Have you ever heard the saying: “When you stop being better you stop being good”? I believe that is true and I am constantly doing things to improve myself and my life — both business and personal. If you stop learning you stagnate, you aren’t an interesting conversationalist and you don’t grow. Personal growth and business growth should be lifelong pursuits.

What can you to do keep improving? Here are my thoughts:

• Keep in touch with your industry through…

Both white pool plaster coupons below have been in water for one year. Sometimes the water was slightly aggressive (negative LSI), and sometimes the water was slightly scale forming (positive LSI).

The top coupon was formed with only one percent calcium chloride (CC) added to the mix, and was properly troweled.  It remained a “uniform white” the entire time. 

The bottom coupon had 3% calcium chloride (CC) added, was late hard troweled, and also received some wet (water)…

One would think that when mixing white cement with white limestone aggregate, the final pool plaster product would always be white. But that is not always the case.

Unfortunately, white pool plaster sometimes turns gray (or grey) either immediately or a few months after the pool is filled with water. So what causes that to happen?

The concrete/cement industry has documented that late hard troweling can cause a cement surface to darken, mottle, and spot. Also, adding a high…

If only you could be an overnight sensation, right? Even those “overnight sensations” that we read and hear about on Facebook and Twitter, likely were not so immediately overnight; They might seem like overnight sensations to us, the reading public, simply because we never heard of them before. By the time they burst on the scene it’s like “pow” one minute they weren’t there and the next they were.

In the real business world though, it’s slow and steady that will help you win…

Attitude is everything — at the holidays and year round. Consider the phrase,  ”A person is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.” If you think about it, it’s true. If you’re unhappy, your negativity will follow you and impact those around you. If you project a positive attitude that will surround those around you and feed on itself.…

The end of the year is typically a time when business owners step back and slow down. I think it’s the best time of year to spend time planning for the new year ahead. Many individuals and entrepreneurs look at January 1 of any year as that magical time to put resolutions into place. If you wait until then and if your plans take time to bring to fruition, you may be missing out on valuable opportunities.

I take time on or around December 1 to look at what I did last year and…

One of the most absurd conclusions by the NPC/NPIRC study has to do with the causes of craze cracking (shrinkage cracks) in pool plaster.

It has been known for decades in the cement/concrete industry that high water to cement ratios, calcium chloride additions, excessive wet troweling, and hot and windy weather leads to increased shrinkage cracks and other problems (ACI 302.1R-04).

Yet, the NPC and two Cal Poly professors disregarded that established science and tried to…

The NPC has stated that pool water must be maintained with a Langelier Saturation Index (LSI) between 0.0 and +0.3 for plaster pools (no negative LSI is allowed), and that disregarding those LSI parameters promotes white spotting, etching, and discoloration on the negative side. 

Yet the NPIRC Phase 3 (2005-2006) study demonstrated that typical white pool plaster (Section C in Pool 5) can withstand negative LSI’s (from -0.1 to -0.4) one-third of the time over an eight month period…

If you’re growing your small business there are several ways to push yourself toward success. For many entrepreneurs there comes a time when hiring personnel becomes a necessity and when you do, here are three tips to make certain your new hires are on the same page for success as you are:

1.  You…

When the NPIRC’s Phase 2 report is completely reviewed, it becomes obvious that the conclusions rendered are not supported by the results of their test pool experiments. It appears that the two Cal Poly professors and NPC leaders confused plaster surface weaknesses, discoloration, and degradation (caused by poor workmanship) with uniform etching (caused by aggressive water).

For example, the reports states that Pools 1, 5, 8, and 12 showed signs of “etching deterioration” in just six…

Whether you’re a job seeker or an entrepreneur, there are effective ways in which to network and there are ways in which your networking efforts will falter. Once you’ve honed your elevator speech, shaken hands and exchanged business cards, what next? Do you talk about the weather? Politics (not usually a good idea)? What comes next? Having some conversation starters can certainly keep the networking efforts moving along and here are a few tips for your next…

Networking, both in person and online are great ways to build a business. If you’re a new business owner wondering how to go about spreading the word about who you are and what you do, I have some advice.

Here are some of the strategies I share when working with coaching clients:

• Credibility matters: Build credibility through word of mouth referrals. If you’re new to entrepreneurship, you will have to prove your credibility through your work…

After their first year of study, the two Cal Poly professors wrote the NPIRC Phase 1 report, for the NPC, suggesting that aggressive water was the primary cause of “spot etching” in their plaster test pools… which of course, is what the NPC wanted.

Six months later, however, the same professors (along with a petrographer) wrote a separate report (regarding the same Phase 1 study), and presented it to the International Cement Microscopy Association (ICMA), but did not make that same…

Years ago, pool service techs learned that aggressive water etches quality plaster surfaces uniformly - that it does not pick and choose some areas of the surface to etch, while leaving other areas untouched.

The cement/concrete industry documented that improper workmanship practices can cause cement surfaces to mottle, darken, discolor, deteriorate, streak, and spot.

Yet, in the 1980’s, when pool plastering companies began seeing white spots in some of their recently plastered…

Once your business has a social media presence business will take off, clients will be knocking down your doors, you’ll have to move to a bigger location and hire more employees, right? Well, not so fast. Social media is more of a “slow and steady wins the race” type event. Social media is an effective tool in your marketing arsenal but it is only one tool and needs to be part of an overall strategy not a one-off proposition.…

Courage is one of those topics where it seems all the reading in the world becomes useless the moment you are face to face with a terrifying event.

We have all heard how courage is not the “absence of fear” but the “will to move forward in spite of your fear”.  But have you ever wondered how you might improve your courage or prepare for such an event in advance?…

If you sign up for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn you will automatically be found, build your friends, followers and likes and your business will take off, right? Stop. Take a breathe. Relax. Social media is more of a “slow and steady wins the race” marketing tool. You need to have a strategy in place. You need to know where your clients gather, ie. if your demographic would never be caught on Facebook, then that is not…

It happens to everyone; you’re buzzing right along in your business then you hit a road block a cobweb in your plans and you have to step back and regroup.

How can you wipe away the cobwebs and continue moving forward:

1. Take an action, any action. Inertia feeds inertia. Take a small step toward chipping away at a larger goal will make it seem more manageable and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment for having worked on it — even if it’s only 15 minutes at a…