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Meet Tim Murphy of Presidential Pools, Spas & Patio in Gilbert

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Murphy.

Tim, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’m a lucky guy. It’s crazy to reflect on how each step led to the next.

When I was 14, I started cleaning the waterline tile on a handful of neighborhood pools to earn money. Pretty soon, I had so many pools to clean that I needed to hire high school friends to help.

Through cleaning pools, I realized that people wanted weekly maintenance on their pools, so I started doing that.

Through maintenance, I learned how to repair pools, and I started doing that in my early 20s.

Through repairing pools I learned all sorts of mistakes that pool builders make and where things can go wrong when building a pool. This turned out to be a really valuable education a few years later when I started building pools.

When I was 27, I got a lucky break. A friend of mine bought a home at an early age and asked me to help him build a pool. I jumped on the opportunity and had an absolute blast building it.

After that, I knew I wanted to focus on building pools. A few people I knew socially hired me after they learned I had entered the pool construction business. Then I started running small ads in the papers.

I was building pools by day and designing and selling them at night. It was a wild time!

I still remember the numbers for the early years. 5 pools in the first year, 27 in the second, 51 in the third, 101 in the fourth, and we just kept growing. Our peak year was in 2006 when we built over 2000 pools in Arizona.

Fast forward to today, and our awesome team of over 100 people build over 1000 pools per year with offices in Gilbert, Surprise and Tucson.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I don’t know if business is ever smooth! Taking care of customers and employees can be difficult, especially in times of change.

We’ve had to constantly change our business. Even when times were great we had to innovate in order to keep going. In the peak building years we couldn’t find enough sub-contractors so we created companies to do the work internally. This meant hiring a ton of people, buying equipment, etc.

Then 2008 hit, which was a huge struggle for just about everybody in the Phoenix Valley and Tucson metro areas. We had to downsize and adjust our business model. The market became really competitive, requiring us to continue innovating. Between 2009 and 2011, we started two companies to help improve.

We started Pebble Radiance, which offers beautiful interior finishes, to meet consumer design preferences and demands. We also founded Blue Square Manufacturing to offer better quality, more energy-efficient pool hardware, including drains, in-floor cleaning systems and pool lights. The struggles led us to valuable opportunities!

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Presidential Pools, Spas & Patio – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
It’s all right there in the name: “Presidential Pools, Spas & Patio”. We specialize in designing and creating incredible custom pools, spas, and outdoor environments for Arizona families. We’re known for quality design, engineering, craftsmanship, and customer service.

Our success stems from always placing a huge focus on customer satisfaction. My parents were in the insurance business, and I learned from an early age the importance of ensuring each client is happy. A lot of people say this, but our customers will back me up–we actually do it! Over decades, this follow-through has created a strong brand that people trust to transform their backyards.

I’m incredibly proud of the thousands of lives our pools have changed over the years. In Arizona, pools are a big deal, so I’m honored that Presidential Pools has been trusted by so many people over the years.

I’m also proud of Blue Square and the patents and products we have there that can help pool owners as well as pool builders. I really enjoy being a manufacturer and getting to meet and learn from other pool builders.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We’re investing in the future in several ways. At Presidential Pools, we’re currently remodeling our 18,000 square foot demonstrative pool park in Gilbert to showcase the latest technological innovations and design trends that Arizona homeowners are seeking. Our customers repeatedly tell us that seeing different features in real life before you decide whether to include them in your family’s plan makes a world of difference. The remodeling will be finished by mid-January 2018 and ready everyone shopping before the heat sets in.

We’re also going to start installing cameras for every pool we build so that customers can track what’s going on in their backyard even if they’re away. If you’re out of the house, you’ll get a notification if the camera detects movement. You can log in from your phone and see exactly what is going on in your backyard in real time. We’ve been doing some early tests and people absolutely love it! We’re excited to roll this out to all of our jobs in early 2018.

We’re always looking for ways technology can improve what we provide to our customers, both in terms of the design experience and the actual pool build. We incorporated virtual reality (VR) capabilities last year so that families can interact with their custom design, modeled in their real backyard, before signing a contract. You can look around at details, see what it would look like during the day and at night, and generally get a sense of how everything would work together. It’s incredible. We also continue to challenge our suppliers and partners to make pool ownership easier. This has translated into pool and spa control panels that can be controlled remotely from a phone or iPad, more filtering options (i.e. ozone, salt), and more unique backyard features (i.e. in-ground trampolines, water features, outdoor kitchens).

Based on the quality of our products, Blue Square Manufacturing has experienced incredible growth over the last few years, and now works with dozens of pool builders and pool service companies around the country. This means that they will likely need more space in the near future. I call that a good problem. They continue to innovate on products as well. They have a new retrofit in-floor cleaning system called the R360 that will improve the performance of some of the poorer performers from other companies that are already installed in some backyards. And in 2018, they will be introducing a pool light in Florida that specifically works to save sea turtles from confusing a swimming pool with the ocean. The day-to-day team moves so fast that there’s probably 5 other projects I haven’t heard about yet…

After almost 30 years in the pool construction business, one thing I know for certain is that you can never stop moving. We are always looking for ways to improve the experience and the finished backyards of our customers. Owning a pool should equate to fun for families. Our job is to make sure that more true every day!

What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
I’m proud of the whole thing! Going from being a one-man show to having thirty sales people and building more than a thousand pools a year has been incredible. There have been a lot of proud moments along the way.

One that stands out is when I realized that Presidential Pools had taken on a life of its own. I used to think I had to do everything myself. Learning to trust other people enough to seriously delegate was huge for me. It’s what allowed the company to take on a life of its own, which has been incredible to see and support.

I’m fortunate to love my life. I have a wonderful family, with two children I’m very proud of. And I actually enjoy my work, which I know not everyone can say. I’m the guy that wakes up and goes to bed at night thinking about pools – I’m the Pool Guy.

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