Episode 143: Shasta Pools - Astonishing Customers for 55 Years with Skip and Jeff Ast
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Episode Summary
In this episode, we had the opportunity to interview Skip Ast and Jeff Ast of Shasta Pools. Shasta’s commitment to excellence began in 1966 when Bob Ast founded Shasta and was soon joined by his brother Skip. Today Shasta is Arizona’s most experienced pool builder and the valley’s only Master Pools Guild member, delivering innovative outdoor environments that are built to last with Skip, his son Jeff, and grandson Skip III carrying on the family tradition.
Shasta has completed over 87,000 pool builds, 36,000 pool remodeling projects, and there are currently more than 20 Shasta Customer Care vehicles on the road servicing a 100,000 plus customer base. They also established A&A Manufacturing and Xcel Surfaces out of necessity which is discussed in the episode.
Listen in as Skip and Jeff tell the history of Shasta Pools and how they rode waves of innovation in the pool industry over the last five decades. They also share how they manage to keep their entire team feeling like they are part of a small and intimate family business despite Shasta being the number one pool builder in Phoenix today. Finally, they share how the company navigated both the 2008 Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic and their biggest lessons learned in the face of economic uncertainty.
Topics Discussed
01:10 - The story behind Shasta Pools
05:40 - How Skip discovered shotcrete
09:01 - Running in-house crews in the early days to ensure a quality product
10:13 - How Shasta became a volume builder
13:08 - Starting A&A Manufacturing
15:01 - Starting Xcel Surfaces
16:13 - Andy Blake’s influence on Shasta Pools
20:57 - Using Key Result Areas (KRA’s) to keep the team motivated through innovation
23:30 - Stay “small” and humble despite growing into a large company
27:24 - Selling A&A Manufacturing
30:04 - How Shasta navigated the Global Financial Crisis and the biggest lessons learned
34:12 - Jeff’s promotion to President in 2018
37:28 - Jeff on work-life balance
41:09 - Where Shasta Pools is today and the Asts’ thoughts on 2020 and COVID-19
45:29 - How many pools Shasta has built and remodeled through the years
Sponsors
Key Quotes From Episode
You had to get out of your comfort zone. You had to get into a zone where it was very challenging for you. You could never let your guard down. You had to put your nose to the grindstone and keep going; otherwise, you’d fall behind and be stagnant one day. There are a lot of pool builders going out of business because when things did slow down, there was no business for them; whereas we were still getting quite a few referrals, and that’s what kept us going. ~Skip
We did our best in defining those Key Result Areas. What did we really want to see as an end result of doing this or doing that? We don’t want to be going out as an exercise in futility. We want every move to count toward our end results that are profitable for everybody. ~Skip
We knew that the company was huge and growing. So, how do you stay on the edge of growing a very large company, but keeping it small, mentally? Shasta is still a small family business. That’s super key: People feel valued when they feel close to family. ~Jeff
Humility is a major power. ~Jeff
So it's very critical. We're in a whole different era right now where people are actually starting to realize that the value of a swimming pool, what difference it can make in your life. And it's just not it's just not a thing to get wet anymore. It's just not anything to cool off. It is actually an environment. It's an environment to build stronger families to just really it's a lifestyle now. It's become a lifestyle, not just getting wet and cool off. ~Jeff
