hydraulically balanced main drains that are more than three feet apart, center to center. So you have to put these covers on there, and these covers have these expiration dates. And the expiration date is not from the date of manufacture and it's not from the date of sale, it's from the date of installation. And I always tell everybody if you don't have this piece of paper, which is the certificate of compliance, which shows you a schematic drawing of the drain, and this is how many gallons per minute on the floor it has flow. This is how much gallons per minute on the wall flow it has. It will spell all of that out. It will also tell you the expiration date of the cover, which is normally three years, five years, seven years. Some of the bigger commercial ones are 10 years. Uh, but I would say that like five to seven years, yeah, yeah, is about the sweet spot on that. Um, so like I said, I I know we're probably gonna finish up soon here because we're getting to about an hour, but that's something that I didn't want to take up, you know, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to talk about because everybody goes into these backyards and every new pool that I get, I have to educate these people to put these VGB drain covers on. And one more point is that everybody has those sidewall vacuums that have those vac locks on them. I hate them. Okay, because they get stuck in the open position, people unscrew them. Um, so what I do is I actually um like CMP and then also Aquastar, they both make um inch and a half threaded pieces that have a little four-inch like hockey puck um VGB drain, is what they call it. Okay, and what I do is I take the vac lock off and I just throw it away, and I put this VGB cover on the sidewall now, and then I go back to the equipment pad and I open up the vacuum line. So now we're pulling from the skimmer, we're pulling from the main drains, and we're pulling from the sidewall. So not only are we getting better you know flow to the pool or you know, with turnover and stuff, um, now no matter what you did with the skimmer and the main drain, no one would ever get stuck to the bottom, even if you had a single main drain, because you're also pulling from the sidewall too. And it's an extra 60 to 80 bucks in your pocket for not doing too much work.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Right. You know, and like you said, we're hey, we just hit an hour exactly. Good timing on airport. So, guys, gals, thank you for listening today. Appreciate it very much as always. Uh, if you have any comments, suggestions for topics or whatnot, please feel free to hit us up at talkingpools at gmail.com and it will get to us if we we we use your your thought, your comment, or whatever. Uh you get a little gift from us. Thank you very much. Stephen, take care. Have fun out there on the west coast. Over here it's raining like cats and dogs outside right now, but have fun out there. Have a good one. Thanks so much. We'll be talking at you later. Take care. Bye bye.