Lighting for Profits - Episode 166

This week on the show we welcome Jimmy Tompkins, with 17 years of experience in the Holiday Lighting industry, Jimmy began his journey as a landscape contractor and launched a holiday lighting division in 2006 to retain employees during the winter season. Over the years, his passion for spreading joy through lights has only deepened, motivating him to continuously innovate and challenge the industry norms. As the owner of Lights for Decorators, Jimmy now shares his expertise with both new and seasoned contractors, helping them elevate their businesses and reach their full potential. His love for the craft and dedication to the industry drive his success season after season.

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Episode Transcript

We discussed everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business

Welcome to lighting for profits.

All Light, All Light, All Light.

Powered by Emery Allen.

Get rid of your excuses.

Your number one source for all things landscape lighting.

That's where the magic can happen.

You can really scale a business. We really had to show up for each other from lighting design, install, sales, and marketing. You're a scaredy cat salesman, Kurt. We discussed everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business. What do you think a hippo has to do with your business, Ryan?

Usually it's some weird childhood thing. Bully kicked your butt.

I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

All Light, All Light, All Light.

What is up? What is up?

Ryan Lee: If you're looking to start or grow your permanent lighting business

Welcome, to the show. I'm Ryan Lee, your host of lighting for profits, powered by Emory Allen. It's going to be an awesome show. I don't know if you guys know this, but we are currently trending. We're the number one landscape lighting show in raleigh, North Carolina. I know it's crazy. It just keep. We just keep growing the show. These number ones showing up everywhere. So, I'm always fired up to do this show every week with y'all. look, if you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, or today, if you're looking to start or grow your permanent lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. We are here to educate. We are here to motivate. We're here to help you dominate. And, you know, it's interesting because we don't know what's going to happen in the future. We know we got an election coming up. We know we got crazy stuff happening in the world. And, there is a proven path, though. There's people. There's experts. There's people that have been in life long enough to know how the. How to weather the storm. And, one of those people is on our show today. So we got, we're fortunate to have Mister Jimmy Tompkins. He's the owner of lights for decorators. He also is the owner of Omni Permanent Lighting. And, we're gonna have him on. We're gonna talk about permanent lighting. So, stick around. In a couple minutes, we're gonna have mister Jimmy Tompkins on. He is, someone I've known for the last few years, but gotten to know more and more, and, someone I look up to, a super smart business guy. And, also just kind of like one of us and has happened to, have a lot of success in business and fortunately, willing to share what works, what doesn't. So I'm excited to have him on, by the way, guys, I've been begging, I've been asking and begging for those five star reviews. And, you know, something kind of crazy happened. We got two more reviews on Apple, so I'm stoked. And, we were trying to, we were trying to get past 69 because we were, we, we got stuck there for a while. I'm like, are, you guys pranking me? What are you doing? And, I got two, like, written reviews. So you would think that would be 71, but we only have 70, which means someone went in and removed their five star review. And I don't think it was on purpose because when you go into apple and you click on the five stars like you get, it doesn't really tell you like you did anything. And then if you go click it again, it unselects it and it doesn't really tell you you did anything. So I'm like, maybe there's a better way. I don't know. But either way, I'm grateful for you if you've given me that five star review. And if you haven't, I'm still going to continue to guilt you. Like, do. Just help me out, okay? I'm just trying to get to 100. And then after that I'll probably stop for a while. So hook me up. You never know what will happen. Maybe I'll give you a five star review on your business.

Emory Allen offers free resources to help you grow your lighting business

So, but, again, in just a couple minutes, we got Jimmy Tompkins coming on lights for decorators and omni. We're going to be hashing out like, what is omni? What is permanent lighting? Who should be doing it? Who should not be doing it. and, I'm excited to talk, permanent lighting with him. If you have not, I highly suggest you guys, we just launched our 2.0. So if you have not scheduled your strategy session, I'm telling you, go right now. Landscape lighting secrets. com, click on start now, get the free case study and then book a call. I, I'm telling you, you're going to want to do this. We basically just discover where you're at, where you want to be, what that gap looks like, and we'll help create a strategy session for you so that you know which direction you're going to go in your business. So make sure you take advantage of these free resources that we're offering. M, you know what? If I could find my music, I'd probably start playing it and it has to be turned up. Alright, well, I actually just needed a drink. You know, a fixture is only as good as a source of light inside it. This light source is what your customers and future customers will ultimately see at night, and this will result in thousands of dollars in return business for you. Along with glowing referrals, Emery Allen believes every light professional should have access to a light source engineered from the ground up, dedicated to high performance when you need it most. At the end of the day, it's what's on the inside that counts. So make sure you're getting high quality lamps, okay? I see too many people going and just searching on Amazon or Home Depot. I'm like, guys, this is what your customers are going to see at night. So check out the single source led light from Emory Allen. And if you want to get hooked up with your discounted contractor pricing, all you need to do is email tom garyallen. com and he will hook you up. Just mention you heard about him here on lighting for profits and get that discounted contractor pricing. I'm telling you, don't go to their website because you're going to go, oh, wow, these aren't as, these aren't that good of a deal. Well, that's because you're not getting the hookup. Email tom g@emoryallen. com. and I promise you, he will hook you up.

There are three to four areas outdoor lighting professionals should consider pursuing

All right, so, again, guys, in just a couple minutes, we got Jimmy coming on, and I'm, telling you, you're going to want to stick around for this conversation. You're going to walk away with some highlights, maybe some low lights. We don't know. We'll find out. But, stick around. Before I have them. M on, I want to talk about something. So we're going to be talking about permanent lighting. And, you know, when it comes to outdoor lighting, in my opinion, there's a few business segments. well, there's, there's several that available to pursue, but in my opinion, there's three to four that really all outdoor lighting professionals should consider. So landscape lighting being my favorite. Then there's Christmas lighting, there's permanent lighting and event lighting. Okay. Those are kind of, I feel like the four main pillars. If you're gonna have a lighting company and you could, like, dominate in those four pillars, like, you could have a $10 million empire in one market. Right? And, you know, my favorite is landscape lighting. It's my first and true love. And, I feel like if you're good enough, then perhaps that that's, that's all you would need to focus on. Right. But I'll say this, too. Landscape lighting is also, of those four, probably the most difficult to generate high quality leads for. when you look at some of the other ones, like permanent lighting, Christmas lighting, holiday lighting, they're fairly easy to get leads. Like, you can turn on a Facebook ad and generate interest. And if you turn on the same Facebook ad for landscape lighting, you're just not going to get the same thing. Like, people don't know that landscape lighting costs ten, $12,000, right? And, you know, when I had my lighting business, we did about 200,000 a year in Christmas lighting. And, the money was great, but I'll tell you that the time suck sucked. Like, that's like, it requires a lot of energy for a short period of time and hiring additional labor and all this stuff, right? And so when you look at a lighting business, it's not just about the money. It's like, does it match your dream life? Does it match what you're trying to do? and for me, I stopped at 200,000. Cause I didn't want to do any more holiday lighting. I was just, like, done and burnt out. Right. And I liked the fact that we were in Texas so we could do year round landscape lighting. Now, with the emergence of permanent lighting, this is something that you can do year round. And, I personally like that. And so at first, I'm like, I don't know if I love the look of permanent lighting. I love the look for, like, holidays and stuff like that. Of course it makes sense, parties and whatnot. But I'm like, I don't know if I love it. And we have a lot of people in landscape lighting secrets that are like, you know, I'm not going to do it. Like, they, they just don't like it. So because they don't like it, they're not going to offer it to their clients. And I'm like, I don't know, guys. I mean, I don't want to, like, there's no. I don't want to tell you what's right, what's wrong, but I'll tell you this. We've also had members in our, in landscape lighting secrets who even say they don't love it, but they offer it to their clients, and they sell a lot of it. And they sell a lot of landscape lighting because of it, okay? And so you gotta be careful. Like, if you're like, well, I don't like it, I'm not gonna do it. Are you willing to give up on the future revenue that's gonna potentially come from that for landscape lighting as well. And that's why I like these four pillars, because you could land a holiday lighting client today that converts to landscape lighting, that converts to permanent, and then maybe it turns into event lighting. And so they all can kind of cross sell, to each other. So those are like the four main pillars. But, yeah, personally, you know, I would say you're missing out. If you're not offering those four things to your clients, you're missing out because, again, you, someone could call you today for permanent lighting, and let's say you're not a super fan of it. You could go to their house and say, hey, tell me a little bit about what you're looking for. Well, we want this and this and this. Well, you know what, sounds like you really just want some, like, architectural lighting. Why don't we do landscape lighting and we'll do that on the house. The trees will create depth. It's not just about the house, it's about the experience. Right. Plus, you need your backyard done with all the trees and everything. And then let's also give you an option for permanent lighting so you can change colors for the holidays and parties and stuff like that. So there's just so many different ways to, take this. I would just hate for people to say no or yes without knowing all the things. So, we're gonna talk about that, with Jimmy. But I will say this, guys, if you're looking to bolt on any of these services, okay, or to get help with the business side of it, or network with professionals from around the world, you know what I decided to do? I decided to start a new expo. It's the first of its kind. Light it up expo. I'm gonna make a bunch of videos on it. I'm gonna be all over social media promoting it, answering questions on what it's, what it is, who it's for. But it's the first of its kind outdoor lighting expo for, professionals. And it's going to be February 28, March 1. I think those dates are right. So check the website. But we've partnered with home, service workshop. So if you go to homeserviceworkshop. com, you can get a lot of the information. you can click on light it up expo. There's five other expos going on at the same time, and so we're going to share a lot of resources and vendors and stuff like that. So it's going to be huge. It's going to be amazing. but, I just kind of want to throw that out there. Pay attention. Watch what we're going to come out with, because you're going to want to put that on the calendar. February 28, march 1, home service workshop. com. and it's the first of its kind. Light it up expo. So that's pretty much it.

Guys, I think it's time to get Jimmy on. Let me know if you're here live

Guys, I think it's time to get Jimmy on. Let me know if you're here live. If you're ready to go, you got questions, let us know. Where do I find my guest intro? Oh, there it is. Hit the button. Man. It's amazing what six days off will do. What is up? What is up?

What's going on, buddy? How are you?

Thanks for hanging out, man. Appreciate you being on here.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

You know, it's only been a day or two since we've seen each other. So what's up? You already miss, me?

Yeah, about. About, 27 hours, actually. Yeah, I miss you.

I figured, Man, I had a blast. I loved having you out of the place. And, I kind of want to just unpack what just happened, and, I thought, you know, this is perfect timing because I knew we were going to have just finished up this permanent training and actual, installation of my house. I thought we'd just unpack it a little bit.

Jimmy Tompkins is passionate about lighting and helping businesses grow

Before we do that, do you mind, introducing yourself? Just. You've been on the show before, but just a quick intro of who Jimmy Tompkins is.

Sure. So, yeah, Jimmy Tompkins and, owner of lights for decorators and, omni, as you mentioned earlier, and, just a lighting. I love lighting. Everything about lighting. Been in the industry, since, the early 2000, 2002, and the Christmas side, with a landscaping company. Did a lot of landscaping, lighting up into that and around that as well. And I've just really grown passionate about the industry and helping businesses, not just selling lights. Distributors get a bad rap sometimes for just wanting to sell lights. but love, love doing the training and love working with business owners to help them combat some of the challenges and obstacles we face as business owners, especially as times are getting harder and harder and employees and dealing with all that. So just, you know, really just being there to help businesses grow. And I say it all the time, but businesses that we're working with win. We're going to win with them. And, it's a lot of fun to work with a lot of really great people in the industry and, you know, get to do it with a really fun part of it. Selling lights. I mean, it doesn't get much better.

Than that of, yeah, it's awesome, man. And I've seen. I've seen you do that over the last few years that I've known you. you know, it's rare to find someone who's really good at what they do, and they're good at teaching and training, and I think that's something about you that sticks out to me. Cause there's a lot of people that I meet that I'm like, dang, dude, they're. They're so much smarter than me. They're so much better than me. Like, they are so good at what they do, but then, like, they try to teach and try to help people. I'm like, oh, gosh, you are terrible. And so I, feel like that's me, so that's.

That's good. At least somebody enjoys it.

No, you're. You're good at it. I mean, everyone that goes to your trainings, which you do for free, I'm like, holy cow. you do them for free, all of your events and things like that. but people love them. They're like, just. They want to tell everyone about it. They're like, holy cow. This is amazing. So, well done, man.

Yeah, yeah. And that's why we came up with the name holy cow for the private label for lights for decorators. Holy cow. Lights right there.

Holy cow. There you go.

No, I love it, man. It is. It's a blast. It really is. It's. It's. It's fun to be able to. I learned just as much from those events as. As the people that are there, so it's. It's a great, great thing for everybody.

Yeah, very cool.

Two days ago, you were mountain biking at Woodward park with your son

Well, before we jump into it, how you feeling? Because today, like, two days ago, you were mountain biking at Woodward park, doing jumps and tricks and downhill and stuff. And then the next day, we went and rode a bunch of miles, did some single track up some steep mountains on dirt bikes, man.

It was, Yeah, so my son Jaden was out with me, and I, got to bring him out to the training and have him help out a little bit and wanted to. Want to mix in a little fun. And unfortunately, he's an adrenaline junkie, and I used to be an adrenaline junkie, I think, and I quickly learned I don't have the pair that I used to have.

And, My gosh. But, yeah. 1st. 1st life experience of downhill mountain biking. I don't think that was just your normal downhill mountain biking, though. It was pretty, pretty aggressive, but made it through that, lived through that experience. And, I realized that you weren't supposed to sit on mountain bikes the hard way.

You realized that after the day?

Yeah. Yeah, that was. That was a tough dinner, sitting. Sitting down after that for dinner. And then, yeah, yesterday, doing the, mountains on the. On the dirt bikes. I didn't know if I should watch the trail and try to not die and fall off a cliff or just continue taking the beautiful scenery, so I definitely did not do both well. But, man, it was. That was an incredible experience. I'll never forget it. And, yeah, my body's definitely not as, I mean, this. This kind of hurts still, so. But it's all right. It was well worth it. Jaden and I had a blast, and, definitely can't wait to do that again, for sure.

That was. It was epic, man. I love. I was. I was. It was. I love sharing, like, my. My passions and, like, I loved having you over at my house to share my family with you and. And go up in the mountains, and I just love that. So it's cool to find other people that have similar passions and, you know, your son Jaden, I'm like, how is this kid 13? Because he's in the. He's in the, like, a frame of, like, a 17 year old, and then. But he still, like, acts like a 13 year old. You're like, when you talk to him, like, oh, he's 13, but he's, like, a 17. Like, he could beat me up, you know? Like, he's better at dirt biking than me. I'm like, what the heck is going on? I didn't know if you guys were gonna make it. I was like, yeah, we'll go up the trail, and then maybe in five minutes we'll be home. I don't know.

I didn't know if I was going to make it after the first three minutes either. You, guys really, really appreciate it.

You guys killed it. It was so fun. That was. That was way cool.

You did permanent lighting training at your house for your certification

All right, so let's talk about, I mean, that's what we ended on. So I forgot that we did permanent lighting at my house. I was like, man, that was such a fun weekend. I'm like, oh, yeah, we had to work a few days before that. let's talk about the permanent lighting training at my house. Was that your first time doing an actual installation for your certification?

It was not. That was the, I was actually the fourth. It was a fourth hands on certification, but, first ever on site training and training at the same, at the same residential house. So that was really cool to be able to, you know, go in and, you know, the training facility of Ryan Lee's home, and then, which was a garage, which would turn out to be absolutely perfect situation. The whole thing was amazing, but, yeah, doing it there and be able to go inside and outside and hands on sit down. I mean, it's a long day, so having to be able to break it up really, was awesome.

Yeah.

Any, um, anything that you learned, learned along the way, takeaways

Any, anything that you learned, learned along the way, takeaways for people that are in, I don't know, you keep certifying people, training them. Anything that you take aways from attendees or anything like that.

I learned every certification event that we've done. What? geez, I don't know. Just did another one today in Colorado. where am I? Colorado Springs. I know where I am. yeah, we did another one today. I learned something at everyone, you know, and people from different, different, other market segments and other industries and things have really good, you know, ideas or what about creating different, different objects? Or have you thought about using the project or the product in this capacity? So, I always learn a lot from the people, and a lot of times just create creative ideas and they think about ways to use a product or, you know, ways of, you know, cutting the corners or angling things. And, you know, I definitely learn a lot from, from the people, and we really open their feedback and, you know, that's what I love about it the most, is they come up with great ideas and we're able to try to put it in action, and that's a lot of fun.

Yeah, I thought, a few things. Number one, I mean, I knew that this was, like, training ground. I was like, okay, like, I really started, like, the night before, I was like, I think this is a bad idea. Like, we're going to have 25 people over at my house that don't know what they're doing. I started to think, like, should I call my insurance company? And up everything. Like, I just had, like, should we back out? Because, you know, that I was like, I didn't even think about it until right now. And so I kind of had low expectations. I was like, this is probably gonna suck, like, in terms of the craftsmanship, the quality. But the cool thing is, is like, it's kind of hard to screw up. Like, it's fairly easy. There's, there's. And the other thing I learned is like, there's different ways to do the same thing. And there's. We had people that did have experience that were there with, different brands, and so they were putting, you know, their input, and then we kind of took a group vote, like, all right, how are we going to do this? And there was one section right when we started where I was like, I had planned to take off my. I had those landscape lights mounted to the eve. I was like, well, we'll move those and put the track there. And then someone was like, let's just gap it. And, we gapped it. And I immediately was like, no, let's not gap it. So then we just went and fixed it. So it's cool that it's not like you can change things. You can figure some of this stuff out as you go. And I'm sure that my house is completely different than some of the other houses you've done, and you learn something and apply it to the next project. Right?

One, hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, there's a million ways to go about this. That's what's kind of the joy of it. Cool thing is the lights are pretty forgiving, you know, so the lights are. They're going to tell you you got a problem and do something off the grid. so from an electrical standpoint, you're definitely going to know if there's an issue there. And then obviously, from the aesthetic standpoint, the way tracks are cut and things like that, there's no right, there's no wrong. It's just ultimately, what's the most effective way? And you deal with challenges. You know, your particular house doesn't have a fascia board, so every cut has to be perfect. And from a training experience, that's hard. And, thankfully, I wasn't the only one there that had OCD. You know, clearly, you know, Ryan's got a little bit of that in himself, and I do, and I. So we had a couple of us that would just go around and try to clean up some of the corners and things like that. But, overall, the group was fantastic. We had a couple guys like CJ and a couple of other guys that had come to a couple other. Had been at other trainings or developed in other products that were looking to potentially swap over. They were phenomenal, you know, they just. Especially CJ. He jumped up there and grabbed the bull by the horns and was, you know, I think that's probably something that I did learn with your house in particular, is your, house was complicated. Lots of cuts, lots of angles, lots of, you know, different ways of doing it. And, when, the more skilled people that you've got that have done it, that can be a resource and help with that definitely makes things a little bit easier on me. So, having those key people and everybody was phenomenal. Like, I think you, you did it. You had a great group out there, and that made it a lot of fun.

Well, you know what was cool? I was talking to CJ. Cause I was like, like, on day one, I mean, we didn't get, we had some problems with shipping and the, we had all the lights, the track, literally, I looked at my phone to see, because I recorded a video of us celebrating when the UPS truck showed up. And that video of us celebrating was at 230 in the afternoon, which means we were already supposed to be installing this stuff for a few hours. And, then, you know, at that point, we kind of got our game plan together and got on the, got on the house and started doing it. And CJ was just like mountain goat all sudden. He's just up there just like, like done with the top story by himself almost. And I was asking him, like, so I, Have you done some work? Well, no, I went to, I went to the training at the huge, like a month ago, and I was like, wow, okay. And he goes, I'll tell you, though, going to that training was good, but going to the second time is what really locked it in, because, you know, it's kind of like drinking from a fire hose the first time, if you've never done it, and he was able to then kind of digest some of the information, then the second time hearing it from you, he understood the terminology and where you were going with it. And then, man, once he got out of that house, you could just see it click like he just got it. And so I want to share that with people. To know that, like, just because you've been to an omni certification doesn't mean you're like, end all, be all, know everything about omni and everything else. Or if you've been to a landscape, lighting live, or if you've been to anything, or if you've read one book once, like multiple times, visiting the same things is a good thing, because you're going to get different things out of it. And it was cool for him to be able to step up as a leader. I mean, if we didn't have him and some of the others, I think we might have been struggling to get the whole house done, you know, in that, in that period of time. So I was grateful those guys stepped up, too.

Yeah, for sure. And I think. I think that's, that's the one thing with, I would say, you know, permanent architectural lighting. you know, as I like to call it, is that, you know, it's intimidating. It's a lot of numbers, there's a lot of math, there's a lot of calculating. But it brings me kind of back to my old incandescent days of Christmas lights, and I kind of the old halogen days of landscape lighting. Right. There used to be a lot of math, and that's when people were scared to get engaged and jump all in because of the math. And I think that's what's one of the cool things about this. This market is if you're willing to commit your time and learn it.

Ryan says omni training is great because you walk away feeling empowered

And maybe it's not once, maybe it does. Take two. I've had, we've had several people have been to three of the omni events. partially, I think they just come for a good time, but they still are picking up stuff, you know? And I think. I think that's, that's the thing is these people are really committed to wanting to do it well and do it right, and those are, the people are going to be successful with it. You know, in the Christmas industry, we see so many people jumping into it just because there's a quick dollar to be earned, and then I really don't have the right passion and fire. These people are really committed to the craft and doing it right, and ultimately, these are, people are going to dominate and be really successful with it, and it doesn't. And, you know, I'm kind of, I'm obviously pro omni, but there's a lot of other good, you know, permanent lighting products out there. And, you know, I think the ones that are going to last are the ones that are really dedicated to supporting and training, training their users. I think that's huge.

Yeah, I mean, I. I had done one job years ago when I still own my lighting company, and then that was. And when I say I did it, I did not do it, my crew did it. So I didn't pay attention to anything. So this was all brand new for me. I mean, I was there taking notes, listening to the stuff, and it was cool because then you walk away feeling empowered. I'm like, okay, it is just math. Like, there's certain things, like, this is how many lights you can put until you need to inject power, and you can.

How many of that, Ryan?

Well, I'll say 75.

There we go.

I was taking notes. I'm not. Yeah, you should quiz me and see how good your training is right now.

Yeah, just checking the teacher on that one.

But that's cool. And then those controllers can handle like 2096, is that right?

48. Close enough.

48. So I would have screwed someone over, but I, after 2000, I stopped counting. Like, who's going to put 2000 on one controller? But then it's like, okay, well, you know, some simple stuff. Put some lights up. You know, it's, it's, it's really, really cool. So, that was great.

You can run a 12 volt system without a low voltage license or electrical license

talk about what else? it's low voltage. So a lot of people are worried about, you know, it's funny because people ask me all the time, hey, I want to get into landscape lighting. Do you have to be an electrician? I'm like, it says here you do Christmas lights. What did you ask? Did you ask the same question when you started that business? And they go, no, I didn't. And I'm like, you're dealing with real power. Do you know like what 120 volts will do to you? And do you know what 12 volts will do to you? Like, these are two totally different things. So some people are worried about that. Like certain, I guess, licenses, stuff like that. With, with omni. What is the different voltages?

Yeah, so it definitely varies by state. You know, different areas have different, you know, regulations on what it is. But the cool thing is, as omni, we do have a twelve or 24 and a 48 volts series. So, it really is open. as of right now, everywhere in the United States that I'm aware of. I'm not aware of any exclusions. You can run a twelve volt system without a low voltage license or an electrical license. You technically can just run 12 volts. once you get over 15 volts, there starts to be some regulations at 24. And there's a lot of places that's regulating 48. But the cool thing is a lot of people think, oh, the bigger, the bigger the voltage, the brighter the light. And obviously landscape widing folks know that because we've had, we've had twelve volt landscape whiting, we've had 24 volts landscape wide and we've had 30 landscape whiting series over the years. It's just what it takes to drive it so that the outputs the same. It just really boils down to what you just said, the 75 light power injections. that distance changes the larger the voltage gets. But you know, we have our different series, like our landscape Whiting series. that's all on the Omni platform, all that's running 24 just because we're driving a lot more. Our basic up light on, that's a six watt, so we're drawing a little bit more power, than your typical point light on a perimeter, architectural lighting. So yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a little confusing, but even I could have it. One property part of the job be at 12 volts and the other part be at 24 volts. And I can still sync the controllers and everything's doing the same operation together, or you can separate them and they could be running their own independent, independent operations. So it's really cool, it's really fun to, you know, to be able to have the Omni with the strip light, the landscape lights, the bistro lighting is incredible. I think that in of itself is a huge market, for restaurants and entertainment venues and things of that nature. So, it's really wild when you start thinking about all the stuff you can do with the Omni line, for sure.

Yeah, I, I was surprised. I thought it was gonna have to be a higher voltage. I didn't know what Omni's options were until you literally got here. And and then Mike, yeah, you would technically, if you were just doing permanent, you wouldn't, you could do twelve volt everywhere. Yeah. obviously you get into the, the landscape bistro, whatever, 24 volts. But the cool thing was just seeing it in person again, that like, I, these controllers can control, this can tap into the twelve, the 24, 48. So if you need to use the different products, you can, and that they don't have to be in the same spot. I mean, just, it was just so, it was just perfect training. You made it simple, you made it easy, everyone could understand it and if you don't go, it's very confusing. Like, I, people would talk about these controllers and I'm like, is a controller a transformer? Like, what is that? and you just go to the training and everything makes sense. So why, why do you, that's the thing.

Most, most contractors are hands on.

Yeah.

You know, most, most business owners in our industry are not people that, you know, want to sit in a chair for any length of time, let alone three quarters or half, you know, the day. So it's good when, you know, start in the morning with kind of a, confusing people. I literally tell people, hey, we're going to confuse you. And if you're not confused. Then you should be up here teaching the class. And then after lunch, typically that first day, we just start getting our hands on it, and then it's like boom, you know, the light goes off and I got it. It makes sense now. So the hands on side of it, it's huge, in my opinion. And I think that's where you got to understand the bones of it. But then once you get your hands on it, it just starts really clicking for people.

Talk about why you require someone to come to your training before selling anything

Talk about why you require someone to come to one of your trainings and get certified before you'll sell them anything.

Yeah, so that's something we're really committed to. it's an in person training. We don't just want people, you know, sitting on watching the football game tonight, you know, whatever it is, and having the omni training course on the side and then get a certificate and they get on their first job. I have no idea what they're doing. You know, we are all about the brand and valuing the brand and the people that are using the brand, and the brand is only as good as the people that are engaged with it. So our whole thing with the required in person training, is to show that people are committed. It's not just about selling as much product as we can, and, we want the product and people that want to have the product and are going to represent it well. so once they get through, I mean, there again, it's free. We're not charging. Like I said, I think I've done seven or eight of these in the past four weeks. basically two a week for the past month, all over from Texas to Nashville to Florida, North Carolina, New York's next week up in Long island, with thunder lighting supplies. So, you know, we're all over the place and we're trying to make it to the point where people can get to them. Obviously, Utah today, Colorado. And so we're making it, making it possible for people to get there. And that just shows us that they're committed. They're doing it for the right reasons and they're willing to give up and sacrifice some of their time to commit to doing it right. And, if they, if they prove that to us, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to back them up. We don't expect them to come away from that omni, omniprose, but they have enough tools to go out there and sell it, and then we're going to back them up and we're going to, we're going to give them the support that they need, to produce that job and go win that job and perform the job and take that to the next one.

Yeah, I I think it's super smart, you know, because most people don't require it. Some will even charge for it. and you're like, no. Like, it's free, and so there's really no excuse, you know, for someone not to do it. You, you literally have, like, killed yourself making so many available, which I'm like, I don't even know how because I'll do, like, a two a day event to, like, just a two day event. I'm like, I need, I need to take the next six weeks off. Like, I need a break. It's crazy.

I don't know what I was thinking. If you probably see, I might have some bags up under my eyes because I am a little gas. Maybe part of that's the dirt biking experience and mountain biking. But no, I mean, it didn't help. It grind. It is a grind. But you know, what? If I'm in the contractors and I see a company that's, that's trying to do as much as we're trying to do, you know, that those are people I want to, I want to work with. So I still put my hat on as a contractor every single day. And the people that, that's just, I mean, that's our job. That's what we're here to make people win, and that's what we gotta do. We gotta do.

Well, there's no excuse not to. They're free. I mean, at least at my house, we had my mom's world famous chicken teriyaki and chicken or teriyaki steak. So it's like, what?

More? It was. Yeah. That was amazing. I think. I think, I think the bar was set pretty high with that one. We're going to be inviting, mama Lee over. She's going to be, like, a traveling chef for the omni event for.

I'm pretty sure that'd be sweet. She's probably listening, going, yeah, where do I go?

Yeah, the desserts off the, I don't even know where they were. You know, all of a sudden, I was walking around, I had a plate of dessert. Ham. Sure, why not?

You know, just tell her the next city. She's, she's probably already there in Denver just waiting for you to call. Like, where am I supposed to be?

Why did you decide to start omni? What were you not seeing

talk about a few differences. Like, why did you decide to start omni? what were you not seeing? What have you done to advance the permanent lighting industry.

Well, I said before, I mean there's a lot of really good, a lot of good products out there, that are in the same market space. and there's a lot of really good people behind those products. And it was nothing against the, the products particularly, really, our big thing. you know, this goes back three years ago. what's the price point that it was at, you know, from a retro, I mean jobs at that point were selling for 60, $65 a foot, and the costs were just crazy. and to me really when I first heard this whole permanent lighting thing, I was like, that's the stupidest idea. It's a fad, it's never going to make it. But then part of me was like, well, kind of commercial is kind of cool, you know, it's very engaging to the community. It stands out. So, you know, if the price point was right, I really think the commercial, sector would get all over it. So initially it was definitely a commercial play for us, trying to see if there was a way to do it, and just looking at the other products out there, you know, looking at the strengths, looking at their weaknesses and trying to find a product that was not only a perimeter light, but had the ability to expand into a much, you know, a larger platform with, with the bistro and the floodlights and make it an all in one, you know, omni have it everywhere. And so I think, you know, that was really our initial goal, and once we were kind of getting into it and working with engineering team, that's been phenomenal to work with. we really just started to see areas of opportunities and to improve and you know, like I said, I mean, a lot of got a good products out there and I'm never one to badmouth anything, but you know, our eight inch spacing, on the lights, are brighter source of light. We produce 30% less heat on our chips than other similar chip sets. the way the chips were being manufactured, obviously that's a huge thing is reducing heat, and these outputs, the ease of use of the controllers, everything being wi fi enabled, it's not a, you have to buy an additional piece, to work on the network. It's cloud based. So the communication is not local. The communication goes from the controller actually up to the cloud and then back to the other controller. So it syncs very easy. you can program a house in literally less than three minutes, and then you can obviously customize it from there. But, it's definitely really easy to use, easy to connect, making it as plug and play as possible, to limit the amount of potential mistakes or hazards, with it, which I think is really nice. Not a whole lot of hard wiring that will be completely, a complete coaxial system with our next improvement, with some of our power injections. But, overall, it's bright. The color saturation is phenomenal. It's, got a three k warm white diode in it. so it does have an rgb. And that w. And the w is a three k, and lots, of different track styles for every different application, as well. And again, trying to be as innovative as we can to make these jobs as easy as possible. Reduce service calls, help these contractors win, make some money.

Yeah, way cool. So many thoughts. When I first time I heard you say, you know, oh, you can program this in like two or three minutes, I was like, that sounds like something that people say. And then, like, I knew there was gonna be a hiccup or like, normally it does this or whatever. That's kind of what I was thinking. And I. It was fast. It was like 30 seconds. You're like, yeah, I mean, you just kind of like do this and then you like, set the first light and, all this stuff. And then it was programmed, and then you're just like hitting buttons, changing the shows. I'm like, that was slick because I've. I've heard stories of people spending a long ass time programming some of these lights. And that was cool to just get to the end.

It's so close, you're sending the times out or something wild. So, yeah, it's. It's even today we kind of did a demo like we did it years where we go through and share, share the, the property with everybody, and people were just like blown away. You just scan a barcode and have instant access to the whole thing. Yeah, that's it. It just kind of blows people's minds. So very, very easy to use. And to me, that's. That's the most important part.

And now there's 25 people that have access to my house lights around the country.

Well, they did. They, they did. I did, I did you a solid. Matter of fact, it's, What get to the. Be the point where you have to check on your house here in a little bit. Never know it's going to pop up around on your house. I still have control, and I will not relinquish that control for quite some time.

That's why it was in the fine print, I think, when we, when we decided to do the training together, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Your neighbors across the street have permanent lighting installed

Well, tell them what happened the, the last night after the training was over, we went. This was last night or whenever. I don't remember. Was those last night you were here, you're out there, like, you know, messing around with some stuff. And my neighbors across the street have permanent lighting installed. And every, the first night, everyone was like, wow. Like, you can actually see the difference between Omni and we won't say the brand. And, what did my neighbor say when he, when you saw him get home?

So it's pretty interesting. I was, Yeah, I was sitting out there playing with it, of course, getting a couple of pictures and making sure everything was ready to go before I left. And, I overheard, I overheard the neighbors come out and say, oh, my gosh, that looks so much brighter. Ours looks, ours looks awful. And then 15 minutes later, turn around, all their lights were off.

That's crazy.

So I was like, maybe it was just, maybe just timed out. And you and I say something to Ryan's like, oh, no, those things are pretty much on dust to dawn. So, I think what we decided to do, and hopefully, I think your neighbors were nice enough to let us use a ladder, whatever. But I think we decided the next training event, we're going to go ahead and put some, put some omni on that house for free and get them to love their lights just as much. But the good news is they get a look across street at yours. The problem is you got to look at theirs.

I know. I'm like, I'm.

I think they still win.

Yeah. I feel like they owe me, you know, they owe me for letting me borrow their ladders, right?

100%. Well, you know what? Honestly, your neighborhood, I think, I think you've got every manufacturer represented slights in your neighborhood. So it was, I was actually really, really, really cool to see those. And, you know, there again, everybody's got their strengths, and, I couldn't believe.

They, like, they've, they're on every single night, but it was like, ten minutes later, they turned them off.

Yeah. I really don't see, even though it was that long, it's pretty comical.

It's crazy. That was wild.

The confidence to sell it, the confidence to install it is key

okay, what are, what are the top one? Maybe one, two, three things that people struggle with the most when it comes to permanent lighting. Is it the design install, the sell? What was it?

It's the confidence. The confidence to sell it, the confidence to install it. And I think that's, that's, I mean, I think that's number one, two and three, to be honest, because, you know, if you're not confident selling something, people aren't going to buy it from you. And I think, you know, people don't gain that confidence, even after a training, you know, even after that training, which is the best training, I'm sure they've ever partaked in their life, not so much. But I think the confidence of knowing what they can do and can't do is hard because people tend to overthink those first couple of jobs and make it to be a much bigger problem than it really is. And that's where I just hope that these people rely on us as a resource. And the other distributors we have throughout the US, to be there to back them up. And before they go do that sales call, let's look, pull it up, let's talk about, let's see what you can and can't do. And then, Yeah, I think after they get that confidence up, though, it's literally like just doing Christmas lights. It's plug and play, it's turn and burn, shake and bake, whatever I said in your house. What was that? What was that?

That was the only note. Yeah, it was the only note I took. Lick and stick, turn and burn.

Yeah, lick and stick, turn and burn. Right. So, you know, I think that's just it. And I think once, once I always tell people their first job is going to be a nightmare. It just is because they're overthinking and they're m making it bigger than it needs to be. Second job gets better, and then after that, they're like, this is nothing. You know, this is, this is, this is easy. but I think that's really the biggest, the biggest hurdle. And then the other thing is, you know, the confidence with the pricing. Yes. It's a lot of money, you know. Yeah. Compared to just temporary christmas lights, you know, you, temporary christmas lights, a $1000 job, well, this is a $4,000 job. So, you know, approaching that sale with confidence once again and knowing that you're providing a great value for that money, I think is really, really important. Other, than that, man, it's really just, where do I get the customers? How do I get the customers? And 95% of the time, the customers are already there, they're already in their database, they're already in their cell phones, and it's just a matter of reaching out getting their feet wet. And I always tell people, go out and go find that real. That neighbor that everybody wants to be here. Go find that real high profile property and go offer them a song and dance and say, hey, we just got into this. We're so excited. We really want to do this property so we can use it for our marketing and everything. If we give you a smoking deal, would you let us do it? And most of the time, people are like, wow, that's awesome. Let's do it. And, that's where your portfolio starts. And it's wildfire. I mean, we got guys now. They're literally selling 5678 jobs a week. and it's because they're confident and they know what they're doing. They know what the capabilities are, their crews. they're. They're rolling.

Yeah. Way cool. You know, there's some things that at some point in my life were probably not common sense, but now there's such common sense that I'm like, how do you not know this like that? How do you own a business? How do you have a family and not know this? There's things. There's things, This is not one of those. Okay, I'm gonna make. I don't like people. I don't like maybe making people feel bad, so maybe I'm gonna make someone feel bad right now. But I. These people have businesses with client lists of a few hundred people and sometimes thousands, but at least a few hundred. And they're like, where do I get leads? And like you said, like, you already have it. They just don't realize it. And I'm like, dude, I wouldn't spend a dime on advertising until you've exhausted your existing. Maybe not exhausted, but until you've generated free money from your client list. And then you can then spend a percentage to advertise to get new leads. But, man, most people are sitting on a gold mine because they already have a client relationship. Who likes them, who's they've already given money to, and they showed up. So, like, man, I hope people are listening to what you're saying. Like, they need to be, not just like one email. Like, hey, we have some permanent lights if you've heard of them. Like, that's. That's not it, right? and once you get your messaging in, it's like, hit them over and over and over. Because not everyone's waiting for your one email to come in to announce that you do permanent lighting.

Right. Yeah, no, it's. It's. It's it's. It's amazing how many. we've got one guy out, North Cone, Joe Devano. And he was at our event a, week or two ago in Raleigh, and he's one of the ones that's just landing jobs left and right. And I overheard someone ask him, where are you getting from? he's like, I just sent out emails to our existing customers. Love it, and that's where he's landing everything from. And. And now what's going to start happening is he's getting the referrals from those customers, you know, and that the power of referral is so powerful, so good.

People who do the simple things feel the cracks in their foundation

You know, the estimating process is so easy, so there's not a lot of time. Once you get your footage, we give you a calculator, and the calculator is like, within three minutes, you have a quote done. We sat in your garage with. With, contractor down from, New Orleans, and we literally, I think we banged out seven quotes in about, I don't know, 20 minutes that all he did was he posted that he was out of training, was showing people, and he literally had that amount of leads come in, and we were just house after house after house. So, really, really easy to do once you just get your feet under you.

Well, that was cool, too. You even told people while they're in the training, like, post on social media right now that you're investing in getting certified, you're investing in your company, you have this new offering, and I'll bet you not everyone did it, you know, but people who do the simple things feel the cracks in their foundation, find themselves being ahead of the curve. So, and that's one of the.

Things I learned from the attendees. The attendees are the ones that told me that they were doing that. Matter of fact, CJ was one in Nashville where he posted that he's at the training, and he left that first day of training with three leads. And I'm pretty sure he actually has sold all three of those jobs.

That's cool, actually.

yeah, so it's. That's. That was really cool to hear when people get that kind of feedback.

Yeah, there's. There's so many basics that people want, like the magic pill, like, but, but no, that sounds fine, Jimmy. Like, I'm sure I could post and tell people, I'm at this, in Utah getting training, but how do I get that? How do I get the job? And you're like, no, we just told you, like, do that, and then those three jobs turn into potentially three more referrals, even if it's one. And then what's the lifetime value of that lead? I mean, this is how it works. It's the simple stuff that works.

You mentioned some really cool ideas for commercial lighting that could be interesting

So, I got a couple things I want to still ask you about. Number one commercial, you mentioned some really cool ideas that again, once you hear them you're like, well that sounds kind of basic, but I don't think people are doing this commercial. This is a no brainer from a branding standpoint, a community standpoint. Talk about some of those ideas that you were sharing. Yeah.

So that's the crazy thing with this whole thing is there's so many markets of why you need omni. and on the commercial it's really compelling. If you start to get and talk to the right people at commercial properties, a lot of times it's not the GM, it's the marketing people and the marketing directors and marketing managers. They're the ones who usually have the budget and they're the ones who actually are going to see your side of it. So a couple of things with it that when you're thinking about commercial, that's a really big, a really big, opportunity. I would say all across the board, really. So you've got the security side of it. Right. Just having things lit up at night makes it more inviting, less inviting for bad things to happen. so that's obviously one thing. Depending on what part of town you're in, you got the security. But to me kind of the haha, things are you start thinking about how it can be leveraged to market. so, you know, maybe it's a restaurant of some sort and it's Wednesday night and when the, when it's Wednesday night and the lights on the building are green, it's half off pitchers of beer or half off appetizers or buy one, get ones or whatever it is, but they can leverage that to engage within the community to get attention. And then people always going to be driving by, looking at the local place and be like, oh, it's half off pitchers, let's go, let's go, let's go. You know, do whatever we're going to do. Right. and then you've got the whole like community engagement around supporting the local high school team or you know, the local pop Warner football team, whatever it is. And you know, the team wins on Friday night, the lights go the colors of the high school and that's, you know, half off milkshakes for anybody with a student id or half off milkshakes for everybody, but ways to engage the community, ways to bring in marketing opportunities, for those promotions, because people are going to see it, they're going to know about it. and honestly, there's. The amount of the surveys have been done on lighting studies, a well lit commercial buildings, revenue is always substantially better than a place that's not properly lit. so it just really is inviting. It brings people in, and then it's up to the, contractor of what they can sell that business owner, that property manager on, or whoever it is on. Ways that they can leverage that within their markets to get some further attention and additional business, and at the same time, engage, you know, engage the community.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, they're. They're just such good ideas, and it's just so easy because, like, you're selling to a homeowner is kind of still easy, but there's not, like, a, monetary ROI. The ROI is like, you know, the experience with your family and, like, some cheesy stuff that is real, but it's like. Yeah, but I can't get it, money, money back. These businesses can get realized Rois. Like, that's cool. I mean. Yeah, it's.

Honestly, I mean, investment for investment for like, a, you know, ice cream shop or a milkshake shop or, I mean, those people's ROI on that, it's 30 days if they leverage it. Right. Literally. I mean, they're gonna more than pay for it just by. Just by turning the lights a different color. And because you don't that, you know, nobody has to be there to do it. They could do it automatically. They could do it every single Tuesday. The lights go a certain color to represent taco Tuesday. You know, simple things like that.

Yeah. I mean, you're gonna change the color of my lights tonight at 09:00 so see what happens.

Right?

I.

That's right.

Margin versus markup is where it's at, you know

All right. Last thing I. The first time I heard you talk about this was a, couple years ago, and I loved it. And you still got a lot of work to do, because when you asked this question, like, four out of 25 people got the answer right, so.

Versus markup.

Yeah, exactly. Talk. Talk to us.

I get heated when I talk about that, don't I? Just a little bit.

I love it. Yeah, we need it.

No, it's. It's. It's, you know, 87% or whatever that figure is. That awful number of small businesses that fail. That's. That's. To me, it's where it's at, you know, margin versus markup and there's this great tool not have anything to do with omni lights. it's called the omni margin calculator. You can just google it, pop it up, and, yeah, it's a real deal. If you're working off of a markup, you're in trouble. If you're working off a margin, you're doing business. Right. And unfortunately, you know, I always ask my question, always is my cost is $100 on a 50% margin. What am I selling it for? And majority of the time, 60, 70% of the room says $150, and they come. There's the same people that, you know, are running successful businesses. You know, these aren't. These aren't fly by nighters. These are people that are doing it, but they're leaving a lot out there or. Or something's off, you know? And as they buy that new truck or as they're growing or a truck engine blows up, they got to put money. They're the ones that, you know, wonder, like, man, I'm at a 50% margin. Where's all my money? My overheads are 30%. I should have, 20% left. Well, the problem is, is if they're charging a 50% markup, their margins actually only around 32%. So they're only leaving 2% to take home. And, it's lethal. It's very dangerous. And even before that, a lot of people don't know what their overheads are. You know, they're buying marketing left and right because they're being told they got to spend this and spend that to get that and not tracking it. And next thing you know, these indirect costs or overhead numbers are just skyrocketing and very hard to recoup those expenses if they're not pricing their jobs right.

Yeah, I think you could just keep. You just need to keep telling everybody about that every day, because, like, you just explained it perfectly. Most people confuse markup margin. They're like, oh, yeah, I'll mark it up 50%. And then that leaves them with a 32 or 3% margin, and then their overheads, 30. If they. If, let's say that's even right, they're making 2%, but usually that's not right, and they're losing.

now, the service industry, I mean, service industries, average. Average overheads are between 2026 and 38%.

Yeah.

Is where you. Most companies are going to fall within. And, you know, it's.

I see a lot of people forgetting things in their overhead

There's a cost to do business, and unfortunately, it's getting more and more every day.

I see a lot of people forgetting things in their overhead. and there's lots of different definitions of overhead. You even explain that in the training. But, you know, like, equipment replacement costs, people are like, well, I already have a ladder. I already have a drill. I already have stuff. So that's paid off. It's like, well, what happens when you drop it off the roof and it breaks? Where's that $150 going to come from for that drill? You know, where's the $400 for that ladder? Or 600, whatever it is? They don't budget. They don't plan. And one of the guys even said, well, what if we're not doing these numbers? It's like, well, then you'd better start budgeting for it. This. This creates the plan. You want to do a million dollars, you're not going to just do a million and profit 300,000. Like, that doesn't just happen. It's kind of easy to do a million. You just invest a million in advertising. You know what I mean? Right. But, like, no one plans for it. No one is intentional out there. And the only intentional people are those top one percenters, because they literally put a budget in place and they say, I want to do a million dollars. I want to make 30%. What has to be true for that to happen? And you just back into all the numbers and it's like, well, okay, I'd have to sell omni at whatever per foot. I'd have to do this many installations, and I'd have to keep my labor cost to here, which means I can only hire three guys, and we'd have to do an install every day or whatever it is, you know, but people don't do that. And it's like, man, they're missing out. They're just thinking they landed a big job and they probably priced that job okay. They probably made really good money today. But then if they don't have a job for three more days, all their profit just went out the window, you know?

Right. Yeah. That's one of the things I really enjoy about, you know, with the lights for decorator side and even the omni side is, you know, we give them budget tool. We give them resources to invest a little bit of time for their marathon ahead of them. You know, it's not about how much, you know, the top line revenue is a big deal, especially in Christmas light industry. You know how to hit this six figures and all this. I could care less. You know, I don't care what your top line is. It's all about what's the bottom line. It's not a percentage point. It's dollars. And, you got to put dollars in the bank. You're not putting percentage points. You know, I say a lot of the same stuff over and over, but it's true. And sometimes people put their, their value in the wrong numbers on a p. L. Sheet. And, the only one that really matters is the bottom one that's got a dollar sign knocked to it next to it. Not a percentage sign.

Love it. Well said. Well, dude, thanks so much for taking the time. I know you're, you're on a bender. You're almost home. You're almost home.

Tomorrow. Can't wait.

M if someone wants to learn more about lights for decorators, they want to learn about omni

M if someone wants to learn more about lights for decorators, they want to learn more about omni. How do they get connected? How do they stay in touch?

Yeah. So, for lights, for decorators, lightsfordecorators. com, definitely feel free to reach out to us with anything. We've got catalogs and all sorts of resources and tools. for this upcoming season, we'd love to support you. We've also got a great network of other distributors throughout the country on the Christmas side. so even if you're not in the, you know, southeast market, where we're heavy, we got great relationships with other people throughout the country that we'd love to put you in touch with and, and, help you out. And there again, help you win. So, that's lightsfordecorators. com. obviously, feel free to call, reach out, ping us, whatever we got to do to help you there. We are in the process of launching a new website. So that's pretty exciting. that was supposed to be up a couple of weeks ago, not going to lie, but good old websites and you know how that stuff goes. And then, omni, omnirgb .com. we got one last training coming up, October 7 up in long Island, New York. A thunder lighting supply. And we'd, love to see anybody there at that one. That'll be our last one for the year for Omni. And then we're going to focus on Christmas, get through the year, and then we'll be firing up our omni training and landscape lightning training coming back up next, February. And, we're going to be, we're going to be working with Ryan a little bit on his incredible expo that he's putting together in Orlando. So excited to be part of that. And, I think that's going to be awesome. That's going to be a lot of fun. So we're definitely around and, we'd love to, love to work out with anybody that we can.

Love it, man. Thanks again for coming on.

Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it.

Go implement all the stuff you just learned and make tons of money

All right, guys, go implement all the stuff you just learned and get it done and make tons of money. Dollar signs, not percentages. I love it. Nobody's going to get rich on percentages. Let's go.