Time Vampires on the Pool Route

Fresh off a European honeymoon and rocking a brand-new, beard-free look, Steve returns to the mic alongside Wayne for a Thursday episode that’s equal parts heartfelt, hilarious, and unexpectedly real.

The episode opens with a moment of humility as Wayne issues a public correction—giving overdue credit to industry innovators Que Hales and Kim Skinner for their groundbreaking work on chemically calculating pool volume. It’s a reminder that even seasoned pros own their mistakes—and that respect runs deep in the pool world.

From there, things take a turn into life beyond the waterline. Steve shares highlights from his honeymoon across Switzerland and Norway—think snow-covered peaks, ultra-luxury ski towns, and a once-in-a-lifetime experience chasing the Northern Lights. But beneath the travel stories is a grounded message about health, as both hosts open up about sun exposure, dermatology visits, and the realities of working outdoors year-round.

Back in the trenches of pool service, the conversation shifts to the business side—where not all clients are created equal. In a brutally honest (and relatable) segment, Steve breaks down the difference between clients who drain your time and those who build your business. From a year-long text-message marathon with a tire-kicker to a dream client who generates referrals and respects boundaries, the lesson is clear: knowing when to say no is just as important as showing up.

The episode also features an “Insurance Interlude” with expert insight into one of the industry’s riskiest services—acid washing. What starts as a simple question turns into a deep dive on liability, safety, and why even experienced pros are walking away from it altogether.

By the end, what emerges is more than just a pool podcast—it’s a candid look at relationships, reputation, and the fine line between hustle and burnout. Whether you’re in the field or just love a good behind-the-scenes story, this episode delivers a mix of humor, honesty, and hard-earned wisdom.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Happy Thursday, everybody, and welcome to the Talking Pools podcast with Steve and Wayne. I hope everybody has had a past couple weeks. You know, been healthy and safe and all that. Steve has been traipsing off all over Europe for the past couple weeks, so we'll get into that in a couple of minutes. But um, I kind of want to start off with an apology and a retraction. A couple shows ago, Steve and I were talking about you know, calculating pool gallons and things like that, and how you know CPO teaches it mathematically and whatnot. And we mentioned that there was a chemical way to determine the number of gallons in pool water. And I said yes, that came from Bob Lowry, rest in peace. And I said, Bob originated it. Well, it turns out I was completely wrong. You know, I'm a human being, we made mistakes, I made a made a mistake. And in matters of fact, two good friends of mine in the industry, Q Hales and Kim Skinner, actually came up with the um with the formula to do it chemically uh back in 2019. My my uh deepest apologies to Q and to Skim. We've already emailed each other and we've talked about it, and he knows this was coming. Rudy also mentioned it on his podcast. But you know, when when we make mistakes, we wanna we own up to it. And again, my apologies to Q and Kim. Again, they are the the originators of that formulation, and we greatly appreciate everything that Skimmas have done and will continue to do with the industry. Thank you guys, I appreciate it. Steve, uh, like I said, has been traipsing over Europe on his honeymoon, and you also might notice Steve's a little more naked today uh than usual. Yeah, the uh the beard that he's had for how many years?

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Since like 2017, I think.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

It's been a while. This is what Steve looked like the first time I met him, maybe back in the day. But yeah, it's a little bit more naked, but that's okay. It's a good thing. I'm sure it's coming back eventually.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

But uh Yeah, I just wanted to share, I wanted to shave it. It's been a while, and like to be honest with you, because we work in an industry where I'm forced to be out in the sun, and then with my hobby, I'm also out in the sun every day. So I'm in the sun probably like over 300 days a year. So Jen and I have talked about this before, but we're real serious about using sunscreen and we put on like multiple times a day and stuff, but we're we go to the dermatologist. And if you guys look, if you listeners out there, if you haven't, if you don't regularly go to the dermatologist, at least once a year, you should at least go just get a checkup and just have them give you a once over. And it's a I mean it's a 30-minute thing. It's that's not that much out of our day. We make a day out of it. We go up to Santa Monica, we have some lunch, and uh, but the biggest thing is like uh, you know, when you see something on your arm and it's like a birthmark or like a mole or something, and you're like, oh, that does like what whatever, and then they look at it and they're like, Whoa, we need to take a sample of that. Then all of a sudden you're like, wow, like a melanoma.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

I'm of the age where where I love my dermatologist, and I've got those spots in my arms and the top of my head is simply because of age. And back when I was was younger in the teens and twenties, they didn't have sunblock, you know. The they had um uh copper tone suntanning oil. The Hawaiian tropics. Exactly Hawaiian tropics, oil. Yeah, and oh, I can remember the sunburns and sun poisoning I would get when when I was younger was wasn't pretty, but you know, they didn't have anything like sunblock, or if they did, it wasn't really well known. Now it is, and I'm the same way. I if I go outside, I put on sun sunblock because you know I don't want to get a bad situation even worse. And I see my dermatologist twice a year.

SPEAKER_04 4:22

Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't expecting anybody to go twice a year like us, but um that was my that that was my whole point though, just like uh that every once in a while you should at least go to a you know professional dermatologist that can look you over. And because being in the sun, like you can't see on your back or the back of your arm, and you know, sometimes like uh it's like in between your toes or like in between your fingers. Yeah, it's like weird, weird stuff. And I've had like stuff happen with a couple of my friends where they've gotten into like weird situations and now they're like, Whoa, like I've got melanoma, or like I've got this weird sort of cancer, or what whatever it was. So just scary to find that out. So I actually shaved it, you know, in advance of that appointment, because that's in a couple weeks, and I just wanted them to just see under there and just see if anything had changed, or because I can't see under there. I mean my beard was uh like six inches long. So right.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

And and especially, you know, with with men and women in our industry, like you said, because you're outside a tremendous part of your your your day. And whether you're in warmer climates like where you are, Steve, or you know, I'm over in the mid-Atlantic area, or whether you're up north, if you is sun exposure is sun exposure. And like if you're up north and it's cold outside and but it's bright and sunny, the sun's still gonna hit you. So it's still important to wear sunscreen. So, you know the biggest thing for me. Our new sponsor, the American Dermatology Association.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Yeah, right. So, but no, for for me, like the days when I used to do you know 15 to 20 pools a day, the days here are long, right? So when you start out in the morning, like it might be still dark out, or here it's mostly cloudy in the morning most of the times. So it's easy to just like forget to put on the sunscreen and then, or you put it on first thing in the morning, and now you're like blowing your nose and wiping your face, and like uh, you know, now it's two in the afternoon and it's like super hot out, and like you haven't put sunscreen on since like 6 a.m. or whatever. Yep. So yeah, we'll try and get some uh some sunbomb sponsorships as we go along. Well, yeah, I did just get back actually last night from my from it was actually my honeymoon that we went on. So we have a couple friends that are in Switzerland, so we spent like about 10 days in Switzerland with them, and they took us all throughout like Zurich, and then we went to Lucerne on a day trip and uh just had a really, really awesome time doing that. They actually took us kite kite um snow kiting.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

Where we went to St. Moritz, where all like the the bougie people in Europe come. Um and I mean like the town was just like I we were like walking through the town, and I was like, I can't afford to go into any of these shops. Like, Jesus. Just like very, very, very affluent area, obviously, like not just you know, in Europe but in the world. But the skiing was was super cool. It was fun, it was a lot warmer than they had anticipated. So, like everybody there, like I'm thinking it's freezing because like this is like mid-Atlantic winter weather. And they're like, Oh my god, like this is so this is it's so hot and sunny out, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

They're skiing.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

Yeah, exactly. And then uh then we went to Jen wanted to go see the northern lights, and I'm also um my mom is Norwegian, so I have some Norwegian descent in me. So I've always wanted to on my bucket list go to Norway. So we went to Norway to go chase the northern lights, and the first night we went, we weren't super successful. We were in the car for like six hours, seven hours. We did get to see it, but like only really on the phone. So like it's kind of crazy. You look at like these clouds that just look like gas clouds, and then you put your phone up to it and like it's boom, it's green, you know. But in my mind, I was like, I thought you were able to see it with your, you know, your naked eye. Yeah. Which you can if the store, if you know, if the solar storm is big enough or the activity is enough. And we went another night because we had booked two nights hoping that we would see them both nights. And the second night, we only had to drive like an hour outside of the city. Um so within 90 minutes, he was like, All right, he's like, it's gonna be on. And like all of a sudden, like behind like this little town, like it just just like shot up and it was like just this green spout. I mean, I know I've had sent you some of the pictures, um, and I'm gonna be sure to post them online, but it was like one of the craziest things that I'd ever seen because it was like an actual if you like closed your eyes and you opened them up again, like it would be something different. Like it was, it was totally just moving into you know, and that's why they say like the you know, the dancing aurora, right? Because it actually dancing. So that was pretty uh pretty awesome. I don't know if I would go to Tromzo again, which is where we were, which is above the northern um the Arctic Circle. I probably would like if we go with my parents or something like that, I'd probably take them on like a cruise and we'd go to like Bergen and like Oslo and you know, those and the southern places because it was really remote where we were, but it was really beautiful and I had a had a really awesome time. So I definitely, you know, recommend both of those places for everybody. Um but it's not a trip that you're just taking, right? It's one of those ones that it's like uh we planned for it for over a year, we stayed for it for over a year. Um so because Norway and Zurich are definitely not the two of the cheaper places in the in the world for sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Yeah. My uh I mentioned to you earlier, my son is getting married this second this morning, Savage. Speaking of expensive, speaking of area expenses, and they're not going on a honeymoon per se right away. They are going to the uh Dominican Republic for like uh four or five days just to kind of fall back, regroup, kind of deal. And then they they were actually talking about going to Japan or New Zealand. Um, it's like, oh wow, well you got the money to do that, I guess. But uh New Zealand I'd like. I'd I'd say you want to you want to go there. Beautiful people, beautiful country. Just had a great time with the city.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

I mean, I'm sure Shane has an extra bedroom. Shane, you got an extra bedroom over there for us, buddy?

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

You're looking for our invite, we're looking for our invite to Auckland.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Um, New Zealand is super cool, but what's what's crazy about Japan is like, you know, I have a lot of friends that are into winter sports, obviously super active. Um, and a lot of it, a lot of them do skiing and snowboarding. Like, if you're gonna go day for day and you're gonna pay the day of and not buy like a season pass, it is actually cheaper to fly to Japan and go to one of the mountains there than it would be to drive up to Mammoth in California, which is like a six, seven-hour drive from where I'm at in Los Angeles, um, and buy tickets there, or go to Colorado and buy tickets there, because the tickets here are like uh$230,$300 sometimes a day for one day of skiing from like seven, you know, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Well, it's like yeah, but Disney World too. It's cheaper to fly to Japan, go to Disneyland in Tokyo, and come back for like a week than it is to spend a few days down in Orlando.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

The Orlando one is super, I mean, it's super expensive. Um, I live 25 minutes from Anaheim, so I'm pretty close to Disneyland. Um, they have like these cool deals that you could get like season passes and stuff if you're like a local and you live in Southern California. I I'm not a Disney World or Disneyland person, so I'm not gonna be doing that. But um one of my not buddies, but a guy that I work with uh for a long time in New Jersey, he uh actually came out as aunt lives in Beverly Hills, and he was like, Yeah, it's cheaper for me to fly out and stay with her and go on a couple day trips to Disneyland than it is for us to go to Florida.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yes, it's wild. So I do want to you've got a couple things to talk about.

SPEAKER_04 12:30

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the insurance interlude with your host, Steve Sherwood from Talking Pools on Thursday. And my guest, as always, Pat Grignon from California Pool Association. So, Pat, thanks so much. Um, last couple interludes have been seriously insightful, especially for me. Um, and I've gotten some great feedback from the listeners that um they really like the topics that we've been talking about. And like I said, we some of the stuff, most of the stuff that I talk about um in the shows, absolutely, you know, more than likely, it's either happened to me or like I directly have knowledge of it because I don't like to speak on stuff that I don't have direct knowledge on. Um and I the truth of the matter is is like I'm not looking to mentor people by any means, but it so happens that a lot of people that come through the CPO class are like just starting out in the industry and like they start listening to the podcast and they start reaching out to me with questions. And like I always tell all the students, if you took my CPO class that you're my student for life. And you know, if you ever have any questions or anything like that, hit me up. And I wanted to shout out Andrew from Backyard Solutions because he took the CPO with me, he took the LA County prep course with me, and now he's you know licensed to do his stuff in in Southern California and he's doing a great business. And he reaches out to me a lot for different questions and stuff, just like I've reached out to you, Pat, because you're a mentor of mine in the insurance industry. Um he reached out to me the other day about something that I'm super wary about now, um, and that's acid washes. So his question was like, hey, you know, I got a pool that I have to do a bid on, and they want to do an acid wash. Um, I've been watching videos on YouTube, but like I've never really done one before. I know that you've done, you know, hundreds of them. Um, could you come and teach me how to do acid washes? So I want to talk about, you know, first I want there's a lot that you have to talk can talk about with this, Pat. So I want to talk a lot about like what the downside of what could happen. But like I used to do a lot of acid washes, man. And it was something especially on the East Coast where like you couldn't afford to resurface the pool this year, but like your pool's only open for two and a quarter months or three months. So like we could acid wash the pool to get through that season, and like boom, the new budget hits, and you guys can do this next year. Here in California, man, I don't really see the upside in doing acid washes too much anymore. And the reason being is like I've gotten bitten in the ass a couple of times, and like one time, you know, we did a really light acid wash and like the pebble tech started coming apart. And the manufacturer and the distributor didn't stand on what they said, and they actually said, like, oh, the guy didn't buy his stuff here today. So they can make up whatever they want. Um, but most of the time, if you mess up on an acid wash, it's something that you they're gonna say that that you did. So I politely declined. I told him that like I would tell him more about it and teach him more about it if he wanted to, but like I would never take on a job like that and to send me some pictures. So he sent me a picture and the pool was like fully brown. It's you know, hasn't been touched since the fire, it's in the Palisades, and I was like, oh my God. I was like, no, like that's not. I was like, you need to drain the pool first to even tell them if you could acid wash it. You know, that's that's the first thing. But what are some of the things that companies out there that are doing acid washes they need to be wary of and they need to make sure that they're doing in pre-planning? Because I had like a five-minute conversation with him just on safety stuff, on like getting organic vapor masks and the right booties and the right goggles and wearing gloves and long sleeves and shit. It's like all of a sudden, before you before you know it, like you're a couple hundred dollars into just safety equipment, just the gear, right? Yeah, so and like uh I have a I have like it's called the drain and acid wash agreement. So I want to talk a little bit about those a little bit. Um, but I even I've even had someone where they signed that and then something went wrong, and like they still threatened to sue me. So I still had to take some sort of action and you know, redo their pool. So the unfortunately, what I've found is if you do enough acid washes, you're gonna eat some of them at some point. So the upside for me is just not there, but I want I want you to talk a lot because this is something that like for the first 15 years of us being in business, I did acid washes all the time, you know. So I thought it was safe, and then I found out I'm like, this is kind of silly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:11

No, there's there's a lot that can happen. For honestly, there's that that's one of the more frequent claims that that we see is due to acid washing. So I'll start with this. A traditional general liability policy will not cover damage caused by an acid wash. Okay, so you need a rider for it, yeah. So your your policy does. It's got more than enough to cover a replaster or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

If you give me like you give me the bells and whistle one, though.

SPEAKER_05 17:36

Yeah, it's in the standard one, so but yeah. Um so just make sure you've got coverage for that before you start doing the work, I would say. But outside of that, you know, you mentioned um, you know, hold harmlesses, you know, waivers that you have them sign. Like, if you just think about what could happen, so you you mentioned two components to it. A, you're draining the pool, right? So all sorts of bad stuff can happen with a drained pool, right? I mean, if you start talking about you know water tables, and especially in the southeast, you got potential for pop pool or shifting. Um, so there's that, you got the potential of like somebody, uh you know, even a dog or or a kid falling into you know an empty pool, and there's injuries that otherwise wouldn't have happened with you know a pool filled with water. So yeah, I think you know, in in the hold harmless agreement, you have a client sign before you drain the pool and do the acid wash. It's just got to say, listen, there's inherent dangers to having a uh you know a drained pool. Um, you know, you gotta have the thing roped off, some safety items, yada yada, but like, you know, that make sure you're you're you're you know you understand you're responsible for the safety of of letting people in your backyard and something happening in the pool. So we we have an agreement, like kind of a stock agreement that someone can use as a base and you know it's it it addresses.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

So this is something that you guys give away for free, or we have to buy it from you?

SPEAKER_05 18:56

Yeah, no, if if anyone who's got a policy with this is a member of the association, we we'd be happy to give you a copy of it, no problem.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Cool. So all you gotta do is just be insured by CPA and then you guys will share your agreement.

SPEAKER_05 19:06

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Cool. So it's just a good base document. And then the second part of it is, you know, yeah, with an acid wash, it's not gonna, it's not gonna fix all your problems. A lot of times it oh, what do you always say? It makes it look makes it look great and new, but uh a lot rougher and more.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Yeah, so like I I think I think the exact verbiage that I use in my um hold harmless is like uh number one, realistic expectations that like the best that it's going to look is a little bit cleaner and probably feel a bit rougher. And like a lot of guys that do acid washes, like, are you also doing the like buffing of the surface afterwards, you know, because like there's gonna be certain areas where you're gonna take off more plaster than there was, or there might be areas where like it's so thin that now all of a sudden like the concrete underneath is starting to like you know show, right? But either way, that's gonna be pretty rough, and like that's it's like rough enough to like uh make a kid bleed or like you know, make your make your um your bathing suit get all weird with like you know what I mean, like where it gets like cut up almost. Yeah. So there's just so many moving parts and components to it that like um you know, as I've moved out into the different branches of what we do as a business, um I've found things that were, you know, just as much or more lucrative, way less risk. Um, you know, and that's just the the damn truth of it. And also, like, who wants to be outside like throwing muriatic acid around onto walls and floors? You know, like you got you have to use an organic vapor mask. Um, and then like I'm so wary in California to drain pools fully and just leave them drained because I was gonna I was while you were talking before, I almost jumped in on you. Have you ever seen a sump installed in California? Like and you know, let's be on the same page here. Everyone's from different parts of the country. A sump, there's two ways to build a main drain, right? You could either have a two-inch piece of pipe and it has a VGB cover on it, and that's what they have here in California. So there is no sump. And what a sump is is you know, it looks like uh the my Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup here, and it's long and it, you know, it tapers down and it's thinner thinner at the bottom, and where the you know the lid is, this is where the VGB cover goes, and it doesn't have direct suction, it sucks from the sidewall, so there's like an inch and a half hole on the bottom inside of the cup here, and it actually has direct suction from there, but usually there's like a female cutout in the bottom that has threaded pieces, and that's where the hydrostatic relief valve goes. And as a guy that grew up in New Jersey and did swimming pools in New Jersey, every fucking pool had a hydrostatic relief valve in there. Like you were draining a pool and you would like come back, and the pool would be like a quarter full the next day, and like it would allow ground, you know, twigs and pebbles and leaves and stuff, and then I've drained pools and filled them back up, and I come back the next day and the pool is halfway full because it got stuck. It like, you know, a little pebble or rock got stuck in there, like went, you know, because like it went to go close back down and it closed down on something because it's letting in groundwater. So that's the scariest thing for me living here in California because most of the builders, and those sumps aren't cheap. You know, they're they like almost triple the cost of the material that you have to use down in the in the main drains there. You know, you're you're not buying a$30,$40 cover anymore. You're buying two sumps and you're hydraulically balancing them and you're Making them three feet apart, center to center, further than three feet apart, center to center. So there's just a lot that goes into it. So, in some parting notes with this, Pat, other than don't fucking do it, what what is the best way that you could be safe and still do acid washes?

SPEAKER_05 23:12

Yeah, I mean, and and look, yeah, it's it's funny. We've actually seen two puff pools here in California, one in up in at the Napa area and one that was more towards the Bay Area, but you just don't see it very often. But we still have seen a couple of them.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

So what what was it though? Because that's Napa is obviously not at sea level.

SPEAKER_05 23:31

Yeah, no water tables, no nothing crazy next time.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

So there's no, and that's on in the southeast, that's what you're worried about. You're worried about the water table rising and the pressure underneath the pool, and one gallon of water weighs 8.33 pounds, so you don't have that weight holding that pool in the ground anymore.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

And the pressure builds up and it actually pops the pool out of the ground. What was how did it happen with this?

SPEAKER_05 23:52

It was a big rain for about a week, rained like cats and dogs up there. And so I don't know exactly exactly how it caused it, but it rained hard for a week, and that's fairly uncommon. And yeah, that's ultimately was the the root of both of them. Just just bad storms, and you know, however, however the water got got uh got down there and you know caused it to become unstable, yeah, and popped up. And yeah, poor guy was just he was doing an acid watch too on this one in Napa. That just was like, I he called me, he's like, Pat, I don't know what the hell to do with this. I've never even heard of this happening before. You know, normally if a pool's gonna pop out in California, it's an earthquake and it's the earthquake's problem. But uh, you know, outside of that, yeah. I mean, look, I it at the end of the day, it's a common thing. I think a couple things to keep in mind is like who's who's your audience, right? Who's your client? So the ones that I've seen that are kind of trying to play games, like if it's a commercial pool, yeah. We've seen, you know, hey, my my small kid scuffed up and made their the bottom of their feet bleed by being in the commercial pool, and that's more like injury lawsuit stuff. Like they're they're going big most of the time because they're like, oh, it's a hotel, I can get money out of these guys. From a residential, it's more like the ones that I've seen that are you know, iffy is they're trying to get a free you know plaster or tech job out of you, right? I mean, you know, that they're just yeah, acid wash it, and then it's like, oh, this thing's all scuffed up, it's really rough, and you know, who's fixed who's fixing this now, sir? Exactly. And so, and look, you know, you can replaster a pool or do some refinishing at you know, it's nothing like an injury claim, but you know, I'm always kind of thinking, like, all right, if this were a bad guy, I'd give I'd try to live by the golden rule, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But if this were someone who's like kind of using me to get uh to get something, what would they be looking for? And you know, I just I try to make sure my forms and and my documentation are in line for you know kind of the audience and my client and what I expect from.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

I had all my ducks in a row and I still ate two of them, you know, because I was I wanted to do good business and I was like, you know what, like uh the manufacturer isn't standing behind me, and they should be. And I was like, I'm gonna step up to the plate and do the right thing. And I sp I split the plaster with the with the client.

SPEAKER_05 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

You know, and I told him I told him exactly what it cost. I told him exactly what we were gonna split, and I was fair and honest with him, and he appreciated it. And I mean, besides the fact him and his wife were both lawyers, so it was an easy, it was an easy, it was an easy fix for me, man. I was like, let's just let's just get this done however we need to get this done, you know. That's another thing. But you eat what you eat one or two of those, and I'm I have a pretty sour um taste in my mouth as far as acid washing goes. So again, Andrew, thanks for the topic today. We really appreciate it. It was a great one. Um, but as far as like for me guys, I think that I'm retired from doing acid washes. So uh yeah, uh, that was a good one today, Pat. I really appreciate you coming on and shining some light on some of the, you know, some of the dirtier stuff that we do and some of the cleaner stuff that we do. Um, you're always giving us some great insight on you know how to how to play these different things that come up as we do our pools. So um if you guys want to check out insurance, California Pool Association has a great deal. And if you mention to them the Talking Pools podcast, they will give you a one month off of your annual liability insurance policy, which is awesome. And uh, if you guys, as always, have any questions, you can reach out to us at talkingpools at gmail.com and it will get to me and we will uh send you some cool swag if you uh make it onto the show. So everybody have a great, profitable, healthy, happy week, and uh we'll be talking at you on the next one. Thanks, Pat. Thanks, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

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SPEAKER_00 29:21

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SPEAKER_04 29:47

Yeah. Oh I just want to talk a little bit about clients again. And this is just, these are stories that just happened. Really, what it is is like I would love to tell all of you guys that I took Jen and I took the whole vacation off and we didn't touch work at all. That's not true. Jen basically worked every day, a few hours. Um and it's more because like there's there's, you know, we still have classes when we come back. So like people are still signing up for classes and people still need books sent out, and people needs not that we were sending out the books from Europe, but like you need to get that set up. Right? Like somebody's gotta send out the books for you, somebody's gotta set these people up for class, somebody needs to send them their welcome email and so on and so forth. And then like inspections were still coming in. So I needed to set those up for, you know, you don't want to come back from your vacation and have fucking three, three weeks of no work, right? So you still gotta like set your pipeline up as you're away, right? So I have these two clients that I met the same week last year during the fires. And one of them, I didn't realize because she was just trigging me along for so long. She wanted a renovation quote. I went out, was like, I can do a renovation quote for you, or I can write an inspection report for your insurance company. They were like, no, just uh we just want to renovate. I'm like, okay. So send them that, don't get that. Then they want us to come out and bid on something else. I bid on that, we don't get that job. So then she wants me to come out for weekly service and she's like, You need to meet, you need to come yourself and meet the owner of the house. And I was like, I normally I don't do that. You know what I mean? Like, normally I can figure out what I need to figure out on the phone. I live really far from you. Like, uh, you know, if it's if I if I have to come, it's gonna be at my leisure and convenience. It's probably gonna be when I get back from my honeymoon. And this was weeks ago that I was talking to her about. So she hits me up on Friday, which is like late Friday in Norway, mid-afternoon here. And she's like, hey, something's wrong with the controller. We're having people come over tomorrow for swimming in the afternoon. Like, can you get someone here or can you help me on the phone? And I'm like, all right. I'm like, I'm out at dinner. I'm like, let me, you know, give me 30 minutes and I'll have a few minutes for you. And I already already fucking explained to her that I'm on my honeymoon. Like the fact that she's even asking me this is kind of crazy. So I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I'll, you know, I'll call you back. So before I call her back, like I start looking back through our text messages. And since last February, I have over 45 text messages that we've went from me. So over 80 back and forth, but just over 40 from me of me explaining to her like how much it is, or blah, blah, or like questions that she had that I'm like answering for her. And yada yada yada. So I get done with dinner, I call her, and I'm like, I'm not like annoyed, but like I'm like, what the f like what the fuck is going on? You know, like, hey, like how can I how can I help you? Like, I have a minute for you. Let me be helpful. So she's like, actually, we fixed the problem. She was like, it just needed new batteries. But she's like, the pool still needs to be cleaned tomorrow. She's like, Can you have someone come out and clean the pool before the, you know, before midday tomorrow? And there was just silence for and she was like, You there? And I was like, Yes, I'm here. And she was like, You sound like you're annoyed. And I was like, I'm not annoyed. I was like, I just I told you I'm on my honeymoon and you're not even my regular client. And you're asking me if I can have someone come there on less than 12 hours notice on my end, 24 hours notice on your end. I was like, you know, I was like, Where I can't, I can't make that happen. I was like, even if you were my client on a Saturday, I would still really have a hard time making that happen. And like, I didn't say this to her, but like I would be like, hey, like, we're gonna charge you an emergency weekend visit rate and like you know, we're gonna get paid double and then we'll come out. But like I was not interested in coming out at all.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

So I just I got off the phone with her and I just the way that I felt inside, I was like, I'm getting taken advantage of here. I was like, fuck this. I texted her, I was like, I thought about it, we're gonna pass on this job. Thank you and best of luck. Okay. So she's gone. But like I wasted so much time talking to this lady.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

She thinks you're right at her beck and call all the time.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

And there are certain clients that definitely do, you know, that when they call you, and it's just like, how much do you give, you know? So I was just, I want to talk about how that felt for a second. But I felt like uh I was doing the right thing. Like I should have I just cut the cord earlier, but like I got rid of it, right? Right. Another lady, okay. Um, she also lives in the Palisades. And she had me come out and she had me do the inspection report, and she was like, Steve, she was like, We got everything that we needed from the insurance company. She was like, You were absolutely outstanding. And she was like, I'm in like a WhatsApp group with like uh 1,100 people, and I'm gonna, is it okay that I send your name out and and give you a referral to these people? And I was like, Oh my god, like yeah, like you can't you cannot pay for that type of fucking marketing. Okay. And no joke, like I've gotten at least at least 10 to 12 referrals from that's great. I've had at least five other people come on board. Her neighbor, her neighbor came on board as like a weekly service client now. Like, I cannot tell you how fruitful this has been that I have met that I met this with this awesome lady. And it's crazy because like she actually pays her pool guy still and has us come as well. She just feels bad for him. Um so she's like actually just continuing to pay him, even though he doesn't really do anything. He's like a figurehead, I guess. Um, but my whole point here is that like it took me a year to get to this with the one lady, and it took me a year to get to this with the other lady. But I would not have understood or maybe even gotten to the point with both of them if I did not treat them the same. So, my point to you listeners out there is like when somebody calls you, you never know who's calling. And you have to treat every single client like it's your last client ever. And now, do I recommend that you let somebody string you along for a year? You know what I mean? Like, and don't get me wrong, Wayne. Like this lady wasn't texting me every day. Like it was just a 40 text message over a 14-month period. Right. You know, but like, so you haven't heard from somebody for a few weeks, they ask you a question, like you just answer it most of the time, you know? So I just didn't think about it. And maybe I should have before like pulled the plug earlier. But again, like I have clients that are in that area. Like it's not like it was costing me anything other than a few seconds of answering this question. She wanted me to come out. I just didn't have the time to come out, you know. But again, being able to, you know, work with your clients in a certain way. That lady reached out to me today, the one that I really love, the one that's awesome. And she said, Hey, I'm having a problem with my heater. Like, uh, you know, you think you'd be able to have someone come out and look at it? And I called her and I was like, Hey, like, I'll have my service manager come out and look at it. But I was like, I do remember that, you know, in your equipment pad area, there was like leaves all over the place. Like, did you ever get wind up getting that cleaned up? And she was like, No, I didn't. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll fix the heater, but like, we're we're not landscapers. So if you could get your landscaper to go in there and get all those leaves out of there, that'd be amazing. So now we could run your heater. And she was like, Oh, that's no problem at all. And I was like, when did this happen? And she was like, Over the weekend, and I'm like, Why didn't she reach out to me? And she's like, I didn't want to bother you on the weekend. She's like, I would never expect you to answer my call on the weekends.

SPEAKER_05 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

And I was just like, You are the best client that I have. And if you need something on the weekend, I was like, you reach out to me and I will get someone out there probably on the weekend, or I will come myself. Yeah. You know, and that that's the type if every client was like that, my life would just be so special and easy. But they all aren't like that. Obviously, we we know. But my whole point is that like you just have to treat everybody the same. And like, you know, the biggest thing is just you have to keep showing up and answering your phone all the time is really, really what it comes down to. So I guess my question to you, Wayne, is you know, in your time in the industry, were there any relationships that you made that were almost like by accident or on a whim or you know, something where if if I didn't show up that day or I didn't answer that email or that phone call, like this would have never came to fruition.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:59

Um, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Yeah. It again, because of what I did, my the the situations are slightly different. But as as you were talking, I was I was thinking, uh, he's gonna ask me this question. I know this. I know this already, know you too well. Um, but okay let's go on our way back machine. Yes, that's a Peabody and Sherman reference for those of you of an age. Um so uh this would have been the late 90s, early 2000s, things like that. Um because we primarily sold through distribution, okay, the way we set it up was that all of our distributors, and at that point there was probably a good I'd say let's say 80 distributors across the country and the world actually, but let's say across the US. So to make it a level playing field, we'd give our distributors the exact same discount as every other distributor. The only exception was the distributor that we had in Hawaii because of the expense of shipping stuff out there, we would ship it to LA and then they would do a freight forwarder from LA.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Over there. Okay. But everybody else, and it wasn't really that much of a difference, but it was enough for them. But everybody else got the same discount. Not going to tell you what it was, but they just got the same discount. Every now and then I'd get a call from a distributor, from the same distributor in New York, but we won't mention names, who accused us of showing favoritism and giving higher discounts to some distributors and lower discounts to them and others. And regardless of how many times over the years that that I would explain to him, no, that's not how it runs, and you know that's not how it runs. This is this is this is how it runs. Still hardly ever believed me. I get the same call from him every year. It's kind of like, oh, it's February, I'm gonna get the call. That kind of deal. And then what would happen though is that if we had um distributors that didn't meet our requirements to maintain your your account at that level, uh, it was my job to call them and say, hey, you know, can you place an order by such and such a date so that we can get you over a certain limit and things like that? And for the most part, they were completely understanding. But every now and then you get you you'd get a distributor you could never get a hold of. Or or the communication like you were describing was spotty like that. Okay. You'd call them, they'd call you back in four days. Or you'd send an email, they wouldn't reply, even though you know they got it delivered and all, and it was read, that kind of thing. So it was a very frustrating to try and and maintain that distributor level account, because that's one of the things I had to do, and to show them the right way to to make sure that they stay as a distributor every year. Now, the big uh the big multi-branch distributors never had a problem with it was the small independent ones that you know you wouldn't make sense you might have an issue with. And there were always the distributors who were at the low end of annual sales that were required to maintain that distributor account. So invariably in November and December, I'd got I would have 20 distributors I needed to contact, some way, shape, or form, to get them to, you know, you want to do this, these are the dudes that are that are robbing Peter to pay pay wall, probably.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

You know what I mean? And like they're back on their, you know, the multi-level distributors that have they have so much liquid cash sitting around, you know, they're private equity people. Right, right. Like we're forgetting that, like um, you know, SCP. They're they're all they have a board. Yep, exactly. You're what I mean. Like it's like a it's not mom and pop shop by by any means. Like it's not, I wouldn't even call it a brick and mortar, you know, it's it's more of like a conglomerate. It's you know, and that's once you get to that level, not that you can dictate your prices, but you could also say, you know, if I came to you, Wayne, and it wouldn't matter if you worked in test kits or if you made fucking grenades. If if I came to you, if I came to you and I said, can I buy a hundred thousand of these at once, right? And I'm buying, I'm buying, you know, twenty thousand at once. I say, hey, like if I bought a hundred thousand of these at once, would you be able to give me a better price? I don't know a I don't know a person in the world who would say, Yeah, of course, if someone's gonna buy more from you, you're gonna give them more of a discount.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

Absolutely. And that's how it was with us.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Supposed to work. If you can buy more product at once, I'm gonna give you a bigger fucking discount.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Well, we won't we wouldn't necessarily give them a discount.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

No, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

We would yeah, we would lower the the the each price, the unit price on the products so that they got a little bit better deal, but their discount would stay the same.

SPEAKER_04 42:40

Yeah, no, no, their discount stays the same, but that on that one bulk order, right? You're getting them for X amount per piece instead of you know Z per piece. Yeah, and that's just the way that's just the way things work. I mean, if you in if you look at Amazon and you're buying uh, you know, makeup remover, and you're like, I only need one bottle of makeup remover or one bottle of nail polish remover, right? And then it's like, oh, but if you buy two, it's 17% off. If you buy three, and it's literally it's a drop-down menu where they're like, You sure you don't want to buy 17 of these? Like, I don't think I need 17 of these, but but you get my point, you know, and that's that's the whole thing where like if you can buy more, and that's why I try and buy my sand filters all at once. I try and buy them, you know, three times a year, right? Because I know that like uh if I wait and then now I can tell someone a price and I can be like, I know what the price is, it's this, you know, with everything else. I have to be like, oh, I'll get back to you and I'll let you know because I'm not really sure. I have to check with the distributor. I mean, uh, we said it before, but like the pricing on everything is just uh it's going through the roof.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Yeah, yeah. It's uh I don't know, it's it's uh one of those situations where you've got clients in your case, and you it's not pick and choosing per se. I mean, it's a wrong phrase I'm I'm looking for here, but you have to establish at one point do you say no? And and you have, and you do, okay. And because you don't want a a client that hangs on and demands things and is just a pain in the ass to work with, whereas you've got clients that are absolutely wonderful, you know, they would be like your relatives.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

I'm pretty I'm pretty lenient too. Like I I let people, you know, be who they're gonna be, and I know that not everyone's gonna talk to me the same. Right. And like some people in their professional jobs, like they don't ever get told no. You know what I mean? Like I've told you about the like the producer before that calls me about his heater like twice a month at least. And I'm just like, if we just did this$2,000 upgrade, like before you left from Paris, you could turn on your heater and it would surely your pool and it would surely be heated by the time you got home tomorrow. But like He's just not willing to spend the couple thousand dollars. So I kind of uh when he calls me, I'm like, okay, I'm like, just to remind you again, like we could make we could skip this whole step of you having to call me twice a month to turn on your heater. Um, but they don't they don't want to do it. Yeah. But he's a he's a, you know, I have two houses with him. So his like son is his house, the is like the manager. One time his son called me and was like, hi, like I'm the owner of blah blah blah and blah blah blah. And I was like, No, you're not. I was like, You're Gary, you know, like you're you're Fred, like whatever the guy's name is. And he was like, No, he's like, I'm Fred's son. And I was like, Okay, I'm like, so how can I help you? You know, I'm like, because this is uh I've I've had your data as a client for three years, and this is the first I'm hearing from you. So and he was like, Oh, he's like, I have a new property, okay, cool. I'm like, we should have started with that one. We should have led with that, led with that, you know. But most of the clients are great. Most of the time you don't have to deal with them. And I think it more becomes a problem when like they're taking up your time and you feel like you you're doing stuff and not getting paid for it. Right. Like the little Yeah, I don't mind helping you if we're getting paid. And like if we're doing a whole equipment set and you got a bunch of questions and like you want to talk back and forth, like I have no problem helping you out with that. Right. You know, but like at some point you have to say, like, we've sent out three proposals, we've never gotten anything back from you on this. Like, you know, maybe you just go get somebody else. And it's one of the hardest things in business wing to say no. Yeah, because you, you know, you every year you want to grow, right? And you're like, you can only grow by bringing in new revenue. So you either need to sell more stuff to the clients that you have, or you need to bring on more clients. And bringing on, you know, new clients is the hardest, most stressful thing because it's like uh you most of the time you don't know what you're gonna get from them. And that site visit that you have, you're getting like the really nice lady on the first date. You know what I mean? Like uh you're getting you're getting my first date attitude, you know, where there is no attitude. You're like, this person's so beautiful. I want I like them. You know what I mean? Uh, and then all of a sudden you start dating and you're like, oh man, like this person is crazy. Like, where how did I get into this? And I've gotten myself into that situation a few times with a couple clients where it's just like I'm like, oh no, like I think that this might have been a mistake. And the whole thing is like you wanna be able to part ways amicably. So that's why like I always, even if me and a client have like kind of gotten into it and like butted horns a little bit and like have said some things, not like I don't ever say anything crazy, but like if you're giving me an attitude, I'm gonna be like, excuse me. No, you know. But at the same time, you don't want to burn your bridges. That's that's exactly my point. Right, right. Not burn a bridge, but you would never want to like send a text message that you wouldn't want someone to like put on your Google review page. Right, right. You know, and now they they they have a text message with your phone number attached to it that that you're calling them up uh a blah blah blah. You you know? So that's why I always try and make the last few transmissions like, hey, you know, thank you. We appreciate your time, we're gonna move in a different direction. Right. I mean, lie. Tell them that you're not servicing that area anymore. You know what I mean? Like uh just literally, if you if you don't know what to tell a client and you need to get rid of them, just be like, you know, like we're downsizing and one of my guys left and we're not gonna be able to service that area anymore. Yeah. You know, good luck in your new pool service search. Right, right. Is really what it comes down to, you know? Yeah. Um, because the the worst thing that you could do is is hold on to these clients and like let them take advantage of you. And now, you know, you're not telling them no ever. And now every week they're trying to get you out, you know, on a on a Sunday to their pool.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Well, gang, I think that's good for today. As always, we appreciate you listening. And as always, if you have any thoughts, ideas, comments, any tech questions for Steve or I, please feel free to send them the talkingpools at gmail.com and they'll get routed to us. And if we happen to use your whatever it is on the air, we'll go ahead and send you a nice little present. We appreciate it very much. Steve, glad to see you back home. Um kind of missed the uh growth, but that's okay. I'm sure it's coming back.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

Yeah. We'll we'll bring it back. I don't I don't like my face like this.

SPEAKER_03 49:23

But we love your face like it is, so it's okay. All right, guys. Take care. We'll see you all next week. Bye.