It all started with a simple scheduling error.
The contract was signed, the permits were in order and the homeowners eagerly anticipated seeing the ground break on their dream pool. It was a Saturday when co-owner Shan Johnson arrived at the jobsite for the first day of construction, but there was something noticeably absent: The excavator. So he called the contractor responsible for the dig. Turns out, there had been a miscommunication.
“He said, ‘No, no. I didn’t say this Saturday. I said next Saturday,’” Johnson recalls. “It was completely my mistake.
“Here I am the sales person, the owner, and the guy who botched the schedule on Day One,” he continues. “That was just a complete vote of no confidence.”
That’s when the homeowners began to examine the contract’s fine print for any legal way to back out. But Premier Pools and Spas wasn’t about to let a $100,000 contract walk away over a misunderstanding. Nor was it going to strong-arm homeowners into doing business with them, when they legally could have.
Instead, co-owner Mike Ribnikar did something drastic: He inserted a completion date into the contract.
“Our expectation [to complete a project] is eight weeks, and here he wants to put six weeks in writing,” says Johnson, who admits he wasn’t wild about his partner’s idea. There’s a reason pool builders rarely commit to a firm deadline, especially on paper. In construction, any number of things can — and usually do — go wrong.
It was a gamble. But luck and weather were on their side. Premier managed to complete the pool ahead of schedule. Says Johnson: “They literally jumped into the water on Day 31.”
Premier was well within its legal right to tell the clients, “Tough cookies. You signed the contract,” but Johnson says that’s not how the company does business. It chooses to win over frustrated customers instead.
Today, those homeowners are some of Premier’s biggest fans. They frequently allow Johnson into their backyard to show their pool to prospective customers who live too far from Premier’s Dallas showroom.
“If they’re home, they’ll come out back, greet our prospects,” Johnson says, “and they’ll literally sell the project for us.”
