Blue Wave Pools | Local Leaders the Podcast #188

0:00 Hi, This is Lorie Johnson with Hancock Whitney Bank, and you're listening to Local Leaders the podcast. Visit Local Leaders the podcast dot com for previous episodes or for information on appearing on the show. So it's hot out there in South Louisiana and the first thing people think about is, man, I wish I had a pool if they don't already have one that I can jump into and cool off. That is why this podcast is such a big deal.

0:46 Across from me, I have Matt Paria of Blue Way Pools. So first of all, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. We are fired up to talk to you today. And before we even get into all the eight things about Blue Wave Pools, I want to tell you that we had quite the response. I send out an email to my mail chimp folks, and if you're not on the mail champ yet, hit me up. I'll put you on there. And I asked four questions on you know, pools of any type and you know, any questions they may have if they're debating wanting to get a pool. I got like a ton of responses. So we're gonna talk about all that, but first we want to talk about you lifelong Livingston Parish guy. Yes, sir, I grew up here. Yeah, my family is from here. Yeah, you know, graduating from Dinnil Springs in ninety six. Jackets, I got a yellow jacket on my wall right there that people cannot see during this podcast, but trust me, it's there.

1:42 That's right, So go jacket. And I wanted to raise my kids here and then, yes, this is where I'm making my life. Very good, very good. And uh and you played in the band in high school, your band, guy, that's right. I played senxophone under under Burrows there. Yes, Spurs is a good guy. I've got to see every football game from sixth grade all the way through. That's it. Didn't have to buy a ticket, didn't tell that's right. Very good. So so you got out of that, you graduated and moved on in life. I knew you were a salesperson for AT and T. I did, started life with AT and T, spent overall, spent about twelve years there. Wow. I got to do a lot of cool things for them. Started out in the sales, ended up outside. I did a lot of restoration work after Katrina in New Orleans. Eventually made my way back to Baton Rouge and landed in the engineering department there, and just you'll talk about a little later, but growing up in construction, a lot of times those two fields don't overlap. So when they figured out that I had some construction experience, they landed me in a program called Road Move, which is if they're going to build a brand new road somewhere, you've got to coordinate with the other utilities and the government and everything else and make all that happen. So absolutely that's where I ended up my time there, and when it was time to leave, and again Blue Wave Pools, that's that's where I exited from.

2:57 That's it. And you were kind of no stranger to the pool business. Uh, your second generation really pool guy, right, that's right. So Dad started a company called Sunshine Pools. It's actually still in operation here in Donna Springs. Now, he began that company back in eighty three when he built his store on floor to Boulevard. It was actually the first building that had to be raised after the eighty three floods. So of all the buildings, we have some news paper clippings that show it just built up on a mound of dirt. And of course now lots of things are built that way incation. But now so his store was there, that was my growing up, retailed swimming pools, building vinyl line or swimming pools. Yeah, he transitioned from that and got into home building. He was a general contractor for ten years actually, about the same timeframe that Livingston instituted their inspection process.

3:45 So kind of went from the wild West to this is how you're supposed to do things, this is how the process is supposed to be done. And so he was. He was right there and that when when all that was taking place, that's right. So you know, my childhood was building things and construction, whether it be pools or houses. So when it was time when I had enough of corporate life and it was time for me to go do my thing, I kind of leaned on what I knew how to do and looked around at the things I knew how to build, and swimming pools kind of spoke to me. I like it, Yeah, it's in your blood really, And probably had a lot of legos and stuff like that when you were a youngster, tons of I think my two toys that I remember playing with where the legos or hot wheels. Yeah, there you go. I like the hot wheels myself, and so you did you kind of you kind of jumped off into what is blue wave pools? And y'all when I tell you, well, first of all, you probably noticed that guy's got a great voice for podcasting. It's just perfect for what we do, which makes my job easy. But another thing we do is a lot of research.

4:46 So when I was researching your company and what you do, I was really surprised at what I didn't know. You know, when I think of a pool, I think of, you know, a square pool had eight feet deep or however deep. What is great about your companies is the customization that you offer. For example, I told him, I said, so, if I wanted a pull and I wanted it to be in the shape of a podcast microphone, you can make that happen. He's like, hey, we can make it happen. I'm like, man, that's great, that's great. Uh. You know right here in Livingston Parish. You know we're not in la you know, where this is probably much more common.

5:26 So to be able to have a custom pool builder right here in Livingston Parish is a good thing. I guess. My first question in something that I would find interesting. And some of this y'allway didn't talk about ahead of time. But that first job that you got when you were blue wave pools, of course you had it in the blood. You'd seen it done. You know, you you have people to lean on ask questions. But how did that go for you? Was that surprisingly well? Or was that I'm ardered my stripes here and everything that could go wrong? Did you know? No, it went great. The customer, gentleman by the name of mister Bob Chadville, one of my favorite clients I've ever had, we still speak often, was building a new construction home and wanted to have a swimming pool build and called me over there. And from the engineering days, I know how to do cat I know how to design, so I do all my own design, which is something most builders don't do. So I went there with mister Bob, drew his house, drew the pool he wanted and it was perfect. But he wanted this resissed seating in a certain space, and just from being around construction, I like, it's not gonna work. You're gonna have ongoing issues. It's gonna you know, it's gonna be a problem.

6:41 You're gonna hate this thing. Oh no, mister madd I think I really want that. And for being very young in the business, but knowing like this is gonna be a problem, mister Bob and I talked about that for two weeks and finally, like I got through to him and explained. And what finally made it work is he was gonna have to do a handrail and the handrail was gonna off the view of the television. Now years later we'll sit down and talk about it, he's like, you know what, you're right. I was like, I'm glad you see it, but you know, or even early on, it was I wasn't new to construction. It was just this is what we're building today. So it helped solve a lot of those early don't know quite what you're doing problems because it's you've been You've been doing this for twenty years already, that's right. And And something that you said in that story that appealed to me is you weren't scared to tell him I don't think this is gonna work. Um. I think too often in the construction industry people want to please customers to the point that when they know something shouldn't be done. They just kind of do it anyway because they don't want, you know, if if it goes bad, the customer wanted it right. But you look for someone that that was their first big job on their own, that that was pretty cool that you were able to summon up the yeah, you know whatever it took to do that. And my job is to build, you know, the client's pool. If I show up there and Matt, this is what I want. You know, if I don't love it, I don't have to love it. I've got to build a quality product. But a lot of times when I come out there, people have an idea of what they want and maybe it's not what I

8:11 would have drawn if they didn't show me anything. So what I'll do, and this is where being able to draw on the fly comes in handy, is I'll draw their design to a t. This is exactly what you told me you wanted. This is exactly what it's going to look like. And then I'll say, this is design one, this is what we can build while I'm here. Let me draw you what I would have drawn if you hadn't told me anything, right, And then I'll draw maybe what I see happening there and oftentimes hey, oh we like that, or we're kind of combine the features of the two of them. But you know, I'll you know, people have an idea, but until they see it in their backyard, it's it's different. So being able to see, well, these this is the result of all those ideas. This is design one, and this is maybe built a few of these things. This is how I would lay it out, and this is designed two. It helps people come and love that. I love that because you're giving them options and you're showing them different ways to accomplish something. Because really, what you're doing when you sit down with these people is they've got a vision of what they want and you're you're pulling that out and you're putting it essentially on paper and saying here's here's you know, here's your vision on paper. But you're also giving them a little bit more suggestion. Because they're not in the industry, they may not realize the options that they can do that maybe they haven't thought of. So that's always great. It's good and a lot of times I try to you know, I meet my mom, I meet dad and we sit down and we talk about it. Everybody wants a certain thing from the pool. You know,

9:41 somebody wants a ben in a certain spot, somebody wants a place to lay out, and it's my job to kind of talk them my way through the pool, talk to them here what they wanting. And the greatest thing I can hear is when I'm done with a design, Oh I love that. That's exactly what I thought it should look like. I've done my job. Well, yeh man, and you you kind of light up when you talk about it, and it's it's it's it's a blessing to have any job where it's tangible that you can look at it after it's done and say, I did that, I built that. Even if it's for somebody else, you did that, and you can look at it and take pride in it, which is you know, if you're in sales and you're selling advertising or something that's kind of hard to do sometimes. So that's a that's a total blessing. Now. Um in the pool business. Uh, you know, one of the I don't know if I call it a misconception, but one of the things that people may not be aware of is the uh, the expense of polls can be controlled in a lot of ways. There's there's additions that you can make that would raise the cost of a pull, but there's things you can lay off that that will actually lower the cost of a pool.

10:48 One thing I really like about Blue Wave when when we were talking was you're very transparent on on things and you do you do get with the customer and and kind of go over everything that can be involved in that pool building process from lab lighting for example. People get quotes, you know, whether it's whether it's pools, whether it's paint, whatever, they whatever they're doing, they're getting quotes from people and they're comparing them. And I'm a big proponent of make sure you're comparing apples to apples. Right, You basically break that down with the customer because you meet with them at their house. I mean, you go to them. It's very convenient for you, that's right.

11:31 And I'm or for them rather and I'm a spreadsheet guy. So as we sit down and draw this pool, you know, we're checking off boxes and you know, number of lights or a number of water features, yea included equipment. You know, that's all got to get listed out because that that makes you set tangible. But it makes a very tangible difference in the bottom line of what's included, and it's very easy to just not mention something. Hey, well, you know, we didn't talk about salt, so your pool doesn't have a salt chlorine cellar. We didn't talk about a pool cleaner, so it's not included in the price. So it's it's it's easy to kind of hide those things, but you're gonna want that. And the worst thing is we're done, there's water in the pool. We'll do I need a pool cleaner. Oh yeah, that's that's a thousand dollars. Yeah, well, how do I control this thing? Well, there's an app I can sell you. Well, that's a thousand dollars. That's that's not fair to come on the tail end. So yeah, we try to list everything that these are all the things people like. This is kind of the list. And most of my pools have a pretty standard package because you know, you're not going to spend ninety eight percent and not get the final few things that make this thing a really enjoyable pool. Sure, I love that, and you know, the all the things that go with a pool.

12:37 Slides, for example, that problem for you guys, No, No, we install slides. They have a couple of different pretty standard models. Some have a double twist, some have a single twist. Most popular would be feature walls because a future wall is kind of a duel. You can get a water feature out of it. It gives you a place if you wanted to to put some fireballs on each end of it. And it's also a jumping off platform. Um, so kiddos can get on top of the wall and jump. Kiddos, what about forty eight year old podcast we can look, we can do that. I was going to say on some of our walls if we totally do that, if we have smaller kids, will even build a step on the back of the wall. But you know, I'm right there with you. Yeah, Cannonball, Yeah, there's no doubt about it. But that's what I really like. You know, you mentioned the design aspect and and I want to go into that a little bit because that is a separator for your company. Uh, that's that's something that you don't have to deal with I don't know, maybe an architect and then you and then look Matt at blue Way Pools. They can start the design process and they do that in house. It's not something they're they're farming out to an architect for example, though they'll work with architects. I'm sure if if there's any out there looking for a good pool, guy, uh to build a pool. And Matt's all about it, and people have brought me plans.

13:56 Hey, this is what my architect drew up. Now we're ready to design the pool. I'm doing one right now where it's it's a multifaceted project where it's gonna have a pool, it's gonna have an outdoor kitchen, it's gonna have an outbuilding with a plunge pool and a sauna built into it. So that's something you might would bring to a landscape architect to kind of lay it all out, but it's something I can also do. Especially with that three D modeling. It really helps. Yeah, it does. And he just mentioned it three D modeling, which gives you, I guess, like a three hundred and sixty degree view maybe of that design, not just three sixty, but you're imagine playing a video game where you're inside the world. It's exactly that. So when I show up, we talk a little bit, and I'll measure the house and I'll measure the yard, and then in about five or ten minutes. I can draw the house to scale, I can draw the yard to scale, and then we go inside that world and walk around just like a video game. So we can back out of that three D world. We can draw the pool. We can jump back into three D. You can get in the pool, you can walk around the pool, you can see how the lights you're gonna shine, you can hear the water features. Like it really is like building a three D world of your I'll send in your swimming pool. Gotta love technology. That's awesome. Yeah.

15:03 Um so let me ask let's talk about financing for for a second, because that's a you know what legitimate concern of people is what it will you know? And look, you can't without Matt going to your house and really seeing what you're wanting and the size and the depth and all those sorts of things. Of course, pools going a variety of costs, I'm sure from one end of the spectrum to the other. But all of that being said, he can share meet with you and cover any options as far as as a financing is concerned. You work with partners who do financing. Correct four pools, that's right, you've got some some I guess that you would call standard options, maybe a helock or home equity loan. Most people use a company um that specializes into some in swimming pool financing. One of the most popular as a company called lying in Financial. Yeah there, and it's l y O in l y O and Finance. Another is HFS. They're really popular. And then probably the third not as much but still out there is a company called a light Stream. So, but those three companies are you know, they specialize in swimming pool financing. Call them up, Hey, I'm getting ready to a pool. I'm gonna borrow about this much. They can do a soft pool kind of let you know what your terms and everything would be, and you know, give you some good information. Yeah, and the rates are actually very reasonable, at least in the research I've done on four pools. It's not what you think. It's not like a credit card writor or anything. I think Lion is advertising five point nine over twenty years right now. Yeah, I mean that's cheap. And also why it's

16:40 so important to make sure when you have like additions and things like that, anything that you want to get I don't know if you term it extra, but extra with a pool, you want to put as much of that into that twenty year note as you can. If you're going with a twenty year loan from one of those companies, you don't want to find it out after when your neighbor gets a pull and you're like, wait a minute, I wanted those things that spray out all over the place and what do you call this, by the way, the deck jets. Yeah, And the biggest thing is it's you really don't want to add those after the fact because they're they're part of the construction, part of their in the concrete. So yeah, you can't come Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's why it's so important to get with someone like you. That is just because I wouldn't have known that, and uh, most people don't. If you're not in the pool world, you don't know. And Matt's and Xmart, he's not gonna let you if there's anything you need. I'm sure you're gonna be like, hey, you may want to consider this. It's not gonna add that much and you kind of need it. But you know, I just had that talk with the client. We just wrapped up their pool. We put water in it last week, and like I said, the two main water features that I see people do are are bubblers in the tanning ledge, the little shallow area, and then deck jets along the pool. And you know, she just mad, I don't think I'm gonna like those deck jets. And I said, look, they don't cost that much. Let me put them in there, and when the pool is done, if you hate them, I won't charge you for them. But I hate for you to build this thing. And they're just not that expensive. I built the pool, turned it all on, turned them on. It's her favorite thing on the whole pool. Yea, you know the noise they make, they help keep the

18:11 water cooler. She's like, you know, I appreciate that. You were right, And look, you know everybody loves hearing that, right, Yeah, absolutely absolutely. Now let's talk about gun eight and that is the pool that you specialize in, which is a great thing because that, you know, my limited knowledge of pools, I know the gun eight is leget that is the cream of the crop in a lot of cases. So first let's explain to people that don't even know what gun eye is. All right, So a gunight swimming pool is closest to construction that it's not really a kite I guess if you want to go into the different types of pools, if kind of what's out there, it might be a good idea just for people that don't know. So. So, the three main types of pools that you'll see out there, you'll see the vinyl liner pool. That's when I grew up around. It's sold as a kit they you know, you dig your hole, you put your walls in, there's a rubber liner that goes in there, and that's your pool. Generally gonna find that as the least expensive way to go swimming. Is that the thing the one that you have to replace, that's right. That's right, You're going to change that liner every five to seven years. You generally won't see a lot of the features that would go with a gunneit pool on a vinyl liner pool. It has its place in a market for a reason. Yeah, Like I said, it is the least expensive way to go swimming. Sure, after you get past the vinyl liner pool, your two other options are going to be fiberglass or gunnit. Now, pre COVID fiberglass had a place in the market between vinyl liner and gunite where you could get a fiberglass pool a little cheaper than

19:42 a gunet pool. And you know they come in with a shell. They use the crane kind of pick it up over the house, put in the backyard and that's the pool. Here in South Louisiana. The big problem with fiberglass pools is our groundwater. Fiberglass pools float, so you have to be very careful with the installation and it's you know, most of them go great, some of them don't. Yeah, post COVID fiberglass pricing has had a pretty big increase that gunnite has had some increase, but not nearly as much because gunnite is, like I said, more pure construction. It's concrete and steel and stone there. It's not a kite. So moving on to gunite construction, gunnite. When I come and sit down with you, if we measure your house and you know the bench needs to be in a certain spot, or if you have a disability and need the stairs a certain way, or you're a little taller and you want to pull a little deeper. You know, I built a pool for a gentleman. He does a therapy where he puts a float around his shoulders and he hangs weights off his ankles and it helps him decompress his spine. So spot in the pool it's just a little bit deeper for him to do that. And you can do that.

20:48 You know, again, there's no kit. It's it's exactly what you need. And a gunite pool, you know, the shell you get a lifetime warranty with the way that we do it. You get to pick out the stone that goes around the pool, you get to pick out the tile that goes around the pool. You get to pick out the plaster color which changes the watercolor. Wow. So it's it's it's a very custom, very detailed project. Pretty awesome and and you know the reputation. I did do some research on gunnight pools after we met, and reputation in Stellar on them. I mean that is that is the the kind of the go to pool. Uh, if you will. Now I mentioned questions earlier and I want to ask you some of those. Thank you so much for listeners and viewers who turn those in. We had a huger smart y'all, and uh, some of these we we've kind of answered as we talked. Some of them, Uh, you know, we want to get into So one of them that was really good was how long does the pool construction process typically take. So I bonus my guys if we finished the pool in six weeks or less.

21:52 Yeah, smart. Generally with South wass in the weather, it takes six to eight weeks. You know, occasionally when we have those rainstorms that just move in and you know, I cot think a couple of years ago at rain for a fifty days straight, and yeah, that's just we do it all lazy and all right. But typically I tell people six to eight weeks with a bonus if we can get it done in six weeks, And that's pretty pretty That is so much quicker than I thought before you and I met, because I was thinking that was at least a three month process. Uh So another thing that probably most people that aren't in the business would just the same. That's that's ninety days. I mean, heck, I can't get a plumber to my house within six weeks. And some builders you know, work on different schedules. Um, we build between fifty and sixty pools a year. Yeah, I'm trying not to let projects drag on. We're trying to get in there and get it built. And because it's a constant construction, it's it's a workflow. Yeah, I don't. You know, let's say when we when we're halfway through construction, you know, I don't need to call the concrete guy and get on his schedule. It's where we poured in concrete this week, mister Matt. We're pouring here, We're pouring here, you know, and coping, where are we going next? Where we're going next? So the what helps is the amount of pools that we build.

23:07 It keeps a workflow steady instead of having to jump on somebody's list and Okay, we'll be there in four or five weeks and there's this giant downtime. So yeah, yeah, and it's it's a you know, you've been doing it long enough now, I mean eight years, I must a decade into this stuff. And uh and say you've got like a I must a system that that is you can rely on, right Yeah. And that's something I learned back at at and T and and really earlier than that working with da Is. It's everything's gotta have a flow. You gotta have a worksheet. So you know, he kind of laughs when I when I first got into it, um doing these pools, I set up boards on the wall because that's how he did it, and I spent a couple of years of boards on the walls, so you know, there's a better way to do this. So, uh, we've now transitioned all to sheets. Everything's online.

23:53 All my vendors and subs can see the sheets and see where they're going next. So yeah, you know, just me, learning and efficiency is always important to me. So that's that's a huge in year line of work. I mean, any any construction type business, the quicker year in and out the you know, you can lose a lot of money as a as a construction guy if if you get stuck on a job. So I promise y'all nobody wants to finish it faster than Matt's as far as that goes. Warranties, let's talk about that for a second. So what is the deal with warranties. You've got a couple of different warranties with a pool. The first is the gunight shell and it has to be done to a certain thickness with the reboard done a certain way. But you get a lifetime warranty as the homeowner of the gunnight shell. Wow, the next warranty is going to be your plaster warranty. Now, there's two types of plaster out there.

24:45 One that we don't use. That you'll get a one year warranty and after that you hope for the bestow the plaster that we use, you get a ten year warranty, and the manufacturers suggest a fifteen year life on that product. We put it on a little thicker and we estimate up to a seventeen to twenty year life on that product just because of the thickness that we put it on. Yeah, and and look a huge thing, because I like how you just said. You know, there's there's one type of blaster that we don't even offer because if the warranties not not long, then that that usually is an indication of something. And so you don't want to build this pool and five years later, be okay, it's time to replaster. Like that's you know, enjoy this thing for a couple of decades. That's right, that's right. And and another thing you mentioned in the realm of pools is that you, uh, you have kind of a network of people you deal with. And one of the lesseners actually asked, do you provide like maintenance on pulls? And while you may not do that, personally. You have people that you do refer I do, and I'll give them a shout out. Brennan accord with BA Pools. Brennan So, Brendan is our local Pine warranty tech. So we're talking about warranties, and I had a couple more to put on there. Sure, I use typically all pin tear equipment.

26:02 And the reason is one, their quality is of the highest order, their technology is the best, and their warranty process. Everybody hates. You got a great warranty. Fill out this card and email it and we'll get back to you in a couple of weeks with an answer, or you call it one hundred number and somebody in Massachusetts answers the phone. And now you got to explain your problem. And okay, there's none of that with pin Terre. With a Pintare problem, Let's say I have a light that goes out. My warranty process is I call Brennan Brand. We have a customer at this address. His light's going out. I need you to take care of it. Brennan contacts the customer, he contacts Pintare, He goes out and changes the light very quickly, and that's the end of it emails one hundred numbers or anything. So makes my life so much easier. Brendan's always clutch when it comes to taking care of those things. So definitely aren't a shout out there. Absolutely very good, well, good job and look a huge thing when you have a network of people that you can turn to and situations like that. Let's talk about permits for a second, so anytime you know you talked about it earlier. It used to be kind of the wild West and we could do what we want to. We want to dig a hole in the backyard and no problem. Nowadays everybody's looking over their fens and want to know if you get a permit, So customers from their perspective, this person actually reached out and said, you know who handles that process?

27:19 Do I as the homeowner or do you as the pool builder? So I handle that process, and every municipality has different requirements. They all of course want me to be state license and insured, which we are. Some people are going to want different information on the drawings, some people want additional permits to go through it. But that's my job. Once we sign an agreement, I hand that off to Miss Paula. She gets with either Livingston or East Pattern, Riach Parish, whatever parish we're working in. Yeah, and get some of those permits. Central. We're doing a bunch of those right now in Central, so really very good. Yeah, so we'll get that process done and it just it makes it simple. But what's nice about instead of the homeowner having to do what the builder do it you build a relationship with these with these permitting departments and they know you, and you get to know the inspectors and he gets to know you know the quality of your work.

28:07 So okay, you know, we know Matt, we know what he does. Um. You know, we had one we did in city of down the Springs and you know, great people to deal with there. But I know a lot of those guys. Yeah. So we sent the drawing in and uh, the inspector came back and says, this pool's not gonna fit. I was like, yeah, it's gonna fit. It's it's all drawn perfectly. I know, I know it's gonna fit. No, I don't think it's gonna fit. Well, the drawings from another builder had gotten mixed up with mine, and the lady of the death is like, this doesn't look like your drawings. Like your your drawings are pretty exactly this. This is more the back of the napkin drawing. I was like, okay, we kind of figured out what happened. Very good. But when you start working with these people, you know, you get to know each other and you build a relationship that's right. And and I'm glad you just mentioned Matt, uh, Matt, because uh, one of the questions that I would have, I guess, would be, is there a limitation to the size of a pool? Is there? And obviously you're limited by property, I mean, of course, but is a is there too small of a pool? Or what if somebody just wants like a I don't know, like something they can step in and and you know, I must reach out and touch by sides of it, you know. And that's that's what's great about Gunnight. It's exactly what fits you. Right now, I'm finishing up a pool that's nearly a thousand square feet uh in Clinton and great big pool, great big spot. They've got a big piece of property and that that's what they wanted for for you know, them and their family. I'm finishing up

29:40 another pool in Saint Francisville that's one hundred and eighty square feet. Um, it's it's you know, Papa and Mama wanted to pool. They wanted the grandkids to come get in. The yard was smaller. It's more of a um not a townhouse, but I guess just a smaller yard kind of set up. But and that's you know, so it's it's what fits you and you know, and that's what makes it nice. With that three D is we can see how it's going to feel. We can measure distances between the pool and the house and make sure it works. But you know, there's there's no restriction on size. Wow. Very good. And another advantage obviously to using a you know you as your customization that you can do. You're not someone showing up at their house, for example, meeting with them and saying, Okay, we can do this square pool or we can do this rectangle pool, and uh give them five or six options and it's not about the homeowner. That was something that appealed to me a lot when we first met. Uh. As far as that goes, now, let's talk about some of your community affiliations. So you're a member of the Livings to Paris Chamber of Commerce, very active in there, Uh, saw y'all at the gay Lot and that was a great time. Yeah, no, no, we we uh, we're definitely part of that enjoy um mixing up with all that and appreciating that um. One thing and we kind of talked about it before, is one thing that blew It has allowed me to do is kind of plug back in in in different places. If we've been able to support Launch. They do a wonderful program, uh people that we've got involved with

31:11 them, the breast cancer Awareness I believes in Baton Rouge yea. So it just it, you know, like we we opened up with living here and growing up here, and that's that's one thing's always been important to me, you know, Denham Springs, Livingston Parish, you know, growing up here, eighties, nineties, two thousands, it's it's it's it always felt like home. I've lived in other places. I've spent some time in Tennessee, spend some time in Baton Rouge, and coming home was always important. And the older I've gotten, you know, my kids are in school now. I want to see the schools do well. So I'm kind of you know, just I like staying plugged in and and being part of the community and we love it as well. And one thing that that I you know, a dream for me for this parish one day would be that it's not what people would consider a bedroom community. That they not only live here, but they work here and they play here, and they don't go into other parishes.

32:09 Not that I have anything against other parishes, but uh, you know, you've been here forever and at one time this that was it was a bedroom community. It's where you went to sleep, you spent your money in batton Ridge, you know, and all these things, and we love batton Ridge. But well, at the time, you know, growing up here, I think there were two restaurants on Range Avenue. You know, you had a seafood restaurant and you had like the buffet and you didn't go there, you know, no bass Pro, no, no, uh, you know, I think there maybe was one Mexican restaurant there. Yeah, at the time, yeah, you know, Maria's. Maria's might have been the only one really around there. I think there was another one, yeah, I was thinking of, but you know, none of the you know, you can't go one hundred yards without Okay, there's another great place to eat, that's right, that's right. And that's and it's a beautiful thing.

32:54 And I love it because you always can tell, in my opinion, a business that does good work in business when they do good work in their community. And that's something that y'all do. You place value in it, and it's important, it's important. And one of the reasons that I started this show was I thought it was important for people to see what our small business owners are doing outside of business, because usually how you're handling your business outside of your business is how you're handling your business inside of it. Would you agree with that? I would agree with that definitely. Yeah. And and so let's get back to pools. And now I'm gonna preface us with something else. And y'all might be like, oh, this is appealing. He don't just do pools, So you also do like outdoor spaces, big deal right now? Oh yeah, pretty much. Any you know, once you walk out the back door, anything that you might want out there is something we can handle. Yeah, whether it's outdoor kitchens, pools, We've done.

33:55 You know, pavilions I mentioned earlier, structures that would have the plunge pool and the sauna. Yeah, you know those those things are popular. Yeah, but I would say, you know, outdoor kitchens are are huge. You know, they're they're they're now what the media room was in the two thousands. Everybody's got an outdoor kitchen. Yeah, we've got a great couple places here in town to go get your supplies from. And what's nice about building the kitchen when we do a pool is we can bring a lot of the same materials that we use on the pool. I mentioned some of that stone, some of that tile, and bring use those same materials on the kitchen. So it's it's it's very homogenous. It feels like it's all designed together. Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's really a huge thing. And I'll tell you a quick story. Look, we're South willas Gonna folks here. I got a friend, um and I know she she watches this podcast. Her names Lorie Johnson. So Laurie likes to have uh well, I won't say she likes to have parties, because that sounds funny, like she all she does as part as you should fod ying laughing right now.

34:53 But she lives in a neighborhood where everybody around her in this neighborhood they're all like really tight and look if it's Saturday night, they're probably at Lorie's house. They've got TVs outside, They've got all these things going on. And that really, to me is South Louisiana and those outdoor spaces are a big deal and you can make that happen. And a lot of these houses are in here after the flood. They might have been older houses, say they were built in the late seventies, but hey, they updated them after the flood. You know, everybody got the recess lighting and scraped the ceilings. And you know, I had six feet in my house and I scraped ceilings.

35:37 I have popcorn up there before that, and now my house is updated. I never would have updated it in that sort of speed, you know, any other way, unless it was sports. But the point I'm getting that is back then, outdoor kitchens weren't a thing. Now they are. So all those houses that are updated everywhere except for that outdoor kitchen area, we got someone here that can make that happen. And you what about like screened in patios stuff like that, So that kind of leads. I don't do screened in in house, but once you walk outside, if I don't do it in house, I'm gonna have somebody that's vetted that I would use personally, that I can refer to. Yeah, yeah, a partner.

36:17 It's sort of like a business partner there, you know that you can refer and and make it happen. And so pretty much if you walk outside of your house and you see something and you're like, I wonder if blue Wave pools can do that. If it's outside, they probably can do it. They can't make it happen, or they can get somebody to make it happen, that's right, you know. You know, if if I can't do it myself, I'd love to introduce you to somebody who can. Yeah. What helps me is is you know when you when you just like you with the podcast and the things that you do. You know people that are in this industry, people that I would never know exist, right, you know, I wouldn't know what kind of microphone to go by, or I wouldn't know what kind of software to go by, but you do. So I'm gonna call you. Hey, you know, I need a microphone. I'm gonna be doing some things. What kind of microphone should I buy? Oh?

37:01 Yeah, And I'd talk to you for fifteen minutes and you know more about micro friends you ever cared to know, that's right, I'd be like geeking out with you. I'd be like, oh, this is what you want, that's right. So you called me into it, you know, Hey, I want to screen in my pattio. I was like, well, you know, I don't do screens, but when I've done screens on projects with clients, I've used these guys. They did a phenomenal job. We're very fair on their pricing, and I would use them personally. Yeah, that's that. That carries a lot of weight with me. Huge. Yeah. And if you're willing to kind of like gout to bat for those people, guaranteed they're vetted and guaranteed that you know, as as a customer, you can trust that. Well yeah, And and trust is a big deal. The thing I hear from people the most people are so scared of getting taken advantage of because they're getting outside their comfort zone. You know, even when we're talking pools. You know, I love when people get you know, two or three quotes and let me come in and let me explain what I do different. But people do that because they're so afraid of those horror stories that they hear yes, And if you just open in the book and saying, well, here's a number, you don't know you know there you know, there's stories all the time in the paper where the guy who came across very well, sounded very professional, rodium a check never saw him again. And and so to be able to call somebody and be like, hey, you know who do you trust him? That's that's important. It's very important, man, it's very important that that. Uh, you know, it's if you're in Livingston Parish, you want to deal with people in Livingston Parish and and uh and primarily because if they're look, things happen every now and then then and uh, if they're something does happen, you know

38:36 there's somebody right there local that you can talk to about it. You don't have to you don't have to go track somebody down, and you know, make living new whorls or living in another area, that's right, or you just never see again anyway, or you never see again any And then happened a lot after the floods. Sadly, Uh, that was a really ugly experience. And you're right, it probably made people a little gun shy. And it's it's unfamiliar your territory. It's it's uh, it's like me with electricity, which is I'm not great with electricity, Matt, not great with shouting myself a few times in my life. But I'll tell you it's it's unfamiliar, and so that makes it even a little more nervous because your guard's up, you know. That's That's one reason why again this show for me is so important, is that it opens people's eyes to who you are as a person. I think that's important, especially when you're dealing with something like pools that unless you're in a business, you probably don't know a whole lot about. No. I agree with that because you know, when when somebody hires me, they're not they're not just buying a product, because it's not like you're going to the store and I like that product, sell me that product. You know, it's a relationship. We're gonna we're gonna do this together for the next six to eight weeks. You're gonna have questions. I constantly feel questions. You know. Last night the kids were in bed.

39:55 I get a text from a client, Hey, I'm having some problems with my app. Yeah, you know, okay, call her up, what's going on? And funny story. So this pool that we do, you can use your phone to operate it, and you can either do it from the house or you can remote into it. So one of the coolest things I tell people. It's like, hey, you guys. You know, if you go out to dinner and you want to get in the spa when you get home, open your phone up, hit the button. It'll be hot when you get home. You can remote into it. Oh, I mean that it's it's not a lot, it's nice. Well, she's home and it's just not working. I was like, well, so she called me up and we trouble shot for a few minutes, and I realized I built her pool at her new house and she still had the code on the pool at the old house. So she's hitting buttons and nothing's happening. Meanwhile, her owners of her previous house are watching things change. Okay, so we need you to unplug from that app and we're gonna get you into this.

40:45 Yeah, they're thinking they got a ghost or something that somebody's turning on the pool's right, But no questions like that, you know. I tell another story. I built a pool for a guy and super nice guy has his children are all in high school and they had a homecoming party there. He calls me in a panic on a Saturday night, nine pm. Matt, nothing's working with the pool. I can't operate anything. The girls are all over here. I can't heat the spot. What is going on? So I get him on FaceTime and I see what's happened, and the panel has gotten put in a service mode, which is what you would do maybe when you're working on the pool. So maybe the pool guy came earlier and hit a button and didn't undo it. Yea, so it was a quick hey, hit that button everything and be fine. So he hit that button, everything came to life and the party went on. So yeah, we kind of rambled a little bit. But what I was talking about was relationship.

41:31 You know, you don't You're not buying a product, your your your forming relationship that's gonna be long lasting. I'll try and a good point. And look, with relationships, referrals are probably huge in your in your specific business of pool building. When enormous when somebody has a great experience, UM and they tell their friend who says, I think I'm gonna get a pool. You need you need to call Matt, you need call And that happened so many times. You know, we talked about somebody calling me and he referring somebody out there. There's no better referral than they see that blue wave sign go up in the neighbor's Yard's almost invariably you're gonna see towards the end of the project, the neighbor's gonna come over. So how was it, Yeah, like peeking over as they walk down the streets and yeah, you know what they're doing. They're checking it out and and uh, yeah, those things are huge and uh and you're right, there's no better compliment than someone saying, hey, my pool guy did a great job. And I say, pool guy. I don't want to call you pool guy, your pool builder guy. And I've talked thought about putting that on the license plate on the Trudge's pool guys. Yeah, that'd be perfect, it'd be perfect.

42:42 Uh. So let's talk about one thing that I learned today in our little pre meeting was about flush bas. So I had a I had someone reach out and they asked if you did flush bas And I'm like, what is flush bos tell us what that is? So a flush spa is where the water elevation of the spa is almost exactly the same as the pool, so when you look at it, everything's at the same level. Right. This has a couple of cool things about it. If the water effect is really nice. When when you first look at the pool, it's it looks like all one body of water. Your friends always ask, well, do you have to heat the entire pool to heat the spa, And the answer is no. The way the system is designed, you can isolate the two bodies of water, but the appearance is that it's all one piece. What's nice about that is if you don't have a flush spot, if you have a raised spa, it's difficult to put all really, I think nothing to say difficult. You shouldn't put the spa between the house and the pool if you have children, because it creates a blind spot in the pool. And if you know, if your mom and dad want to hang out on the back porch, you don't want to have a big chunk of the pool you just can't see. Right. So those spis you might would move to other areas. You still get a nice waterfall out of them, but you know you don't put them now a flush spot. Not only they look really cool, is you don't you have nothing block in your view of the pool, so you can sit on the back porch, hang out, watch the kids in the entire pool and not have anything black blocking your view. Yeah.

44:04 I need that too. I know. I want to flush spy as well. That sounds awesome and I've I've actually, now that we talked about it, I have been in flush spies, I guess, and several hotels that have stayed in so I always liked them and I thought was cool. It's like, you know, hot here and then you go like four feet that way. And what's nice about it, and this is this is feedback from clients, is they love sitting in the spa and you know, you're in there, you're hot, you've been in there a little bit, get a little cold water and just kind of splash it in from the pool and cool yourself off, and then you know, marriedate a little more in the spot. Yeah. Yeah, all those things are good and uh and so you can get that as well. And we just brought up spas. So if you were wondering do they do spies, Absolutely you do. And they go with pools now, you know, like peas and carrots and the forest Gump would say. And the cool thing about it is the way the system is set up, the way we do it, and the heater that we used.

44:58 If you do a spa, the same heater can also heat the pool. So I really oh yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah, we're coming up on Mother's Day. Everybody always wants to hear, you know, bull crawfish swimming the pool and the water is always still ice cold. Yeah, So with if you have a spa, you can use your heater or heat your pool up. You know, Red Cross says eighty five degrees is perfect swim temperature. So you heat that pool up. Everybody's swimming, having a good time, um doing the thing. But I tell you what's funny is, you know, the weather here's so crazy. This past New Year's Eve. Everybody heat up their pools and swam because there's seventy five degrees and that's something you know, yeah, no doubt about. And then probably four days later it was thirty Yeah that's right, you know, and they're in they're in the spa at that point, so very good. Uh, here's something everybody might find interesting. And I know, I know this is a question from a lot of people, and that is, well, how much you know there is an investment there, there's no doubt about it. But how much does that increase maybe the value your home? And I did some research and actually you put a pool in there, just you know. And of course again this varies based off of the type of pool you have and the size and all these sorts of things. But it's about a ten percent increase on average per per pool. I guess per house said that it will actually raise the value, right, And I would say, and clarify, ten percent of the home, not tenpercent of the pool. Correct. Yeah.

46:21 I've done jobs where you know, we had a guy he moved in from out of town. He bought a house, bought a beautiful home, called me to build a pool, and finished the pool. He lived there for a year and work called him away. Well, when he sold his home, he got every dollar he spent back on the pool. And you know, people said, wow, I was during this. I no, no, here's two weeks ago. I built a pool for a guy and about a year later, some family property became available, so he wanted to sell his home, moved to the family property and build his forever home out there. So he sold his house. First offer came in well over asking price because he's the guy in the neighborhood that has the nice gun night pool. So they they they definitely do add value. And I would say that's a difference between gunnight and other types of pools. Usually if you go up to somebody who's built a vinyl liner pool, you're gonna you know, I just see maintenance. Yeah, you know when I think of those, that's right, it's gonna be time to change the liner soon. Um. That's that's kind of where you made your decision of you know, don't want to go swimming or d all want to make something that's gonna look fantastic and be you know, just just that top shelf product out in the backyard. Yeah.

47:29 And it may even you know, if you're if you're selling your home and you have like a gunnight pool, that may be the difference. Some people seek that out so they're like, yeah, we got to have a pull and it's got to be gunight, and so you're already a head of the game. It may even say your house past or well, the reason that one it was great because the guy had three kids and his particular yard. We were working in a tight space and didn't really have enough room. Tenning ledges are super popular, that's that's kind of the shallow area where you know, you put the layout chairs and things like that. This particular location just did not have enough room to take up that much space of the pool. So what we did was he built a three foot bench the entire length of the pool and the kids. So the guy buying the house sees, is this is perfect for my kids. So it's just you know, you can't buy that with a kid. That's right, That's right. I agree one hundred percent. And and we one more question for you on that front.

48:21 As far as questions from listeners, someone asked, you know, and again this I already know the answer to this, but followage around pools. You know, some people want I don't know, what are those trees from Hawaii or whatever, the coconut trees or palm trees or whatever, the coconut trees. Somebody they want freaking trees, So tell us about that. So so the software that I use, they make a couple different versions of it, yea, And of course the version that I use is more geared towards building swimming pools and houses and things like that. I work with some great landscapers. I can actually if somebody wants to do all the big landscaping around the pool, we can lay out the areas. But again not my core expertise. So what I would do is connect them with those people. I could send them the design, they could open the design and their software, and then it's more landscaping base so they can get just as detailed as I am on the pool side, on the landscaping side. And I posted some things on my Facebook page where we had the complete three D rendering with all the landscape you know, computer modeling, and then hear the pictures of what we built, and it's it's nice to be able to walk around it before you ever dig the hole and see this what's going to look like. Yeah, and look y'all. If you're lessening right now on like Spotify or Apple podcast or wherever you listen, this is going to be kind of like a visual episode, So I want you to, you know, even if you lessen, definitely go to YouTube and check out the video version, because we're gonna be popping up pictures as we talk of everything we discussed, so that way you can kind of see that and get get a good visualization of you

49:54 know, pulls and flush spas and all those things that we're talking about on the show. Let me ask you how big a deal has social media been for you? Been a good? Oh, it's a normal avenue. You know everybody, just like you mentioned, everybody wants to see pictures. Um. You know, Facebook is really good. If you look at swimming pools, you're gonna start seeing lots of swimm pools on your Facebook feed. Yeah. Um, so people are sharing the problem that we're building on. Yeah, they're sharing the projects we're building that they can kind of see some pictures, get some ideas. But you know, a social media um, not something that I think I personally, I guess the best way to say is just gravitate to like, you know, some people and and everybody's got their own way of doing things, and I guess personally I am a little more private. But business wise, love putting pools out there, love talking to clients, uh, and just kind of showing everybody what we do. Yeah, very good and a huge outlet for you. Look what you do as visual right and when people see it and they fall in love with it.

50:54 They act on it and say that's a very good thing. Uh, service area. If you drop to pen on Denham Springs and drew a circle of about an hour, yeah, that's gonna be us. So we've gone. Of course, Clinton Pride. We're working in Largo right now. New Roads geis er pauncha tool of Springfield. Of course, don Springs. Yeah, our core area Dinham Springs Central, uh Ascension Parish. But we drop a pen draw you know, we'll drive for an hour and come build you very good, very good. And uh look website blue Wave Pools. It's blue wave Pools dot net. It's blue Wave Pools la dot la dot nem okay, and we're gonna tag that y'all in the description of this video. Just if you're driving in or listen or whatever and you don't have a pen to write it down, just go down the description. We're gonna have not only your website, but your Facebook. We're gonna have that in there. So you definitely want to go give him a like on Facebook. And uh, you know, we've been going to an hour and it's been fun, awesome, awesome talking about pools. Anything else you can think of or nothing.

52:00 I think we've covered it all man. Now we're just needing people to come come give your ring and look, let's cover that. How do they get in touch? So the best way to contact me is there my cell phone two two five, three, two four nine six one five love text a lot of times what I do because you know one thing, if you call me and we set up a time, I'm not going to send a salesman to you. I'm gonna come see you. I'm gonna sit down with you and I'm going to design your pool with you. While I'm doing that. You know that's that's generally about an hour, hour and a half meeting. Is I hate you know, I don't want to be that guy that's constantly answering my phone. I'm trying to spend time with you. So if you call me and I don't answer you a lot of times, it's because I'm in a meeting with somebody drawing a pool. Shoot me a text, leave me a voicemail. As soon as I get out, I return all my calls. But you know, it's very important to me to be the guy that's in there with the client and designing and talking about what's going to make their pool. Part of that process means I don't you know, I'm not paying a secretary to answer the calls. When you call you get me, yeah, you know, give me a moment, I'll call you right back and I'll come and see you very good. So please do that. And we appreciate y'all watching and lestening. Look fourteen thousand of most viewers on YouTube alone on a weekly basis, and more and more and more on the audio platforms. We couldn't do any of this without all of y'all. It's very, very important that we spotlight our private family and businesses in our communities.

53:24 And we just appreciate the heck out of y'all for listening and all that. Matt, thank you for coming on the show. You run a great business man. We're proud to have you on, proud to feature you. And if you are in the market for an ingram pool, or you want to improve your outdoor space, whatever, give them out a call. We're gonna link everything you need in the description of the audio and video of this podcast. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman reminding you love your community, support local business, and keep lead eating thanks for coming on Man, appreciate you.