The Price of Doing Business - Steve & Wayne

Thursdays with Steve & Wayne

“The Price of Doing Business”

🧠 Overview

This week on Talking Pools Podcast, Steve and Wayne break down the reality of running a pool service company—where one service call can derail your entire day and expose bigger industry problems.

👨‍🔧 From the Field

A commercial emergency turns into a full-blown headache involving:

•  Faulty flow meters 
•  Leaking high-pressure filters 
•  Multiple supply runs 
•  Hours of downtime 

👉 The takeaway: In commercial service, failure isn’t an option.

⚙️ Equipment Issues

•  Traditional flow meters and gauges are often unreliable 
•  Installation standards don’t match real-world conditions 
•  More pros are switching to better-performing alternatives like FlowVis-style meters 

💸 The Pricing Problem

Steve uncovers a major issue:

•  Distributor price: ~$700 
•  Online price: ~$500 
•  Knockoff: ~$200 

👉 For the first time: “I couldn’t sell this in good conscience.”

🌐 The Internet Changed Everything

Today’s customers:

•  Check prices instantly 
•  Know what things cost 
•  Question everything 

👉 And honestly? We all do the same thing.

🧪 Bigger Industry Concern

•  Equipment failing too quickly 
•  Warranties getting harder to process 
•  Manufacturers losing control of pricing 

👉 If cheaper works the same… what are we paying for?

📣 Get Involved

Seen this in your business?
 📧 talkingpools@gmail.com

🏆 Mentor Award

Nominate someone who shaped your career:
 👉 cpoclass.com

LaMotte Company
LaMotte Company is a leading manufacturer of water quality testing products & pool test kits

California Pool Association
Pool Industry Trade Organization

CMAHC
The Council for the Model Aquatic Health Code promotes health & safety at public swimming pools

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Hi gang, happy Thursday and welcome to the Talking Bulls podcast with Steven Wayne on Thursdays. That's our day of the week to annoy you and make you s laugh, make you cry, whatever. But here we are on Thursdays. Hope your week went went well. Ours did. Steve, I understand you've got some some things on your chest you wanna you wanna talk about and relate to everybody out there.

SPEAKER_05 1:15

So yeah, not on my chest so much. It's just that's it's crazy because in the pool industry, every week is is super different, right? So it's it's there no week is ever the same. Even if you're out going doing the same 60 pools every week, like something's different every week and whatever it whatever it may be, right? So first I just wanted to say that my my parents came in for 10 days from New Jersey, so they were out here for a little bit, which was awesome because I don't get to see them all that often. And you know, with the opening season coming, I just wanted to, you know, tell you listeners out there to just make sure that you take some time to be with your families and you know, your your husbands and wives, and your girlfriends and boyfriends, and your kids, and your and to go see your parents every once in a while, too. My dad's 81 and my mom is 76 now, so you know, they're getting up there in age, and I just I had a really, really great time with them. And I I actually worked, took a bit of a back seat for a couple weeks, and that's hard, that's hard for Jen and I to do just because we're so busy with stuff, um, and like we're behind on a few different things. So like we're really trying to get caught up before the the summer really gets ramped up. But it was just really cool showing them, you know, where I live in California and like they've both come out separately once, but we were able to we drove to like San Diego one day, and we drove to LA, and then we drove, we went to Vegas for a short trip over the weekend, which was super cool. Um, but it was really awesome to like just reconnect with with them. Um, and I tried to not work at all during that time, but you and I were supposed to do a show and I actually canceled that day. Um, and the reason was my commercial client, they called me and they were like, hey, our flow viz is is leaking. And if you guys are doing commercial pools um and you're still using the blue and white filters, or sorry, the filters, the blue and white flow meters, they're okay, you know. But I've if I'm if I have 60 pools that are commercial pools, I'm gonna go out. At least 20 of them aren't gonna be in working order and in some sort of not working order. So that means that like maybe the ball is missing inside the little ball that floats up and down. Maybe the ball stays at 168 gallons per minute all the time. So when you turn the and this is like the number one thing question that I get all the time in uh from people that take my class for the CPO class, they'll call and they'll be like, Hey, Steve, like you told me we're supposed to backwash when the the sand filter gets eight to ten psi above the clean startup pressure for a single PSI filter gauge. The gauge has been at 27, you know, for the last three weeks. And I'm like, okay, turn the filter off or turn the pump off.

SPEAKER_06 3:43

Right.

SPEAKER_05 3:43

And they're like, oh, it's still at 27. And I'm like, it's it's broken. And it's the same shit with these blue and white ones, like you know, so many times you turn it off and the balls just sitting there in the middle. Yeah, because it's stuck or there's a piece of dirt, or like a little piece of a leaf is stuck in there, or whatever, because the the actual pool water is flowing through it, right? So if you guys have not checked out FlowViz and FlowViz, they don't sponsor our podcast. It's just something that I've found and I really like to use. And the main reason why I like them is because they sit in a check valve. They they sit in a little two-inch, you know, two two-way to what it what would be a jandy two-way valve without the jandy piece on top. Right. And it's just like looks like a check valve in there. And literally, they allow you, if you look in their installation manual, they want you to install it on the suction side of the pump, which is in front of the pump, right, on the pressure side of the pump, which is in between the pump and the filter, right? In between the filter and the heater, they don't want it on the return side. Blue and white, they only want it on the return side. And if you have a two-inch pipe, which most commercial is at least two inch, right? You need to have it on the return line, and it needs to be on eight straight feet of pipe. Show me eight straight feet of pipe anywhere in any pump room, and I'll be like, oh, like we're in a we're in a basement and we're in a cavern and it's running down the whole length of the building to go back upstairs or whatever it may be. But that's why I've kind of changed over to using the the flow vises, just because they they work really well and the installation is kind of easy. You just make like a six-inch cut or whatever on the on the PVC and you just plumb it in and it's if it works great. So this thing was leaking, and it was leaking to the point where I was like, I don't like that. So that's why I said, can we push the show back a couple hours? I want it to run to Santa Monica and go do it. And I went and got one, and the the problem was this was on three-inch plumbing. I told you about this commercial client that I have has where it sits at 45 PSI when the pump is clean and off, right? Because there's so much head pressure on it. And it's in a historic building, so there's no way to like really maneuver anything uh around or anything like that. So I got a new one and uh I had to buy the whole piece and think it was fucking like 700 bucks or something crazy. Um, and I installed, you know, I just took the top piece off, I installed it in the new one, and I turned the pump back on, and it's leaking from the top of the filter. So I make a few adjustments, I turn everything off three or four different times, and on the fourth time I turn the pump on, I hear like a do-do, and the bottom bulkhead starts just leaking all over the place. Like, not and it wasn't like I couldn't see where it was because the the bulkhead is like butted up against this three-inch like spacer, like uh, you know, and it's got like a flange on it, it's got three inch flanges on it. So this is like a series, it's the it's the pent air R140C3s. So these are rated for 75 PSI. We had to change over from the almond colored ones to the black ones because they're rated for more PSI. And we couldn't use regular multi-ports, we had to use this this super high flow, and it looks like a an old push-pull valve, but it's like an industrial one. It's like it's like 10 inch diameter, and it's got like a huge thing on the top. And it was leaking from where the like the flange was coming out of the filter, out of the bowl cat. And what it was is it's just the gaskets inside of there are so hot because it's in it's on the spa and they're always running at 102 to 104 degrees. So the gaskets inside of there are always getting very malleable, and they're you know, they're anytime you take them off, if you touch them, you have black shit on your hands all day and stuff. So, like I know that it was just the gasket, right? Right. But now I was like, oh, I'm like, we're gonna have to go get another filter. So I had to go get a bunch of the internal parts. I had to go get the filter, and we didn't actually use we didn't actually use the filter, so the filter was sitting there over the weekend. And I'm actually after we're done with the show, I'm driving up there with Jen thrown in the back of the truck, and we're gonna return it to my distributor. Shout out to to Tyler over at my distributor because he is the man. And uh we talked last show about the restocking fee. And a lot of times you get hit with this restocking fee where I think he's gonna ship it back for me to the to the distributor that I bought it from. And he's probably not gonna, he's probably not gonna, you know, not charge me that. But again, you know, for a couple thousand dollar filter, if they're charging a 15 to 35% restocking fee, I can't even do that math in my head, Wayne. But uh, you know, four thousand four with four thousand dollars, right? Minus thirty-five percent, that's four that's four hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_06 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

So that's a big, that's a big, that's a big nut to swallow for, you know, for trying to be proactive.

SPEAKER_06 8:23

Right.

SPEAKER_05 8:24

And it's it's one thing to, you know, look, this was our commercial client, so everything stopped. I canceled the show. I was like, Wayne, I'm not gonna be able to make it. And I told my parents, I was like, I'm not gonna be able to go do what whatever we're doing today. Like, we're we're canceled for everything. And I drove from Santa Monica to Anaheim to go pick up this filter, then I drove to Santa Monica to be.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

You started off at home, at Long Beach.

SPEAKER_05 8:47

Right. I started off at Long Beach. I drove up to Santa Monica, then I went from Santa Monica to Anaheim, then I brought it back, and then I found the parts and I drove to Burbank and then I came back because I was I wasn't because this now we have to take the sand out of the filter. So now I'm not like I'm not doing that shit anymore. So I had to get my service manager. I'm like, hey, at the end of your day today, I'm so sorry. I know it's a Friday night. Like you're, you know, we're gonna have to come back and fix this. But I mean, we're getting charged, you were charging emergency visit on weekend time, which is is good money, but at the same time, like this commercial client, like I want to say, like somebody like Paris Hilton was there that weekend. And not that she was complaining, but like these are the type of people that are coming through this this hotel, you know, where they're there them being down is not an option. So, like, if I can go get it, like I'm going to get it now. I'm stopping what I'm doing, and I'm going to get it. And this is why we are able to maintain and uh keep those those working relationships. But that brings me into another point. And I wanted to shout out Fluidra because they are super helpful to me. Mike Crumb is is my direct guy. Nestor, I work with Nestor too, and uh, Jason Anderson was one of my guys. Yeah, I think he actually just got a promotion for so congratulations for that. So they always bend over backwards to help me. But I've been having problems with the true clears lately. Not lately, but like in the last couple years. And a lot of it has to do with like I can't change the flow of some of my commercial pools because they're in buildings that are 100 years old and stuff. Like it's it's hard. And I have put on Jandy two-way valves where I can like, you know, kick it back a little bit and take off a little GPM. But if there's the water pressure is running too high through the plumbing, it actually messes up the true clear and it'll bust open from where the little cord is on the top. And it starts leaking out of the top. And we warrantied like a bunch of them. And finally, you know, my guy in New Jersey was like, Hey, like this is like you can't keep doing this, you know, like like this is your last warranty. So I was like, All right, like I get it, I understand. So one of them broke again, and my client in New Jersey, they called me and they were like, Hey, you know, can we go pick up a true clear? And I was like, Yeah, no problem. I was like, I'll order it for you. And I ordered it, and I was teaching CPO that day, so I just ordered it. I was like, hey, they're gonna come pick it up, like no big deal. And then I got the fucking bill, Wayne. You want to take a guess how much the replacement true clear now is? Oh god. 700 some odd dollars. Okay, they used to be three something.

SPEAKER_06 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:21

Okay, so I went like any person that is has half a brain would do, and I went online and I looked online and I saw at you know, at Leslie's, which is my retail price, you know, checker, and it's less money at Leslie's than I can buy it for from the distributor, which is like, come on, dude. So I I I called them out on it. I texted my rep and I was like, yo, I'm like, what is this? And he was like, Oh, he's like, they probably just have back stock, but he was like, That's the the cost. And if you've listened to, you know, Monday is down under with Lee, Shane, and Nick, they talked a few shows about a go about why the salt cells have spiked in price so much, and it's because of what you know what they're manufactured with, you know, like the product that that's inside of it. So I then went to Amazon and I found on Amazon, you know, Jandy True Clears that are seem like they're made from the the real just manufacturer, and they were 500 bucks. So then I looked and I've looked a little further and I found ones that were 200 bucks. Now these were straight knockoff ones. They said, you know, Jandy True Clear compatible. But this is the first time, Wayne, in my, you know, almost 20 some odd, 18, 20 some odd years in the pool industry that I went back to my client and I said, I cannot, in good conscience right now, sell this to you. So I went, I called my client, my client in New Jersey and I said, return this fucking thing.

SPEAKER_06 12:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

Return it. And we are gonna buy you a different one. So Fluidra, if you're listening out there, you guys are literally driving me to go and look at other options. Okay. So my one client, he has a saltwater pool, and this is where it gets hairy. Because like now, Fluidra, they wanna, and all the distributors, they want to send out somebody like a warranty company.

SPEAKER_06 13:08

Right.

SPEAKER_05 13:09

And it even in a saltwater pool, if I have the the zinc anode ball and I have a chemically resistant check valve in between the cell and the the heater itself, if they go out on a random day where it's producing chlorine, they're gonna be like, oh, your pH is through the roof. And it's like, no shit, it's through the roof. Chlorine has, you know, liquid chlorine has a pH of 13.

SPEAKER_06 13:30

Right.

SPEAKER_05 13:31

Like if it's good, if it's producing at all today, it's gonna have a high pH. Like we're only there once a week. So getting the warranty on these things is really hard to do. You would have to like go and baby the pool the day before they came out there or the day that they went out there to like make all the chemical, make all the levels really nicey nice, and then then say, okay, cool, we're gonna give you the warranty on this. And that's like a lot of work to just get a warranty on a broken salt cell. So I had my client here in Los Angeles. I sent him both of the links and I said, Look, I don't know what I'm doing with this yet. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna, because I've got probably 30 or 40 of those out there, Wayne.

SPEAKER_06 14:09

Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:09

At least like if somebody, if a residential client wants to have one, like we're putting in a true clear usually. You know, I like the other ones, but like the Pentair one is way more expensive than the Fluidra one. And then there are a bunch of like uh knockoff ones that do work, but I do wanna I do wanna support, you know, the the brands that we use. So I that's why I use this stuff. But I told him to to purchase whichever one he wants, the$200 one, the fake one, or I told him to purchase the one that was the real one for$500. I was like, I'm not in good conscience. So Wayne, I gotta buy it for$700. So now what do I sell it for?

SPEAKER_06 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:43

If and any like, look, like I just saw a post from somebody and they were like, hey, like, I don't know how to do this anymore because the clients, they're getting younger, and every single client looks online for the pricing. And it's the same thing with like with Raypak eaters, like Raypak sells online, and I I love Raypak, like John Maloney, he's a great rep. I love them, but like at the same time, if you go online, you can find the same price or less than I can actually buy it for at the distributor. And it's really like I get that there's installation costs and stuff like that, but trying to use it as a loss leader. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

I I don't know the reason I ask, okay, and I'm sorry I'm interrupting, but no, go ahead. When when we I have to go back to my Taylor days when we would sell products to a distributor, we had then probably about 80 different distributors across the country in Canada. Of which all together with their branches, there was almost 350 locations. Okay. Right. We sold our products to distribute distribution at the same discount. Period. Nobody got a different discount. Only one distributor did because they were in Hawaii and they asked us to help absorb the shipping costs on the containers from LA to too.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Yeah, all that stuff ought to be ground.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

But all the other stuff at the same discount. Okay. Which means that pricing for those products came from whomever at the at the distributor location. So you could get the disparity in in pricing that you were describing. You know, back then a person five kit was let's say some distributor A would sell it for 50 bucks, distributor B would sell it for 35 to get again, impossible loss leader to to get more business, that kind of thing. But at some point it's going to catch up to the point. Okay. And that's the key here. You know, you've got all, like you said, all these knockoffs that maybe the quality isn't quite 100% there, but you know, it if they're looking at the price kind of deal.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

But my whole thing is if these things only fucking last a year anyway, Wayne, why not use a fake one then?

SPEAKER_02 16:51

The mobile waterlink fin touch allows pool and spa professionals the ability to test water in the field. A patented Waterlink spin reagent disk is used with the innovative photometer to measure 10 different tests in just 60 seconds. That's right, just 60 seconds, and you'll have results displayed simultaneously on the photometer's touch screen. That's not all. You also have the ability to send the data through Bluetooth into a smartphone or a tablet device. The photometer can measure 320, Romy, Total Clorin, fine chlorine, V8, alkaline, fire net, phytoc, copper, iron, plastic, 4-8, phiguanite, phiguanite shock, and stuff. The water analysis can be proactive since they are able to measure all of these important tasks and recommend correct procedures to fix their water chemistry issues when using our Waterlink Solutions Pro Software Program. It allows full and spot atoms the best way to achieve precise results. So simple, anyone can use it. This is the most advanced system for precise use of wet chemistry methods ever produced. Fool and spot atoms can achieve precision without time-consuming tests or cleanup procedures. This groundbreaking analysis system is so simple, no vials to fill, no prep time, no guessing. To learn more about this innovative lab, visit www.waterlinkspintouch.com. Again, www.waterlinkspintouch.com.

SPEAKER_05 18:29

Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Insurance Interlude with Steve Sherwood. And as always, I'm joined by Pat Grignon, Vice President over at California Pool Association. Pat, again, thank you so much for being a sponsor for the show and being on with me every week to educate our listeners a little bit more about insurance. So last week we left off and we were talking about popping pools. And, you know, in the time that I've had between last week and now, I've really had some more questions that have popped up because a lot of, and I always tell all of the guys that if you're a single polar and all you do is vacuum pools, that's awesome. But like if you're not fixing heaters or installing pumps or doing some of that extra work or leak detection or renovations, you know, and you're just leaving that to other companies out there, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. So you, you know, my suggestion is to work with some subcontractors. But then the question came up of, you know, does that subcontractor, some of these subcontractors you work with and you know, you just know them. See, do they have insurance? Do they have and like that opens you up to a whole slew of different types of liability that I want to talk about today? So again, Pat, thanks for joining us. And I want you to kind of take it away on you know, subcontractors a little bit here.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Absolutely. Yeah, thanks for having me back, Steve. Appreciate it as always. Um, yeah, you know, just you know, looking back on the discussion about having to hold harmless sign if you're gonna drain the pool, do an acid wash, you know, before you remodel, whatever the case might be, you know, look it you may be on a pool for 20, 30 years, 40 years, right? And you know the person, your, you know, kind of acquaintances or friends at this point, but like handshake deals just don't work anymore. And if someone's staring down the barrel of a you know, 50,000, 100,000, 50,000, whatever the cost of repair it is, like they're gonna look to get that money and not have to fork it out themselves. So, you know, I get it, it's a pain, you know, you gotta have a document, but it's just it's such a slam dunk when you have something signed. I mean, you have the coverage in place, and you know, the customer is assigned to hold harmless, you know. You can't stop someone from suing you, even if it's you know completely not your fault, but you still got to cover the cost of uh legal defense and getting out of it. So, you know, um just to put a bow on that part of the conversation, that that definitely segues to for for companies that are bringing in subcontractors, which is the majority, right?

SPEAKER_05 21:06

There's not a lot of full-blown vertically integrated companies that do everything from the construction to remodel to general service to equipment repair, you know, like it's I know I know three in California, and I know hundreds of companies that do some sort of building or work or one part of that.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Yeah, exactly. Even doing a startup, right? Most construction companies they they bring in.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

But that's reliability reasons to give them some degree of separation, if you would agree with that, no?

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And look, I think you know what's the name on the contract is gonna be the one that gets sued, right? So let's just use that startup example. If you're a construction company and you bring in a subcontracted service company to to do the startup, you know, then you know you gotta make sure that if if that company screws up and does it wrong and there's you there's repairs and things that need to happen based on their work product, they're they're on the hook for that. But ultimately you're on the hook with the customer, right? Because the customer hired you to build the pool and they don't care how you brought in other companies to build the power.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

We don't care who you delegated to, so that's someone that you brought in. And that's one of the points that I always make to my clients that if they do do a renovation with me, that I am using subcontractors, but I am the person that you would be dealing with the whole time. And that's, you know, I tell them that most companies that come out are going, there's gonna be one company that's gonna, you know, do the digging. It's another company that's gonna be doing this, where I have one subcontractor that's gonna do all of that for you, and I will be your point person, and then we will start up the pool for you. You and then we will service the pool for you. And I tell them that if you're looking to get any sort of warranty or you're going to call me back later on, like I better have started up the pool and I better be servicing the pool. Because if or you better get someone who does all of that for you because if you don't have the same company doing it, then you're never going to be able to go back and figure out, you know, who what's what. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:21

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I mean, yeah, it's super common across the country, right? That's not really like most companies bring in subcontractors to do part parts of the job and parts of uh of the work or even overflow, right? If you're a single polar and you can't get to all your polls, or you're you know taking a week off or vacation or something, you know, you can bring in another company to to handle that and you know pay them their fee.

SPEAKER_05 23:44

I think the truth too, Pat, is like I wouldn't want my plaster to be doing the deck. My plaster does really good plaster, bro. You know what I mean? Like they do really good plaster and tile and they do coping. Yeah. And if they wanted to do the expansion joint, they would go as far back as the expansion joint, but as soon as it touches the deck, like that's a different dude.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

Yeah, yeah. Most time roofers don't make for good plumbers, right?

SPEAKER_05 24:06

So I mean, and that's the thing. Like, I wouldn't want, you know, I'd rather have a comp I'd rather have three con three subcontractors and they all at least know what they're doing with what they're doing than having one subcontractor and he's doing three jobs and he's doing a half-assed job on each one of those. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 24:24

Yeah, yeah. Same thing with insurance. We really believe in specializing in certain niches and industries and you know, having the experience matters when you're, you know, when when you're when you're working on something. So I agree. I agree with that.

SPEAKER_05 24:35

So okay, so for the guys out there looking to, you know, partner with new people and make these new relationships, because I'm always preaching on the show that like if you again, if you're not partnering with other guys, like you're if you're not growing, you're dying. Yeah. Right. And that's the truth. So how as a single polar can you reach out to someone and be like, hey, I would love to, you know, have you do your you know, this for me? Do you have fucking insurance? Because that's like a real awkward thing to ask someone in the first three minutes of the conversation. So how could you how can you nicely or politely say to someone, I'd love to work with you, show me your credentials.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

Yeah, for sure. Look, but you know, that's and sorry to cut you off.

SPEAKER_05 25:20

I was just gonna say that my my commercial clients, they do it through the contract. Correct. They ask, hey, is anybody else gonna come? And and then if they if you say yes, like you're gonna hire a subcontractor to clean the pool or to do whatever, they want to know who that is, and then they also want to know they also want a CO with them with their name on it, right?

SPEAKER_04 25:41

Yep, exactly. Yeah, I mean you you've your hand is forced for for commercial work generally. The contracts are gonna require that the property manager or whatever, whatever the entity that's controlling the project, they're gonna want to be named as additional insured on your policy and get a certificate of insurance 100% of the time.

SPEAKER_05 26:00

Right. So that's easy. But how about residential with that? You know, I guess that's my point that I'm segueing to that like um, you know, how do you ask somebody that without kind of that you don't know, like hey, who's your insurer?

SPEAKER_04 26:14

Like Yeah, yeah. Well, look, I mean, it's easy to say, like, look, my insurance company requires that I, you know, I verify the insurance for any subcontractors I bring in. So whether they're coming in for So blame it on you guys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:28

No, and I love I love that. Like the good cop, bad cop thing works with a with a lot of things. And there's, you know, that's the reason why sometimes I say I'm not the owner of the company. You know what I mean? Like uh, like everybody's got a boss. And if you have a boss, like uh you could be like, hey, like I'm not allowed to do that. You know, where people are like, hey, you know, they want a discount or they want something or whatever, and I'm like, hey, I'm like uh, you know, I'm not the person in charge of that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Yeah, 100%. And and look, man, I mean, you know, ultimately the the policies, especially for a small operation, like they're not expensive. You know, our policies are, you know, depending on on which one you get for like a single polar, all the way up to all you do is equipment repair. I mean, you know, you're talking about like eight hundred bucks a year for millions of dollars worth of coverage.

SPEAKER_05 27:13

And you get a hundred bucks off for using the promotional code from the Talking Pools podcast.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_05 27:20

700 bucks, it's 700 bucks a month.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

Yeah, 700 a year, yep, you bet. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:24

Yeah, I guess not a month, yeah, a year.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

Maybe if you're some big companies.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

But yeah, no, look, uh, you know, ultimately we uh, you know, it's not a high dollar amount. Like, I it and here's a good example. And so we can do the insurance for a subcontractor, like, hey, you know, so in your example, my my insurance carrier requires that I use subcontractors that have insurance. Do you have insurance? Like, no, I don't. Okay, cool. I still want to use you. Let me get you hooked up with CPA, and they'll get you a great policy, and it won't cost you much money.

SPEAKER_05 27:56

So that's that's literally what I've done with all of my service guys because here in California, they're very strict on their 1099 laws. So we 1099 all of our guys, so they have to have all their own insurance. So that's the first thing that I do is I drop them off at your door and they get their own individual service policy or liability policy for their service company so they can be a true 1099.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

Yeah, and and and you know, frankly, there's a lot of benefits with having you know the primary business as well as any subcontractors with the same agency, right? So we can make sure, like, you know, you're having them, it's third-party general liability coverage, right? It's not protection for their business, it's protect for your subcontractor's business, it's protection for your business, so you're not stuck holding the back or using your like my subcontractor also uses you guys.

SPEAKER_05 28:47

So now we know that this is gonna be a smooth transition, that we're not gonna have to wait to hear back from you, and that everything is kind of gonna get done in a timely manner. And we both know that you know you guys are going to bat for us. Because that's something that time and time again, the California Pool Association, anytime that I've had a problem or an issue, um, you guys have always come to bat and you know helped me out however you guys can. So, again, uh check out California Pool Association. Like I said, they have documents that you guys have for this for you and your subcontractors. And then, like I said, you also get a discount for mentioning the Talking to Pools podcast. So, California Pool Association, again, thank you so much for your flagship sponsorship. And Pat, thank you so much for coming on every week with me and just helping me, helping us educate our listeners out there a little bit because this is something that I think it's taboo and I think that people don't get to talk about. And if you don't know it, you know it's not something that you want to talk about because you don't want to act or feel like you don't know some of this stuff. But let's not bullshit. Like we all don't know what we don't know, and that's what we're we're all here to learn. So thank you for being part of uh, you know, this education process for us. We really appreciate you coming on with us.

SPEAKER_04 29:55

Yeah, my pleasure, Steve. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_05 29:57

Awesome. Guys, we'll see you next week. Um, thank you for coming to another uh episode of the insurance interlude. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Make your voice heard. Join the council for the Model Aquatic Health Code. Lend your expertise to the map, science-based guidance from the CDC, and the only all-inclusive national pool code that addresses current aquatic issues. Learn more at cmaf.org. That's cmahc.org.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

And I'm I'm not one to ever say that. It's just when you when I go to the distributor and it costs$700 to replace the cell, and it costs$1,400 for the whole kit, that doesn't make any fiscal sense.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

It doesn't, no.

SPEAKER_05 30:50

Right? And sure, and maybe, you know, with the rape going back to the Ray Pack, like it could be a loss leader because they reached out, you know, Ray Pack actually reached out to me the other day and they were like, hey, um, we have a client and they have a million BTU um ream boiler. Okay. Are you comfortable with that? And I was like, no. I was like, uh it's not something that we've ever worked on before. Like, if they're looking for somebody to come in and be proficient. So I signed me and my uh service manager up for the training for this stuff. So in the future, maybe we could get some of that business. But like, I do understand that like when you're selling a million BTU heater that costs a hundred thousand dollars, a four thousand dollar or three thousand dollar heater that you're making for probably a couple hundred bucks or something like that, um, is is really a drop in the bucket for them. But for me, Joe Schmo pool company, that is a lot of money. Right. You know, and it's just it I just don't understand where we're going with this because I feel like we've we've reached a point. And look, there's multiple wars going on right now. The gas is going through the roof, and there's a lot of ways for the manufacturers to put it very bluntly, make excuses.

SPEAKER_06 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:03

There's a lot of things that they could pinpoint to, oh, it's this or oh, it's that or oh, it's this, but you know, they're not the ones that are uh affected by it. Cause like if you're making a heater for a couple hundred dollars and I don't I don't know exactly what they make them for, but like I know it's it's not more than five hundred dollars on any of the heaters that they make. So, you know, them saying this cost, it's just that they're a conglomerate and they have a board, and they have a board of directors, and they have a CEO that sits on the sits at the head of the board. And at the at the end of the day, it's it's it's a numbers game. You know, it doesn't matter if you are in the pool industry, like Pentair, they're in aerospace. They make drinking water for third world countries, so like desalination and stuff like that. Like uh, they're not just doing pool stuff, but the bigger you get, the more that the bottom line is really what they're they're looking at, you know. So I just I don't know what the answer is with this. And I don't, you know, obviously I'm not going to be putting in bunk salt replacement for everybody. Right. But like for me, like I was so taken back that I just was like, fuck it. Like, let's just this time, let's just see how it works. And now I'm probably gonna find out that this thing works just as well as the one that I'm getting from the manufacturer, which would chap my ass even more, Wayne. Like, I want to see this thing fail in two weeks. Yeah, and if it doesn't, like I'm gonna go back to them and I'm gonna be like, what's the difference between this and this? And why am I paying this for this? So uh, you know, it's justify the price. Exactly. Justifying the prices is hard to do nowadays, but I've got to I've gotta justify my price every day with my clients. Yeah, you know, and again, our clients are not getting older and older, they're getting younger and younger. The newer clients that are coming in, there's younger people that are buying houses, younger, younger people that have pools. Right. Like the internet is something that all of these people have grown up with their whole lives. So, like Wayne, I just went to Viuri the other day, uh, which is a clothing company. It's like a high-end, it's kind of like a Lululemon, right? Uh it's like an athletic wear company.

SPEAKER_06 34:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 34:17

And I like their stuff because they make shorts that have uh like liners in them, so you don't have to wear underwear underneath it. It's like your underwear.

SPEAKER_06 34:23

All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:24

It's really cool. But any, I mean, like I looked at the price of the shorts and I was like$88 or whatever it is. And I looked online and I found it cheaper online. And I was like, oh, right back on the shelf with you. Let me try this on to make sure it looks good. And then uh, yep, I'm gonna go online and I'm gonna buy that. Yeah, so like if I am doing that at my retail shopping stores, how am I gonna how am I gonna blame or hold against my client that's looking up this stuff online? And Jandy, Fluidra, you guys made a decision a long time ago that you were gonna scrape the internet for all of this stuff that you could find on there that was not supposed to be. And that was great. That's what that's what reeled me in with them. And I started doing full Fluidra stuff. But then all of a sudden, a few years after it happened, they got lazy and like uh they stopped doing it. And all of the other manufacturers, they don't even bother. At least they they took a stand and said, hey, we're gonna we're gonna sit behind the the pool pro, where the other manufacturers, they were kind of like, you know, like what we're just gonna put it online. And what what's really, really weird about it, Wayne, is that when you go on and you go to Amazon and you look and you see like where this ships from, a lot of time it ships from my distributor directly to the client. So for a company that says that they're not selling retail and then they go and they sell retail, it's kind of one of those things where it's like uh, then why wouldn't I just buy it off the internet?

SPEAKER_06 35:51

Right.

SPEAKER_05 35:52

So, question for you Have you ever had anybody try and counterfeit your stuff before in any of the things that you did in the pool industry? And because like with Taylor, right? Like you can buy a Leslie's test kit that looks exactly like a Taylor test kit, and it's got all the Taylor stuff in it, it's just branded as a it's just got a sticker on it that basically says it's Leslie's. So you guys are they're doing that legally, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Well, the there's a reason for that because and I'm assuming they still are, but we private label Leslie's kit. Okay. And that's a current exactly, exactly. To answer your question, there there were two times that I can remember that we discovered that someone was doing a knockoff of our kit. And it got to the point where it same colored, you know, test kit case, same reagents, labeling looked exactly the same. And even the booklet that came in the kit. Didn't you write that though? I wrote that book back in the back in the English or was it in like English. It was in English.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

Same page numbers, same everything.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

Everything, yeah. So and it turned out it was uh some somewhere in China. So, you know, our lawyers back then sent them a C synthesis letter. There was another company based here in the States. I won't get into who they are, but they tried to duplicate our the the well, the then the K 2005 complete kit to the same extent like the company in China did, same kind of reagents, same similar labeling, similar test kit case. The booklet that that the kicker was the booklet that came in their kit, was essentially my booklet, but a different cover. So they took they they they copied, you know, the all the text inside and put on a different cover. So that got a C synthesis and they they stopped doing that. But uh yeah, it it doesn't happen that far in the inner in the part of the industry where I came from, but you you see that all the time. And especially when and we're the same way too. We would we would have uh customers and users call us up about reagents or kits they bought online through Amazon, and something was wrong, they want to return the kit. Well, we can't do that, you got to redo it to redo it to the seller, that kind of thing. Come to find out, you start looking it up, and this and the reseller was one of our distributors, right? You know, so what do you do in that case?

SPEAKER_05 38:18

There's not a whole lot you can do. That brings me to another question, though, with this with this with this private labeling, and then also like uh swimmables. So swimmables is in my distributor, okay, and they make a bunch of replacement parts for a lot of the filters, valves, pentare master temp heaters. And the reason I was like, how, how are you guys able to do this and not get sued? And the reason is because the patent ran out for the heater. So I think for you only get like a 20 or 30 year patent or whatever it was, and because the Panthair Master Temp is is so old, I think the patent ran out on it, and that's why they're making basically what are almost better than OEM parts for this this heater. So, and the manufacturers too, they'll always sell some sort of like a CMP as an off-brand where they'll get like uh okay, cool. You want a a replacement O-ring for the filter? You want the OEM, which is$22.99, or do you want the off-brand one which is you know$15.49? And I'm not gonna lie, a lot of times I'll buy the off-brand and sell it at a at a higher price because the the OEM one, there's nowhere to go because you can find it on the internet for the same fucking price. Yep. So my question to you is is there a patent for the stuff for like Lamotte and for for Taylor and for you companies out there? And like once that expires, do you have no recourse for this or what happens with that?

SPEAKER_03 39:52

But the simple answer is yes to both. Everything is copyrighted, everything is trademarked. Okay. But if but like you said, after a certain point, depending upon what needs to be copyrighted, and copyrighted is more for printed material. So let's talk about the booklet in the kit. Okay. That was copyrighted. Every I think it well back then, I don't I'm not quite sure what it is now, but back then it was every 10 years we had to reapply for the uh copyright rights, and our attorneys handled that for us, which was fine. But trademark products are different. Now, I'm not a trademark attorney or anything like that, but for some reason my mind tells me trademarks are good could be good for up to a hundred years, depending upon what the product is. I'm probably wrong in that, but for some reason that's sticking in my brain. So you've got all these appropriate uh trademark copyrighted materials, whatnot. It's when these people try to introduce these knockoffs to, you know, selling it cheaper, that kind of thing to attract business. And they're they can't be copyrighted, they can't be trademarked because they are so duplicated of the original duplicative, that's the word I want, of the original product that there's no distinction between the two.

SPEAKER_05 41:01

Right. So it says trademarks can last indefinitely, um, potentially forever, but it's a provided they're actively used in commerce and renewed over time. So it says the initial registration lasts 10 years, and then owners must file what's called maintenance documents. That's between like the the fifth and sixth, the ninth and ten years, and then every 10 years thereafter to keep the registration active. Um and they give you like a six-month grace period, obviously if you're doing it yourself. But if you guys have lawyers and stuff like that, obviously they're gonna they're gonna be on top of that. But it is a weird, it is a weird thing. And I I did try we did try to get something, you know, copyrighted and trademarked, and we tried to get a patent for something back in the day, and it was like uh it was like a calculator. It was like a calculator for and they basically they were like we would have had to spend like 10 grand or something to like maybe maybe have it happen. And then this was like when the iPhone was coming out, so everybody started coming out with with apps, so that kind of you know swept it under the rug a little bit, and it wasn't worth the the time and the money that we were the effort that we were putting into it. But it's it's a really sticky situation, especially here in the States with copywriting and trademarking. And I mean, just think about how many like youth football teams use the the Green Bay Packers or the Michigan helmet that has the the Wolverine helmet with the stripes down, right? Um I I played again, I mean my high school used to have that. We changed it over, but like uh you know, imagine you know, now you're sending a cease and desist to a Pee Wee football team.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Disney is real hyper.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

I mean, yeah, they don't want you trade, they don't want you using Goofy or Mickey at all.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

And so speaking of Goofy and Mickey, Steve and I are gonna say bye for today. And again, sorry for the cough, and again, any any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, please send them our way at talkingpools at gmail.com. And to what Steve was talking about, if you run into similar situations as far as pricing and inconsistencies and things like that, we want to hear about them and we want to talk about it and tell all of our listeners to know what's out there and what's available, or not available, but but to be aware of of what's what could be going on. So talkingpools at gmail.com. Oh, don't forget the the mentor award talking pools is running that again. If you have um mentor that you would like to nominate, forget the email address. Steve, can can you real quick pull it up? Isn't it just send something to talking pools? Uh so you can go to cpo class.com.

SPEAKER_05 43:24

There you go. And yeah, you could get there. Yeah, you could get that from there.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Yeah, so cpo class.com uh and nominate a mentor for the second award.

SPEAKER_05 43:32

I think it would be like forward slash mentor award or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah. I know sorry for sounding very vague, but uh that just something that uh kind of sprung on us as I was talking. So Steven, have a great week. My best to everybody out there. Gang, please be safe out there. And this is Talking Pools Thursdays with Stephen Wayne signing off. Take care, guys.

SPEAKER_05 43:52

Have a good one, guys. Bye bye.