PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Stacey
This is the Good Neighborhood podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here’s your host, Stacey Poehler.
Stacey
Hey, everybody. We are talking to Reaves Newsom of RCS Pool & Spa today. Welcome, Reaves.
Reaves
Hey, how are you?
Stacey
Good, good. Why don’t you first tell us where the name RCS comes from?
Reaves
Well, we’re a family-owned business. We started in 2009. And RCS actually comes from our name, Reaves, Carmen, which is my wife, and Sons. We have three sons. Only one of them is in the business right now.
Stacey
Okay, well, cool. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about RCS?
Reaves
We service areas of Atlanta that are from downtown Atlanta, north, basically from I-85 all the way over to Dallas, Georgia, area on the west side of town. We build about 70 in-ground pools a year, and we’re busy, especially right now. It’s May.
Stacey
A lot of people are looking to get those pools in before the summer, huh?
Reaves
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Stacey
Why don’t you tell us about your journey? Have you always been in the pool building business? Were you doing something before this?
Reaves
I’ve been in the business for a little over 35 years. I did go to college, but I didn’t go to college for building pools, right? I went to college, and I got a job right out of college. It just wasn’t what I wanted to do. And so I was in the pool business during the summers in college and things, so I went back to the pool business. Started in commercial pool management like lifeguards and homeowners associations and all those things. And I began building residential pools a little over 25 years ago in both Georgia and then Florida. And before settling back here to Georgia in 2002. When the recession happened in ’08, ’09, that big corporate company I was working for for over 11 years had to lay off many of us because not very many people are building pools during that time, right? Just trying to decide what I wanted to do because I was unemployed, I had someone give my name to a homeowner that had recently let his pool builder go at the time. And he hired me to finish his pool, And I used the funds from that to start the business.
Reaves
And my wife and I discussed it, and we put a plan together. RCS Pool and Spa was born at that time. We increased our revenue and pool builds every year since. So 2009 till now, 2024. It’s been a great, great ride.
Stacey
Awesome. Are there any myths or misconceptions that are out there about pool or spa building or just the industry in general?
Reaves
Well, let me start with a truth rather than a misconception or anything like that. It’s very easy, and this goes for most any industry, it’s very easy to hire someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing. But it’s very easy to find out if that person is for real. So it’s important to do your due diligence, and it’s very, very easy. Obviously, referrals are one thing, but Google is a huge resource. All you have to do is Google the name, and there are reviews online. There’s positive, negative, everything. And you make your determination based on that. Because something that is too good to be true, that sounds too good to be true, often is. I can’t stress enough how important doing just a little bit of research is in order for such a huge commitment financially for you and your family. And building a pool is not a commodity. So not every pool builder, not every home builder, not every landscaper is going to be the same result in the end. It takes time to do it right. It costs what it costs. And as long as you’re clear about your expectations. But I want to also make sure that everybody’s careful with their demands.
Reaves
You have to finish by this date, or you have to do this, and it rains for three and a half weeks. There are demands that you can make, but there are also demands that if you force it, people will and they’ll cut corners and things like that. So I just want them to be careful. Working with a company with a proven track record, there are very few barriers to getting into the pool business. There are very few barriers to getting into the landscape business. But pool business has codes, it has requirements. And if you’re not versed in those, the inspections are not going to cover all of those. So I guess the bottom line is just make sure you do your due diligence, and you’ll find a good contractor to build your pool.
Stacey
I mean, you guys have great reviews, and you’ve obviously been doing this a very long time. What are some of those differentiators that you bring to the table that have helped you to be successful?
Reaves
Well, I wish my customers knew how much they mean to me and my family, just because this is a family business, so this is not a big corporate business. I don’t have anybody to answer to except to them. So when I walk into a backyard, or one of my salespeople walks into a backyard, my reputation is on the line on a daily basis. And because we haven’t been in business for two years, we’ve been in business for almost 15 years, right? And in one form or another. We just started, and now we’re in 2024. There’s a lot going on. And it’s important that I let them know how much they mean to me, and how much each job means to me. We’re not perfect. We’re never going to be perfect. But I want the chance to make things right. If there’s something, miscommunication, schedule issues or whatever, we want, by the end of the project, we want you to be wowed. We want you to be happy. And so with that, that’s one of the main things that I wish that I could convey to every single customer, and everybody takes it a different way, right?
Reaves
But I wish I could convey to every customer how much they mean to us.
Stacey
That’s awesome. I know that you’re in business with some members of your family, but what do you guys like to do for fun when you’re not working?
Reaves
All of us, we love the outdoors, vacations, being with family, etc. We have a place in the North Georgia Mountains that we go to all the time. And personally, I love to fish, play tennis, play golf. So we’re all pretty much an active family, and it’s great. Our boys are all in their 20s. So my wife and I know that we only have so much time with them left together, right? None of them are hitched. And so we’ve got them to ourselves right now, but that will not last forever. So we try to do as much as we can with them, going on trips, vacations. So that’s very, very important to us.
Stacey
That’s great. I’m sure there have been some obstacles and stumbling blocks along the way since you got the business off the ground in 2009. Can you share with us some of the challenges that you faced and how you guys have worked through them and overcome them?
Reaves
It’s hard to narrow down because all of us have those types of things in our lives. And I can pretty much tell you the biggest challenges over the last 15 years have been too. Number one was even before the company started I was laid off. And then, four months later, my wife was laid off. We were both unemployed. My wife and I were both unemployed. We had three kids, a house payment. Luckily, we were essentially debt free. A few years before that, we made it our passion to say, Okay, we don’t want to have a ton of debt. Except for the house, everything was paid off. That experience taught us a lot about ourselves and our marriage, right? Because that was a big, huge challenge. And we didn’t have a whole lot back then. We just wanted to start doing what we’re doing. And at that time, I had, I don’t know what, 10 to 15 years experience in the industry. So I said, All right, I’m going to try it. And I did, and I’m so glad that I did. The second one would be COVID. What I thought was going to happen was completely opposite.
Reaves
The phone stopped ringing. Everybody started powering down in February, right? In March, the phone stopped ringing. We were still busy because we had a backlog of people already purchase pools, and we were building, et cetera, and so forth. But for one month, we didn’t know what was going on. My salespeople weren’t meeting with people, obviously. But by the middle of May, we were six weeks out just to see somebody about building a pool. And that right there were two of the biggest obstacles we were able to overcome in our marriage and in our business life, and it worked out really, really well.
Stacey
Amazing. Can you tell us about maybe some other things about your business that you haven’t had a chance to share that you want our listeners to know?
Reaves
Well, we have so much information to give to our customers before we even set foot in our backyard. And I want to make sure every customer has the information they need to make the right decisions for them. And not every company does this. I think most companies don’t do that until you walk in, okay, this is what was sold to you. So here it is, and we’re going to start building. Well, we do a little bit more due diligence and making sure. And sometimes it overwhelms the customer, and we don’t want to do that either. So we believe we found a happy medium but I think the way we are doing things gives us our customer backing, gives us our reviews, gives us the glowing, Oh, we love our pool. Hey, come out. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been invited to the first pool party, of course. I mean, it’s a lot of fun. We can’t make them all, but we really enjoy giving our customers the education that they need in order for them not to say, I wish I did this instead of this. So that’s why I don’t want any regrets once you’re finally finished and done.
Stacey
That’s a great approach. Who is the mastermind behind designing the pools? Is that you, or Carmen, or?
Reaves
Well, our structure is, when I first started, I was doing all the sales, all the designing, all of that. And that was the first couple of years, right? We built, I don’t know, about 15 to 20 pools in the first year, and it just went up from there. I hired on a friend of mine that used to work for me at that larger company, and he came to work for me, and he was with me for nine years. And it was great. He has since moved on. I’ve got two other people that do the design. So the salespeople meet with the customers, do the design work on the front-end, sign the contract and the agreements with the customers, help them. And we do it in 3D, so everything is conceptual, but it’s more understandable than just a 2D flat drawing, right? And so it looks like, okay, this is really nice. This is what I was after. Once that’s done, we sign an agreement. We have to go through permitting. And then that’s when people like me and my project and the managers take over. The salesperson goes and sells another pool, and we take over and actually build the pool.
Reaves
Well, first we destroy the backyard, and then we build the pool, right? We have our machines and our excavators and all that stuff. We trench, we dig. But by the time it’s all finished, it’s beautiful. And we have our partners that we have worked with for several years with landscaping and fencing. And we give our customers those contacts. And they have worked for us for so long. They know what to expect. They know how to get the job done. And most of our guys that do work for us, they don’t take a week and a half or two weeks. They come in with large crews, and they come in for a few days, and they’re done. They’re out. They’re gone. And so when they’re all done, we finish the interior of the pool, fill it up, teach our customers how to operate things on their phones, hand them the keys, and say, Go jump in. That’s awesome. Yeah.
Stacey
Any trend you’re seeing in pool design? I seem to think that people were into these free form and pools with blocks and all that stuff, and now maybe moving more towards clean lines and old-school rectangles. Is that true? Is that what you’re seeing on your end?
Stacey
You are exactly right. I would say it’s probably 70/30, 70% right now, clean lines. I say geometric, I say modern, clean lines. All those things are right. You see a lot of these new houses, they’re all white, black, gray. Those are the dominant colors right now. When I first started, it was brick edging, and it was the terracottas, the reds, the things that you probably would cringe at right now. Then it went to natural stone, and we still do natural stone, but not as much by any stretch. It’s the grays, the whites, the blacks, all those types of things that are predominant. That’s not all we do, but they’re predominant in what people are expecting in the morning right now. So, yeah, you hit the nail on the head.
Stacey
Cost-wise, is there a savings in doing so?
Reaves
No. Our pools are priced out by the square footage. So I don’t care if it’s a circle, a rectangle, a trapezoid. It’s by square footage and perimeter footage of the pool itself. And then the deck is placed out, and it’s by square footage. The decking meaning pavors or pool deck, whatever. And so, yeah, no, the pricing, the costs get increased based on walls, elevation differences. So if you have multiple elevations, you’re going to have to have walls and steps and different things like that. So that’s where you can get into some really beautiful work. I have colleagues, and not, well, friends in the business, we’re competitors, but we’re friends, that just do some beautiful work with different elevations. And there’s people out there that will spend a magnanimous amount of money in the backyard because number one, because of COVID, and that’s when things started exploding, because the breadwinner was home. And the breadwinner was talking to the family, and is like, if this is what you have to deal with every day, we want to do this and this. And that’s what happened.
Reaves
Everybody’s doing that. And that trend has continued.
Stacey
Well, for sure. I know you have lots of beautiful pools on your website that people can go check out. Can you share your contact information with us?
Reaves
Sure. You can call or text, 770-820-1597. You can also, and you’ll probably get a faster response, if you just go to rcspoolspa.com and click on the Contact Us page and fill out the information there. It goes right to us. It gets right into our contact information, and it gets assigned a designer. They’ll contact you for an appointment, and we’ll come out for an appointment and figure out what you want to do and see the backyard. And one thing I want to make sure of is everybody understands that we have to have a survey of your property in order to understand what is involved, because I can do all the things beautiful and design everything, but if your survey says that I can’t make a pool this big or in this spot or this, it’s just a waste of time. So it’s important to have a survey of your property, and the survey is where are your property lines, where’s your house sitting, all those types of things.
Stacey
Got it. All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Reaves.
Reaves
You bet. Thanks for having us.
