Episode 89: Approaching the Pool Industry Using a Corporate World Mindset with Mike and Jacob of Sparkle & Splash Pool Care
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In this episode, we sat down with Mike and Jacob of Sparkle and Splash Pool Care. Mike & his wife Amy started the company in 2007 when they moved from the Bay Area to Tucson, AZ. They started out by purchasing a route of 50 customers and now service over 800 pools weekly. Amy actually took care of the pools for the first 6 months or so. Mike shared with us that he could not have done this without Amy and her continued support. Having that stability and trust at home has allowed him to focus on the business. Now 10 years later Amy is coming back on board and bringing her 30 years of corporate experience which will continue to move the company forward for years to come. Coming from a corporate background, Mike viewed the industry a little different than most. Mike saw that growth was one of the most difficult parts of running a service company, so he adopted a unique strategy of acquiring routes to allow for that growth and provide the infrastructure to create new staff positions such as a service manager which we discuss on the episode.
Over the years as they have grown, they have added additional expertise in pool maintenance management. This has led them to be one of the top leading Pool Service companies in Tucson. One of those key hires was Jacob who Mike wanted to have on with him since he is such a key piece to what they do day in and day out. Jacob has the pool industry in his blood, his father has been in the industry for over 30 years. As a child he and his cousin would talk about wanting to be pool guys when they grew up. Being raised around pools and being taught how to work hard by his dad has turned Jacob into an incredible person and asset for the company. After talking with both of them, we can tell you that Jacob is the person we all dreamed about having on our team. It was an honor to have them in the studio and share their story.
Show notes
Who is Mike with Sparkle & Splash Pool Care [02:11]
You came into the swimming pool industry from a corporate background, can you talk about that transition and why the industry was appealing to you? [14:15]
Were you happy with the decision you made transitioning from the corporate job to the pool service job? [20:18]
Why were you attracted to the pool industry? [23:51]
Handling growth can be difficult! Mike purchases pool routes to add more customers which allows him to create new positions like a service manager. [27:17]
Purchasing routes and taking on their pool service technicians [30:34]
When I buy a route I know I am going to lose customers. [34:30]
A bad pool and good pool for the business [37:11]
Marketing taking a backseat to prioritizing the business [44:17]
Meet Jacob and discuss building the team [53:16]
Why is Jacob so dedicated to Mike and Sparkle and Splash Pool Care [57:56]
Who is Jacob with Sparkle & Splash Pool Care [01:00:15]
Jacob worked at Leslies’s [01:04:54]
Jacob’s primary role as a Repair Manager [01:11:09]
Handing over the responsibility to another employee [01:17:49]
The pool guy stigma [01:26:27]
If you could go back and change one thing what would it be? [01:37:25]
Book and Podcast recommendations [01:43:14]
Episode 89: Approaching the Pool Industry Using a Corporate World Mindset with Mike and Jacob of Sparkle & Splash Pool Care transcript powered by Sonix—the best automated transcription service in 2020. Easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.
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Tyler Rasmussen:
Thank you for joining us today on episode 89 of The Pool Chaser's Podcast. As always, our mission is to help educate and inspire in the form of a podcast. Well, on this episode, we had the incredible opportunity to sit down with Mike and Jacob to discuss their pool service company. Mike has a similar interest in the industry as mine. You know, he had a six figure job in the corporate world and saw industry, you know, as a great opportunity for him and his family. Well, I mean, similar to mine, except for the six figure job part, of course, he used his schooling in corporate world experience to adopt the different approach to the industry. He and his wife, Amy, left the Bay Area to move to Tucson to start the business together. They, along with a great team, have grown the business from 50 pools to over 800. Jacob has pools in his blood. His father's been in the industry for over 30 years and his dream as a kid was to be a pool guy. He has used that knowledge and a hard work ethic to become a great asset for the company. Mike really wanted Jacob to be on with him because he is such a vital part of what they do each day. We discuss how each of them use their expertise to provide their customers with the best experience possible. We had a great conversation with them that we are super excited to share with you all. Please enjoy this episode with Mike and Jacob of Sparkle and Splash Pool Care.
Pool Chasers Intro:
Welcome to your go to Podcast for the pool and spa industry. My name is Tyler Rasmussen My name is Greg Villafana and this is the Pool Chasers Podcast.
Greg Villafana:
Thank you both so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you coming here all the way from Tucson. We're really excited to have you on the show. We really appreciate you as being a Patreon on as well. Means a lot to us. So good to have you here. Great to be here. So can you please introduce yourself to the listeners?
Mike :
Sure. Mike Marcio and I'm owner of Sparkling Splash Pool Care down in Tucson, Arizona.
Greg Villafana:
Perfect. And I know the listeners can't see who's all in here, but we have another gentleman in here. You want to introduce yourself, real quick?
Jacob:
Yeah. Name is Jacob. I am the repair manager for Sparkle and Splash Pools.
Greg Villafana:
Very good. Thank you. So, Mike, let's let's go way, way back to the very beginning. You want to share your story with everybody? Sure.
Mike :
I grew up in the Bay Area, moved out from New Jersey when I was like seven years old. So my dad was in market research and had an opportunity out in California when California was very small at the time. So we moved to a town called Walnut Creek, which is in the Bay Area. Now, it's really big out there, but at the time it was just walnut trees and orchards, you know, and that's he started and working in San Francisco.
Mike :
And he decided to go out his own. Probably when I was 10 years old, he had his own market research company. And I think that's where all really started. I was grew up being a paper paper boy route.
Mike :
Always, always working, always trying to find the next thing the entrepreneurship started. At that point, even with my father as well as when doing the paper out.
Greg Villafana:
Right. How did how did you like doing the paper? A little bit of experience with the paper. Man, I liked it.
Mike :
I had to dodge the police, though, because that was when mopeds were just started. The always on a bike to start with.
Mike :
And then so I got to get this done faster at the school. So mopeds had just started to come out at that point. I wasn't old enough to legally, you know, beyond one. So I had to get the paper out done before the sun came up in the morning.
Mike :
But I liked it. I didn't like the collecting part of it. You know, I don't go around knocking on doors when they're not paying.
Greg Villafana:
So I have not changed that business model. It's horrible. Do they go to election is.
Greg Villafana:
So that is the. That's one of the issues with it. But now, luckily for you, you probably didn't have a cell phone because when we were doing it. Oh, yeah. They would like if their dog got the newspaper or it went out pond or something like that. I mean, an hour after we're done with our phones, we'll just blow up and yet have to go buy one from the gas station.
Greg Villafana:
Wow. You know, if you didn't have extra ones. Gosh, no, I don't. So. A week later, we're trying to pawn this route off on somebody else. We got pretty good at it.
Mike :
That was all I was old school that didn't. No cell phones back.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah, we did it with a vehicle. A car. But yeah, we got swindled, man. That lady was like, this is the sweetest gig ever.
Greg Villafana:
Do those were the roughest street. There's no way in hell you could have done that on a bicycle. No.
Mike :
But at least when it was raining I was able to the best part when it was raining it was you know, my parents drove me around and delivered via the car. So yeah, I was always one.
Greg Villafana:
So did you get into the newspaper business because you wanted to do something? You know, all by yourself with like no supervision or thing. Just wanted to do.
Mike :
Yeah. Pretty much of an independent guy. Always have been. Always will be.
Mike :
And also earn money just, you know, from the very get go. It's just how how it was back then I guess, you know, nothing was really given to you per say. I mean, obviously grew up in a nice family.
Mike :
But, you know, I feel that, you know, I wanted to do my own thing.
Greg Villafana:
Sure. I'm curious, what was your dad doing market research on?
Mike :
Is basically testing test products actually one of the biggest things or biggest people that he'd had in his business was Tony Robbins when he was coming up. They had him in as a focus group. They had would he would really part of his business was market research. So obviously, you had focus groups and he was in when he was first starting off, wasn't in. And my dad hosted a market research focus group for him.
Mike :
Was it tough to do jumping jacks back then? Well, I think from what I remember, again, this is a while back.
Mike :
A lot of people it was almost like a 50/50 where people didn't buy into it.
Tyler Rasmussen:
So certainly, yeah, not yet. Got much better of a salesman. As time went on. So. Yeah.
Mike :
So it's basically a market research is, you know, would send out questionnaires years.
Mike :
For whatever Procter and Gamble on a product and and they leave a phone interview, send out interviews during through the mail and they would tally the results and then feedback that research information to the company.
Greg Villafana:
Very good. After, you know, the paper route and all this stuff is going on, what else happened after that?
Mike :
Just growing up, after the paper out got into the restaurant business, you know, got a job as a busboy and the local ice cream parlor back then and then just worked my way up through the ranks, was probably the youngest assistant manager at the time, really liked the restaurant business. If I didn't do the pool business, I'd probably be in the restaurant business, but it wouldn't have last as long because that's a very difficult business to be in. Yeah. So I just did the growing up gonna go into high school, didn't didn't like school, never was a school person.
Mike :
It was almost expected that that's what you're gonna do. Oh I went to AJC for you know what. You know, graduated high school, went to a J.C. because I just didn't really have good grades per say to really go to keep her out anyways.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah. Everybody should do that. He saved 40 grand by going to J.C.. Yeah.
Mike :
Because, you know, you're only taking your basic courses that you've already taken in high school for the first two years anyways. Which I'm not. I that's partly why I didn't like school is like it was just repetitive. It's like, give me something new. I don't need to take U.S. history five times over in about the same thing.
Greg Villafana:
Right. I mean, were the expectations a little bit higher? I know being in northern California, you're close to like Palo Alto and all that kind of stuff.
Mike :
Yeah. And then my sister, you know, I mean, she was a good student. So you're sort of falling and she's older than you. Yeah. So. So, as you know, it was like, okay, I guess I'll do this. And and I went to Chico State, the party school up there. So that's where I ended up graduating from.
Mike :
Barely, but got through.
Mike :
Yeah. Were you a party animal or what? Yeah. You know, a ranger. This reminds me of Tommy Boy and he's like a lot of people go to school for six years. Yeah, they're called doctor. Well, we're. Yeah, I was there a couple of years.
Mike :
I was there where I finished off.
Mike :
We were rated number three in Playboy magazine for the party school. Exactly. Yeah. So interesting. An awards. An award. Take it. So you got your degree. Right. That's great. Yeah. Push me. Yeah. Finance. I got a degree in finance biz ministration with finance and economics background.
Mike :
So I.
Mike :
I mean, even though I hated school, I like the subjects where I really liked.
Mike :
I did well at, you know, finance, economics, business that interested me. All the other stuff I could care less about. Sure.
Greg Villafana:
That's that's rather unusual. Most people don't usually fall into those categories when they don't really care for school. That's because I have heard like the accounting part is very is a lot.
Mike :
The numbers have always been my friend in a way. I mean. I get it.
Mike :
Because it's black and white in a way that's not gray. I mean, there's a way to get to a final number and either multiplication, subtraction, division or addition. Right. Right. You know, so it's just for me, it was easy how my mind thinks I gather works. I guess it's easy.
Greg Villafana:
Well, good for you. Doesn't work that way for me. I wish it did. So you're saying, too, in the form that, you know, maybe you and your family were big sporting event people. How was that?
Mike :
Yeah. No, we grew up 49 year fans.
Mike :
We were going to their games with my dad, got through his business, obviously had gotten tickets to the forty Niners, the A's, the Warriors back then. And when we were going to Forty Niners games, I think juries. Three thousand people going to that state. So I pray less.
Mike :
Buy a ticket from a bum for a dollar? I think the very first game I went to with golden seats, Golden State SEALs.
Mike :
Oh, yeah. The actual basketball team back then. The SEALs, the SEALs, Golden State SEALs. And then they moved and then they came back.
Mike :
So that was the very first recollection of a basketball game back then.
Mike :
But but yeah, we're all watch Montana play then. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh no. That was the year. You got to see those. Oh he's forty nine. Eight years. I was that the championship game when they were in the catch. Oh really. You're at that game. It was actually even better go on when we left the stadium than it was in the stadium.
Mike :
It was just because we took the back roads at that time in San Francisco to get out of the stadium. Just everybody was out on the streets, just tough going hog wild. So so that was cool. So, yeah, I went to the catch. We actually ended up getting Super Bowl tickets. Yes. You. Your name does get drawn for Super Bowl tickets. So we did end up getting Super Bowl tickets for that one. We didn't end up going to it. We sold them. But at another later time, we did get them again for the Denver when they played Denver in New Orleans. I actually did go to that one, although my dad. Let me take the tickets for that one. Now, obviously, with the Warriors, I never thought they would do what they did growing up as a kid watching them. They were just always the farm team for everybody else. The owner just didn't want to pay anybody back then. Sure. So we we actually went to the championship game this past season, even though they lost. But against the Raptors. Yeah, OK. Let's go. So went to the final game at the Oakland Coliseum there for the Warriors. You know, last season as well. So we like to go to my wife and I are. She's probably bigger sports fan and I now. But yeah, she's big. Oh, yeah. Lakers. Raiders. So she's watching my team.
Greg Villafana:
So she excited about the new Vegas Day.
Mike :
It's only a hour flight away. You know, six hour drive.
Mike :
The worst stadium is unreal. She just went there this past weekend, actually, and she said she couldn't believe what it looked like from the from the air. And it's right there.
Greg Villafana:
I mean, you drive on that side street alongside the stadium. And I don't know if it's because I've never driven that close to a stadium run like that thing is freaking huge. Looks pretty awesome, too. But I guess it's the capacity for it isn't as big as some of a lot of the other stadiums because weren't you saying that there's got to be a certain amount of people for like to host a Super Bowl or something? Yeah, I think so. Yes, exactly.
Tyler Rasmussen:
But yeah, it's a little bit smaller than I think because of the area. They built it in. Or maybe there's no Raider fans.
Mike :
Well, there's definitely. Just kidding. No, it's really good. I think I went to my first read.
Mike :
I said, my wife. I'm not going to because being a 49 year fan, you'd go to there all the 49er games and there'd be some fight going on and probably hopefully not too many of your friends out here.
Mike :
But there's not. They would.
Mike :
It would always be a Raiders fan fighting in the candlestick. You know, and the Raiders weren't even playing the Forty Niners.
Mike :
So so it's like I've never go into the black hole. And we actually ended up going to all the last game or one.
Mike :
I guess it wasn't the last game, but one of the games last year at Oakland because they were leaving for for good. And so it wasn't too bad.
Greg Villafana:
But very cool. So you. You have kind of a similar, you know, corporate background, you know. So to Tyler getting into the pool business, you want to talk a little bit about, you know, transitioning, you know, or maybe what you were doing in the corporate world and how you kind of transitioned into a simple industry.
Mike :
Yeah, I had basically three I worked for three really only three companies, basically.
Mike :
J.c. Penney is out of school, was an internal auditor for them, and then went over to Circuit City, which is no longer in business.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I love Circuit City. Good stuff. It was awesome.
Mike :
And I was an ops manager, operations manager for one of their stores. I traveled all the time with J.C. Penney and, you know, being out of fresh out of cool school, all my friends were you know, I was on a road six days a week. So I said, this is a continuous, you know, only, what, 20 some. And, you know, I'm traveling all the time and it's not as glamorous as what people think. And so I went to Circuit City and then joined up with HP.
Mike :
And I was at Hewlett-Packard for, gosh, twenty five years or so and multiple type of jobs with them. A lot of sales, a lot of marketing, some technical stuff. The latest right before I left was a consultant. And basically I would be placed on customer sites to make a transition from, say, IBM hardware to HP hardware.
Mike :
And because I was a product manager, a technical guy, I was never a keyboard jockey. But I could understand large concepts of cloud computing and data.
Jacob:
You know, it's it's just not pieces. This was back in data processing, data warehousing stuff that was involved. So I spent two years on customer sites traveling back and forth and and that got old after finally getting married. And so I said, we've got to do something different.
Mike :
Went into the real estate business in California and did that right last three or four years before the Market sort of tanked. So I learned more, not two years than I did ever in school about how things really work. So so anybody who thinks, you know, schools great, but real life education is there's no substitute for that.
Mike :
And and I as I said, I had a buddy in HP that got laid off, that went into the pool business, always stepped, kept in contact with. And then I also had a client, a real estate business that had pool business. And I'm like, oh, man, you know, just sort of kept in touch with them. And and when the market tanked, I always thought it was sort of an interesting thing to maybe look at. And, you know, the recession was recession proof and and things along those lines. And it just felt like after a couple years of going through the what we went through and looking at some of the pool broker sites, I'd never really saw a big influx or it or decrease of routes or sale or not for sale. It just sort of seems to me a consistent thing. People are going to, you know, probably get rid of their lawn people, their house people. They're not going to you know, the pool people are gonna be the last ones to go. And so that's we just decided, hey, my wife went back to the corporate world after the real estate because she went into the real estate business with us and then she went back to the corporate world when when that sort of fell apart, because I went back to consulting HP. And just one weekend we flew to Arizona and bought a house and say, we're doing the pool business. And that's what you know, that's how we did it.
Greg Villafana:
Oh, wow. That's incredible. So did your wife stay doing the pool business with you when you moved to Arizona?
Mike :
When we first got here, she actually is one who started it. She she when we bought you know, we bought 50 accounts to start with. And then she is the one who went out, you know, during that training, typically provided by the seller.
Mike :
So she went out and trained with the guy and did it for, gosh, say probably six months while I was still doing consulting with HP because it was great because, as you know, making the same amount of money, but half the time as a as a contractor. So. So that worked out really well. So I could. You know, if I'm not if I wasn't traveling too much, I could still do some stuff on the business. But my problem was, as you know, road me, I was a road warrior. I mean, I was a consultant. I think I had one job in Phoenix once. So at some point it was like she saw enough dead rats and mice and birds and bunnies and skimmers.
Mike :
And she said, that's it.
Greg Villafana:
So. He said bunnies, by the way. I'm not going to say, oh, I said there's an old episode that I said bunnies. And he made fun of me for it because he called it rabbits. I quote, a real rabbit, not like a stuffed animal. OK. I still hate taking those ones out, by the way. Yeah. Oh. I don't like that.
Greg Villafana:
There was one that we saw every week and I had like one or two every single week. So it was just the like kamikaze for bunnies to fall into.
Mike :
Was. Yeah. So so we ended up trading spots.
Mike :
She went back to the corporate world. You know, just you know, just financially, it made sense and and her background. This was a perfect area for it. She's like a call center director. So there's lots of lots of opportunity, a lot of call centers around. So she went doing that.
Mike :
And I just went full, full force.
Greg Villafana:
Were you? Were you always happy with the decision that you made?
Mike :
No, not after about a year. Really? I put it up for sale. I put the business up for sale after about a year. Oh.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Why is that?
Mike :
I didn't know I was doing this.
Mike :
I felt you don't even know what I've been in the business world for, you know, 25 years.
Mike :
It's I figured, how hard can this be? You know, and I got into a couple situations where I just didn't have the answers. And I just, you know, getting calls and I didn't know where to turn to. I didn't really have a good support and I didn't have knowledge. And at the time, I didn't know I was just calling people up to say, hey, can you help out? You know, it's like, hey, I don't need this as I can go back to and was doing and I had about.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah. When you were making six figures. Yeah.
Mike :
So, you know, when you're getting paid, you know, a third of what you're making before what you know, spend an 80 hours doing this. What am I doing?
Tyler Rasmussen:
So yeah, I remember I never never put it up for sale obviously. But I remember that same feeling of yeah, I don't know why I left this job. And then, you know, you you know, you grind it again and figure it out and you start to build a network and people that can help you. But I remember that feeling of, yeah, this isn't this isn't what I thought it was or, you know, it's really just because, you know, that's a whole point. The podcast and all this other stuff, it's you know, it's coming in now teaching people because it's you just feel alone and you don't wanna to fix a problem. And it's tough, you know. But he's still a customer. If you don't you don't know.
Mike :
They don't know either. So, you know. You don't know.
Mike :
They don't know. Yeah. So and then the problem is that if you're not sure it comes across that you don't know. Yeah.
Tyler Rasmussen:
So it's you gotta learn how to, you know, tweak the truth a little bit, you know, earlier or just tell them, you know. I know. I don't know. And I'll find out for you. That's the better way.
Mike :
So, yeah, I mean, I'm glad.
Mike :
I think I think it was just, you know, I was just a you know, to stick through it. Well, you know, get through it. And I only had it up for a couple of months or whatever, two, three months. And I'm like, you know, it's not that bad. I mean, it's like, okay, here's one or two instances. But overall, I just like the.
Tyler Rasmussen:
And then you got to wintertime. Yeah. You were good, right. So it's just you know, it's was like, hey, this isn't bad.
Mike :
I can definitely see it working out. I mean, because I've tried some other things on the side and it's like this was a viable to me business versus even the real estate. Yeah. I had a real estate company, had 15 agents, two offices. It's not worth anything, you know, when it comes right down to it.
Mike :
I mean, they're they're very it's very in a real estate business, people aren't loyal to your to you. I mean, you know, some are. But I've seen so many times where, you know, the person you've been out with somebody for, you know, three or four or five visits or trips showing them houses and then they go to open house and buy a house.
Mike :
You know, it's a much more cutthroat business. I mean, this was hey, you know, they. You know, people don't really leave.
Mike :
You unless you've messed up. You know, unless you're not delivering what you said. People really stay loyal to you in this business. And if you do them right, they'll they'll stick with you.
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Tyler Rasmussen:
Besides the recession proof being a finance person, what made you kind of be attracted to this industry? You know, we talked about the phone yesterday about trying to hopefully open the doors to others like that in the future.
Mike :
Yeah, I think it's you can go out there and you know, again, I didn't have 30 years to build this thing. You know, I came in late.
Mike :
I'm in my mid-fifties now. And so I started my mid-forties. It's almost 10 years to the day that that today is but the U. From a financial perspective, it's you know, when you when you went out and bought a route, I paid whatever it was. Fifty seventy five grand for the route. Well I'm buying fifty or seventy five thousand dollars with the cash flow. So it's not like you're going out and buying a business where there's goodwill involved and things like that, how things are sold here and and work is is based off of how much income a route produces or a business produces. And so if you start working the numbers it's like, okay, I buy a pool in 18 months that's paid for, basically. And so as long as you hold on that for 18 months, you've paid the what your salary was, plus you paid what the pool what you paid for the pool was. So then it's done. It's clear, clear and free. And my whole mentality was that, hey, after I'd did this a couple times and it was more for growth of hiring people more than anything. It just started a click column is like, okay, yeah. I mean, I might do debt, I might have a lot of debt, but that debt is good debt. There's good debt and bad debt.
Mike :
Buying a pool or pool route pool business is good debt. I mean, because you are if you manage it correctly, you are buying cashflow. That's all you're buying. And from a bank's perspective, I was a banker. I'd be all over the pool business industry. I mean, especially people who've been in business for 5, 10 years and have good financials. You buy a company. It's actually more profitable because you don't have the overhead that that company had because you already have it. So so all these customers are much more profitable. So I again, I didn't really have a I didn't have 20 years to grow this. I wanted to. I got in the business. I knew I was going to grow. I wanted to basically have a company. I feel like a combination of being able to purchase. And granted, I had twenty, twenty five years of savings to get into the business. So I had the money. And if again, if you financially do it correctly, you can buy and grow at the same time.
Mike :
You can get to where we are now and let you know 10 years.
Tyler Rasmussen:
So, yeah, I think, you know, we talked about yesterday. I think, you know, when you talked about growth and it being one, the more difficult things is industry. It is you you said you use those routes to purchasing to create positions such as like a service manager or a second repair tech. Can you talk a little bit more about. Sure. That that way why you made that choice?
Mike :
Yeah. I mean, growth is the number one. You know, other than finding tax or service tax, growth is the number one issue in this, you know, growing company where you get to about 80 pools to 100 pools. You've got to make a decision whether to keep a single or farm out repairs or or grow, you know, because anywhere in between sucks for the owner. It does. Because, again, you think about it logically, you have to hire somebody, say, after 100 pools, you mean less. They only want to work part time. You got to give them full time. So there goes your pay cut in half. You're still working twice as long. And then what happens is that guy bails on you. You know, then you got more pools and you know what to do with. I felt that it was easier to try to get up to, say, 120 pools or whatever and then try to find some like find 20 or 30, 40 pools that somebody is going to get rid of. So I can hire a full time guy instead of trying to just grow one at a time in that no man's land. And that sort of seemed after I did the first time it worked. Did it the second time at. Worked and it sort of kept working. And I just find people willing to sell that. Carry it back. I only mean that actually only finance one purchase. And it was just this last one, which was about 200 pools. But other than that was all seller financing deals. You know, somebody wanted to get out of wanting to get out of the business.
Mike :
There's not a lot of people buying routes, you know, if they don't want to get out right away.
Greg Villafana:
You know, I wouldn't say. Did you ever hire somebody that sold pools to you were, though? No, no, no, never. I guess I could because I could totally see somebody wanting to, like, sell their pools. It's like, no, I just don't want the responsibility. Yeah. You know, H.R. and billing.
Mike :
And I suspect it might come at some point.
Mike :
You know, I've actually sold pools to ex employees that wanted to do their own thing and because we're getting too big. And at the time, I was the you know, I hate to say it this way. The only troubleshoot guy and I'm not very good.
Mike :
But it was across down to even though Tucson's a small thing, it talent, it takes an hour to get across town. So you think about there's a problem. You've got to go out there, guy. Go check it out. That's an hour. Then you got to figure out what's going on. OK. Another half hour hour. Then you've got to go get the parts. Another hour to go to distributer our back hour to install it. You got like eight hours or you know.
Mike :
And, you know, you can't bill a customer for eight hours. So, yeah. So that's why I ended up, you know, sort of selling. I have sold two ex-employees. I'm on good terms. We actually won. Still, we do repair work for. But no, I haven't. Nobody's come to me that way yet. But yeah. So it's just.
Tyler Rasmussen:
You did purchase some where you took on like their employees are here.
Mike :
Yeah. This was the last one was purchased about 200 pools and took three. Three of their guys came. Came on with us. So that that was pretty good. And I'm. I was going to keep everything status quo. You know, try to make the transition. And I just saw where their pools were and where mine were. And this is like, I can't I just can't help myself not to re-route out these guys, because, I mean, they're all sitting on top of each other and just can't have that. So I'm a big person. So my customers don't like this, but I efficient ties these roots all the time. So I don't I don't criss cross people, you know, there. We've got 20 pools on three streets. I mean, that's just just how I do it now.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I'm a pool owner perspective, though. That's pretty nice. Can you get new eyes or fresh eyes on those pools quite often where, you know, if somebody is running around for a year, the same pools and only one person is looking at it. But yeah, from the customer standpoint, I could see maybe they don't like a new person in their backyard all the time.
Greg Villafana:
I know you get a lot of kickback from homeowners seeing somebody different back there.
Mike :
Our newer customers, yes, the ones who have us, not so much as I say, I have this discussion with them all the time.
Mike :
It's like look at, you know, when you sign up with us, there's gonna be pros and cons.
Mike :
We're a big company for Tucson. I don't know what size we are as far as, you know, ranking, but we're up there. And the good thing is you're going to have very experienced people specially when you need it. The downfall is that, yeah, we have turnover and there's gonna be changes. So you've got to make a decision as a customer. What's important to you? You want the same guy all the time. One is his phone. Cell phones. So you can text. We're not the company for that. If you want your pool fixed when you have a problem where your company, whether it's Joe, Mike, John shows up shouldn't make a difference. We train them all the same. Granted, they don't do all this know the same all the time, but is very consistent. I mean, that's what a corporation or a company should be. It's consistency and it's like going to McDonald's or whatever. You know what you're going to get. No matter who's behind the counter, in a way that's sort of the same with how I look at things is that it doesn't matter who services that pool should be the same. You should get the same service where you're going to where we're providing the value add is on the repair side or technical knowledge or just general pool knowledge because we've got industry guys been around for 35 years.
Mike :
So, you know, you have to make a decision. What's what's important to you, right?
Greg Villafana:
Do you put that in your service agreement?
Mike :
That's more of a discussion. But yes, I mean, they say that there's no guarantee of day is no guarantee of route.
Mike :
Young techs will change. So it's very, very clear whether they remember that or not.
Greg Villafana:
Right. Yes.
Greg Villafana:
But if they sign it, it's nice that when they do call or email that, you know, you can have that discussion where it's like, hey, you know, we talked about this. This was in our service agreement, you know, and we just started redoing the service agreement.
Mike :
Now, that's one of those things where we probably get into it at some point, but we've we're now on Docusign. You sign they electronically sign it. They initial certain aspects of it that they actually have to read the paragraph, not, you know, three pages worth of stuff. I mean, there are paragraphs that we point out and those are the things in which they have to read specifically before it gets signed and sent.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah. Yeah. There is a lot of times where people just like, you know, if you bring it to them on the spot, they're just like, give me the back page. You know, sign it real quick. It's like, no. Do you understand what's going on here?
Mike :
I didn't want to go back to the.
Mike :
Because I think it's an important point of how we do things as the buying, buying the route. And when I buy a route, I know I'm going to lose customers. And and I think if you're into this mindset, my wife still doesn't get it. To some degree. But I feel that when you purchase a route like that, I'm buying the infrastructure so I can bring on a Jacob or a Josiah or a Paul where I've got to have X amount of customers to support that infrastructure, that support the salary costs in order to deliver what we want to deliver. And I'm okay with losing 50 percent of those people I buy because one is in the six or seven months after we purchase. We don't make major changes. We fix out all their equipment. So you're obviously you're getting revenue off of because most people are leaving the business, haven't done what a good job repairing equipment or keeping that up. There's always equipment repair to do so. Happening now, a lot of that money is being you know, you're getting that back. And then on top of that, since finding employees is so difficult these days, I don't want 2000 pools. I want 1000 well-paying pools, profitable pools. And so then we take the organic growth that we take, bring them on to our pricing structures. And I yeah, I might lose 50, but the next 50 that we bring on much more profitable. I don't have to hire anybody. And those other 50 that I purchased are now creating probably 80 percent of the revenue that I bought because I've raised their prices to what our levels are, because we proved that we were, you know, delivering what they wanted from the prior company. So so that's sort of I think it's a big point. Don't be scared of if you purchase pools, don't be scared of losing them if they're not being profitable for you.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah, I think it's a really good point. Everybody has their bottom dwellers on, you know, their roots. And they're going to be the ones that don't pay well. The pools that are tough to clean, the ones that take way too long. I mean, those are all headaches. But when you purchase a route, you get all of the cream of the crop of that route, too. So you keep those in. You know, if you're just buying the first 50, you're always going to pay. You obviously won't keep the majority to keep your business going. But if you're using in this kind of, you know, avenue to grow, then, yeah, you've got to be willing to cut those ones that are hurting you. You know, but you also gain all that really good one.
Greg Villafana:
So, yeah, we don't go too deep into this because I'm sure this could be a whole episode in itself.
Greg Villafana:
But I'm curious, you know, without any exact numbers, because I'm sure a lot of people want to hear this is what are you looking at when taking on a pool in terms of, you know, what is this gonna cost me sort of your whole kind of cost analysis and what? Percentage do you want to profit off of this pool? And it seems like there's a lot of people in the business that do this much differently. But I'm just curious, what does a pool look like to you? What is a good pool look like to you? And what does about one look like?
Mike :
Well, bad one. Start with that one that you can't charge enough to service. I mean, you know, you are. Because what is factored in that you got trees. It's a 40 thousand gallon pool. You got mesquite, polyvore day old plaster, plumbing, undersized. Why take it? It just doesn't. You can't charge three or four or five hundred dollars.
Mike :
What you need to charge to make it worthwhile, at least in the market we're in. You know, every market is gonna be a little bit different, obviously. But for that, you know, again, I mean, at this point, we're able to be picky, I hate to say. I mean, we're we're more in the driver's seat than I was, you know, back back in the day. We've earned that right to do that. And so we try to get pools that are that we can do three in an hour because, again, we're so concentrated in so many areas. I literally a guy can stop at their truck and walk to five pools. So we we really concentrate on pools that are are going to be from a maintenance perspective.
Mike :
No more than 20, 30 minutes or we're charging appropriately now. But a lot of those people are not going to pay. They're going to go to the next guy down where they're, you know, charge in the same amount for all their pools, no matter what what it is.
Mike :
So so obviously taking the older pools a little bit are harder.
Mike :
Now, that might change as we get into different aspects if we get it. You know, you know, restoration of pools and things like that, that we might be changing that. But as far as until that sort of happens, we definitely. That's one thing that we try to stay away from. I mean, very time consuming pools were really big automation guys. So we love seeing new pools built that that the pool builder didn't sell them everything. Jacob over here is really good at going in and putting in Intellichem systems if they have a salt system, that type of stuff. So we definitely like those. We definitely look for those type of pools. You know, as long as you're charging appropriately to some degree other than the old plaster pools, you know, if they don't want to. I stay away from property property management to us. Right.
Tyler Rasmussen:
What kind of profit are you looking to pull out of each one? I mean, percentage wise, maybe your it's all changed.
Mike :
I mean, early on it was one number. Now it's you know, if we're down into that 15 percent, that's probably pretty good. You know, I mean, obviously, with infrastructure costs that the company and it's much different than a single pole guy or even two or three guys in a company just because you just don't have the overhead that we have insurances and the 20 vehicles or more. And then just buying I mean, that's just the cost of growing a company is huge.
Mike :
There's a lot of money. That's a lot of money.
Greg Villafana:
Right. Seems like there has to be a piece that you have to put into your costs for things that you don't even know we're gonna happen.
Mike :
Yeah.
Greg Villafana:
I mean, because it could very well be a long time before I mean, if you really look at the numbers and how technical that can be before one pool can actually be profitable, it could be quite a while. If you're looking at like kind of the numbers, like the nitty-gritty numbers.
Mike :
Yeah, no, I mean it's as I say, it's a to pay off a pool that you buys 18 months means give or take. I mean we charge for chemicals and that's one thing that we really did well at the very beginning. It's we charge your chemicals charge now we're charging for a decent amount for filter cleaning salts and cleanings, all these other things which if I was starting out, I wish somebody, you know, would really hammer that point home. I know how some of the guys do with not charging for chemicals and you know. It's not easy. Yeah. I just to me, you can't control customer behavior on top of it all. So, you know, they go. I don't care what chemical costs your. It's your as your own. And when you try to explain somebody that you got during your pool. I don't care if I'm not paying for chemicals. So now if they're spending $200 a month in chemicals. Yeah. I told you, better drain your pool. So that's a good point. So. So to me, that's. Well, Bill, six figures and chemical costs this year. I mean, that's that's all. But, you know, if you're talking bottom line, that's bottom line. So whatever your profit margin on those chemicals are. But. Right. I mean, it's it's significant. I've learned when you grow from 50 to where we are today, the percentages don't change. It's just the volume. It's just. And the risk.
Greg Villafana:
The level of risk that you're. Is completely different. One decision you might have made with 50 pools, you barely feel it. But at, you know, five hundred a thousand pools, like everything you do, it's got a different level of risk.
Mike :
I was just filling out some loan papers the other day for for something we want to do. I'm like how much business that I have now. But, you know, it's all good debt, though. That's the thing. It's like that's I think where my business background or the schooling, a lot of its assets. Yeah. Oh, it is. I mean, that's the thing. It's like that's why I'm saying a banker doesn't typically understand our business. And I really tried to explain it to our guy. Look at, you know. Yeah. I'm requesting another loan here. But this thing, this asset can produce 10, 15 grand a month. And it's gonna cost me a couple thousand a month. Yeah. Where else are you gonna get that type of return? And so that's the biggest thing that, you know, try to get across if you have it ever get to the point where you're working with bankers and and hopefully over the years we can change their attitude. And there are good solid pool companies out there that are run very well.
Mike :
And our risk is low in my it how I look at it. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm not going to lose eight hundred customers all at once. You know, so. I hope not.
Greg Villafana:
Unless he does. Unless you close your door, that's going a bad calling spree.
Tyler Rasmussen:
We were actually talking earlier before you guys got here about, you know, prioritizing because you have, you know, 800 pools Fifteen guys, 20 trucks. But then you when you guys came in, you were how maybe the marketing piece was behind a little bit. But there's a kind of opposite of how we did a lot of it. You know, what do you how do you feel the prioritizing of. Because now you have 20 trucks in your branding them now, and you're able to kind of do it a little bit different. How did you go about building that?
Mike :
I think it just came sort of came down. I've always wanted to sort of brand me. And that's why it's sort of it's not a sparkling splash. It's just that's not northwest or it's not this or not. That is very generic, very easy logo, simple. It's clean. You look at our vehicles and trucks, you know what? You're you know who it is. You know what you're going to get. It means very clear. And that's what I've tried to do, doing the business. I never had the time. Now I know how some guys do it. So it's like we are talking. It's like, you know, the marketing piece always even I's business. And my dad's market research always took the backseat. You mean as far as the website, you go to a Website. We basically just went over to a mobile friendly Web site a couple of years back and I still haven't been able to really update it. So I think now.
Mike :
I'm going to try to get that better, as I say, and outside is hopefully now I have more time to really brand the business better than I've been able to do in the past and spend more time doing that. Spend more time for the next 10 years. So when these guys are ready to take the thing over, it is. You mean real you. We've got the technical knowledge and now it's just the marketing piece. And and and hopefully, you know, we're able to do that. It's just. And I think we have a really good brand where we are now.
Mike :
And now we just need to capitalize it with the vehicles. Really, it really was the first step in. And we get multiple calls now. All I saw your truck over here. I think we should have been putting that should have been day one, you know, looking back at it. I mean, if you're in a pool business, get yet your logos on your trucks and and get it done that way when you're starting.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah, I think the ROI on a vehicle wrap, it pays for itself pretty quick.
Mike :
We just got this big transit van, you know, not too long ago for the repair side. And you can't miss it.
Greg Villafana:
Right.
Mike :
And we get call, you know, compliments from longtime customers. All your van is cool. You know, I've got customers in a shop. I see your trucks all over the place, which they were all over the place before. You know, it wasn't until the end of this year where we finally got everything done. And it was in about three month span that we got all our trucks logoed out. And we were just joking. We're gone. Boy, they're probably going to go. Where do these guys come from? You know, we have a magnets or something on it.
Greg Villafana:
But but, you know, everybody has a different opinion on this. But I would say that your priorities were perfect because there's only so much that kind of a top level of a team. The decisions that you have to make can do. And it seems so much more important to, you know, you were good with your money. You had twenty, twenty five years of savings where you were able to buy pools. And then you kind of went in and you really learn everything in and out and you develop the team. And you came up with a strategy on, OK, instead of, you know, waiting, I'm going to like buy this group of pools so I can tack it on to this group. So this person is full time. That is stuff that I would much rather know all of that and figure out the branding marketing piece because you're you're doing it and running a profitable business. That's a much easier transition because it's like now you get to just go in to brand marketing zone where you get to just go on to the highlight reel of the successes that you've had, you know. And, you know, from where we started off in the beginning, it's kind of.
Greg Villafana:
You can get lost in it a little bit and then when it gets out of control, it's really, really difficult because you start getting the calls and the emails and you're doing bids and then you you didn't get to spend as much time like understanding the very technical things that go into having a successful pool service company, because when it gets busy, as you know, it gets really difficult to learn all that stuff.
Mike :
No, I mean, it's and I'm not going to make any bones about it. I'm not the smartest pool guy there is. That's why I got it to a point, obviously. But, you know, I know my limitations. I know what I'm good at. What I'm not good at. And I think you just have to internally tell yourself or look at yourself and say, hey, you know, if I want to do this. Am I the right person?
Greg Villafana:
And that makes you smart.
Greg Villafana:
Because I think somebody that understands that is smart. They know what they're good at and they know what they're not good at. And they delegate, you know, work to other people and go scouting for people that like, you know what? I need somebody that's really good at this and this is the best person for that. Just like, you know, you probably couldn't do what he does as well and vice versa. It's a very good tradeoff. I think that's in, you know, any business.
Mike :
Yeah, I know. And I think that's the going back to the background. I mean, that's you don't learn things like that in school per say. But the background I came through. You know, I think that's the benefit of how I was brought.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I it's a big benefit. And it's cool. I think that's where we're. It's really like I'd rather much rather be in that seat to where everything is, you know, structurally sound. And you're at this point now that you've built this really good, profitable business and now you're just going to blow it up everywhere. Like that's that's a pretty cool position to be in that I don't think a lot of companies ever get to or, you know, it takes a lot of work to build that infrastructure the way I think it's because you make I'm sure because you're such a numbers guy, your decisions are based off of data and numbers.
Greg Villafana:
And if this is what it's gonna cost to redo my Web site or have someone do social media or do any of that, you understand like the whole numbers behind that, not just, yeah, I don't care what it costs, like let's just do it.
Greg Villafana:
And you're just gonna be in debt for how much that costs. You're going into it with a real idea of where that money is coming from and how it's all gonna get funded.
Mike :
Well, yeah. I mean, it's just like those last purchase, I mean, you know, thrown out two hundred fifty thousand dollars for a company. But I ran the numbers in my head. I'm like, gosh, I could accomplish so much if I'm willing to take that risk. And I'm a risk taker. Obviously, you're in business. You run a business. You're you're by nature, you're a risk taker. But I'm concerned some concern taking educated risks. And so so it's like, hey, I can get my the whole goal was to get my wife back into the company because, you know, it was a she's really good at what I'm bad at. And so so I'm like running the numbers. We had a 10 year plan to get her back in. And this just got us there. And so she said on the phone she has left her corporate job, put her notice in, and she's coming on and we can't be happier. And hopefully I'm spending 80 hours a week. You know, that's what you know. It's a lot of work, guys. I mean, you know, to get where you are here today, as you guys know, it's 80 hour weeks for the last 10 years. So a lot for sure. It's a lot. And luckily, we don't have kids and say dogs. So. So that's that's all I do. Yeah. Unfortunately, in a way, I wouldn't do it any other way, though. So. Thank you.
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Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah, I mean we talked talked about kind of delegating stuff. So let's just kind of jump to the team that you've built, you know, which includes this guy and let's bring him actually on the podcast. You can you talk about how vital, you know, the team has been for you in this in this kind of growth periods.
Mike :
Yeah. You know, again, I got to probably I don't know how many pools we had when you came on.
Mike :
About three. Three. 350?
Mike :
Yeah. Three. 350. And I got to a point where, like, I got I can't I'm not a repair guy and I was outsourcing. Some are more complicated. So we could end, you know. You know, everybody could put in a filter, pump that stuff. But troubleshooting automation, troubleshooting heaters, doing that type of stuff, there's very few people can do it. And so we just got to we're in an area in which that is very prevalent.
Mike :
A lot of our customer base have the disposable income to do that. And so I had Jacob do some side projects for us when he had time. And I went to him one day and I said, hey, you know, I don't I'm really looking for somebody to come on full time. I don't know if it will be full time repair work or not. But if you're willing to do some pools, if we don't have full time repair work, then then great.
Mike :
You know, and.
Jacob:
Yeah. Told me I might be cleaning pools until the repair work comes and Mike had built such a loyal customer base. By the time that I got on and started seeing these pools and just bringing a little extra knowhow and knowledge to the the company, things just went gangbusters, you know, and that's really what Mike had built beforehand. Him and Amy. And the biggest reason, of course, I came on I think everybody's come on with Mike is that he's always look in five years down the road, 10 years down the road, how to build a successful company that is good for the employees. Great for customers.
Greg Villafana:
Is that what got your attention the most is like this is somebody that is smart, has a vision for the future, isn't just day by day, minute by minute.
Jacob:
Absolutely. He wasn't just doing pools to make a paycheck. Yeah, I know. And I know there's tons of companies out there, business owners that, of course, put their heart and soul into their business. There's also a lot out there that are cleaning pools by themselves or, you know, just good with the 60 pools or so. And Mike wasn't one of those is the guy that wants to be the best. That's what I think we strive for. And that's what caught my attention, is somebody that's going to put in that effort beside you instead of just somebody above you telling you what to do. And he's in the trenches every day when it work for anybody else ever again. You know, other than this guy. And that's what attracted me to sparkle and splash and come on board.
Greg Villafana:
And that's one hell of a story. Yeah. Where where did you find him?
Mike :
I have to say, I'm probably a lucky has been a business owner in Tucson. To have him and his brother and father. So is one of those things where he's got nothing against the young guys because we're probably 25 years apart in age.
Mike :
It's hard to find my type of worth that ethic in today's younger generation. It just it is. I mean, I know I'm that kind of B.S. around the point.
Mike :
Yeah, okay. You're not the first person millennials. And I gotta learn to adjust.
Mike :
I understand that because the company is bigger and I have to draw from a bigger pool of people so, you know, I can adjust where needed. But this guy is, I want to say, as dedicated as me to the business. And, you know, just last night, he was at home half hour away, went to a commercial property to put some chemicals in, knows the heater was cycling. I called them up and he came up. I mean, at 5:30 at night to fix the heater for the spa. So you don't run into too many people like this. And we are lucky to have them.
Greg Villafana:
So we're gonna we're gonna get into your background a little bit. But I don't want to forget to ask you this. That's not normal. Like, why? Why do you do that? Cause I'm I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna say it like, is it because of all the things you just said on top of being paid? Well, maybe having insurance, having a truck. Are there all those things? It's just a combination of things. It's like I have a good thing. I want to always have it and I want to do I want to do more. What is it exactly? Because it's really difficult to find good people and also retain them.
Greg Villafana:
But I think there's so many things out there that, you know, as owners, we maybe didn't understand, like what it was what their wants and needs were. Exactly. I'm just curious, like what you want to say, like what you get paid or anything and just more curious. Like, why? Why are you so dedicated?
Jacob:
Yeah, no. And it you know, obviously money's one thing. And a lot of people are highly motivated, you know, by money and what they get paid. And of course, that's a factor in the end. I mean, really, it's just, I guess, Ben, my personality and then mix that on top of somebody that is easy to follow and work with. You know, it's not for fear of losing that that position or anything like that. It seeing someone with the same dedication as you, I guess, in wanting to put forth that same ethic, going more into my background. I mean, really, that's just how I was raised to and I don't have kids not married. I do have a girlfriend who gets mad at me a lot for coming home at seven, eight o'clock at night.
Mike :
Yes, he's always doing things. Every time I pick up my phone, we're out at a job at seven. Is it like you're in trouble, aren't you? I'll get a tag. But no, I mean, that's just.
Jacob:
I don't like sitting down. And I love work. And I like happy customers. I mean, I just like helping people. And the rest of the stuff is needed. But that's I guess not. What drives me is just helping people and just working. And I just like working.
Mike :
And he is a perfect combination of sales, technical and just communication in front of a customer. There's hands down probably. I mean, again, I I have a lot of years of background and seeing people and and being involved in different aspects of businesses.
Mike :
And I've never seen somebody at his age able to really go in to and, you know, sell and, you know, do a technical aspect to a customer. Yeah. Just unbelievable.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah, I know. If you try to come and work for us when we had brothers, I would not be able to sleep at night because I like to. This is too good to be true.
Greg Villafana:
I feel like I cannot sleep until I figure out what this dude's vices like, what what is, what is wrong with this lot of 5 hour energy?
Greg Villafana:
I mean, because there are so many times you meet somebody and they feel like they might be too good to be true. And then you find out like, oh, that's what it is. That's why they can't stay. Yeah. You know, at a company for more than six months or whatever it is.
Tyler Rasmussen:
But yeah, I mean obviously it's this jump in your background a little because I think that probably has to do with some of what you were raised with by your dad. Right. I mean, right with mentality. So you talk about you're born and raised in Tucson, which is kind of unusual.
Jacob:
Yeah. No, they're my whole life.
Jacob:
I tried getting out once and moved out of the city for about three months and came back and Tucson. That's great. I love it. You know, you get a little bit of city, a little bit odd nature and a whole lot of pools, you know. But, yeah, you know, growing up, my dad. He he was in the pool industry has been ever since I was born eight, nine years old, going out and jobs with him and helping him out. Things like that. But he just always instilled a strong work work ethic in us. And I would probably achin it to be an on a farm. You know, you wake up at the crack of dawn and do your chores and stuff like that and then you go have fun. And, you know, we did an. As a kid, you hated it and didn't understand the value in that. But getting older and doing things that just come natural and or are 100 percent because of that, you know, and just literally beaten that into us in, oh, he would. It's kind of funny. When we were kids, we do yard work. We lived on about five acres. We'd have to rake that and sometimes we'd put a chain-link fence to the back of a pickup truck and sit on it and break it that way. But in the you know, the I guess the finer areas, you know, I was doing that. If we start slacking off. Take the B.B. gun out and shoot us with it.
Jacob:
Right. Nowadays, I get that. Nowadays, that's child abuse. But it was good fun. I but now I know it wasn't.
Jacob:
No, it was. It was fine. You know, it's in the heel a little bit and you get going again.
Greg Villafana:
So did your dad own his own service company or did he work for another?
Jacob:
He did at one point. When I was younger and. And that was that was actually some of the most fun I ever had been able to get to those jobs with him and learn a lot of the the business in the industry as much as you could as a kid. And just seeing what he did every day and going to work happy and all that. To the point that he even has a little 8 year old kid, my dream has to always work in the pool industry. And that's pretty cool.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I like that you wrote down the form. You and your cousin talked about it. Yeah. That's pretty that's pretty awesome.
Greg Villafana:
The goal is it's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Yeah. No, I like like your parents cut you off from the real world.
Not to say that that's not that's that's an amazing dream if that was your dream. But as a kid, you know, it's like I want to be a football player. I want to be a baseball player, you know, pro pogger or something. I don't know, pogger, but that's just funny because you got with your dad and you're just like it's probably helped that he had such a good attitude. You know, maybe he was happy at the job side. So maybe as organized and you just son like, dude, I want that. That looks cool. That looks fun.
Jacob:
Yeah, that's, you know, as any good deed to idolize you. And you know, and.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah, and that would look a hell of a lot better to me than rake in five acres of dirt.
Jacob:
That was a pain. I just looked so much easier. I just thought I would think that would be able to get more like landscapers into the pool business because I know the worst. Given that, too. I don't.
Mike :
I don't. I'm not sure I understand.
Tyler Rasmussen:
This is the same thing. And we walk by or landscapers would be at the polls for like hours and we would be out in 15-20 means something. I don't ever want to do that. Like I will go work for any pool company before I try to do that. That's rough.
Greg Villafana:
Like some of guys, man's in my neighborhood.
Greg Villafana:
They're on it. They're moving in the yards. Look sharp when they're done. They get in on to the next one.
Greg Villafana:
That vehicle doesn't even look like has ac in it. Poor guy.
Tyler Rasmussen:
So when you're 16, you start working at Leslie's. Is that kind of. Yeah. Got on the path a little bit more.
Jacob:
That's exactly it. And so start working at Leslie's and kind of funny when you get there out there on your own, you realize how much there really is to this industry and how little you actually know, you know. And so you start working just in the store, in the retail store as just a sales associate and kind of worked up through the ranks to manager and then became a repair tech for a while with Leslie's. I had this issue where I just had a hard time staying in one position and know it just never it always got old and always got boring. So, you know, jump from store to repair tech back to store, over to the commercial department, quit a few times, came back. All in all, yeah. Working in the store and in the repair division taught me tons about this industry and what polls are about.
Tyler Rasmussen:
You were just saying earlier that it seems like a ton of people come from Leslie's farm and all kinds of people for, you know, the service side.
Greg Villafana:
There's a part to a lot of people that have a background in working at Leslie, so that's really cool. We see that as thinking about a little bit. It's a great place to really know your parts and really understand homeowners and what their wants and needs are because you probably do extremely well with, you know, the homeowner and communicating, you know, with them because that, you know, that is your job. Those are the only people that come to those doors every day or ones that have a problem with their pool. And they need and they need something. So, you know, putting your time in there and also knowing your parts, I'm sure you can ramble off any O-ring or, you know, anything out there. Probably pretty well.
Jacob:
Yeah. I stared at a lot of parts books for many hours. I mean, I've still got old skewes from their hard from they're stuck in my head. And so you walk into Leslie's looking for a part of this number.
Mike :
Sure. Yeah, I'm sure he has it on his phone because he has everything.
Greg Villafana:
We used to we used to laugh many years ago that we we hope that one day that like our whole team would be together, like having dinner or at a retreat or something. And there'd be just a fun conversation where. People were just laughing about it like they installed something and they were rambling off part numbers and they were just so smart and it was so much a part of their. Now they're who they are and the things that they talk about that that would have been really cool, that people just know, you know, their craft that well to where they can have like an open discussion about it, because you wanted to take pride in the trade that you have learned, you know. And when you talk about it outside of work, I feel like there's like a different level of love for it and how much you really do like it.
Jacob:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, just being proud of what I do, you know, that's that might be what helps drive me every day is just going out to work. That's really not not as being arrogant or to show off, but just to. Be able to. To put in the work at this point and seen and done what I've done at this point and give and give that to somebody, whether it's a customer, someone else calling for help or other pool companies and guys like that, you know, it it's an amazing, amazing feeling, an opportunity.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah, I'm sure that's gonna be extremely rewarding because there's not many people that know, you know, everything. Not to say that we all know everything because there's so much to know. But that's gonna be very rewarding to just be able to take care of somebody or even if a problem happens, you can be like, oh, you know what? I think I know what it is, all right.
Mike :
Or it's just having the fortitude to.
Mike :
Work all the way through it. Even if you don't know what it is calling up, the manufacturer's calling up the manufacturers of particular parts of the unit that's been installed. How does that work? Where's the wiring diagram? Cause maybe the manufacturer, you know, who sells it, doesn't know what parts are on their machine and how they work. And and he's got no problem picking up the phone and calling each individual part maker of the machine. Or in this case, a heater that makes up that heater. And how does your unit work? Now, they don't know how it works in totality, but he figures out that piece. But he wants to know how that individual item on that should actually work. I mean, it he goes into that type of level of detail, whatever it takes.
Jacob:
Yes. Spending eight hours, searching, figuring everything out and then an hour service call.
Greg Villafana:
But you probably understand that you putting in that time to figure that out and making all those calls that you probably won't have to do that again.
Jacob:
That's exactly is it. Figure it out now so you don't have to figure it out later. And I've got no prompt on the customer. Hey, I have no idea. but we'll figure it out. And and then just. Having your resources, you know, whether it's the manufacturer or your reps or even other pool companies, I mean, even a couple of weeks ago I had to call another guy, another tech that does Hayward warranty in Tucson. And he's been great because anything. Hayward. I'm probably not your guy. You know, it's just. I like Hayward. You do. All right. But we just don't work on them enough. Right. And so just having your resources and connections and stuff like that. And then once you do get it figured out, store it, you know, hold on to it or at least hold on to where you found that so that you can reference and then find it again.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Right. So what's your what's your primary role now within the company?
Jacob:
Repair manager. So basically anybody, of course, calling in with an issue is generally me going out there and talking to them. SALES, of course. Identifying any upgrade options and stuff like that, it's going to benefit the customer and help them enjoy their pool. Like Mike was saying, when we bring on these new pools, like to get out to them, make sure they're running. Right. Which is probably one of the biggest things and one of the things we do. Pretty much require of our customers that you have to have work and equipment and no leaks. You have pop up heads they gotta be work in. And we're not just throwing in pool cleaners when a pop ups not work and or something like that. Good clean water filter, stuff like that. So get out and identifying all that and then having that conversation with the customer and why it's important in know to us when we go into a customer's backyard, of course their pool is our biggest priority. That's the only thing we see. And trying to just get that to them and let them know that, hey, you got this pool. Take care of it and make that a center piece of them. So again, I haven't making those customer relations and.
Mike :
It was his title Shouldn't be repair manager. I haven't come up with the correct one yet, but he does much more than that. So he's really the complete face.
Mike :
You know of the company out in the field. Sure. He's got, you know, the technical ability to discuss any topic with anything that comes up. So it's more than just pushing in a pump or filter.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah, definitely getting a sense of that. I tried extremely hard not to ask because I feel like you could ask a day's worth of questions right now. But yeah, Fix's is great auto mechanic on top of everything, so. Oh yeah. Most of the car mechanic when tire doesn't called the time permits you get done with this Intellichem. Can you come look at my truck? You got it.
Tyler Rasmussen:
So what do you feel like you guys excel at? You know, as far as you and the repair side, you're overseeing some other technicians, too. And the repair side.
Jacob:
Yes. We've got one other full time technician who repaired tech are my little brother. And so it's just nice. That's easy. And I mean, he's got the same background. I do. So with the exception of the Leslie's part. So he's the guy that, you know, I'll set him up for the shot and he takes it.
Jacob:
So. So the equipment, I'll go put it in all day long. And he does a great job. And then we're working on a couple other people, getting them into the repair side couple days a week and training them up. So one and a half. Two people.
Greg Villafana:
Yeah. You pool people, man, live and breathe. It's a pretty awesome vacation with your family talking about pools.
Mike :
Well, it's terrible. I go to a hotel now. Helpful. Start looking around is like pools. None of us can help ourselves. Yeah.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I guess, you know, we see you take pictures and send in pictures like you want to swim in that and like dirt all over the bottom and all this nasty stuff.
Mike :
And it's like algae. Yeah. It's only gonna Lawler's and yeah. You're like it's hard to even watch movies or look at old photos because they're like, you know, at this luxury pool.
Greg Villafana:
But it's like why is every pool from like, you know, you know, past the, you know, 90s green like every like pool in a movie is green. Like, what the hell was going on?
Mike :
A joke. I'll take my test strips on vacation.
Greg Villafana:
Got just what I had. They did it here anyway.
Tyler Rasmussen:
We did that with the retreats. We had explores that. We brought test strips. That's funny. We're all probably gonna get sick. I want to get this bar anymore so it doesn't matter. Very eerie.
Mike :
I think just going back to your question, I think I think delivering the combination of a good customer experience from a business perspective, it's going to get even better in the future.
Mike :
And then having the ability to solve people's problems in a single call, they don't have to call anybody else. I mean, we don't build pools. We're not currently re-do of pools. But short of that, they don't have to go anywhere else. We have all the expertise in-house. If they need help or if we need help, we'll go outside and get, you know, bring in the right people. So I think that's a big value. Add in what sets us apart from, you know, where I was when I started. I mean, I didn't have any of that stuff. So and as a big company, we should have that. I mean, you know, it's like United Airlines or American or wherever. I mean, it's it's a brand. And, you know, people know should know what they expect they're getting, whether they want to sit in first class or coach. That's their decision. And we can accommodate either one. But they know what they're going to get. And that's sort of how our business is now.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I'm glad you brought that up, because I like the airline comparison you said yesterday. That's cool.
Mike :
Yeah. So let me just just highlight that a little bit.
Mike :
It's sort of a model that I've been toying with and we're going to institute is a you know, worked to a size now where people they they'll know brand name recognition of sparkle and splash. And they want to be a part of the organization or a customer. And. And but if they want first class service, you know, you go to first class, you get 20 people up there with one person. It's very specialized service. We can do that. You want to be serviced on a certain day. You want to have a tech cell phone number. You want to get instant response to our callbacks, whatever the case is. Yeah, we'll set it up. We can we can accommodate that. But yeah, you're going to pay for it. And a lot of people are OK with that. But then there's people who just want to make sure their pool is ready for them, you know, on the weekends. You know, they don't need any special hand-holding, but they want to be associated with a brand name. We're able to accommodate that as well.
Greg Villafana:
All right. So it seems like you've given Jacob a ton of responsibility in this role in handling the repair department. You have any suggestions for anybody listening that, you know, handing over the reins to somebody, suggestions you have for something like that?
Mike :
You know, it's funny question because it's like I thought about that and like, I didn't know any better. I mean, I don't know enough to do what he does. And so it's sort of like, hey, this is your business. You're on it like your own business. You're operating your own business within our business. He doesn't come to me for really anything. I mean, he never has. And he's been here as far as pricing. I'll let him do. I'll let him do it all. And, you know, judge him on the results. I mean, and that's and now I think that's where the corporate background comes in. I mean, you can't be micromanaging everybody. I mean, there's obviously times in which I'm a little passive aggressive towards him.
Mike :
And and he knows when that is. But it's it's vice versa. But you just have to have faith and trust in the people that you give responsibilities to. I mean, you just can't. I've got enough to do. If you give somebody that portion, that's 50 percent of our business. And so if you don't trust somebody with 50 percent of your business, that person shouldn't probably be there. Right.
Greg Villafana:
So but there's definitely you have to see the level of commitment that they have. And I'm sure that, you know, you just didn't step right into that role. You were doing some other things prior to that. So you guys had a relationship for a little bit and you got to see, you know, what kind of work you could do and all of that. Right.
Mike :
Not literally just let me go wild. You know, but I mean, he was acting almost like a sub in the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, clearly, it wasn't like just straight up off the streets like a raked five acre yard. I work hard. Let's go. No, no.
Mike :
Clearly, the couple you know, some of this talk that we said. Talk. US talk. Oh, yeah.
Greg Villafana:
I know a lot of people that just run their mouth. But when it comes down to actually getting the job done. It's a completely different.
Mike :
No, I mean, you know, when when we subbed out the work to him, never got calls from the customers.
Mike :
Stuff was always done. Got I mean, I should have say probably all the emails, probably every person I sent them out to, I'd get e-mail back. This guy is just a good one. Yeah.
Greg Villafana:
Not me. That just copy. Would you run that e-mail and paste it into Google? Yeah. Exactly.
Mike :
I wasn't high on that at the time, but you know, I mean literally it was I almost.
Mike :
Well I did stop sending him the comments back to him because he already knows.
Greg Villafana:
You know, I'm sure it was your head getting a little big Jacob. Yeah. Like I mean with the crown, we all want the good comments. But it was like, this can't be true. You must have them to send us e-mail and or something. He just said, just go and do what needs to be done.
Jacob:
You know? Yeah, that's such a. It's terrible.
Jacob:
And at some times and trust me, I know there's tons of good people out there, but too many people, customers, clients are being burned by people that exact just just won't go out and just do what they say and make it be simple, you know, change a light bulb or something like that. And, you know, not even in the pool industry, just everywhere. People are just so burned by people not doing what they say, that when you finally just do do what you say you're going to do.
Greg Villafana:
Know, we're definitely under the microscope, you know, especially in the pool business.
Greg Villafana:
They're there waiting for you to, you know, mess something up. And, you know, when you do everything right and you're professional and happy and move along, you've just given them an experience. And that is that's more valuable than the profits that you made on the job. Because with that experience, you on next door, social media, anything like that, somebody is talking about pool stuff or their friends got pool issues. Believe me, you guys are gonna be the first company that comes out of their mouth.
Mike :
Yeah. No, I mean, he does. We always meaning. I. I'm always on a believer.
Mike :
I do what I think is right. I mean, even if it cost me a thousand dollars to replace an exchange or whatever the case is, we're going to do what's right within reason, if you will. I mean, if we feel that is something that we've done or or even questionable and you know, again, what, Jacob goes out and just takes care of it. I mean, there's a lot of times where we just go out and take care. They don't even know about it, you know, and that's just what you need to do if you want to be in business and stay in business and be reputable.
Mike :
There's a cost of doing business.
Jacob:
So, yeah, the one thing I'll say really quick, too, is your delegation. Gin is not speak for you, but one thing Mike is really good at is known what he does well and what he needs help on and bringing those right guys. So me a few years ago serve as managers. Things like that. And I think where he's different is he does give that power, you know, bring on people that knows what they're doing that's going to add benefit to the company. But at the same time, you know, pretty quick when somebody is not going to work. And that's where the other half and comes out and just doesn't. You know, you can train them a little bit and things like that.
Jacob:
But you just you know, and it's just cut open and work hard or a little bit yourself and move on. And I think that's the big one is trust in them. And then if it's not going to work. Right.
Tyler Rasmussen:
And work, people like jigaboo fall on people's laps. So I was going to kind of touch base on that because I think, you know what, you do good by knowing what you don't do well is hire pieces. Right. That fit those, you know. That's that's something that people need to do a better job at. I think is, you know, figure out what they do well and then delegating, you know, maybe those things they don't do so well.
Mike :
I keep trying to figure out what it is I do because I don't know the pool business very well. I don't I can't do technical stuff very well. Run the business pretty well. Yeah, administratively. He sells himself short. I do impose my whole life.
Jacob:
I tried to start my own business. And it's not for the faint of heart. And I was a few months in or I think eight months or so did OK. But, you know, I mean, that's it's not easy. And I mean, even just stick into it is is tough. So it's a grind.
Tyler Rasmussen:
You know, he's definitely selling himself short. Yeah. I mean, we get it.
Greg Villafana:
But yeah, it's like the the owner of any professional sports team, I guarantee you that they can't throw a football for shit or hit a baseball or do any one of those things. But they know how to run an organization and know how to get all the key people and pay all the key people and make sure that, you know, the stadiums full of fans feel like we've been using more sports analogies lately.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yes. Buy the chairs when I'm doing it, too. Not me. And that's weird because I was never like I enjoy playing a little bit of sports, but I was more into like skateboarding and stuff like that.
But as kind of getting into being an entrepreneur and having the pool service company and now doing the podcast, I really enjoy watching that. That. That part of sports and watching managers, you know, sports teams, owners and managers and the players and how they respond to the coaches and even down to Formula One racing and all that. And you could just see the teams that are the best are the ones that they're in full control of their emotions and all the different things that will happen. And, you know, when you get to hear them on a podcast or anything, they're always in training, they're reading, they're listening, they're communicating, they're doing yoga. They're they're working out there. There's so many things to to set them up for when things don't go their way, because at the end of the day, that's what makes you the best, is that when something comes up, how are you going to deal with it? You know. Yeah.
Greg Villafana:
So, yeah, like those sports analogies to back episodes of sports analogies. You're going to happening. Find something there, just like horse racing or something. I mean, life in general can be taken a lot out of sports.
Mike :
I mean, for sure. It really it can be.
Greg Villafana:
So this is the whole life is the ultimate game right there. You know, it's all the forms you both talked about, sort of the pool guy stigma. Can you talk more about that and how you think we can all kind of go about changing that?
Jacob:
How much time do you have?
Jacob:
No, it's a this is one thing that gets me, I think, for one. I think anybody wanting to get into this industry want to put the work needs to jump in. It's a very good industry for anybody that's that's willing to do it. My I guess.
Jacob:
Yes.
Jacob:
He said that means that, you know, it definitely there's times when you get people, you know, they just jump in without knowing what what what pools are about. You know, they see a pole and a brush over at Leslie's and.
Jacob:
Yeah. But that's your video, bro. Turn that into a meme. So no. Yeah. No.
Jacob:
They just think it's brushing a pool in a pool and adding chemicals. And you learn quickly. It's a lot more than that.
Jacob:
So one of the problems, you know, is it is just not it's not like a plumber, an electrician in nowhere where you have that mindset and that mentality that that's a trade guy. He he went to school, he did this. He did that. And the pool industry, it just, you know, people that aren't part of it. Look at it as he's the pool guy in. Oh, and we are trades guys. And we know plumbing, electricity, gas, everything and water chemistry. Right. And it's a lot more than just adding chlorine to a pool. And so that's one issue.
Mike :
Yeah. No, I think it is just you know, it's funny because on Facebook, every so often you'll see a note about college kids. What about trade schools? And in being on both sides now, person like Jacob can basically write their own ticket in this business. Right now, there's not enough people there's not enough people in the trades to begin with. And so to me, if there's something in which the industry can do and in general to where, you know, raise awareness and that becomes the business owners responsibility is basically to, you know, really when you're talking with customers, hey, this is, you know, where we charge you a hundred and twenty five bucks an hour for his time, because not only doesn't need to know electricity, he needs no gas. He needs to know how to plumb something. You know, if anything, he's more valuable than a plumber electrician because he has to know both. Maybe not to the extent of those guys. But I mean, it's not an Intermatic time clock anymore out there. You know, I look at it, I go, I have no clue what you're doing. I mean, as much as I've watched him over the last couple, three years putting in all this stuff, I know it's like foreign to me, but you're mixing up a lot of things that should not be mixed together.
Greg Villafana:
If you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Villafana:
You know, water, electricity, chemicals. Yeah. That's a good recipe for a bad day if you don't know what you're doing.
Mike :
And I don't. You know, and and to me, that's what needs to be brought out.
Mike :
I mean, somehow highlighted when you're talking with your customers or assigning customers up. You know, it starts at the grass levels, if you will. And eventually maybe there'll be trade schools where pool professionals, you know.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah. So educating the customer is definitely a big key piece to that. Everybody should be she doing that. You know why you're choosing us over over somebody that's not so well trained or whatever, you know, educated and customer and changing that mentality has to be a big piece of that.
Jacob:
Yeah. That's a huge one. And getting in the back yard and just training them to show them. Yeah. Educate those customers on why we're why why we are who we are, what we charge and why we charge that you know that. It's not just a single pole pusher anymore.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Not that those are bad. Like you said, you know, it's just they have to be told like why. You know, they're paying more money, not just sort of in a price that's exact. Everybody just, you know, owns everybody. More and more people are doing a lot better at this. But like, they just give out a price and a blanket coverage. Well, the blanket coverage in one price doesn't really work because it's all different scenarios. But and like you said earlier, they just want more things. There's there's different levels you can give, there's different options. There's a lot more available. And if you train the customer and teach them. Educate them why they're paying for that, then they aren't going to go back to those other ones unless they're just cheap. But, you know, there's they're there. They understand what a real quality person is worth.
Mike :
Yeah, I get it. I think I get it. I think it all starts with the business owners, you know, being, you know, one guy left recently because we're too corporate. Well, I mean, we're a business, you know, and and if you don't act like a business, you can't charge business pricing. And so if everybody out there, you know, came down as a business and not a route, the mentality of, hey, I am a business and not a route. And and that comes from the business owners down to the you know, the single poler that you'll come goes out there like I started a my customer. I might not know anything, but my customers, you know, love me because I responded to them, did customer service those types of things and acted as a business even when I was doing 50 pools.
You know, if you're not acting it like a business, what the hell's the point? You know, happens when you run a business the way that you're supposed to. You get the reward of doing good things for good people and you get to choose the type of clients that you want. And when you're making really good money, you get to go vacation and see things that you might not have ever seen before. You driving a nice car. You don't get to drive in that whoopty anymore with no AC. You get, you know, the perks of life in sometimes. I hate that it's like this, like you're selling out or something, that you're doing things right. It's like, no, it's like you've got one life to live. And while you're doing it, why the hell not just make it the best it can possibly be? They make a really nice car. I'd like to sit in it and drive that to work and not my bicycle.
Tyler Rasmussen:
And you can do that even it with 60 pools. I mean, you can have a sweet route, super tight, super small, very well-paid customers and run a legit 60 pool business. Yeah. You know, we talk about the one poler a lot, but there is a way to do one poling correctly. But it depends on what you want.
Greg Villafana:
I think if you're a one poler and you are content with that. That is. I I applaud you. That is amazing. But if you're willing to grow and take people on. And you're making excuses into why you're not organized or it's like now I just want to be like like you're not going to keep people around because they want to grow so that they can be, you know, financially successful and be rewarded with, you know, the things that they're knowledgeable about. Because if you hire a few people like you are making some type of attempt to grow your business, you are not a one puller. And if you're doing that, there is a there's a responsibility if you want to keep anybody around. You're going to have to like go the extra mile and figure a lot of things out, because I think that. More money.
Mike :
Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Mike :
I mean, we just, you know, raised lots this past year. I mean, blanket across, what, probably four or five hundred customers. I might have lost. I don't know 30 of that, maybe that, but there probably is, but he didn't want anyway.
Mike :
Bingo. Exactly.
Mike :
If they didn't see the value, we actually had our first person call us back this last week. Wanted.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Oh, man. Isn't that sweet feeling. So that has the best feeling. Yeah, it is. Maybe you could tell him no. Sometimes. And you're like, yeah, I'm not taking you back. It's a mess. No, it is.
Mike :
You know, I mean, you know, at some point and but that could be if you're you know.
Mike :
I mean, if you're maxed out as a single guy and you don't want to grow anymore because you don't want to have the headaches of I have, then then, you know, start weeding out those, you know, bring on the new ones again, you know, and then and then your profits go up. You know, but don't be scared of rate raising prices. But don't just do it.
Greg Villafana:
Go like talk to people. Take you know, if you can get connected with a financial advisor or somebody that knows the numbers, because oftentimes of people like I just like did it. And it's not really. It's like it's not going to work out if you didn't have like a plan. You don't know what the hell. You don't don't just just cut people because they're a pain in the ass. Like you got to have some type of plan as to what you're doing and how you're going to benefit from it from, you know, every, you know, area and your business. So, you know, really take the time to figure it out so that you don't kind of like what you're talking about. And you spent eight hours, you know, on the phone, you know, talking to these people and figuring out how this heater really works and how you were gonna, you know, install it or repair it, like taking that time in every part of your business to really take the time to figure that piece out. That's it, like little things change. But that's it. When you get a grasp on it and you turn it into maybe some type of process, you want to mess with it too much more. And it's so much, so much easier to just keep that up instead of just kind of like, you know, like we said, like, oh, just every day's a new day. Never know it's gonna happen. And you're just, you know, running out into the field, putting out fires. You're doing this and it's how how long can you last? You know, that, you know, you're just you're gonna become grumpy. Nobody's gonna want to work with you and the people gonna start quitting.
Jacob:
It's a burnout. Yeah. And that's. It's funny. I heard you mentioned the plan to get rid of people if they're a pain in the butt. You know, having that plan and one thing I think everyone should know is, is don't get into. That's not your scapegoat. No. And I think that I even got in that mentality and any kind of even shaved on to some of those guys at times where the customer is just a pain. So. Well, they're not our customer. And we we do provide customer service. And you go through every effort to maintain a customer and you eventually reach a point where either equipment's not work and or they are just absolutely crazy and you can't work with them. But just because you have, you know, either 80 pools or a under a thousand pools that you don't want to just dump somebody because they're a pain, you know?
Greg Villafana:
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, if you could go back and change one thing, you know, what would it be?
Mike :
I don't like really looking back too much. You know, that's my my forte is looking forward. But if I was, it would be probably doing. I don't know if it's a good or bad is a social media thing because you're going to ask where you're going to get to hold me.
Mike :
Well, call me if that's the best or email.
Mike :
Never, even though I came from a technology.
Mike :
But this is what's so funny about it. Even though you come from a technology background, never really got onto the the Web and Facebook and Instagram and all this stuff. So probably having a better shot. We were even on Google until we hooked up with broadly and then finally, you know, got some reviews on. Cause I don't think I had any reviews in eight years of being in business. So, yeah, none. Zero. So so clearly, I mean, I started out the thought process, you know, a couple of years back where, hey, you know, probably should probably do that because our competitors in town, I mean, have 200 reviews. It's like, who are they going to call, you know? So that's probably one thing. I mean, they probably either spending more time or hiring somebody that, you know, could do that for me, because I was I didn't have time to do it. Probably the big, you know, the biggest thing. And then just keeping service agreements, how we initially started and then it just falls by the wayside because of time your grow in and getting a lot of customers. It's just a lot of effort and then taking auto pay. If I was a new guy, start starting out right now, service agreements and auto pay. The only way that's the only way you take a customer now.
Greg Villafana:
So period through, you know, the first year. However, stress that enough. Don't wait until you're not, you know, a hundred patches and you have to have the cash flow.
Mike :
Yeah. Just because partly that and then partly is again, when you have a hundred people, you know, the percentage doesn't change. You have 10 people that you need to call. You know, they're not deadbeats or anything. Just like me forgot or you saw the email. I'll get to it later. Now I've got 80 people to call, you know. So it's just the amount of effort. The percentage doesn't change. The amount of effort now does change.
Greg Villafana:
That's why people with Netflix, you know, hear about their service getting disconnected is because it comes out automatically.
Mike :
Right. Whereas, Martha, we're a service based description.
Mike :
Bottom line, yeah, we're providing full service. We don't provide you your streaming, but we're service just like your telephone company. You're whoever we are a service.
Mike :
And there's the. If people don't understand that, then when we didn't do a good job explaining it. Or two, we just don't want him as a customer because, you know, if they're not willing to do that, then most likely you're going to have an issue.
Greg Villafana:
Right. I think, you know, back to the social media, because that's something that I love and do, is that, you know, it is cool. And I guess we didn't think about it too much till maybe the middle or the end of brothers. But when you just do it, maybe not having so much a plan. But we always kind of like love going back in the archive of the stuff that we shared and saw some of you know. I mean, here's one of my favorite photos is like kind of those bird's eye view of Tyler working on equipment. And he's got like. Baby blue cut off on and he's got his son had on and it just it felt really good looking at that. Looking at that photo always brings back memories of I remember that poor remember spending a lot of time by that equipment and being with him. And so it's really cool. Anybody that, you know is kind of not sure what to do with it. Maybe if you can't find the time, it's like just get something up there. Kind of, you know, hold onto that memory. You snap a photo of something that means something to you. It's always really fun to get it on there because it's really hard when your phone probably looks like ours. It's full of nothing but pools.
Greg Villafana:
So it's really difficult to just go through and find that stuff.
Greg Villafana:
But I think that's from what you're saying. You know, it would be nice to go back in that archive and, you know, see a lot of that.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah. Are you documenting the process in a way which is cool. So we know you don't really have social media stuff.
Greg Villafana:
Now, Jacob Ward out of nowhere, anybody, brothers or sisters, you ever work on it? I've got tons of family can take care of that. So you got a family member. The back burner thing. I don't know why. So what's what's what's your Web site?
Mike :
You know that you have currently sparkleandsplash.com just as it days. Again, I as I said, we we actually made a transition a couple years ago too broadly, which then mobilized, you know, got it at least to the mobile stage. Sure there is. There is. When we haven't really touched it. Too much sense, to be quite frank, but we are. I mean, that is something on on the burner that that we need to do as a company.
Tyler Rasmussen:
To be honest, I still half better than half the Web sites.
Tyler Rasmussen:
I see. So, you know, she got something out there. We actually get like we still got Riegle.
Mike :
And I know people go there because I know I get requests, you know, and I have that little chat feature now. So but that sort of works. Let's get there. Get in there. Yeah.
Tyler Rasmussen:
So you're one of the last kind of questions you always ask is do you have Book or podcast.
Tyler Rasmussen:
You know, it's made an impact on your life and kind of way.
Mike :
Yeah. I mean, as far as. I've never really been. We're talking on the way up.
Mike :
I've never been really a podcast guy just because I was always on the phone with customers in the backyard versus versus being able to listen to anything. But I will definitely years ever since I've been, you know, knew about it. I think it's very fascinating. And that's partly why I'm here. And then as far as the book goes, I it's just a sort of the easy, basic little book Who Moved My Cheese? I won't go into the big story. But bottom line is, is the moral of the story is things always change and you got to learn to adapt to it or you're just going to be stuck eating off the same cheese pile that everybody else's and eventually it will wear out or be gone. So the people who are able to do that scurry around in and find the next pile. What's what's gonna be down in the future is is people tend to survive in business and in life in general. It's a Lifebook as well.
Greg Villafana:
Right. That's a very good book. It's a lot of fun. And that makes it makes a ton of sense. Yeah, it does. It's an easy read. And every so often I still read it. So nice.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Very good. How about you, Jacob? Now, you didn't have a book yet?
Jacob:
Yeah, definitely. you'll are some Pentair ETI here.
Jacob:
No, I mean as far as podcasts that you know, especially only grow is this one. And a few reasons, especially going back to the stigma. The pool guy is, you know, one of the issues is a what are you getting into? And then also is changing actually the mentality of the current guys. I used to be one of those guys that was this is my knowledge, nine years, my customer, not years. And there's so much business out there that everybody can do it right and do well. You know, they've already got the pool. So. So sharing that information and it well, you guys are doing is great is getting that word out there to make people more open to helping out in wanting to help out and in. Like I said, that's even changed me already. And then just take, you know, some of the information from the other companies that works well. It's not all going to work for every company, but taking that little bit that you're able to implement at work. So you guys have absolutely done a great job and very it's been very informative and got me re rejuvenated to kind of get excited about things again. So that's always one.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate that. Yeah, well, it was a fairly good podcast. So thank you guys for Hirschman Time driven up from Tucson. Thank you for your support. Really appreciate all that. Thank you.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Look us up. Give him a call. You don't text either, by the way. So it's phone call or email.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Thank you, guys. Thank you very much.
Tyler Rasmussen:
Thanks for checking out this episode. If you want to find out more about our guest or the sponsors of the show, you can check them out on the links we have provided in the right up below. We also provide a link to our social media platform, so please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Our tag is Pool Chasers. It's a podcast that brought you any value. Please do what you can to support us to our Patreon page by going to Patreon.com/poolchasers. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to be updated each time a new episode is released. One last thing if you're not. In our Facebook group, join in today to be surrounded by like minded individuals who are all trying to better the industry. Thank you all for the support. We appreciate your time and your ear. See you out there. Paul Chasers.
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