Spas

We don't sell a lot of spas. For most of our customers, it's out of their budget. As with any other upgrade, you want to set the table that it's a lot of money to add a spa. I always want to give the customer an out that will allow them to decline adding an expensive add-on without embarrassment.

But if a customer absolutely wants to add a spa, it's $8,650, and add $100 to the dig. The customer receives a 7' diameter spa with four therapy jets, an upgrade to a 2hp pump, 40 square foot additional deck, a 400,000 BTU heater, and if it's a Balboa one additional accent boulder. The heater will heat the 1,000 gallon spa in about half and hour on the coldest winter night in the Valley, the whole pool will take at least 15 hours. Yes the heater can heat both the spa or the pool, depending on how the valves are manipulated.

The pump configuration in the base spa addition is a single pump that will run the circulation of the pool, any waterfeature and the spa jets. If the customer is using the spa, the waterfeature won't run since all the pressure is diverted to the spa.

If a customer wants the waterfeature on while using the spa, that requires adding a 3/4 HP pump dedicated to the waterfeature.

But the myriad of additions get really complicated from here on out. There are options for blowers in the spa, on/off switches at the spa, additional booster pumps, automation systems and more things than you really want to fill your head with.

I always tell customers to remember that a in-ground spa is nowhere near as comfortable or therapeutic as an acrylic spa. I ask if there is a therapeutic need for a spa, if there is I'll walk through the advantages of installing an acrylic spa such as greater comfort and far more jets with more pressure.

Many times the customer will object on aesthetic grounds. I'll tell them that James has a beautiful installation with stonework surrounding his spa and that he's very happy with the service from Diamondback spas.

Ongoing utility costs are much better with an acrylic spa as opposed to an inground spa.

Though be careful of a potential landmine with diverting them to an acrylic spa. Oftentimes the customer will want Riviera Pools to run the electric and pour the concrete pad. This can lead to many headaches.

My personal experience was a terrific couple who bought a pool from me about three months ago. They decided to purchase a spa from Diamondback, but asked if I could work in the concrete pad and the electric on our deal.

I called Diamondback spas and found out that they needed 50AMPS of power, and a twelve foot flexible whip set into the pad. The dimensions I was given was 8X9 for the spa. I specified on the backpage the length of additional conduit for the spa run and put on the plan a 9X10 concrete pad.

Well the electricians made the spa run too short. I caught it because I was by the neighborhood on a measure and took a look at the yard. We sent the electricians back out to redo it, then they made it too long.

I coordinated with Al our deck crew chief to move the pad back and have the concrete pour crew pull the conduit over. Somewhere between Al and his crew the information never got there, I ended up running over to the pour 7AM in the morning. I had to dig out trenches for the conduit and bend the conduit run over and make sure that the pad was moved back.

But if that was the last of it that'd be terrific. A week later I get a call from the customer telling me that the pad is the wrong size. There is 6" of space between the spa and the concrete pad on the sides of the 9' side, but the long end was short by 4". I explained to the customer that I relied on Diamondback Spas dimensions, and in fact made the pad larger to accomodate any variance. Luckily it is a customer I have a very good relationship with, he worked it out with the spa company to add pavers along the side that the pad was too short.

Probably the limit of our involvement with an acrylic spa addition should be an upgrade of the panel and upgrade of the electrical conduit to handle the electric service for the spa. This involves an upgrade of the timeclock to a T-4000, charged at $175, an additional $75 if they want the 50AMP breaker installed by us, and a $5 per foot charge to upgrade the conduit to 1" conduit. If there is only 50' of total conduit in the deal, we'd have to charge and additional $250, any additional conduit would be charged at $15 per foot. Normally the conduit is 1/2", but to accomodate the bigger wires, larger conduit is required. The T-4000 timeclock has space for additional breakers for the spa's electrical service.

Then have the spa company take care of the final electrical termination from our electric box to the spa and the concrete pad for the spa. I would guide the customer explaining that if we do the work, it's possible that the dimensions can be off because of the challenge of coordinating with an outside company and our unfamiliarity with another company's product.

But as the above example of my customer shows none of us are immune to mistakes, and our good intentions to help a customer can lead to unintended consequences. Do me a favor: don't make the same mistakes I've made, make new mistakes.

Training is Overrated

Years ago, one of my first jobs was working at Nordstrom. I had been working in the distribution center on a seasonal basis. When layoffs were approaching my manager offered to help me out.

He recommended me to the Alderwood store north of Seattle, where I was hired to work in Mens Sportswear.

My first day I got about an hour of training on the cash register, how to mark price tickets for returns and then set loose. The total policy manual consisted of "use your best judgment," and don't be late. Not showing up was one of the few things that as a matter of policy would lead to termination. Showing up ten minutes late could get me fired.

Nordstrom at the time just passed a billion dollars in annual sales, had 65 stores across the country, and the policy was use your best judgment.

While attending school in New York, I worked at Barneys New York. I worked ten hours a week, during evenings and on Saturday. Before anybody was allowed on the sales floor, we had to undergo three weeks of training. Barneys is a terrific company, Fred Pressman, son of the original Barney, introduced Giorgio Armani to the US.

But Barneys never got to where Nordstrom is in sales or success. For the past year, If you had invested in Nordstrom stock you would be very happy. Year-to-date sales has eclipsed five billion dollars for 191 stores. Barneys ended-up barely avoiding bankruptcy by selling out to a Japanese partner Isetan, and now is owned by Jones Apparel.

So which approach to training is correct? The reason Nordstrom could train people as they did at that time was culture. Nordstrom has such a strong and defined culture, that there isn't any ambiguity for a new employee trying to understand what the company stands for, nor is it foggy about an individual's personal responsibility within that framework.

Culture for a growing company is very important. If you read our Philosophy and Culture handbook, you'll get a very good introduction to what we believe. But it doesn't pay dividends until each individual employee internalizes our culture and evangelizes that culture to everybody. If you have absolute conviction in our core beliefs and our Company culture, you will sell a ton of pools.

Read the handbook, talk to each other and be positive about our culture, preach it to our customers and reap the success. Our culture is not about what we don't do (and in fact only Ron or I should make a decision about what we won't do for a customer) it's about what we do. We build the absolute best pools in the shortest amount of time for the least amount of money possible. Believe in it, believe in the Company, believe you can do it, sell a ton of pools.

April 2005 - Hiring

I started with Riviera during the spring of 2005, in the month of April. But it wasn't a slamdunk.

Ron probably met with me for about three to four weeks before he hired me. Ask Kim, she was the receptionist then and can vouch for this.

When I first met Ron, he was rushing into the office from a measure. He had a black Greg Norman mesh hat on, Riviera shirt, his signature belt with big buckle and faded jeans.

We talked about a few different things, but what caught my attention was when Ron was describing the system he had developed.

I had spent three years of my life raising money for my DotCom in Silicon Valley. Part of this process involved comparing my business model to other business models for the sake of venture capitalists. The paradoxical logic in Silicon Valley where everybody is supposed find the best new thing is that a business model has to have some sort of successful precedent to compel a large seven to eight figure investment. As a result of this training, I can probably spot a dog or a gem of a business plan within a paragraph summary.

What Ron had built made instant sense to me. And I asked some friends their opinions as well, and they confirmed my impression. These are people who know business. One of my friends has walked away from two jobs that would pay him a million a year right now in straight salary. But don't feel badly for him, he's a CFO of a Raytheon subsidiary and doing fine, not one million dollars a year fine, but fine.

My friend Jikun is a smart guy, he's got a double E degree from Berkeley, a masters in Engineering from UCLA and a MBA from Columbia, my alma mater. When I met him in Hong Kong, he'd just told his boss to f-off at Morgan Stanley.

That boss got fired a few weeks after Jikun quit. If he hadn't quit his job, my friend would've taken over for his boss and stepped into a job paying a million dollars a year. But besides his work at Morgan Stanley assessing electronics companies, he's also worked as a management consultant at Booz Allen.

Booz Allen is a consultancy that rates among the top ten defense contractors in the US. They only hire MBAs from the top ten business schools in the country, schools like Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, U of Chicago, Wharton and so on.

Booz Allen doesn't make anything like toasters that can be manufactured and sold, they sell their expertise and their people and produce tons and tons of reports creating strategies and processes for huge multi-billion dollar companies. Companies hire Booz Allen when processes or strategies need work, they hire Booz to make the business make sense.

His said that Riviera Pools and what Ron was doing to sell pools is "really smart".

I was honestly surprised about Ron and Riviera Pools. I have met very few people with a really terrific idea. In three years in Silicon Valley, despite all the entrepreneurial fervor, most of the ideas I ran into were dogs. But every dog has its day, and even dogs can make it with a lot of hard work and good luck. However, if there's a really good idea combined with a will to market really well, like Ron says, it's the keys to the castle.

I was hooked, I probably would've bugged Ron for an entire year until he hired me.