Say Yes to Everything - Jay's Complete Pool Service

Pool People is brought to you by and powered by PoolDial. PoolDial is an AI-powered pool service software. You can run your whole pool business through text with our AI assistant, and the software also provides typical things like routing, customer management, and billing, and integrates with Stripe and QuickBooks, and is generally flexible to how you run your business. I've heard people talk about their conversions to pool service software, help them grow. For large businesses, over three hundred thousand additional revenue in a year, and I've just heard that pool service software can be transformative to your business. If you're still on pen and paper or using Excel spreadsheets, I heavily encourage you to check out pool service software. And if you're using another piece of software, I encourage you to check our product out. Today, I'm talking with Jarah Snyder of JS Complete Pool Service. Welcome, Jarah, to the show. To start off, I'm curious, how long have you been in the pool industry, and how many pools do you have?

So not very long. I started, if I'm thinking really hard, a little over four years ago, and then a little over three years ago is when I started my own business. So maybe it was between four and five years when I started, and then I worked for somebody for about nine months before I took over.

Okay, and then where is your business at currently? How many techs do you have? Just to give people a high level, feel free to share however much you're comfortable with. But how many techs do you have? How many pools, that sort of thing?

Yeah, absolutely. We peaked during the summer, which is totally normal. We peaked at about three hundred and ten, and then through the wintertime and a rough economy, we've dropped down to around two eighty-five right now, but I'm sure, like every year, it'll pick back up again. We're currently at five techs. One of them is a little more than a tech. They do all of the major repairs for us, and then they also manage a couple of the other newer techs. So we're running five trucks. We had six guys in the summertime, but as things slowed down, didn't have as much work for one of them, and we lost him.

Okay, and I'd love for you to just maybe give me a broad picture of your story in the pool business. You said you've been in the business for four years. You worked for someone for nine months. Feel free to paint the picture of your background in the industry, how you got started, and how things have developed to where you are now.

So by far and large, most people I talk to, they're like, "Oh, I worked for a company for five years, and then I worked for myself, just a single truck and single pool for eight more years, and then I finally started to branch out." Like, that's the story you'll generally hear in my experience. So when I talk about my short time in the industry, I think a lot of people are like, "Oh, man, you don't know what you're doing!" You know, it's a little frustrating, but at any rate, I'm digressing.

So I came out here to California from Oklahoma, and I had nothing lined up, so I was literally at the airport applying for jobs on my way out here. I had nothing out here, and then this guy, he's like, "Hey, what's your experience?" And I had some construction experience, so he's like, "Oh, awesome, you'll fit in great. Do you have a truck?" And I absolutely lied to him, and I said, "Yes, I have a truck." And I got out there, and the first day, I was like, "I actually don't have a truck." So he's the coolest guy, super understanding. He goes, "No problem." And we get through the first day, and he's like, "Look, I really need you to have a truck." And so this is the truth, like, he would call you and tell you the same thing. He pulls out five grand in cash. He goes into his house, after we got back to his house, comes back out, and he hands it to me. It was the first day I'd ever met him, and he goes, "Go buy a truck, and then I'll keep training you for the next two weeks, and then you'll be on your own." And so that's exactly what happened. I went and found an F-150, and he trained me for the next couple of weeks. I worked for him for nine months, and although he was a fantastic person, I didn't necessarily love the way that he ran his business. Like, I just thought there was so much left on the table. A lot of things really bothered me. He was fantastic with me, just a fantastic guy to work for.

But as far as customers coming and speaking to me about how he approached them with issues, about how things got taken care of, about how communication transpired, I was like, "I think I could probably do better." And so I just went to him and was like, "Hey, can we come up with a deal to buy you out?" And so we came up with a plan. He gave me fifty-six accounts, and it was a five-year buyout period, and I paid him off in two years, and then he got completely out of the business. And then I grew from there. So I grew from fifty-six to about a hundred and twenty and then hired a couple people, and then for whatever reason, he had actually gotten back into it, and then he grew his company again, and the same exact thing happened. I went right back to him, and I was like, "Hey, let me do this again." And I convinced him to then sell it to me again, and I bought another hundred accounts from him, which put me to basically where I am now, and then I gained forty, lost some through natural attrition, but that's basically what happened. Bought from him, grew it myself, bought from him again, grew it more, and now he lives in a totally other state, and I'm still out here.

Okay, wow! So you hear some guys who maybe buy a route to start, other people who maybe do pay-per-click ads or something like this. It sounds like your background was a little non-traditional compared to that. It sounds like you did buy a route, but it was from your employer.

Yes. And it's, you think it's common, but what usually happens is a company will hire a technician. This happens all the time. They'll hire the technician, they'll say, "Oh, in a few years, we're gonna let you buy your route. We're gonna let you take it over." And almost always, the pool company is usually like, "We changed our mind. We don't wanna do that. You can either go do it on your own, but you have to sign a non-compete or something like that." And it just never works out that way.

And so when you did buy fifty-six pools and you were starting out on your own, was there anything that Jarah then wishes he would have known and that you know now? Getting started in the industry when you were new to SoCal, what are some insights that you have being in the industry for four years, or maybe mistakes you made or things you wish you would have known?

I think that I was really blessed. Everything that was happening felt really lucky, but obviously, I was working really hard. I think the biggest mistake I made was just not putting aside money when I had it. Like, I was bringing in more money than I ever had in my entire life, and I wasn't being completely irresponsible, but the only regret I have is not being more fiscally responsible during those starting years. I think I would have been able to grow more efficiently, and I would be in a better position now. Even though I'm not in a bad position, I know I would be in a better position if I had been better financially at the beginning.

Yeah, that makes sense. And when did you end up hiring your first technician?

So again, I got lucky. When I very first took over, I was already in the ear of one of my friends from back home in Oklahoma. I was just constantly saying, "Hey, I need to get you out here. I wanna get you out here. I want you to work for me." Just pushing his buttons, pushing his buttons. And finally, he wrecked his car in Oklahoma. He couldn't get to work, and I was like, "I'm gonna drive out there, I'm gonna get you, and I'm gonna bring you back here, and you're gonna work for me." And so I drove my truck all the way out there. I loaded up his wrecked car, and I trailered him all the way back out here, and my girlfriend and I let him live with us in our house for free. And he didn't have to pay for anything, but he would work for me as the trade-off. So he worked for me like that for maybe three, four months, and by that time, we were so damn busy that he was now just working for me by himself, full-time. And that was my first one.

Okay, so is this a childhood friend that you had trusted and you had wanted to work with?

Yeah. We were best friends in third grade. I've known him for a long time.

Okay, and it seems like from your website, you have a team of maybe four or five other folks. Is that where you're at now?

The picture is older. The older gentleman in that picture is my father. He worked for me for a little bit, which was great. It was what it was, father and son working together. There was a lot of butting heads because I was his boss, it was not the other way around. But yeah, most of the guys in that picture, all of them but my father, are working, and then we've gained others as well that are not in that picture and lost two.

Yeah. So I'm curious, obviously we only have so many childhood friends. How have you gone to recruit and hire other technicians? Are there any best practices you've learned from that?

Anytime you go anywhere as a business owner, anywhere, you should always be looking for potential hires, whether they know it or not. Every single time. Like, when I would be going to the gym, one of my workers is somebody I went to the gym with for a year and a half, and he didn't know for that first six months, every single time I was talking to him, I was picking his brain about what type of person he was. Because in the back of my head, I was like, "Potentially, I'm going to offer this person a job." And I waited for the right moment. I offered him a job, and he was just ecstatic, and he started working for me.

So yeah, anytime you're out in public, anytime you're at a fast food restaurant, anywhere. A server is just absolutely phenomenal, you're like, "I like that. I need that in my company." Have a conversation with them. I'm pretty straightforward, and a lot of people, especially my family, don't like it, but if I have a conversation with you, I will ask, "How much do they pay you? How much do you work?" I wanna know everything about them to see if I can make their life situation better by having them work for me instead. So I'm just always looking in anybody.

I see. Is there any most surprising story that you could share with people listening?

Honestly, it would be the gym, that's the most exciting thing. And it's not like something crazy, but the timing was just really good. It's felt like every good thing that's happened was just really, really good timing. But as far as an exciting story for hiring goes, it's pretty boring because of how lucky I got. The first one was my best friend from childhood. The second one was my dad. He worked for me for a little bit when I got too big. One guy that taught me a lot of stuff in the industry, his daughter's boyfriend, he worked for me for a little bit, didn't work out. I don't think he could handle my constant complaints and getting over those hurdles, so he didn't work out.

And the third one, okay, I lied. This one's actually a good story. So when my dad was really young, in his twenties, and my mom, they lived in California, and my dad was a youth pastor at a church in California, and there were two boys who had recently lost their dad, and so my dad stepped in, and he basically raised them for about ten years. Well, fast-forward to now, one of those boys has three sons and a daughter, and one of those sons was looking for a job, and he just happened to be a good age. So I interviewed him, and he works for me now. And then six months later, now his brother works for me. So now, two of those brothers that my dad raised their dad now work for me.

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Okay, wow! And then when you are hiring people and, say, like, there's a server or just generally when you're looking at people's characters or talents, what sort of things are you looking for or assessing?

Sure. So a lot of people maybe won't like that I say this, especially people who did it themselves for ten, fifteen years. I think that the quintessential thing to look for is somebody who's just extremely good with people. I don't care if they have never worked with their hands in their lives. I have found that the better you can communicate, the easier it is to do all of the other things.

So if they looked me in the eyes when they spoke to me, if they had a lot of confidence behind their voice, if they didn't escape from questions when I would ask them questions, if they were really easy to engage, those were the primary things that just really speak to me. Because most of our industry, and this is the best thing about it, is that it is sales. This industry is sales. Being in somebody's backyard is a privilege, and you have the easiest sales job in the world, being in somebody's backyard, because they've already allowed you to be back there. Now, your next job is to get them to take all of your words as honest and trustworthy, and then be honest and trustworthy.

So that's the coolest part about it. We don't have to be scummy, manipulative salespeople. People's pool equipment just breaks. All of it breaks. It wears down. But the biggest difference is, how are you going to communicate what's broken, what happens if it's broken, and what do we need to do to get it taken care of? How well can you communicate that to the customer to where it turns into a sale? And it's great because you never have to lie to them. You just have to learn how to phrase things properly.

You will absolutely find this. Any realistic service person will tell you, pool guys have a giant ego, just the biggest egos, and they don't see a customer as... It's like they're trying to talk to somebody else who's in the industry when they're talking to a customer, and the customer has no idea what they're talking about a lot of the time, and a lot of the time, that equals the pool person getting frustrated and not being able to communicate their point. That's what I hammer home when I'm training people, and that's what I look for when I'm speaking to them. It's like, can this person communicate exactly the way that I want them to communicate to customers? Because the way that I want them to communicate with customers is to basically be me. I want them to be me incarnate in somebody's backyard.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And since you're hiring people who are maybe from different backgrounds, like your gym buddy or a server, you must have some thoughts about how you go about training these people without pool service experience. What has your process been when you hire someone new, you bring your childhood friend into the business? How do you go about training them?

Sure. Well, it's evolved, obviously. You're training your very first employee, I'm training myself to train him, right? So the difference between me training the first person and training the fifth person is going to be totally different. I wouldn't even bring up how I trained the first person, because I wouldn't do any of that now.

The only thing that has remained constant is you treat all your customers with respect. If there is ever a problem, you make sure that you and that customer, it's you and the customer versus the problem, and it's never the customer versus you and the problem. That's the biggest issue. I have a lot of guys, they'll call me, and they'll say, "Hey, my customer is giving me this feedback." And I'm like, "Well, how did you phrase it?" And then they'll explain it to me. It's like, "Well, they think that you caused the problem." He's like, "Well, I didn't cause the problem." Like, "Well, it doesn't matter. You can be innocent all you want. If you do not communicate that properly, you immediately, in the customer's head, you have been put into the category of part of the problem."

So the thing that has remained constant, again, I'm repeating myself, is you need to make sure that you and that customer love each other, and that the problem is always the third party. It's not the customer, and then pool guy and pool problems are the other party. It's the customer, and there's this incredible, talented individual who's knowledgeable and who I can trust, and just doesn't want to cost me extra money, who's going to make sure I understand the problems going on in my backyard. And that's the primary thing that we focus on when I'm training any of them.

Okay, and I figure then you'll start with basic service stuff, and it sounds like one person has started helping you with repairs. And you were just telling me about your experience learning about Pentair repairs. I'm curious, as someone who's still just learning about the industry, could you talk about what the learning curve has been for you? What are the basic skills that you need, and then where does that go after that? How do you see someone working in pools? What do you need to learn in terms of repairs, and how would you recommend people go about learning that?

Okay, great. So yeah, you just need to come in with a lot of patience and an open mind, and patience with yourself, not even with the actual project at hand. Because the biggest fight that I ever had was always with myself.

But the main thing you have to do if you actually want to learn and be on the upper hand of regular pool guys, is you just have to say yes to everything. Somebody says, "Hey, do you know how to do this?" "I absolutely know how to do that. Yes, I will get that done for you." And for the first year by myself, every single time. "Hey, do you know how to put in lights?" I never put in a light in my life. "Yes, absolutely, I know how to put in lights." And then it would be me going and researching it on my own, first of all, and then me calling, which is another huge thing, is networking. Getting people in your corner who want to help you, who believe in you. Be nice to people.

But it was just me calling on people who I knew knew more than me and saying, "Hey, can you please explain this to me? Hey, would you be willing to come out and kind of just point your finger here and there, and just kind of guide me through this?" Or, "Hey, do you have one of these types of repairs coming up where I can come and watch you do it?" And so that's basically it. You just have to be willing to say yes to something you're uncomfortable with, and doing it. Because if you just go in and you're like, "Well, I don't know how to do that, and nobody's ever taught me," nobody's just gonna text you and say, "Hey, man, do you wanna come and learn this with me?" You have to go and learn that on your own. So just being open, willing, patient, and no ego.

I like it. Were there any biggest challenges that you faced when you said yes to a customer? Maybe it was a light, maybe it was something else with quite a steep learning curve?

A hundred percent. When you look at pool plumbing, a lot of the time, at first glance, you're like, if you've never been around it, of course, you're gonna look at it and be like, "Oh, that's super complicated." But if you have been around some type of mechanical things, like in some type of factory, and you see very complicated, intricate hydraulic systems, and then you look at pool plumbing and you're like, "Oh, that's easy. There's nothing there." But man, once you cut into it, and you haven't done that before, if you don't know the order of operations for it, you're screwed. And there were so many times where you go in and you're like, "Oh, I got this. This is a twenty-minute project," and I'd be there for five hours. And it's just, the biggest battle is just telling yourself, "It's okay. You're good. You're gonna stay here until it's done. You are not going to give up. You will get this done." And that was it. You just power through being frustrated, and you get it done.

That makes sense. You mentioned a big part of that is having a network of people to talk to or give you advice. You said there was your ex-boss. Is there any other place that you've met other pool folks that have been useful connections for you? Anywhere that you'd advise, maybe Facebook groups, maybe meetups?

Sure. So to clear it up, just to be transparent, I think after the first month of being on my own and going to my boss for three or four things, after I started learning from other people, I was like, "He's not the guy to go to." As great as he was, again, as a boss, fantastic, he was not the person to go to for advice on how to properly manage situations.

So the thing that I tried the best, and I still do this to this day, is the pool warehouse that I was going to, just being absolutely honest that I was an idiot. You go in there, and if you try to act like you know everything, nobody wants to teach you anything. So anytime I'd go in there, I didn't care if they were like, "Dude, this guy's an idiot." It didn't matter. I'm like, "What's this fitting? What does this do?" And it's a 90-degree angle. Obviously, it's a 90 fitting, but you bring it up to, "Hey, what do I do with this? How does that work?" And they look at me like I'm stupid, but they explain it. And I just kept doing that, kept doing that.

And just to make sure they wanted to teach me, every two, three months, you buy lunch for all the guys at the warehouse. You bring them in tacos. "Hey, you guys want donuts today? Hey, you guys like beer?" You're bringing them beer, and all my guys still do that. I tell them all, "Bring food to the guys." This is your source for everything. You want to learn stuff, the guys at the warehouse will know, and if they don't know, they will know somebody who knows because they speak to every single person who comes into this warehouse.

And that's the primary way. One of the guys that worked at the warehouse, I worked on him quitting his job at the warehouse to work for me, and he's the one who is the manager of a couple of the other technicians and a lot of our pools in a part of the Inland Empire. I worked on him for about a year, and I finally got him to quit his job and work for me instead.

I see. And when you say warehouse, as someone who's just learning about the industry, is this the supplier you work with to get your chems and this sort of thing?

Yes. So the one I go to, it used to be called Pool and Electrical Products, PEP, but they got bought out by Home Depot for a lot of money, and now they are Heritage. That's what they're called.

Okay. And how often do you visit, and is it a weekly thing and everyone loads up their truck on chems? Operationally, how do you manage your relationship with your warehouse?

So it's a lot different now than it used to be, because it used to be me coming in and buying stuff for my own accounts, and now it's my technicians coming in and buying the stuff. And so I train them to treat the guys there like they're their best friends. And they are great guys. I have a lunch date with the general manager over in Indio and the general manager in Corona. I'm going to lunch with both of them on Tuesday, they're my friends now.

But as far as answering your question goes, we probably go there ten, fifteen times a week. During the summertime, it's twenty to thirty times a week, cumulatively. But I make sure I go there at least once a week or once every two weeks just to drop in. I don't even... A lot of the time, I go there, and I'm just gonna talk to them. I go in there, see how they're doing, see how their kids are doing. "Oh, you're getting married, aren't you? When's the wedding? Am I invited?" Just hanging out with them. If they want me to buy them pizza, I buy them pizza. Just making sure that I maintain that contact with them all the time. Even the guys that are in the back that you never see, I'm walking my ass all the way to the back of the warehouse, talking smack to them, making fun of them. They're making fun of me. "Yeah. What's up? Have a good day. See you later." And that's, I mean, it's pretty simple. You just be nice to people, and they do things for you. It's the difference of if I'm... I know guys who are amazing at their jobs, but they treat the warehouse workers like crap, so anytime they need anything, the warehouse workers don't want to help them at all. So just being a good person, being nice, and they're nice to you, it's a pretty good trade-off.

And so what sort of things do the warehouse workers help you with? What are the benefits of building that relationship for maybe techs who are a little, maybe not even rude, but more transactional with their supplier? How are they benefited?

Transactional is a very good word. And just to touch on that a little bit, I think the reason why a lot of guys get into this transactional mode is because these warehouse guys, they've been working there forever. And so when they see somebody who hasn't been in there very often, they're not going to respond to your positivity the way that makes you want to keep being positive with them. So it's kind of a battle of like, "Well, that guy was kind of an asshole to me when I went in there, so I'm just gonna go in there, get my stuff, and leave."

It's like, dude, the world is not about you. You have no idea what's going on there. You go in there every single time, and you put on a happy face, and you make them like you. This is not... You don't get to go in there and be like, "I know who I am. I'm better than these guys. They don't need to be rude to me." That's not how the world works. You go in there, you put on your happy face, and you play the game with them, and then once you start to see cracks in their demeanor and you start to get to know who they really are, well, great! That's how you win them over.

Nothing should be strictly transactional because when you make something transactional, the relationship ends at the transaction. When you take it past transactional, well, that's when you open up a whole realm of possibilities. Like, if two guys go in, one guy goes in, and he has an incredible relationship with the guys, and he says, "Ah, man, do you think you could drop that ten percent? I really want to get this job sold, can you drop it ten percent?" If I go in there and ask that, I know they're gonna say yes. But then if somebody comes right behind me and is like, "Hey, man, I really need five percent discount on this." It's like, "No, sorry." That's it. That's just how it works.

A lot of the time, the stuff they do for me, they actually audibly are like, "Hey, don't tell anybody we're doing this." Maybe that's their way of playing the game too. But I like to feel like I'm special. They give me a gift at Christmas, and they're like, "Please, we did not..." They're obviously not giving a gift at Christmas to every single customer that walks in there. But they got me four or five things for Christmas. It was great. Obviously, they're not doing that for everybody. But the other thing is, I bought them like $300 worth of beer for Christmas. I came in there with tequila, like 250 beers, some gin, and I put it under their Christmas tree. And everybody in the warehouse comes to the Christmas tree, and we're all talking together for 20 minutes. You have to put in effort into your relationships, just like you're putting effort into the relationship with your family or your girlfriend. It's the same thing.

Yeah, okay, I totally follow. So then at a high level, I'm curious, now that you've told me your history and your background in the business, what is a day in the life managing your business look like now?

So if it's summertime, totally different answer. Wintertime, it's much less stressful. The stress changes. In the summertime, you're stressed because you can't keep up with the amount of new business coming in, and you're wanting to make sure that business doesn't... Like, your current customers are still satisfied, while you're also trying to satisfy this huge need that's being created. That's the summertime. I'm getting 70 to 100 calls every day. Every single one of my technicians is blowing up my phone all day long. The manager's blowing up my phone, too. Emails, I'm trying to keep track of emails. I'm doing advertising as well. I'm meeting with the advertising team, the marketing team. There's just so many things to do in the summertime, but for me, it's like a fun stress. Just being that busy is really good fuel because you feel the business just churning. You feel the train just going down the track.

And then when wintertime hits, the stress is no longer from feeling busy. The stress is now, "I'm not busy." You're like, is this permanent? Are we never gonna get busy again? If we never get busy again, we're gonna go out of business. Is this temporary, or are we gonna speed up again? And your brain switches to you're talking to the technicians, and you're like, "Do not lose a customer for me. I know that people aren't paying attention to the pool as much, and that is exactly why you need to be better at your job now. I cannot lose an account..."

Because what happens is, during the summertime, you're making pennies on service accounts, and then in the wintertime, if you're able to keep them through the summer, you're making easily three to four times the amount. So just to put it easily, it's $8 to $12 a month in chemistry in the wintertime. In the summertime, it's anywhere from 45 to 60, just depending on the pool. So there's a giant difference, because if you multiply that difference by 300 accounts, it's like 10 to $14,000 extra per month in the wintertime. So you're like, "Don't lose these accounts. This is what's going to keep us alive in the summertime if we have a bad start to the summer."

To answer the question of a day in the life, in the summertime, I'm waking up at 6:00 a.m. to already four missed calls from technicians who decided to start their day at 5:30. So I'm returning their calls. I'm trying to text back 10 people who texted me at 9:30 the night before, customers, just making sure they're taken care of, and it's just constant the entire day. There's 20 different things that you have to check on, and it's just like a cycle. "Okay, check my texts, check my emails, check how my ads are doing. Do I need to bump up ad spend? Check if I got any text messages or Slack things from my marketing team. Okay, those are taken care of. Now check my texts. Now return calls. Now check my emails." And you're just in a circle the whole day. And then in the wintertime, it's like, "Why is my phone not going off? I'm not getting any jobs. Nothing's coming in." The stress is just different.

So it's stark different.

Right. I feel like the stress in the wintertime is worse, even though it's easier. The work is easier in the wintertime, but the stress for me is worse. The complaints are always more vicious in the wintertime for whatever reason. It seems like the winter just makes everybody unhappy, and so you're trying to facilitate that. And in the summertime, everybody just wants you. They're like, "Get out here, please. We'll give you as much money as you want." And then you hit the wintertime, you go out to give a quote, and they're like, "I'm gonna call five other people, and then you may hear back from me." It's such a big difference.

I see. That makes sense. To end the episode, I'm curious, is there any advice to other pool techs listening to this? Any wisdom or knowledge that you think would be a nice way to end the episode on?

Depends what type of technician I'm talking to. If you told me the technician was balanced properly, like it was their own investment, I would tell them I'm coming for them, and I want them out of the business. If they are really good with customers, if they completely understand how chemistry works and how it can literally devastate people financially, and they have respect for the industry and for the customer's well-being as far as their finances go, I would give them as much advice as I possibly could give them to make sure they succeed. Anytime I meet a pool guy, I say, "I want all good pool companies to do amazing. I want all poor pool companies to completely go out of business, because there's plenty of business for the amount of good pool companies there are, but there's not enough business for people who don't really care and who will come in and lowball the good guys."

All right. Well, I appreciate your time on the show, Jarah. I think that's a nice way to end. And I'll have your website information in the description if any techs wanna reach out, maybe ask you a follow-up question or something like this. Thanks for being on the show.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.