About Houston Pool Service, Repair and Remodeling

To give you an idea of where I come from, let me start off by telling you a little about my background. I have been in the swimming pool repair industry for about 12 years now. While that doesn’t seem like a long time, rest assured, I’ve been through a lot. I started off selling hot-tub’s (spas) and above ground swimming pools. After a while of selling spas, I started to install and repair them. I gained a great deal of insight towards the various issues that could arise from running a pool and spa store. It was at this little hole in the wall pool store that I had my first drop of chlorine run through my veins. After my first experience with swimming pools, I knew I had to have more. I ended up moving away, and looking for the first pool service job I could find. During my 3 days of training, I didn’t learn much, except that the person training me, shouldn’t have been training anyone. It didn’t take long before I was out there on my own servicing swimming pools. I was completely lost, so I did what any newbee pool guy would do, and I just improvised. After many green (and yellow) pools, and several copper stained (we used a lot of copper algaecide) pools, I decided I should probably get some training. It was with this in mind that I quit my pool service job and started looking to go somewhere else to gain some knowledge. I ended up at a small chain of swimming pool supply stores. They had about 9 stores and they were a pretty reputable “Bioguard” dealer. It was training I was looking for, and it was training I got. I spent about 5 months attending various educational courses, seminars, schools, etc. After training was completed, I was promoted to assistant manager of one of their stores. During this time, I took it upon myself to learn even more. I started reading everything I could find and attending every seminar possible. With the newfound knowledge I had gained, I was quickly bumped up to store manager. So there I was, all alone again. Except this time I was a little more prepared. It was spring time and my store was getting busy, really busy. I learned a lot, and I messed up a lot, but I was having a great deal of fun. It was about mid-summer when I realized that the pool industry was the place for me. I continued to work for this company for a few years, until one day, I woke up and realized that I wasn’t going anywhere. I had to find a new job with more to offer. I spent the next few years bouncing (and getting a lot more training) around the various pool stores looking for my calling. It was in the middle of winter when a guy comes into my store and asked if I knew of anyone looking for a job. I happily replied, yes, me. He went on to explain that he was a swimming pool builder and they were looking for some sales people. With some excitement and a little fear (I had never built a pool before), I went to the interview the next day. After hearing of my experience in retail sales and management, they reluctantly hired me. To my dismay, I took on the learning curve quit easily. It was only after a few months of training that I was out there on my own again. I enjoyed building pools, but it wasn’t my favorite thing to do. I liked marketing, and talking to different people everyday. Building pools was a little monotonous, and I didn’t get to talk to too many people. So, you can probably guess, it was time for a new job. I wanted back into retail, and I wanted some stability and opportunity. So, what better to do then go work for the biggest pool supply retailer out there. And so I did. At this time I was perfectly capable of running a pool supply store on my own, but, due to the corporate policies of this “largest pool retailer”, I started off as retail associate. After lots of red tape and training, I was then moved to assistant manager. It was a great experience, I’ve never been in such a high volume store before. But, when I was looking for stability and opportunity, I actually got a lot of red tape and corporate politics. I was miserable. So, again, I’m back in the job market. It wasn’t long before I decided to call an old acquaintance that I had met while he was down doing some training. He was rep for a swimming pool chemical manufacturer. I was delighted to find out that they were looking for someone in my area. About a week later I met this acquaintance at Starbucks for an interview, and then three days later started working for him. It was the best job I had ever had, I was working for some great people. My territory was South Texas and South Louisiana. I got to attend trade shows and travel, a lot. I learned a great deal about how the swimming pool industry worked. We where rep’s for many well respected swimming pool product manufacturers. We had several pool chemical lines, a motor line, a zeolite product, some pool repair products, some pool builder products, and several other lines that were great. As much as I enjoyed working for these guys, I knew I had to have more. I wanted to start my own business. I decided to open a pool service and "pool repair" business. To do this I began to study web design. I know what your thinking, a pool guy doing web design, whaaaat. Well, I actually picked it up pretty easy. I was quite good, believe it or not. So I built a website and started gathering my plan to start this pool service/repair company. After about 2 months I started receiving calls from my website, a lot of calls. Before I knew it, I was so busy taking calls, that I had to quit my current job as a manufacturers rep and do pool repair, full time.