Is Your Pool Business Balanced—or Are You Just Putting Out Fires?

This week on Mondays Down Under, Lee Salisbury—the Pool Shop Coach—and Nick tackle a question every pool business owner should ask: Are you actually running your business, or are you simply reacting to whichever fire is burning hottest today?

Lee introduces her new Business Balance Check, a free assessment designed specifically to identify the areas of your business that need attention most. It examines ten critical areas—including branding, communication, team culture, safety, policies and procedures, and employee autonomy—before revealing whether you’re currently operating as the Firefighter, the Glue, the Foreman, or the Owner.

Lee and Nick also discuss:

• Why procedures sitting unread in a binder are nothing more than expensive pieces of paper
• The importance of teaching employees the what, how, and why
• How small, one-percent improvements can transform a business
• Why great ideas collected at conferences rarely survive the trip home
• How a coach or mentor creates accountability and turns intention into action
• Using AI to streamline spreadsheets, emails, administration, and repetitive tasks
• Why obviously AI-generated advertising can destroy customer trust
• The danger of letting software replace genuine technical knowledge and judgment
• Why pool professionals must understand the story behind the water-test results
• Customers who create a chemical catastrophe—and conveniently forget to mention what they added
• The importance of consistent branding and customer experiences across every touchpoint

The episode also includes coverage from SPLASH 2026, featuring new chlorination and pool-control technology from Fluidra, along with commercial salt chlorination, ozone, UV, and advanced oxidation systems from Brauer.

And, because no pool-industry episode would be complete without a customer turning a manageable problem into a full-blown aquatic crime scene, Nick shares what happened when someone accidentally dumped approximately eight kilograms of chlorine remover into a 70,000-liter indoor pool—and then attempted to fix it with liquid chlorine and stabilized chlorine.

Take the Free Business Balance Check

Find out whether you’re operating as the Firefighter, the Glue, the Foreman, or the Owner:

The Pool Shop Coach’s Business Balance Check

Have a question or topic suggestion for Mondays Down Under? Email talkingpools@gmail.com and mark it for Lee and Nick.

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Hi guys, I'm here with Matthew from Floridra, and I'm looking at a couple of new chlorinators. Did you care to explain them to us? Yeah, we're super excited to bring this new range to market. So we've got our solo as a premium entry-level unit. It can control a variable speed pump as well as our new Bluetooth pressure sensor that goes into a filter. And so it's designed for the customers who want a premium entry-level experience, app control, the ability to control your pump and set timers all in a convenient space. And as we start progressing up the range, we start adding additional feature sets. So when you get customers who are looking at that entry market, they're a little bit price budget conscious. It's a fantastic solution. But a lot of customers have a little bit more bells and whistles on their pool installations. So if you've got things like a heater, if you want light control, if you still want your variable speed pump or dosing capabilities, that's where the echo is going to come into the market. And what's great about the Echo is that we're not locking into our ecosystem when it comes to heater control. We do have a dry contact relay on the bottom here, so we can then allow it to tap into the remote connections on other heat pumps, uh, in the flow switch if it doesn't have that, or a process switch for gas heaters and the like. So that ability to integrate a heater with our filtration pump setup gives us that ability to control all through one interface as well. So we're really excited to bring this to market.

SPEAKER_06 2:16

So I'm a sucker for lights and flashing lights. What's that mean?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

So what we have noticed in the industry is that consumers get uh these fancy products installed on their pool equipment sites, but they never get that uh fantastic handover experience to explain exactly how things work. So what we've done is we've uh introduced a new notification system. So any issues or errors or warnings that get thrown up on the screen get communicated through our notifications panel. And we also have a visual indicator here on the bottom through our O on the echo or solo or halo. And so if you ever have anything flashing, blinking, anything to do with the oranges or red colours, in uh impacts that warning or notice, we can then display those issues directly on screen. And we can also communicate other things going on with the systems during its normal operation as well. So if I go up here into our notifications area, we can then communicate anything from a filtering perspective, it's gonna be a solid green. As it's pulsing green, it's gonna be in a chlorinating state. So we're producing chlorine for the pool. In a solid blue or blinking blue, it's gonna be in an updating process. And as I mentioned, anything in that red hue is gonna be a warning or an error notification. And then just that go that extra mile when it's in an idle state, we can then customize what that colour here is so that if you've got a customer who wants that to be uh a pink hue, and I hit that save button, and if I were to clear all my errors out, uh that will then move from a red to a pink hue in that case. And it's currently saying that I've got an open temperature connection because we're in a demo mode for today. So if I was to go in here, uh change my heater contacts out of the equation, and if I was to then uh disable my temperature sensor just to clear that error message out of the system, so I've got no notifications here, and that pink notification idle has now shown up. A level of custom customability I haven't seen before, so that's really handy. It goes a long way further than that, though. So one of the great things that we're adding for this in timer control is the ability to set timers through any day of the week. So if we go into our frequency settings, we can then have custom timers from Monday to Sunday there. And to go a level further than that, we're now introducing four seasons customizations as well. So you have the ability to set a timer that runs on Mondays only, in winter only, and you can also tailor when that winter season starts and stops as well. So a level of customization that the industry doesn't actually have yet. Almost like you've thought of everything. And we really have tried to. All right, well, thanks for your time today. No worries, thanks everyone. Cheers.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

We are now on the Brouwer stand at Splash 2026, and I am joined by Luther.

SPEAKER_05 5:15

Hey guys!

SPEAKER_04 5:16

And Luther is Instagram famous. So if you're not following him, you need to follow Brouwer.

SPEAKER_05 5:20

Yeah, Brower Swim. Jump online.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

So Luther is gonna tell us about his awesome products. They are well known for their AOP systems in the commercial space in particular, but also covering the residential as well. So, Luther, please tell us about your fantastic products.

SPEAKER_05 5:38

Yeah, so this is one of our commercial grade chlorine generators. This is called the M2000, so it's a 2000 grammer chlorine generator. They are the best looking uh chlorinators in the market.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

2000 grams. So, what size pool does that do?

SPEAKER_05 5:53

So that's that's your typical million-litre pool. Um, but we do up to 4,000 grams, so that's good for your 50-meter plus pools, um, aquatic centers, surf parks. This is what you typically see running in your your theme parks, wave, wave pools, surf parks.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

So you guys are in some of the biggest pools in Australia.

SPEAKER_05 6:15

Yeah, correct. And yeah, correct. We are in biggest pools in Australia. That's what we're known for. Uh, we started off in the learn to swim industry and proved our products in that market, and then the councils jumped on board, and now we're in the majority of the largest councils around the country and around the world.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

And a lot of the caravan parks too.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Yeah, yeah, majority of the holiday parks use our equipment, uh, recovery centres, learn to swim.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

So we just have to convince the US market to pick up salt water chlorination? They're being a bit slow on the uptake.

SPEAKER_05 6:49

Yeah, exactly right, but there's plenty of other countries that like to use salt chlorination.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Uh, a lot of countries find it very difficult to get liquid chlorine, so that's why they're going to salt.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

And so do your units work on all various salt levels?

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Yeah, correct. So the term fresh water, also known as a low TDS 1200, so we can go from 1200 TDS, which is not detectable to the taste, feel, touch, all the way through to seawater. So we can reduce the chlorine required in all those levels of TDS. But not just chlorination, we do AOP secondary sanitation as you you said.

SPEAKER_04 7:29

Let's walk.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

Um we cover past some of our residential units here.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

So salt water chlorinator.

SPEAKER_05 7:37

Yeah, that's just your standard chlorinator. Then you've got your your ozone unit that can be retrofitted up against your backyard chlorine generator.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

And so that could typically go on either whether it be salt chlorination or chlorine or yeah, that just complements your chlorine.

SPEAKER_05 7:55

At the end of the day, you need that small amount of residual chlorine. But adding the B natural, which is our ozone generator, allows you to reduce those levels. It removes the nasty combined chlorine that gives you allergies, eczema, asthma, those sort of things. Helps with the clarity of your water and it it really looks after those people that have this.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Terrific, and that's a acid dose at the same time. Correct, that's your yeah, your automatic acid dosing unit.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

And then you've got the all in one units over here, which is either a bee fresh unit or a bee mineral. So it's chlorine chlorination and ozone all in the one unit, and you can have it either as a freshwater option or your mineral.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

And so the fresh freshwater option works off a low TDS, you said? Yes. So it still has a chlorination cell, yes, yep, for electrode. Yep, and it has the ozone as well.

SPEAKER_05 8:53

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 8:54

Fantastic. And then what's this big bopper business?

SPEAKER_05 8:56

Um, this is these are the all-in-one units that we build. So we have in-house fabricators. So we have uh chlorine generation, AOP UV, chemical control, all uh all on the one neat skid. So they can the pool builder can tell us how much room they have, and we can put all the items onto one neat skid, plumb it, wet test it, wire it up, um, ship it out the door anywhere in the country, just to reduce the time their plumbers have on site. So labour is a very expensive cost these days. So with our guys being able to do this all in our factory and ship it off on one neat skid, it's reducing the cost and time in fields.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

So the first one we looked at, the really big buffer was a 2000 grammar, was that correct?

SPEAKER_05 9:42

Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

And so is this a 500 grammar only having one cell or amongst it?

SPEAKER_05 9:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is this this cell can come as a 250 or a 500. This one's uh 250 on this display. So we've got a 250 generator with an AOP X2.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

So the AOP is on the other side?

SPEAKER_05 9:58

Yes, and this is what you typically find at a learn to swim school that has 1,000 bathers per week.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

So this will go in and guarantee and maintain health regulations for those 1,000 bathers per week.

SPEAKER_04 10:11

So this is AOP, so UV, ozone, all in the one unit. Producing hydroxyl radicals and correct, and it's salt water compatible.

SPEAKER_05 10:22

So you'll see other UV systems out there that are made of stainless steel, but you can't use them with salt core water chlorination because you can't put salt in the water because they end up rusting out. So our poly units have re revolutionized that market.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

And I understand, are you in the you're in Australia and New Zealand?

SPEAKER_05 10:43

Are you in the islands in the Fiji and the Pacific Islands? Yes. Yeah, right over there, Asia. Right, um, Southeast Asia put our systems in for the Southeast Asia games.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 10:54

Um they actually rang up and told us that they've got the fastest pool in the world now, so I don't know how that happens. Maybe the pool's built on an angle. That's alright, but but if they're if their gold medalist is saying that it's that that water's the fastest in the world, well we're not gonna we're not gonna um deny that and we're gonna run with them, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

And Bro will take that gold medal and we will, we will.

SPEAKER_05 11:15

And we do have the biggest pipes in the business. Um, so with our big secondary sanitation systems over here running 10-inch pipes, glass strainers, that's when you need serious equipment to look after those bathers. So it's not about looking after the bathers, particularly when it comes to councils, councils want to look after their structures. So, what you get with chlorine, you get a byproduct, which is a chloromide. You end up with a trihel of methane in that water, and that's what you can smell. And it's very corrosive. And that corrosive gas you can smell goes up in the air and rusts all the structures within your buildings. So that's what knocks it out. So it's not just looking after the health of the bather, it's looking after your multi-million dollar structures.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

Yeah, absolutely. Um, invest looking after your investment is is so important.

SPEAKER_05 12:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Okay, well, thank you very much for your time.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Thanks for coming, appreciate it. See you guys again. Brow swim.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah. It's Monday. The cruising is gone. Lee's chain and nickname Nazi vibes all day on. Got a call from a customer. Who's got some mixture? Sounds like a mixture for the down in the cruiser. I'm walking up to the pool. It's like a freak joke. Salt water clock swimming round, got the jaws up in wide box, jelly fish things, great white, sticking a ride in the tight ends. We're the wild. I'm the water ain't no water never. Obviously, we can make the team. We played fucking pools as it ends. Did we joke there? Fucking down the dungeon, ladies on the right, the wheel bottom, all the body quit down for some of the weaving cool. And then we got what's the cross. Ain't nobody gonna mess with the cruise in the top, then the clean second flow, and to get the back of that watch in the filter, gotta get it right in the water, and the clean got the back of body of water like a thing from the drain. Mondays down under.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, good whatever time of the day it is that you are listening to us. It is time for Mondays Down Under on the Talking Pools podcast. And we are really grateful to have you with us today. My name's Lee, and I'm the pool shop coach. And joining me is my sidekick, Nick. Hey Nick, how are you?

SPEAKER_06 14:03

Yeah, good Lee. Going well. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah, pretty good. It's been a bit chilly here today. So winter is well and truly um upon us, actually. We're probably coming out the other side, aren't we? We're only a couple of weeks. Actually, by the time this goes to air, we'll only be like one week away from spring. How crazy is that? Winter just flew, didn't it?

SPEAKER_06 14:26

It did, it did. Uh, did I get everything I wanted to do? No. Have I gone through my customer list? No.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Um, oh, oh, nick, nick, nick. You need your butt kicked.

SPEAKER_06 14:38

Yes, sorry. Sorry, coach.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

I was gonna say, well, I can say you're not a coaching client of mine, otherwise I would have kicked you off already, and you would have had that list done weeks ago. Um, no.

SPEAKER_06 14:52

Am I gonna have to write lines or something like that?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yes. Um, no, all seriousness, no. People really need to get more proactive in winter. We think winter's at one point, I think we think it's gonna be endless and that we're gonna have this infinite amount of time to get this very long list of everything done, done. And before we know it, spring is knocking on the door, summer's around the corner, and we just did not get shit done. Let's face it. Like I've been there, I've been there, best of intentions, had the list. Um, but I'll tell you what, there's nothing more rewarding than actually being very diligent about getting that list done. And the sense of accomplishment accomplishment that you come out of winter with and the achievements that you've put in place, and how much smoother summer goes because you've done the legwork in winter. So sorry, Nick, you haven't got that to look forward to.

SPEAKER_06 15:50

Well, we've been trying to improve improv improve our standard procedures and put a lot more procedures in place on paper. So, yeah, we have done some things, some proactive things.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

That's good. But a procedure that only lives on paper is not a procedure, it's just a piece of paper. So we need to make sure that we do implement them and then we do keep active on them. And they're just not sitting on a shelf gathering dust like lots of respect to do.

SPEAKER_06 16:19

I know I'm trying, I'm gonna be working on some of the staff members and yes, making sure that we're following those things because yeah, the time and effort it takes to do them, you're gonna you're gonna see the benefit of it.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Um, completely. Consistency of delivery of service is so, so important. Um, because uh you don't want to be relying on just who the person is that does it um or the mood that they're in today, or whatever is the case, you need to have a standard and they need to deliver on that. They need to also understand not only the what, but the why. So the what, the how, and the why is really important because if you can't get them to buy into the why, they won't do it.

SPEAKER_06 17:02

Yes. No, I was yeah, trying very, very nicely this week to bite my tongue to say this is why we need to do it. Um, but hopefully we've gotten there and I've gotten through. So um, yeah, we'll see, we'll see how that pans out. I'll let you know in a couple of months.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

And your Monday morning meetings will be the perfect time to pick one procedure out of the book and let's go through this procedure so that everybody is familiar with it. So that might be something to add to your Monday morning meetings.

SPEAKER_06 17:33

Yes. Well, back back before I was uh co-host, I said I listened and I did have a fair few procedures in place prior to your arrival, but yeah, I want more. I want them all.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Oh, that's good. Oh uh uh it's actually interesting that we're talking about that because one of the things that I've been working on over the last few weeks, actually, but it's finally all coming together and been putting the final pieces together today is actually something that I call a business balance check. So it is like a personality quiz for your business. You know, those good old personality quizzes we used to do as teenagers, or I suppose sometimes they come up on social media and and whatnot these days. They're a bit of fun, but for your business it can be quite serious and it can actually really help you work out which areas you really need to work on first. We probably, let's face it, we've probably got lots of areas in our business that we need to work on, but which ones are the ones that are screaming at us? Like they're the ones we need to attack first. So this quiz actually covers, and I don't like the word quiz, but this assessment, let's say. Um, and I use the word business balance check, like it's a balance of, hey, how is everything looking? Just like we test water, how to and so it looks at 10 different areas of your business, everything from branding, team culture, communication, um, what else is there? Work health and safety, policies and procedures, autonomy. There is lots in there. So 10 different areas, and each area has seven questions, and then you rate yourself from one to ten for those seven questions. And then basically it all magically adds up at the end and it tells you which area of your business is or which areas of your business you actually need to work on. So you get a personality at the end, you're either um the um the now I'm gonna have a mental blank, um the firefighter, the glue, the foreman, or the owner. So they're the they're the four personalities, let's say, of business, and then uh gives you a bit of a rundown of where you probably find yourself in business at the moment, and uh also what you probably need to work on in that respect. But then it actually identifies the three lowest scoring areas from your assessment, and then it gives you some ideas of probably where you're going wrong, so to speak, or maybe where you could go right is probably a better way to put it, and then a bit of an action item as well. So something that you can put in place quite simply um to make a change because let's face it, every little improvement adds up. I love that kaizen thing. Do your girl girls do kaizen at school? Never heard of it. You haven't heard of it.

SPEAKER_06 20:47

That's song by Cole Chisel.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

It does sound like Kai that, doesn't it? Um, no, uh Kaizen is like little increments of improvement, so one percenters. So if you do everything one percent better, it makes a substantial improvement. And so when my boys were at school, kaizen charts were something that the kids um lived by in their classrooms. So every time they did a bit of an improvement, they they got a sticker on their kaizen chart. So um it goes to show that the little improvements add up, and so you might just be doing a little bit here and a little bit there, or making this one change or that one change. These ones all add up and can add up to a significant improvement in your business. So I always say, How do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. So um, you need to not look at the whole thing because that can be very overwhelming and very daunting. And when we are often faced with that, what do we do, Nick?

unknown 21:52

Nothing.

SPEAKER_06 21:53

Bury our head in the sand, run away.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

We do nothing at all. Um, and that's not going to get us anywhere. I love the saying, you'll get run over. Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

SPEAKER_07 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

And I've seen so many businesses do that even over the years. Even the really good businesses, the really big businesses that have already had the growth and the development, if they just rest on their laurels, sure as hell somebody else is going to come in behind them and take overtake them.

SPEAKER_06 22:25

Um I just know, I just know through us. Yeah, I just know throughout it's so hard to take that external step and actually look at the business while you're in it and running it. Um, and you know, having a tool that you can use to really get that extra opinion to go, okay, well, why where am I falling short or what am I doing good and where can we improve? And so we we always try those little ones. Percenters, you know, fixing those little problems and trying to get in front of them so they're not a problem next time.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yes, you are always good at taking action and making improvements. Um, and I think that's why a lot of people do look for a business coach. Um, and that was why I looked for a business coach years ago, is because I wanted to do better. Like I knew that there was huge potential. I could see the room for growth, but I wasn't really quite sure what to do. I had lots of ideas, but I also had lots of ideas that I didn't implement. Like, let's face it, how many conferences have we been to over the years where you sit in that room, you have the best of intentions, you're getting motivated by whatever guest speaker they've had up on the stage, and you're writing notes badly, and you're going, yes, I'm gonna go back to work and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that, and you get back and you get busy, and that notebook goes in the drawer, and nothing gets done.

SPEAKER_06 23:54

Yes, I am guilty of that also.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

We all are, we all are, and that's where having a coach or a mentor um really comes in handy because it's a level of accountability.

unknown 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Turning up to your coaching session, whether that be fortnightly, weekly, whatever it might be, it just means, hey, I've actually got to turn up and I've been there, like I've gone, shit, I've got a coaching session tomorrow, and I haven't done anything since our last call. Like, and then I go, and then I sit there and I think about it, and it's like, okay, well, I've had this to deal with and I've had that to deal with, and oh, I did do this, and I did actually implement that, and I've got a few steps further along with this thing, and you often don't give yourself credit for the things that you actually have achieved because you're so busy just automatically jumping to the next task, you don't actually stop to enjoy the moment of success that you've actually had in achieving that one thing on the list.

SPEAKER_06 24:59

So you look at you look at Olympic swimmers, you know, they've you know, they win a gold medal, but they've got a coach, you know. Could that coach win the gold medal? No. But you know, you're taking their experience, you're you're learning from them. They're they're good things, they're bad things, what works, and you know, they're then they're the ones standing on the podium at the end of the day, you know. Would they have been there without the coach? Who knows? Most likely not.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

It the thing is like it takes it takes a lot for somebody to get it, get in a pool, like you're saying with the swimming coaching, to get in a pool day in, day out. Now, if they had to turn up and do that by themselves every day at five o'clock in the morning, yeah, with nobody else there to hold them accountable, to make sure they turned up, to time them, to even the fellow teammates that have that level of accountability. If you don't have any of that, it takes an incredibly strong person to do that and um to push through all those pain barriers, whether it's business or it's swimming or it's running, it's still a pain barrier of of some kind. And sometimes it's facing our own demons um and and admitting we we don't know everything, or maybe there's there's shit we really should have dealt with. Um like those work, health and safety procedures that I find a lot of pieces of businesses are missing, not looking at you Nick because you're really good at this, but like it scares me when I actually talk to people in classrooms and they don't have PPE gear in their service vehicles, and they haven't had the work health and safety conversation with their employer when they came on board. Things like that. And it's just like these are things that businesses need to have in place. And okay, like I say, it is a hell of an elephant if you haven't got them in place. But the best time to start, other than probably a couple of years ago, is actually right now. It's the next best time to start. Because yes, we can yes, we're embarrassed, we haven't done it, we should have done it, we know we should have done it, but unless we make the change, unless we make the commitment to doing it, it doesn't get done. And the only one that can make it happen is you. So you've got to you've got to make that commitment. And that's where, yeah, I love what I do because I've been there, I've been on that other side, I've had all the ideas, I've had all the best of intentions. And once I got a coach and that level of accountability, also a sounding board, I would have loved it if you had been in the pool industry. That would have been even more beneficial, hence why I'm doing what I do now. Um, but yeah, just having that person that could push back on my ideas and make me fight for them and make me think even further, like, yeah, I've got this idea. Wow, it could be this idea. Um, that really strengthened and developed our business well beyond what I thought was possible. And um, it certainly raped the rewards for for me. And so, yeah, and if actually, if you actually look at any good business coach, they all have coaches themselves. So we're always looking, everybody is looking for ways to improve, and you don't necessarily have to have all the answers. So, but yeah, so the quiz is something that's yeah, really I'm I'm really interested in. So there is it's a free quiz. So if there's anybody out there that wants to do it, I will get Rudy to put a link in the in the show notes. Um, it's a a free assessment, it's called the um business balance check. And you complete the quiz, you'll get the um the report back to you actually quite quickly. I do have to say that automation is AI, the answers are not. Um, I did use AI for the for the automation, and I do suggest to businesses that they use AI where um appropriate. And if it helps expedite something and it doesn't replace you, because let's face it, AI doesn't have my knowledge, it doesn't have my skills and um my experience when it comes to running a pull and spy industry business. But what I do is put my answers in. So I created the 70 questions. Um I created the 70 answers uh or the 70 responses, and then I um got AI. Well, AI helped me because it put the answer the questions in a spreadsheet. I then put the answers in, I then gave everything back to AI. AI can then pull the bits and pieces and collate the responses, collate the scores, and then can um give the responses back to the people. So there is some automation in there, but rest assured the answers are me.

SPEAKER_06 30:12

So AI seems to just be infiltrating that little bit the step-by-step into our daily world as well. Um very, very helpful with some things. Like I had uh um uh one recently where we're doing some price increases and you know, a couple of spreadsheets in, and you would have to go through multiple pages of multiple things and you know, hey, put this in, let's do this. And um, yeah, a report come out nice and easy to see um and and find what we needed to increase, what the percentage price rise we needed to put in. And yeah, it was all super, super helpful information.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Yeah, yeah. It is um really great when you can get the skills to do what you need it to do. Do be warned though, because I'm dealing with Claude, so everybody deals with something a little bit different. Are you a Claudie or a Chatty?

SPEAKER_06 31:01

No, I'm I'm chat GTP.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 31:04

Please be kind to me.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

I was chat, I've gone to Claude, I've defected. Um, but um they all have their own positives and well, I can't say so much negatives, but they're ups and they're downs. Some are stronger in some points and some are stronger in others. Um, but yeah, I I now use Claude and it has projects and it has skills and it has code. Um, it also has co-work. So it's really quite interesting what you can get it to do. So I actually attached it to my inbox yesterday, and so it's a um Chrome extension, and I got it to, because my inbox was getting very full as they do, and I got it to look at my inbox and give me some suggestions to cleaning it up. It then came back to me with the suggestions. It told me that this one uh emails from this person I hadn't opened, or this company I hadn't opened for umpteen months or whatever it was, and uh unsubscribe, I should unsubscribe to this and that and this and that. And so it gave me all of these ideas and and then it actually said to me, Do you want me to archive anything that's older than six months old? Remember, you can always search for it. So it gave me all of these things and and it was great. So I've got now got a clean inbox. So um, so the things you can get it to do are yeah, are really are really helpful. But I do caution business, businesses to make sure that Pete, look, let's face it, people these days are looking for human interaction, they're looking for connection, and especially with business, I'm trusting my pool to you, Nick. I want to know that you're you know what you're doing, that you are who you say you are, that um I want to be connected with you. I want to buy from somebody I like, I want to buy from somebody I trust. And I'm also entrusting the health and safety of my swimming pool to your company and my family are swimming in it. So I want to know that it's going to be looked after and that you value my business. Now, if the responses that I'm getting from a business are all AI generated, and I can tell because you can tell, and the ads that I'm seeing from your business are AI generated, and believe me, you can really tell that one, um that's actually creating disconnect. So I would urge businesses out there that are using AI, by all means, use AI to sort your inbox. Um uh maybe polish your emails, um, maybe not write them completely because AI does have a very distinct voice, even when, and I've put lots of my own work into my projects as they are on um Claude. I've given it my personality, my branding, my intellectual property, and all of that. So a lot of what it can give me back is me to a degree, but I would never ever get AI to write a blog post or a newsletter or anything like that to my clients. Um sometimes it can sprinkle some magic on my English to make it a little bit easier to understand and maybe a little less wordy. I have a tendency to ramble, so it seems. And and so AI is good for that. So um I do I do suggest that um or recommend that businesses do that. It can certainly fast track some activities. Like you said, spreadsheets is brilliant. Um giving it information and asking it to populate it into a spreadsheet, absolutely awesome. But when it comes to ads, and I want to talk about this because I am seeing an increase in this on social media. Please do not use AI to write your advertisements for your business. And I mean write, I mean design, I mean the whole lot. Those ads are very, very obviously AI. I think I spoke about it before, where I've seen pumps that don't look anything like pumps. I've seen people standing on water actually servicing pools. Um, I've seen Six Fingers, I've seen a filter and a pump that was basically sitting on the edge of the pool or on the water. Um, like the crazy things that you see that these images are generated, but not just that, the wording. There is so much writing on these ads. You can't possibly one read it because it's too friggin' small. And two, I'm not gonna sit there and read all of that on an advert.

SPEAKER_06 36:09

They feel so shallow, they feel just just so yeah, yeah. There's no there's no passion, there's nothing, there's no substance to any of them. And I tried with um our water test note, uh water test printout to make one. And yeah, I put it on and I had it on for a day, and it's just like, oh, I just don't like this. It just doesn't look good, doesn't feel good. Um ripped it off.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

And they've actually done research on this already that actually shows that AI generated ads are actually creating disconnect. So these ads are not only not connecting with your clients, your clients are actually turning away from you because of the adverts. Yeah, so you need if you're using them in your business, you need to stop. Um, there's lots of things you can do uh alternatively. You could use AI and then really water it down and get rid of a lot of the information. I think far too many people are trying to be too wordy, and then use pictures that are really yours. Like have your service technicians out servicing pools, yeah. Have photos of your vehicles, your photos of your shop, whatever it might be. People love to see that. And so it creates connection because they go, Oh, that's my pool guy, or oh yeah, that's their van, or yeah, I'm gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_06 37:39

Dealing with lizards on top of chlorinators and scaring them to death.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yes, well, as I said to you when you sent me that photo, well, at least it's got legs.

SPEAKER_06 37:51

Still scared me though.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Lizards that don't have legs scare me. Um let's call them the snake kind. Um, but yes, it's I I just really want to implore people that if you're using AI, by all means use it to speed things up, systemize, help you get your work done um from an admin side, absolutely. But don't let it replace you. People don't want that. Your customers don't want that. If you want to build and nurture your relationships with your customers, AI is most certainly not the way to do it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:29

No, I definitely think with some of the, you know, polish this email, do this, do that. And it's like, okay, you know, I don't think I'm too old to keep learning. So it's like, okay, yeah, maybe I do this, maybe I use a bit of that. And um, yeah, as long as you keep learning and taking those things in, you know, it's just going to give a better product.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's still important for us to like not entrust everything to AI. Like, I know that we've got water testing results and all of that sort of thing that tells us that spits out the information. But you and I both know that it's actually imperative that a pool technician actually understands water balance and is looking for the rhyme and reason and reading between the lines, not just following the bouncing ball.

SPEAKER_06 39:14

Yeah. So looking at the trends, identifying the trends. Was this a problem last time? Was it not? Why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Yeah, yes. Why is it happening? Like, why is it so? As uh Professor Sumner M. I can't remember his name, but I remember there was a professor on TV when I was very young, um, very old guy then. So, and he used to say, Why is it so? So uh so yeah, we need to ask the why and um look for the rhyme and reason and not only um cure the situation, but address the prevention as well. So, how can we prevent this from happening again? Like, yeah, if the chlorine level is low, we add chlorine, and I'm here I'm talking saltwater chlorinated pool um or a liquid chlorine-fed pool. I can add chlorine, it'll raise the chlorine level, but if I'm not addressing the issue with the feeder or the chlorinator, I'm gonna come back next month and I'm gonna have the same problem all over again.

SPEAKER_06 40:16

Yep, yep. So you've got to ask those questions and asking the right questions and following it up with the good advice. I think that's uh one of the reasons why um we've got so many loyal customers in our um in the business is just because of those follow-up questions and not simply just selling them the chemicals, finding out why, what's the problem, what have they done?

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Yeah, what have they done? Speaking of what have they done, you had a customer.

SPEAKER_06 40:45

Oh, I've got another funny story actually. So we've got a um uh we've got an indoor pool, um, a commercial pool that they maintain themselves. So um he needed to go and add in uh 250 grams of chlorine remover into the pool. Um he came, he brought his 25 kilo bag of um uh chlorine remover, sodium di sulfate, put it down beside the pool, went to scoop it out, knocked it over, and put in somewhere about eight kilos of chlorine remover, fell into this 70,000 liter indoor pool. Oh so he's panicked, he's gone and bought, I think, 30, 45 litres of liquid chlorine, um, thrown that in, uh, hasn't come and seen us. So when he still couldn't get a chlorine result, um, he grabbed his uh yellow lid in our in our state, but his stabilized chlorine um in the indoor pool and thrown, I think, 10 kilos of that into the indoor pool. So not only is he struggling with a high cyanuric level now with his probes and his acid feeder and all the chlorine and the chlorine remover, this pool has just turned into an absolute nightmare.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

Oh my lord. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_06 42:14

I looked at the water test and I'm like, why is it why has he got like 80, 90 parts of of stabilizer in the water? What how has this happened? Yes, and yeah, we got the story out of him that this is what has transpired.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

So yeah, and and that's the important thing is actually sometimes customers won't admit what they've done.

SPEAKER_06 42:34

Yes, that don't you? Oh, yes, yep.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

And uh I think that they're waiting for you just to do what some pool shops do and just spit out the results and let them get on their merry way. But when you actually understand water chemistry and you go, well, hang on a minute, you're only in here a couple of weeks ago, and this and this and this, what something doesn't add up here. What have you done? Um and yeah, sometimes it can take a bit of prodding to actually get the true answer out of them, can't it?

SPEAKER_06 43:06

Which was definitely the case in this instance. It was like, oh, this pool's gonna be a little bit troublesome for a while, I think.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

But at least he knew what he had put in the pool, unlike your other customer.

SPEAKER_06 43:17

Yes. So we we um had another customer recently that we're halfway through a stain treatment, and unfortunately we were closed on Sunday. So they uh went to the opposition who uh happened to be open on the weekend, um, added in everything that they recommended um on the weekend, called us on Monday and said, Oh, I feel really bad. I feel like I've cheated on you guys. What have you done? Yeah, what have you done? Oh, well, you guys weren't open, so I went to the other shop and I've thrown some product product in, and now the pool's cloudy and I don't know what to do. So I said, okay, what did you throw in? Uh, I don't know. I threw out the container as well. So I'm assuming it's another type of stain uh remover, but yeah, this is just one of those, one of those customers that's like, oh, unfortunately, you've done everything wrong, and now we've got to pick up the pieces.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

And now you're not only dealing with the initial problem, you're now dealing with a second problem as well. Um, yeah. I I had one that went to a similar situation. We were closed on a Sunday. Um their pool was green, they weren't a regular service client. Um, pool was green, they went into um the local hardware store who do do water testing with a water link spin, mind you. Okay. But of course, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. And uh somebody who doesn't know how to t interpret test results is is just as bad. So um This particular test, um, they had copper because their pool had been green, and they'd come and bought an algebra and they'd bought a copper-based algecide. Um, and obviously hadn't completely followed the instructions, but anyway, they'd added it in because it was still green on the Sunday. They then went to the hardware store. The hardware store tested their water, saw that they had copper in the water, and then received proceeded to sell them metal removers and a copper-based algebra at the same time. So, like I said, a little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous. Um, and so yeah, I just yeah, I just shook my head and they did the exact same thing. They said, Oh, I'm sorry you weren't open on Sunday, and I feel really bad. I mean, well, I don't like I don't mind, I completely understand, but now we've got two problems that we're gonna fix. Not only you're green, but yeah, they've they've put metal remover in the pool, which is the metals are there for a reason. Um, not only that, but they've sold you metal remover and they've sold you a metal base, they'll just side like seriously. Um so yeah, crazy, crazy stuff. So um, yeah, but the the quiz, like I said, is um is is free. Um, there is an upgraded version if you want to to pay a little bit extra. I think it's like $39, and you actually get um a reply that's personalized. So that one is actually scoured by me um and and personally added to, and you get that over all 10 areas of your business um with 10 action points. So yeah, the good old personality quiz comes back. Let's have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_06 46:44

Yes, I'm excited. Sign me up, I will do it.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

You can be my test guinea pig, I'll send it to you.

SPEAKER_06 46:51

Will I will I have all the hats on? Will I have every um can I be all of them at once?

SPEAKER_02 46:57

I I think I think you'll come in under the foreman.

SPEAKER_06 47:01

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

So that's the second top one. The owner is obviously yeah, got got all their ducks in a row, and then some, and don't need to be in their business at all, and everything is smooth smooth sailing um without them. So um, as as much as I know you do a hell of a job, um I also know you you're still finger very much on the polls and you're central to the business. So I think you'll probably come out to be a foreman.

SPEAKER_06 47:34

Okay, righty uh, let's I'll let's see. I'll report back next week.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

Let's see, we will report back. But um, you said that you would like to do something similar with your customers.

SPEAKER_06 47:47

Yeah, so I thought um it was an interesting idea, but how could we, you know, potentially use AI or or use that sort of um idea to maybe target our customers through an online quiz or something fun through social media. Um, yeah, I I don't know. I think there's some avenue there that we could get a bit better engagement um with our customers because people love uh those little games and those little fun things.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:13

You could have so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

You could have what type of pool own owner am I? And then you could have like you could have the nitpicker, you could have the I don't touch my pool, um, you could have I'm not a chlorine pool, I'm not a chlorine pool, I'm a salt pool.

SPEAKER_07 48:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

We're probably gonna have too many owner types, aren't we?

SPEAKER_06 48:37

Yeah. The engineer that is uh deals with water and if it's clear, it's fine. Um that type, we get plenty of those ones as well.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Yes, yeah, yeah. And the one that questions everything that you're asking them to put in, or actually worse yet, the one you might need to have a shop customer and a service customer because the service customer will be guaranteed, like they'll be the ones that I'll hang over your shoulder, ask you everything that you're doing in intricate detail, and then tell you how to do it. Like those ones.

SPEAKER_06 49:11

I often recommend to the customers. Let's like, you know, I need uh it's the first time here, and I'm not I can't do two things at once. So I can't have a conversation with you and concentrate on what I'm doing. I'm sorry, I'm a bloke, I can't do it. So, you know, you need to just leave me, let me do my thing, um, you know, and I'll start at one end of the pool and work my way through. And multiple times I've had customers, I know the problem's back there. So it doesn't matter. This is where I start. I start from here, work my way back. Yeah, but but but let me show you this. It's like, no, no, no, this is this is how this is how it starts.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Yeah, yeah. Don't you love it? Do you go into the kitchen at a restaurant and tell the chefs how to cook your meal?

SPEAKER_06 49:52

Well, I pulled uh pulled another rock out of the skimmer bot out of a suction line today, um rattling around. So it was like, yeah, that was a tricky one. But yeah, um, she was good. She left me alone. So let me do my thing.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Yes, yeah, absolutely. It's uh they they hire somebody to do the job and then they like to tell them how to do it. So but look, that's probably the minority.

SPEAKER_06 50:17

Um I would say they're the minority, but yeah, they uh can be a bit of a They're the ones we talk about, they're the ones that we always go back and talk about.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Yeah, and we and it's the same for our customers. Like we don't we don't talk about our or we sometimes we do talk about our good our good customers, but we don't talk about our good customers as neah, not nearly as much as we talk about our pain in the ass ones or the pain in the ass jobs. Um and our customers are the same, like they might have some really good customer experiences with us, but they'll remember the bad ones. And so that's why in business we really need to make sure that we are really analysing what we're doing on a day-to-day basis right across the spectrum. And a classic example of this, and this is actually one of the questions on the quiz, is how is your your business represented across all touch points? So your service vehicles, your signage, your retail store, your advertisements or your your social media marketing, if your messaging is not consistent, what message is that giving to your client? Like, are you a hot mess? Um, and can they expect a hot mess when they deal with you? So um, yeah, really looking at those sort of things in in your business can be really insightful. So I hope everybody um jumps on and and grabs a copy of it. And um yeah, I hope my system can handle the influx. If it breaks, I'm sorry in advance. Um, but no, it'll be it'll be interesting for sure. So, and I expect yours to be the first one.

SPEAKER_06 51:59

Yes, well, send me the link. I've got you know 10 minutes before the kids get home and the house goes crazy again. So um, we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

Oh, good, very good. All right, well, that draws us to a close for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you got something out of today's episode as always. And remember, if you have any questions, any topic suggestions, please send us an email at talkingpools at gmail.com and Rudy will dish those questions out to the most appropriate host. If you want it to come to us, though, just mark it for Mondays down under. Um, but until next week, when we will be back for another riveting episode. We hope you have a great week ahead and um get lovely clean pools and have a great week. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Nick.

SPEAKER_06 52:52

Thank you. Bye.