Here's What Every Pool Service Company is MISSING - Steve

On this episode of the Talking Pools Podcast, Steve dives into the realities of commercial pool liability, leak detection, client communication, and the hidden responsibilities that separate true professionals from “just the pool guy.”

The episode opens with Steve discussing the frustration surrounding the 2026 FIFA World Cup ticket prices before shifting into another edition of the Insurance Interlude with Pat Grignon of the California Pool Association. Together, they unpack a real-world commercial pool situation involving missing handrails, code violations, liability exposure, and the importance of documenting hazards before they become lawsuits.

Steve also delivers a detailed masterclass on swimming pool leak detection—from the bucket test and common skimmer throat leaks to light conduit failures, dye testing, and why every pool company should build relationships with specialized leak detection professionals.

The conversation expands into business growth, professionalism, continuing education through CPO certification, building vendor partnerships, and the importance of commanding confidence when speaking with clients. Whether you’re a new pool tech or a seasoned operator, this episode is packed with field-tested advice, operational insight, and hard-earned lessons from the trenches of the pool industry. 

Show Notes

•  Steve discusses taking his first real day off in weeks after nonstop CPO classes, commercial pool work, and field service calls 
•  Frustration over 2026 FIFA World Cup ticket pricing and how rising costs are pushing longtime fans away from attending matches 
•  Insurance Interlude with Pat Grignon of the California Pool Association 
•  Commercial pool liability discussion involving missing handrails, code violations, depth markers, and no-diving signage 
•  Why service companies have a legal duty to identify and document hazards at commercial pools 
•  The importance of written communication, email documentation, and certified letters when addressing dangerous pool conditions 
•  Discussion on foreseeability, negligence, proximate cause, and how lawsuits target everyone connected to a commercial pool incident 
•  Why certain violations should potentially justify closing a commercial pool until repairs are completed 
•  Overlooked commercial pool code requirements including transition lines, deck depth markers, and step visibility indicators 
•  How courts may determine liability between service companies and construction contractors 
•  Steve’s philosophy on protecting clients while simultaneously protecting your company from exposure 
•  A full breakdown of swimming pool leak detection basics for newer pool professionals 
•  How to perform the bucket test to confirm water loss 
•  Common leak locations including skimmer throats, light conduits, spa jets, and cracked tile lines 
•  Why Steve recommends using marine epoxy products like Splash Zone for underwater repairs 
•  The value of partnering with dedicated leak detection specialists rather than trying to handle every service internally 
•  Business advice on building strategic partnerships with plaster companies, leak detection companies, and specialty contractors 
•  Discussion about markup strategy and creating referral partnerships that benefit both companies 
•  Why pool professionals should avoid sending outside contractors who may try to steal recurring service accounts 
•  Steve explains why honesty and transparency with customers build long-term trust 
•  The importance of education and CPO certification for newer pool professionals entering the industry 
•  How knowledgeable communication builds authority and helps clients trust your expertise 
•  Real-world examples of identifying hidden hazards clients never noticed themselves 
•  Pool Corp’s giveaway promotion for the Aper Scuba P1 robotic vacuum 
•  Discussion about distributor pricing, OEM parts inflation, and why pool pros are increasingly turning to aftermarket options 
•  Teaser for an upcoming episode discussing commercial bidding strategies, vacuum systems, and how Steve slowly closed a six-month commercial contract negotiation

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, happy Thursday, and welcome to another episode of the Talking Pools podcast on Thursday with Steven Wayne. Um, it's just gonna be you and me guys today. Wayne and I are actually meeting tomorrow. So our show will probably come out the week after that. But uh, had a much needed day off. Um, I haven't had a day off in like um probably about three weeks. Taught like uh seven CPO classes, and then on the days off that I wasn't teaching CPO, I was out in the field with some new clients and had some issues at our commercial pools. You know how that goes. Uh it's the busiest time of the year for the pool pro. So a bunch of different things that I want to touch on a little bit today. The first thing is the World Cup is quickly approaching, and I remember when North America first got the bid to have the 2026 World Cup. And I was super excited because I have a bunch of friends that are from different countries. I have like a German friend, I have an Argentinian friend, I have a bunch of Swiss friends, and we were all excited to you know have this super awesome tournament come to North America and get to go to some of these games together and have a good time. And if any of you pro pool pros out there, you guys are soccer fans, and you're going to the World Cup, please let me know a little bit more about your journey with this. Because all of my friends, some of my friends do really well, they work in finance, and they're, you know, some of my friends are doing just okay. Um, they're kind of all over the financial sector or the board in the in that in that aspect. But none of my friends, no matter how big of a soccer fan they are, are actually going to the World Cup this year. The US men's national team, their opening game is here at SoFi, and uh tickets are starting at over a thousand dollars. So who knows if that and this isn't resale price, this is just the price from FIFA. So FIFA is kind of just saying, hey, like the market here is the biggest market in the world, and if we're not making the money, basically the resellers are gonna make the money. And if you've ever paid attention to like the Super Bowl or anything like that, um, you know, it's really hard to get tickets, just like Taylor Swift, right? And then the resale market kind of goes out of control. So I think it's not such a big problem with just FIFA, but like also it's kind of shining a light on just taking the interest out of it for a lot of people that are longtime diehard soccer fans. And whether you like President Trump or you don't, doesn't really matter. He just came out the other day and you know, he's the president of our country and he said, like, I wouldn't pay to go to the games. So, I mean, if that's not saying something, that's that's kind of crazy. So don't mean to go off on a rant today, but I thought I was gonna catch some World Cup games in in person, and I would much rather save that money to go to some concerts and to some Ram games, because you could probably go to like a bunch of different games just to sit in the nosebleeds for this one shitty World Cup game. So rant over for that. Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Insurance Interlude with your host, as always, Steve Sherwood from the Talking Pools Podcast on Thursdays. And then our guest who comes on every week, Pat Grignon, uh Vice President, California Pool Association. So, Pat, thanks for coming on with us. We always appreciate you having having you here. And like I said, the knowledge that you've been giving us, man, the last couple weeks has been crazy because some of the stuff we've been talking about has been gotten pretty serious. So appreciate the thing. Um, all right. So I was just talking in one of my last shows. Like, I, you know, don't pick up that many clients anymore. And this is kind of by by by design. Like, I want clients that are that are near my other clients. Like, I'm not trying to pick up like an outlier like on their own where we gotta go like one day a week to drive like an hour and a half to drive an hour and a half back and just service one or even two pools. Um, I want like little clusters of pools. So I got this nice little you know homeowners association that's in Santa Monica, and uh it was like a slow burn. And basically it took me like six months to close the deal because I went out there and then they were like, hey, like we already have a pool guy, but like we're looking to get the pool renovated, and then we're gonna you know bring on somebody else, so on and so forth. So push comes to shove. I told them a few violations that I had saw when I was there. I always like to just tell them, hey, like, you know, I'm not gonna write anything up here, but you know, there's no no diving signs anywhere. That's number one, and it's a three to five foot pool, so you shouldn't be able to dive anywhere in this pool at all. Um and then there's no depth markers on the deck, like there's a depth marker inside the pool that on the wall that says three and a half feet, four feet, five feet, whatever. Um, but you know, you're supposed to also for commercial pools have them on the deck as well, too. And then if it's under five feet under six feet, you should also have the international no diving symbol, which guys, if you're listening out there and your pool needs an emergency um no diving symbol or a um a depth marker, all you have to do is just order them from Amazon. They're three by three, like sticky 3M stickers that you can literally just peel and put it on there, and that covers your ass for liability until you're able to really renovate the pool. So they didn't have that, and he was like, Okay, cool. Um I left, we did some negotiation, I finally closed the deal down, and a couple weeks ago I started with my one of my service guys, and I go out there and I go and I walk around the pool, and in the shallow end, there's two shallow ends, right? So they're kind of like mirroring each other, and on the one, there's a a handrail, and then there's like a ladder on the one side, and then there's steps with no handrail. And I was like, wow, I'm like, I can't believe that I missed that shit, you know. But I just wasn't really super paying attention. I was engaging with the you know, the director of engineering there and talking and whatever. So now a super big red flag went up for me that this is a huge liability that they don't have a handrail for their steps. Um so let's first talk about like uh what can I do to cover my ass? And they've promised that yes, the contractor is going to come back and fix this, but I'm I'm almost positive they can't fix it without draining the whole fucking pool. Yep. So it's you know, it's the middle of May, it's the middle of June here. Like uh I don't trust that they're going to do this in the timely fashion that I need them to do this. And there's certain things that are like, oh, we can fix this, or oh, we can get to that, or oh, we can do this when we when it comes around to it. I don't feel like this falls underneath that at all. So let's touch on some of these, you know. Like, do I need to have them fucking close the pool? Do I need to send an email? Do I need to send a certified letter? And I don't care. Like, I know that they're not gonna close the pool, but do I need to say close the pool until we fix this? Because like it's not a 200 and it does, I know it doesn't matter, like whether it's a recreation, if it's a homeowners association with two, you know, 750 units, it's only like 25 units, you know. But this opens me, uh our company, and even their their HOA open to a to a lot of different liabilities. So, how can I protect myself and how can I protect my client with talking to the contractor to make sure that they understand that this is serious shit?

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah, yeah, no, there's there's a handful there to say the least, but you know, if I just think about I don't know, if you think about something happening, that's like everyone is getting thrown into the lawsuit for sure. And so you're you're right, and you know, wondering, all right, well, what do I need to do to protect me and to protect the company? You know, it's kind of like there you look at it through two different lenses, right? So there's like health, and then there's like physical hazards like life and safety, right? Which, you know, all the commercial pools out there, certainly not in the state of California, don't put all that stuff on because they feel like it. You know, they put it all on because they have to, and you know, generally speaking, you gotta follow the code. And you know, someone had a lawsuit however long ago, and that changed the code, and here we are. Um but you know, even something uh a lot of that stuff is also not just like, oh, I've got I've got to meet code requirements. Like you just kind of, you know, it's a smart idea to have that for your pool, maybe overkill, maybe not, but like certainly like the the the railing with steps is you know it's a non-negotiable. You want that, right? No matter how any the lawsuit pans out, you've still got time, energy, effort, and probably at least a little bit of money that goes into it. But you know, to answer your question from a service company, you know, do you have uh do you have like a duty to if you've identified a hazard or a code violation, like do you have a duty to inform the owner of the property? Um and and almost unanimously any court, any lawyer would say yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

You would have to say yeah, because we talk about this in CPO where you talk about you know proximate cause and foreseeability and liability and negligence. Yeah. And you know, did you have a duty to be performed and was that duty breached? So, yeah, of course. But again, I've I've verbally told him twice now that this was an issue. I know that in court that means you know, that means shit. It means nothing, right? That's as good as like uh a handshake that never happened. Um so again, this is ring ring ring, Pat my insurance guy. Forget the insurance interlude. Yeah, what do I do here?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yeah, at minimum, you want to see.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Walk me through the steps of what I'm going to do when we get done with the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

For sure, for sure. Um, so look, at minimum, you need to get a document in right. So here's what happens when when so something happens at this pool. Anyone and everybody's gonna get named in the lawsuit, as well as 80 John Doe's that haven't been identified yet. That's why when you get a lawsuit on your desk, it's got all the John Doe's so they can continue to add people as they go through discovery. Um if you have it in writing, the the likelihood of you being dismissed from the suit before it even goes before a judge or goes to court is is high, right? If you can prove it in writing that you said, hey, I've identified these hazards, you need to fix them, and then likely you're gonna get a reply email back that says, Yes, we will fix these, you know, then then ultimately you've at least got one bullet in the chamber, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Um so does that that don't that can be via email? Can that be via text? Can that does that have to be via um certified letter? And like they're a new client, so like I feel like certified letter you know should be the official answer here. Yeah, but like I also don't want to scare the shit out of them either. You know what I mean? Like uh and and like I don't wanna like we just started the relationship, but again, like this seems like it's so serious, like it's almost like you walk in and there's there's no main drain. Yep, yeah, there's no there's no it's just a pipe or a sump that's just sitting there waiting, waiting for somebody to hover over it. Yeah, it's like on par with showing up at the pool and the gate has been you know tampered with or broken and it can't be you know opened or closed or locked.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

You know, it's it's on par with walking into the pump room, the equipment pad, and there's no bonding and grounding. You know what I mean? Like there's only a few things that like okay, well, there's one other, like the light in the pool doesn't work. Like you shouldn't, you shouldn't. So I should really tell these people like it would be our professional recommendation to close the pool until you know you until we're able to get this fixed. And then I can have a follow-up conversation with him and say, hey, look, I know that you guys are gonna do what you what you want to do with this, and it's probably not realistic for you guys to to to close the pool for you know this long, but like uh, you know, in reality, that's technically if you didn't want anything to happen, like that's what that's what you should do. And I would tell them, hey, you should be calling the contractor and saying, hey, every day that this pool is open without a without a handrail on this thing is another day that uh that like this is could could be you know a serious serious issue. And you know, obviously, as the service company, you you don't wanna you probably wouldn't get the get the brunt of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as the as the construction company, like there's come on. Yeah, like so how does that even happen though? Like at a job, like I just like I and I missed it, you know. But like there's there's times where I'm like, okay, cool, I'll go and we talk about like what we're gonna do, and then like my I'm like, wait, like we gotta put like uh running lines on these things, you know, and like these are you know, if you're listening out there, like a lot of overlooked things is you know, on all the steps, there needs to be some sort of a transition line that shows you, you know, that it's a step. And it's can either be one by you know, it can either be one by one, black or or blue tiles, it can be you know three by three tiles, um, it could be two by two tiles, or it could be painted, it could be whatever you want it to be. But you know, some states are pretty strict on it being you know black or it being blue or it being whatever. The number one thing that people miss all the time is if you have a straight graded pool from three feet to six feet or three feet to eight feet or whatever, um, you have to have some sort of a transition line in the middle once it gets to to four you know deeper than four feet. Right? So I've gone to a bunch of commercial pools. So let's shift here a little bit and let's say it's something like like that, like a transition line that was missing, or like let's say it was uh a transition line that was missing from a step, because that's more realistic. That someone would enter the pool, grab the handrail, didn't see the last step, they break their their leg, you know what I mean, or or or whatever, or somebody gets hurt in that area and it's the you know, you don't have the transition line there. Now, me as the service company, obviously, you know, if I'm there and I don't identify that hazard, you know, then that that obviously is gonna be a huge problem for the the company servicing the company. But at what point when you go to court does the court say like, yeah, but who would have noticed that? You know, in a sense of like this, because like you could say, like the construction company, if you're doing commercial construction, like you have to do it to to code, right? Right. So would it be that the construction company is at fault here, or would it be that like the service company is at fault here?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Yeah, well, look, and I think it's really to your risk tolerance. So, like just to answer the question about sending a certified letter, yeah, I'm I'm sensitive to the business relationship, and you know, like we're not gonna get out there in any business relationship and be the police, like do it or do it, or I'm all I'm out of here, or whatever, right? I think it's it's the service company's job to identify the hazard they have an obligation to, you know. I would certainly I so for your particular situation, I would give a call and say, hey, I'm sending an email just because we've still got these pending items and I know you're gonna get them fixed, but I need to send this to CYA for my company that we've at least talked about this, you know, and and uh and then if it goes on and on and on for more weeks, more months, maybe that second step is to send a certified letter because you're showing like an increased urgency to get it fixed. But you know, and so I would I would say a service company, most service companies that at least that I've come across, you know, don't also do full-on remodeling construction. I know like certainly not in California. In a lot of states, you'll see larger companies that do. But you know, if you're not doing, you know, if you're not doing or if you're not licensed to do remodel construction work, is draining the pool and you know, kind of functionally marking whether, you know, however you're marking that, is that a service responsibility or a remodel construction obligation at that point? And so there's an argument there, one or the other. But most company, most service companies don't do construction work. So if it needs construction work to be able to fix what the problem is.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Right, like we don't even we don't even pick, we don't like we don't even fix that shit. But now but now you're coming into like kind of like victim mentality a little bit, where I think that like if the service, like if you took on the service contract and you don't know enough to to go out there and do a do an inspection, sure, like uh now like obviously you're just opening the door for you know yourself to to get a whole host of liability. So Pat, I think that there's so much to unpack with this. I think we're gonna have to do a part two with this um because I'm not even done with the violations that I went through with with this one. So, guys, thanks so much for for listening, like you do every week. Um, as always, if you need to reach out to California Pool Association to check out your insurance needs, they're there for all of your insurance needs. And if you come on for an annual liability um, you know, service contract with them, basically they'll give you $100 off. So check it out and uh keep listening every Thursday. And if you have any questions, you can direct them to talkingpools at gmail.com. And I want to hear about your commercial horror stories because, like I said, every time I go to a commercial pool, it's just a different situation. So coming at you next week with part two. Pat, thanks so much for coming on, and uh we'll get at you next week.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Thanks, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

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SPEAKER_03 20:53

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SPEAKER_01 21:20

So right before the show, I actually had someone call me and they were like, hey, I'm pretty sure that my pool is leaking. You know, I wanted to talk to you about leak detection services. So I'm always super open and upfront with my you know potential clients. And I always tell them that, hey, like we do leak detection services, but like the person that's coming out is not gonna be me. Like I'm the person that you'll talk to and I'll schedule it with you and all that stuff, and then I'll group text you with the guy who's coming. But like I will bill you, you know, you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. But I've talked about this a bunch before on the show, but I Want to get a little bit more specific with it because I actually took a few minutes of time to talk to this potential client and I told him to figure out like if the pool is actually leaking. Now, if you're a pool professional and you've been in the pool industry for a long time, fucking put your ear moffs on. All right. Like you know about the bucket test. But for you guys that are just coming into the pool industry and you know someone tells you that, hey, I think we might be having a leak, I'm always gonna say back to you, prove it. And the way that you can prove it is easy. You use a five-gallon Home Depot bucket. Um, if you go to any of the shows, like American Leak Detection will actually give you a bucket that has like a ruler on it, so you can actually fill up the bucket with the pool water on the inside of the bucket and you put it on the first step. Sometimes you might have to put like a rock or you know, brick in there or something to make them even. And then you make it super even on the inside as you do on the outside. I usually like to use electrical tape or um duct tape, and then you just leave it for 24 hours. And when you come back, if there's more water loss outside of the bucket than inside of the bucket, you have a problem. And then you can do it like there's, you know, we're not gonna get into official leak detection today, but there's other things that you can do. You can keep it on for one day, you can keep it off for one day, and that's gonna tell you a few different things. My point is this is your this is a you know, a way for you to go to your client. When your client says, Hey, I think my pool is leaking, or every time you're going to this client's pool, you're always adding fresh water to the pool because they don't have an autofill. It's time to maybe check something out. So now you've determined that there's a leak. Okay. So now the next thing that you want to do is get a leak professional in there. So if there's a leak, I'll actually as a courtesy to my clients because I used to do leak detection back when I lived in New Jersey. Took a long time. There's two different really good, there's like star plugs that are out there. There's also uh Anderson Leak Anderson test kits that are out there, not test kits, but like plugs and you know, just whole different kits that leak detection kits you could use. Um, and then leaktronics is another one that's really good. But to be completely honest, like uh for me to do leak detection, to schedule the job and go out there and you know use this equipment maybe, you know, five, six, maybe even ten times a year, even if it was that, um, it's not gonna be as beneficial for me to be out there for three or four hours dicking around because I don't do leak detection a lot. You know, like if you're gonna do tile work, I wanna bring in a guy who fucking does tile all the time. Like I don't want to bring in some guy that cleans pools and does repairs and does this and does that and like only does three tile repairs a year, he's not gonna do as good of a job as and look, you have your one-off guys that you know can do a good job because there are T-shans and stuff like that. But the guys that are really good at tile, stick with tile. The guys that are really good at leak detection do leak detection. So I've said this before a bunch on my show, but if you are just doing service and repair and you're not doing leak detection, find a leak detection company in your area. Simple as Googling leak detection in your zip code and looking at the companies that come up. And you just call them and you say, Hey, I own a swimming pool company in your area. My first question to you is, you know, do you do pool service or do you only do leak detection? Now, I'm not saying that the guys that do service they can't have their own leak detection division or whatever. Every company is different in how they have their hierarchy of shit that they do. And that's respectable. But the guy that I work with that does my leak detections, he's so busy with leak detections that all he does is leak detections. That's the guy that I want doing my leak detection. Because he's gonna be in and out of there in two hours in the time that it would take me to do three and three and a half, four hours. And like that's why I have a service manager. Because like my service manager can go out and tear down a heater and clean a heater in less than an hour. Where like if I went and cleaned a heater, like I could do it, but like it's gonna take me double the amount of time. And if something goes wrong, then shit could go sideways. And you all know how that goes. So my point is before you reach out to that leak detection company, there's a few things that you can do for your clients, and it's hard to give percentages, but I can't tell you how many times we figured out that the client was leaking. And like my leak detection guy called me and he was like, Yeah, he's like same shit as the other one. He was like, It's uh, you know, where the skimmer throat was connected to the to the pool cement, and it was starting to like open up like a sixteenth of an inch or an eighteenth of an inch, and uh, you know, didn't pass the die test. So, even as a regular pool professional that's not doing leak detection, something that you have to have in your arsenal is like an Anderson leak detection kit. No, sorry, leak detection die. Okay. So it's literally a syringe and it's got like a long tube on it, and you just stuff the tube inside of the end of the syringe and you put it into this blue liquid. Sometimes it's like a yellow liquid. I like the blue liquid in a pinch. You could use an old or if it was expired or you didn't want to use it anymore, you could actually use that for leak detection too. But the first places that I would check if this is my weekly client before calling out the leak detection guy, we've now determined there's a leak. Now let me see if I could do some light work and find it. Because, like I would say, over 50% of the time it's in like a weird spot, like I just talked about in the skimmer. And if you don't know what I'm talking about in the skimmer, what I want you to do is I want you to go over to the pool where the skimmer is, stand on the coping over the skimmer, take a step back, get on your hands and knees, put your knees just where the coping meets the deck, and then hold your hands on the side. Okay, make sure you don't have your phone on you and shit. I'm not gonna be responsible for you falling in the pool with your phone. So you look over carefully into the skimmer from the pool side, not where you can see the circular part of the skimmer. You can obviously look in there too and see sometimes you might find cracks in the skimmer as well, too. But after I looked in there, I would look on the other side on the pool side into the skimmer. And now you're gonna see a rectangular box, and you're gonna see where the plastic throat of the skimmer kind of binds together. There's like a joint there, and they'll usually put like some sort of like concrete or like marine putty or something that they'll put in there to kind of fuse these two pieces together. And can't tell you how many times when someone's pool was leaking, that I looked over and sure as hell, they're leaking through that area because it's opened up a little bit. And what I'll use for that is actually called splash zone. It's a two-part marine epoxy, and it's like this black epoxy and this uh this like yellow brownish stuff, and then you like mix them together kind of like A B epoxy. The thing about A-B epoxy, though, you know, that you get from the pool, any of the pool distributors, that works, but like setting underwater, it's not the best. So if you can drain the pool down and you can just put A-B epoxy in there, great, that'll that'll work. This splash zone stuff, you don't have to drain the pool. So it's like a very malleable, you know, piece, these two pieces that go together, and you can just make it into a ball really quickly, and then you just make it into like a long licorice type of piece of thing, and then you can just stuff it into where the holes are, the openings are in the cracks, and usually that stops. The other place that I'm gonna check before I call the leak detection guy, I'm gonna pull the light if I can. And if I can pull the light and I can take a look back there where the conduit, the electrical wire, has to go through. And there's usually like a right angle on there pretty soon once it goes inside. And sometimes that right angle, like it comes apart or whatever. So now you're actually losing water behind the light. Before you pull the light, you can actually just go around the light and do the die test around the light, and it'll be pulling it in if it is, you know. So you'll be able to see some sort of water loss from there. And then the last thing that I'm gonna do for my client before I call leak detection is I'm just gonna sit back and just observe. And I'm gonna look at the tile all the way around the pool. Are any of them cracked? You know, like there could be like hairline cracks in the tile where you just, you know, you have these, and like every time it leaks, it leaks down to here, and then uh, you know, it stops. So now I've done all of this and I I can't find the leak, but I know that the pool's leaking. Now it's time for me to call my buddy the leak detection guy. If you look at leak detection guys in your area, um, you should be able to find one that just does leak detection. That's they're doing a good enough job and you know, they're successful enough in business that they only have to take leak detection jobs. And once you find that guy, you tell him, like, hey, I'm a pool guy and I have, you know, 50 pools on my route, 350 pools on my route, whatever. And you tell him, I got a, you know, a bunch of pools that are leaking, and I would love to, you know, have a working relationship with you. You know, how much do you charge to go out and do leak detection? And you hear his number, and then you never repeat that number again. You stuff it away in your pocket, and that's how much it costs you to do leak detection. Now, when your clients call and they say, Hey, I have a leak, you can say, Okay, perfect. I can, you know, we can determine if you have a leak, first of all, prove it. And then if you do have a leak, we can bring in a leak detection guy for you. And you want to work with somebody where they're gonna allow you to make a little bit of money. And those are the best jobs in the world, the ones where you don't actually have to go out and do much. And like, I'm not saying go and do all this stuff for free. I'll usually do the bucket test for free. And then once it gets to the point where if I'm putting that marine epoxy, that splash zone two-part epoxy on there, that shit's like 150 or 200 bucks. It's not free, you know. So at that point, I'm gonna charge the client, you know, however much time it took for me to be there and you know, do the service call or whatever it was. But once your leak detection guy comes out there, you know, he's the first thing that he's gonna do is is pressure test the lines. And you want to agree on a price with the leak detection guy where he comes out and he pressure tests the line. And if he finds something silly or stupid, not stupid, but like easy to fix, in a sense, he needs to use marine epoxy on the tile, or he found a spot where you know something was missing and he like plugged it up or whatever, and it wasn't that big of a deal. You just give him his flat fee, or he charges you 50 extra bucks or a hundred extra bucks for that marine epoxy or whatever, right? So that's the first option. The second option is that hey, my leak guy is gonna come out and he thinks that the leak is in the PVC, right? Because the PVC isn't passing the pressure test or it's not holding pressure. So now you're gonna pay him S X amount of dollars still, which is his flat fee, and now we're gonna give you a quote to fix this shit. So you have to be super clear at the beginning, and you also have to tell the client that, like, hey, my leak guy might come, and he might, if it's not in the plumbing, like he might not be able to find it the first day. So he might actually have to like do some stuff, like manipulate some of the valves or like isolate some of the things. Another place to that's pretty common is like around the spa jets. There could be leakage around like where the you know the PVC is meeting the concrete. But regardless, I tell them, hey, if he finds the leak and he thinks it's in the PVC, he'll find where it is and we'll mark it off, and then we'll actually give you a quote to fix whatever it is. Okay. So again, I'm not trying to tell you guys how to run your business, but something that I really think that all pool pros need, you know, in their service is to be able to do leak detection. And if you don't have the resources to throw to that, then just use the your resources to go and find somebody else that does it. And I equate this to like if you're servicing pools and your client's pump goes down, there's a lot of pool guys out there that won't fix the pump. They'll be like, oh, we don't do that, we just do the service. Like, you gotta go find somebody else. And like when those calls come into me, I'm super respectful in the sense that like I'm not I'm coming in and I'm doing the job and I'm not trying to like take this guy's work. I'm not trying to take his weekly service over. But at the same time, like, why would you open yourself up to your client working with other pool people that you're not providing for them? Like my leak guy, he's not gonna steal any of my fucking clients. All we do is refer work back to each other. But like, I can't say that every person that you might bring in is not gonna steal your work. And like, if you bring in a leak guy that also does weekly service, like he might be like, hey, like, you know, how do you like your pool service guy? Or, you know, how much does your pool service guy charge you? Oh, I could do it for less than that, or whatever it may be. Like, I wouldn't, I just wouldn't even put myself in that situation. So that's why I try and be the provider or the foreman of all of the jobs in the pool area that my client might need. Okay. So if you're not partnered with a leak guy, if you're not partnered with a plaster, then you guys really need to go out there and start making some foot cold calls to these companies and finding out their pricing. And if their pricing is too much, be like, look, I need to make a little bit of money too. I'm gonna get you, you know, a good amount of jobs. Can you do it for me? I know that's your regular price, but can you do it for me for less so I can make a little bit of money? And just be super transparent about what you want to charge and you know what they're charging and what you need to make. And the the part the the partnerships that I've made with my plasterer and my leak detection guy, those are the some of the you know most important bonds that I've made being in the in the pool industry. Okay, so that's my rant on uh leak detection and how you can get more leak detection jobs, and you know, because if you want to get more service jobs and you're already hooked up with a leak guy, you can say that you're a leak detection company. And then when people call you, you actually have you actually do leak detection. It's just not you. Just be super upfront and honest with you know, that you're not you're not the one that's actually coming out, but you're the one that's gonna build them and you'll be the foreman. So honesty in all the in all these aspects goes a long way. So I also came on here today with you guys because, like I said, I just haven't had a a day off in a long while. And part of it not only is because of the CPO, and there's a lot of stuff that I want to talk about with CPO that's really important. And I try not to push CPO on the listeners. Like, guys, if you're educated out there, like that that's great. Uh, but a lot of people have been coming to me and they're like, hey, like I'm trying to open my own business or like I'm working for somebody, but like I really want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. They didn't really get great training, they just kind of had me follow somebody around and then said, Hey, these are your pools. So, you know, the place to start if you're new in the industry is is with CPO. And it's a I mean, it's a two-day course and 16 hours. So I kind of equate it to you putting your face in front of a fire hydrant for two days straight and just kind of letting her rip. But we're gonna have you figure out how big all your clients' pools are exactly, you know, the stuff that's important to test for all the time, long-term, short-term stuff. And then we're gonna, you know, talk to you about the overall health of the pool. And I just spoke with my neighbor the other day, and he had somebody come out and they're very cost conscious. They're both retired, him and his partner, but uh they, whenever they interview someone to do something, they added like a not an addition, but like just this thing on their house that like they had to hire a company for. So they interviewed like three or four companies. And the guy who came out, he actually told my neighbor like five or six different things that were like not to do with the job, but he was like, Hey, like, this isn't up to code here. You know, this looks like it's rotting. Like, did anyone did you know this could affect the job that we're doing? And this guy basically figured out that my neighbor's roof was like rotting every time it rained. And he was like, Look, like I'm not telling you to get a new roof, but he was like, uh, let me show you all of this stuff in here. And this is, and my neighbor was like, Holy shit, like I would have never even seen that. And like none of these other guys that came by even looked at this or said anything about this. So it is super important when you talk to your clients or you're talking to prospective clients that you are able to articulate yourself in a way that shows that you command the backyard and you know about the backyard. And like when they have questions for you that you have knowledgeable answers. And if you are the you know, the homeowners association and you have a pool company taking care of the pool, a lot of them are coming to us, not just for state certifications and things like that, but because they want to understand like, is my pool guy actually doing what he's supposed to be doing? Okay. So super important that all of you guys out there, especially if you're new in the business, you at least look into CPO and get some sort of training. You can check out our CPO at Inspect My Pool. Rudy also teaches CPO. There's a bunch of us. Wayne used to teach CPO for a little for a long time. So it's a really important part of your journey as a as a pool person. All right. So I guess I'm gonna make this a short one today. Uh, I got a few other things that I want to talk about, but I just want to um first say how much I really appreciate everybody listening into the show every week. And uh we really love having you here. And um I also, before we go, uh Pool Corp, they are actually giving away a free Apr vacuum. And it's a Aper Scuba P1, which is like their mid-range vacuum. But I always tell everybody that um, you know, the first thing that I did that helped me out so much was I I bought a robotic vacuum, and it was like the Polaris uh 9650 back in the day or whatever it was, right? And it's a corded vacuum, it's a robotic vacuum, but I would actually go to all of my clients and I would just be like, hey, like try this thing out, and everybody bought it. And this is an opportunity for you. All you have to do is go to your Pool Corp account and you go to this APE thing and you make your account with them, and then they give you a free welcome gift, and the free welcome gift is this free fucking vacuum. And like, so what if it's a $500 vacuum? That's better than nothing, right? So I just got you your free fucking demo vacuum. All right. So it expires June 30th. This is May 11th. I'm pretty sure this show is gonna come out in the next week or two. So you guys will have at least a month and a half to go and claim your free vacuum from SCP. Okay. And I don't like to name the distributors out here. I shop at SEP, I shop at PEP, I shop at Leslie's, I shop at Amazon, I shop at whoever serves me the best. And I think that, you know, one of the things in the pool industry that's been a little taboo is to, you know, say that I'm not getting served the way I'm supposed to be getting served by these distributors. And same thing with the manufacturers. Like, uh, if you've been listening to the show, you heard about what I talked about with the salt sales and all that stuff that like I can get a fucking salt sale for $199 for a Jandy True Clear when they're selling them at the distributor for $7.99. Like that should never be that I that you know a pool professional has to go out and look at these off-brand vacuum, you know, these off-brand replacements to replace these OEM pieces because the OEM pieces are actually ridiculously expensive. So I'm gonna talk more about that in the next show with Wayne about the different types of vacuums and you know, new clients that I brought on. I really want to talk about a couple of these new clients that I brought on because it wasn't an easy bring-on. Like they didn't just show up like, hey, we met and then they came on the next week. This was like a slow burn where like it took six months from when I first went out and did my assessment of their pool to when we actually closed the contract. And a few like weird different things that went on with it. It was more like they really wanted a contract with the chemicals included. So we include our chemicals with the residential pools, but with the commercial pools, it's a lot harder to figure out. So we are going to figure out how to bid a commercial account in the future soon. So, everybody, again, thanks for listening. We appreciate you being here, and we'll uh see you next Thursday. Hope everybody has a happy and profitable week.