Lighting for Profits - Episode 177

This week on the show, Ryan dives into the journey of building a million-dollar landscape lighting business. He'll explore the strategies, challenges, and insights that shaped its success, uncovering the secrets behind its growth and innovation in the industry.

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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 Emory 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 sales maker. 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 a weird childhood thing. Some bully kicks your butt. I think the key factor here is trust.

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

Here is your host, Ryan Lee. A, lot all at All Light. Welcome. Welcome y'all. It's the number one landscape lighting show in Lehigh, Utah. So excited to be with you today. We got an awesome show lined up. If you're looking to start or grow your landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. In fact, today we're going to be deconstructing a million dollar landscape lighting business. So if you don't want to know how to do that, then don't pay attention. But if you are trying to hit that mark or if you want to add a million dollars, I'm going to show you how to do it in today's show. So, and honestly, even if you're already at $2 million a year and you want to add a million, following this process, this system that I'm going to show you is going to help you guys get an extra million bucks in your business. So, really, really excited about today's episode. here to educate, here to motivate, to help you dominate, of course. And want to thank everyone. I, really am so grateful, that I've been able to do this show. In fact, what today is episode 177. That's kind of crazy. it's, it's an honor, it's a privilege. I'm just grateful to be in this, this, this ability. I mean, I get to interview amazing guests every week and stuff like that. Get to hang out with people at events and all that. So thank, you guys so much for your support for the show. Really, really appreciate it. And today's show, by the way, is going to be a little bit different. So I don't have a guest on. I'm gonna, I'm gonna literally like, I've had this on my mind for about two years now and I don't know when the last time I haven't had a guest And I've, I've flown solo on the show but I've had this idea for literally about two years. I'm like, what I want to do is I want to deconstruct a million dollar business and show you like from sales and operations and marketing, like what has to happen.

Okay.

And so that's what we're going to do today. So I'm really excited and I'm fired up and I've got my notes and I got my, my outline and we're going to dig into this stuff.

Light It Up Expo is coming up this month and right now is best time

So before we get started, I always have my announcements, a couple things. Light It Up Expo guys is coming up and right now is the best time to get your ticket because basically what we did, our vendors, we have a lot of vendors that have already gotten their booths and stuff and they're like, hey, what can we do to, to help promote the show? And they're all giving away things. So I did a Facebook Live today with the CEO of Motion Ops. They're a CRM and they're giving away 80% off the first year of their CRM as a raffle prize for people who buy their tickets. This month we are giving away. So if you guys have heard of Lighting Academy, I'm giving away a six month membership. You don't have to buy anything, you just get free six months if you win the raffle. so basically we're going to be doing lives and stuff to promote it, but there's a lot of stuff that these manufacturers are donating to this raffle to get people pumped about this show. So it's going to be an epic show. If we're bringing together permanent lighting, holiday lighting, landscape lighting, all under one umbrella. There's going to be vendors, there's going to be breakouts, there's going to be opportunity to, to learn from other multi million dollar lighting, business owners. So it's gonna be awesome. Hope to see you guys there. Get your ticket at Light It Up Expo. And I always want to thank Emory Allen. So the new lighting, we can't show off their, their, their you know, Tumblr that they got me, I have like several of these now so the kids are using them and you know, Emerald has been great to work with. and I've noticed as more and more people are using them, they're, they're just gaining more traction because people are like man, I made the switch, like did what you said. I emailed tom gmeryallen. com and having great results. there is something, something very special about that single source led. You're not having optics compete against each other and stuff like that. So super clear, if you guys want to get on the Emory Allen train, all you need to do is email Tom g@amory allen. com and he will connect, he will hook you up. Right. Just make sure you mention that you heard about him here on Lighting for Profits. we're of course grateful for their support and I'm sure they wouldn't continue doing that and if you didn't mention Lighting for Profits. So mention Lighting for Profits and get the, the homie hookup over at Emory Allen. And basically what they do is they give you a way better price than is advertised on their website. So if you want the best price, email tom gmarylen. com I think that's it. So, thankful for Emory Allen, their family, their, their, their support and everything. In fact, they're the platinum sponsor for Light It Up Expo. So, but we've got lots of vendors, going to be there to help you grow your business. And that's really what Light It Up Expo is all about is we're not trying to get into the weeds on too much stuff. We're just trying to help you grow your business. So if you're looking to scale, you're looking to grow, you need to be at Light It Up Expo. Even if you already know how to do landscape lighting, permanent lighting and holiday lighting, you're going to want to be there. You want to bring your team too, because this is a team environment, where we want to help you train people, we want to help you get them excited so that you can build your business. And, and it does take a, I mean you can't do millions of dollars a year just by yourself.

I'm going to deconstruct what a million dollar landscape lighting business looks like

So all right, so as advertised, I'm gonna break down and deconstruct what a million dollar landscape lighting business looks like. And you know, I was putting together my notes and everything and I was like, man, this is not that hard. And I think that's one of the, the things I want to communicate is like a lot of this is like get out of your own way. And you've heard that before, I'm sure. But we tend to over complicate things, overthink things and if you will, if you will trust this process, if you will simplify and get rid of the trash in your head and all the things that you've tried that you think didn't work, and why they did work and why they didn't work, like, just get rid of all that and follow this simple plan. Yes. You, in the next 12 months can do a million dollars.

Okay?

And, and I understand that, like, that's not for everybody. Like, that's not everyone's goal. But there's a lot of people, it is their goal, okay? And there's too many people that I've met that have. I mean, they've been in business 5, 10, 15, 20 years and still haven't gotten to that mark. And it's not so much about, a million of revenue. It's what. What does that do for them? Like, how much profit does that make to give them the freedom that they were chasing when they started the business? So if that's you, and maybe you've only been in the industry two years, three years, whatever it is, two months, but if you, if you feel trapped, if you feel stuck, then this is the message for you.

Okay?

So I'm going to talk about a million dollars, but maybe it's $2 million, maybe it's $10 million, maybe it's 500,000. I don't know. It. The. The whole point of me talking about money and being uncomfortable talking about money is so that you'll follow these things and realize that money is just a tool to buy back our time, to get us the freedom that we really want. That's why we started a business.

Okay?

My goal with Landscape Lighting Secrets is to help people get results faster

So, I'm really excited, guys. I. This, this path right here is going to help so many people. And I think I've shared this before, but I want to. I want to reshare. It is. My goal is to get as many people as possible inside Landscape Lighting secrets, okay? And the reason for that is because that community is epic. There. There are people in there that are, Man, they're leaders. They're. They're givers. They give back to the community. They help so many different things. And when you are in that program, you'll see that, like, maybe you've heard me say something, or a friend or family or a business mentor, but when you hear something from a different angle now all of a sudden it clicks. Now it makes sense. And so, well, my goal is to change the world. And I truly believe I can do that. I'm doing that, but I can't do it on my own. I need a team. I need a community. And that's what Landscape Lighting Secrets is. So maybe I say something on here that's like, yeah, I don't know, maybe I'll try that, but someone else says at a different angle and that changes your life. So my goal is to get everyone inside Landscape Lighting Secrets. And I'm not trying to, it's not a money grab, okay? I'm trying with this show, with my emails, with my, my social media, with the podcast, everything. I'm trying to lead with value so that you make enough money so that joining Landscape Lighting Secrets is like a, no brainer, is like, well, all I have to do is give a percentage back to the stuff I already made.

Okay?

So that's what I want to do specifically on this episode is I want to walk you through and deconstruct a million dollar business so that you can just do that like even without joining Landscape Lighting Secrets. Now you join, you're going to go much faster, right? And everyone in my program, I've, I, I truly believe this, that they were going to succeed without me. Like it was already decided in the heavens above. They were going to get to whatever point they're at now. At some point it just would have taken longer. So all we're really doing is collapsing time and we're helping people get results faster, which time's pretty important. It happens to be our number one asset. So, that's what I want to do for you on this show is collapse time for you, help you get there faster, make money faster, join the community and go even faster. And that's what happens is you'll start to experience momentum. And what took you a year before now, you'll get done in a month. And what took you five years, you'll get done in a year. And what took you a month before now takes you a week. And what took you a week before you get done in a day? That's the whole point of all this.

Okay?

So that being said, let's get started.

Five questions that you need to answer before you start developing your business strategy

All right, so the first thing that you guys need to understand is, you know, you guys, there's, there's like five questions that you need to answer and you've heard these before, probably in elementary school. Who, what, when, where, why? Like the main questions, okay? And these questions are very helpful no matter what scenario you're in, if you can help your client when you're meeting with them in their home. Like who, what, when, where and why? When you're selling landscape lighting, these are important questions and your version of that can be totally different. But today what we're going to do is we're going to answer those five questions before we, we roll into the Actual strategy behind it. So number, number one, define what you want. Okay, for me, for, for this, as we're, we're going to say a million dollars.

Okay?

So if you're at 500,000, then we're going to add a million. Or if you're at zero, we're going to add a million. If you're at 2 million, we're going to add a million. Doesn't matter. This is how to generate a million dollars worth of business.

Okay?

And it's a million in today's dollars, like right now. But it will if you implement these strategies. These are residual, these are momentum building activities that will result in millions over the next decade of your life, your business. Okay, so define what you want. And you know, the next one is define why you want it. so if you don't know why you're doing it, if you're just doing it to make a million dollars, like that's not going to be enough because you're going to hit a roadblock. You're going to go to implement some and it's going to hurt, it's not going to work, it's going to suck. And you just stop. That's we're human and it's just exactly what happens. Like you hit the wall, you stop. But if you understand like why you want it, you're going to break through the wall. You'll go around the wall, you'll go over the wall. The wall is not going to stop you. It's going to slow you down, but it's not going to stop you the next thing. And by the way, so I know I said what did I say who, what, when, where and why? I'm going out of order. I'm going what, why, how, who, when? And then another what. The next one is how important is it to you that you achieve this? It's kind of along the lines of the why. But this is different. Like how important? Because if it's just like a little bit of important, like, yeah, that'd be cool. It'd be cool to be able to tell myself that I did a million dollars or whatever. That again, that's probably not big enough. But if it's like, no, it's very important. Like I, well, I'll give you, I'll give you a couple examples in a minute. But how important is it? Next one is who will need to be a part of this? Okay, who will need to be a part of this? When will you start and when will you finish or quit? And I added that quit part because a lot of people are going to quit. So if you're going to quit, you might as well decide right now when that's going to be. When will you start and when will you finish or quit? And then finally this last question. You, know we already answered the who, what, when, where and why out of order. But now we're going to answer what needs to be true. And this is how you deconstruct. This is how you figure out the plan and you say, okay, well, this is what has to be true. And you don't, you don't make sacrifices here. Like for me, I'm in a stage of my life where I get to do a lot of things that I get to do because of the sacrifices I made early. But now I say, okay, what has to be true if I want to do this? Like, for example, I want to do Light It Up Expo. Well, I want to do Light Up Expo, but I don't want to sacrifice my family time. I don't want to sacrifice my marriage and my relationship with my kids. So if I can do that and still grow landscape lighting secrets and still have a relationship with my wife and my family, then I'm going to do it. If not, I say no. So I said no to like 95% of things last year because the what has to be true was not true when I ran through the simulator. Okay, and if something is like what has to be true and you can still do that, then you say yes.

Okay?

And the key here, you guys, is to be intentional, is like you're going to put a plan in place right now and you're going to be intentional and you don't want to be in the same spot. Imagine yourself 12 months from now. Like some of you have been in the same spot for years now and too many lighting companies have been around 5, 10 years and still not eclipse that million dollar mark. And to me that's like unacceptable. But it's because you're guilty of just letting the business run you instead of you running the business. So this plan is going to be the, I don't know big words, guys. It's going to be the start. I was going to say I was going to try another word, but I'm not good with that. this is going to be the start of you changing your life forever.

Okay?

This is the day that that ends. So. And almost everyone I talk to, like, they're, they're fed up, they're tired of doing what, like what got you here is not going to get you there, right? And you're tired of getting the same result. But that's just because you haven't. Like, it's. It hasn't been fair. Like, it's not fair. You didn't know until now. Okay, so we're. We're going to, we're going to give you guys the path to success. And the first time you do something wrong, it's a mistake. The second time, it's a choice. So now that you've been exposed to the truth and to the path, now it's up to you. This is, this is on you. Until now. It's not your fault. After this, it's your fault. So take responsibility for that.

Let's define what we want. We want a million dollar business

So, let's start. Let's. Let's run through those questions. Okay, so what, define what we want. We want a million dollar business. We want it. We want to do a million of revenue. Okay, that's pretty simple. And why are we doing this? Well, because if I do this, I'm going to make 200 grand. Okay, well, then ask yourself, why does that matter? Well, because If I have 200 grand, then I can build a house or I can finally prove to my family that I'm m. A successful business owner, right? Or maybe I can now afford to invest in real estate. Or maybe I can afford now to go on vacation. Like, what are you going to do with the money? Because the money is not the thing that the money's a tool, a vehicle. But why is this so important for you to get to this goal? And again, I'm using a million. You guys can use whatever number you want here. This just works out for math and kind of. It's kind of what everyone's chasing anyway, so. Chasing a million bucks. Because if I do this, then I'm going to make 200 grand. And with 200 grand, I want that because then I can finally do X right? Maybe hire more people, whatever it is. Okay, how will you feel in six months if you don't start moving this direction? How will you feel in five years knowing the things you could and should have done? I mean, honestly, put yourself in that future state right now. How do you feel knowing that you didn't really take action? You didn't really do much. You're still in the same spot than you were right now, you know, and maybe there's a, Covid year that it boosts your sales, but then it drops back down because you didn't really take action. You just took advantage of the market conditions. Okay, this is your chance to take control, take the reins, take. Take your future destiny. This is your legacy. This is like. This is it for you. Like this. There's so much potential right now. And let's face it, the. The Runway of landscape lighting is glorious right now. We have 10 years in front of us, at least, that are going to be epic.

You need to write down your goals for your business. You have to really write down

Okay, so next one, who. Who needs to be on board? You know, I put spouse as the number one. Even if your spouse is not working in your business with you, like, are they on board for this journey? They understand what's about to happen, what sacrifices need to be made. this is a family decision. Okay, so, what about your team? Like installers, office manager, designer, salespeople? Like, can. Can you do it all on your own or not? Right. And when will you start? Well, I say you start right now. Like, you could go, well, I'll start in January. That's what a lot of people do. A lot of people say next month, A lot of people say next week. But that's. That's already a losing strategy. You have to start now.

Okay.

you have to. You have to really write down, I will not quit, and I will achieve this in the next 12 months, in the next 18 months. Like, don't put it out too far. You know, you move that goal line, it seems like too far away. It's not possible. Okay, you can do this. It's. It's definitely possible, and we're going to show you how right now. So then the question you need to ask as you. As you fill in your plan is what needs to be true? Okay, so what are your rules that you're. You. You're not going to bend on? Like, I'm not going to work Saturdays and Sundays. I'm not going to, you know, be. Miss my family's, vacation or I'm not going to miss my kids games or whatever. Like, write those things down and make that part of what has to be true. Like, I have to be able to do this, but I also can't get divorced or whatever it is. Okay, what needs to be true? So what I'm going to do is walk you through the different departments. What needs to be true in order for you from a sales standpoint? Marketing and operations and process to get you there. Sound good? All right, so let's start with sales, because that's what I love, and that's actually where it starts. I mean, you got to go sell something in order to install it.

You only need a hundred people to make a million bucks, right

Okay, so, let's start with sales. And, I guess technically you'll start with marketing, but I want to start with the number first. Okay, so, let's just say I'm going to make some assumptions here. Again, use your own numbers. But let's just say your average job is 10 grand. Well, if your average job is 10 grand and your goal is to increase by a million dollars, then you need a hundred people.

Okay?

That's not crazy. You only need a hundred people to give you $10,000 to make a million bucks. 100 people times 10 grand. 1 million bucks. So I feel like, dude, if the only thing you did was just knock doors for eight hours a day for the next 52 weeks, you could probably get a hundred people to give you $10,000. Just, like, donate to a charity. And they wouldn't even need lighting in exchange for that. Like, they would just write that off. It's the end of the year. Oh, yeah, I need to donate to a charity. Right? So, like, you're actually giving people a lighting experience that's going to change their world. It's going to help with their mental health. It's going to help with security and safety. Like, it's an awesome investment. So consider from that perspective, like, all you're doing is helping people. You're helping a hundred people get awesome, badass lighting for 10,000 bucks. Like, that's it. That's one method. Another method. Maybe you go, well, you know what, what if I. What if I wanted to get a little bit more focused and targeted? What if I didn't want to get a hundred people? And by the way, if. If your average job is five grand, you need to get 200. I mean, you need to get double the clients, which means you need double the leads. Maybe that's okay for you, but maybe not, right? I'd like to go upstream, okay? And I'm gonna say, well, what if you could increase your average ticket to $20,000 and your average job is 20? You only need 50 people to give you 20 grand to make a million bucks. Isn't that cool? 50 people to give you 20k and you make a million bucks. Now, what if you went the next level and you go, well, I'm gonna switch the 20 and the 50 and I'm just going to get 20 people to give me 50k. Some of y'all, you know, unless you live in Fargo, North Dakota. I mean, I don't know. maybe I'm biased. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe in Fargo there are wealthy people. I don't know, but some of you. There are 20 people within 90 minutes of you, let's just say 90 minutes, there are 20 people that would give you 50 grand in this, this next year. They're just going to give you 50 grand, and you're just going to do lighting for them and they're going to love you. There's only 20 people, and that's a million dollars, guys, okay? You might have to drive 90 minutes, but there are people that will give you 50 grand in exchange for landscape lighting. I'm giving you permission today, right now, to reach out to them, to have confidence that they're there, to know that they're real. Because sometimes that's what you need. I don't know why, but I'm, We need permission. I'm going to give you permission right now to know it's okay. There are people that want to. Not just willing, but want to give you $50,000 for their lighting system. And you only need to get 20 of them. There's just 20 people, 50k. And, maybe you're like, that's not enough. I think, I think I can do more. Maybe, just Maybe, you get 10 people to give you a hundred thousand dollars for their lighting system. It's just 10 people. That seems a lot less complicated than 200 people giving you five grand, right? So here's the, here's the beauty of it. You get to decide, okay? And maybe it's, you know, it's easy to talk about on paper. Maybe it's some people giving you 10,000, some people giving you 20, some people giving you 50, and some people giving you 100. But it's easy to kind of break out like that so you can see, wow, it's not that hard to get to a million, you know, maybe you get one person to give you 100, you get four people to give you 50, so that's already 300. And you get, you know, 10 to give you 20, so that's another 200. So now we're at half a million. Now you just need 50 people to give you 10. Like, that's awesome. You can do this, okay? But the problem, the reason you haven't is because you, you didn't know. So I'm telling you. So now you know, okay? And then you didn't delegate, you didn't, you didn't put, time in, you didn't work on your business. So now you know the plan. This is what we want now. Let's get there, let's put the right people in the right seats, let's do the marketing, let's close the jobs, let's charge the right price and let's do it. So I'm giving you permission to stop complicating this stuff and simplify. Okay, that's it, guys. That's, that's the, that's the sales portion. and here's, here's the variables. So your average ticket, okay, it is, it is determined by you. Like it's determined by your price point and your offering. So if your price point currently is $300 a light, you literally could double your price and just be like, well, I'm now $600 a light. So if your job, your average job was, you know, just making up numbers here, $8,000. Now your average, average job is $16,000.

Okay?

You literally are in control of this stuff and you're offering.

Everybody who's ever bought landscape lighting has experienced sticker shock

So, if you guys haven't offered like decoy offers, okay? So like, you guys know this. Everybody who's ever bought landscape lighting in the history of time has experienced sticker shock. They all get sticker shock. It's crazy. They could live in a five million dollar home and have like four exotic cars out front that total like three million dollars and they still have sticker shock. It doesn't matter, like how rich they are, they're still like, wow, it seems like a lot for lighting. Why did we get into this industry, you guys? because it's awesome. That's why. But there's an easy way to overcome the sticker shock. And I teach it inside landscape lighting secrets. It's called the price marinade. And here's the thing. If they're having sticker shock at 300, they're still going to have sticker shock at 600. So who cares? Just raise your price right now.

Okay?

You can control that. And one way to help minimize sticker shock and get kind of a sticker relief, which is the opposite of sticker shock, in case you didn't know, is give them a decoy offer. So if your price is going to be $50,000, maybe your strategy is to go after those 20 people that are going to give you 50k. You better offer them $100,000 opportunity and let them say no to it. This is important, guys. This is like sales magic. This is like, this is the gold right here. People want to say no. They need to say no to something. So if you're just so good and so polished and give them exactly what they want and you're wondering why you're not closing 100 of your sales. It's because you're too good. You're letting them say yes to everything and they need something to say no to. So they go, well, I don't know, this guy seems like too good. Like we should think about it. We should say no, right? So just let them say no to something. So you're going to want to give them a hundred thousand dollar option. It satisfies that internal desire to say no and deny something. And it lets them feel good about what they're, what they're moving forward with because they go, wow, we're not crazy. We're not spending a hundred grand on, lights. Let's just do the one that's 50.

Okay?

That is huge. If you guys will just implement that one thing right now, I guarantee all I. In order to justify joining landscape lighting secrets, you just have to close one extra deal like that and you'll make an extra 50k. Like, okay, what's cool about this? This is a strategy, and a tactic that works over and over and over and over. So it's not just like, oh, it made me $10,000 one time. It made you $10,000 one time, one day, and the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day. This is how you build momentum.

Your marketing strategy matters, and that's why I start with sales first

Okay.

So you need to increase your average ticket. You're going to raise your price, you're going to raise your offering. Okay. And you also are going to, increase your offering in terms of design. So you know, I always talk about business and sales and all that stuff, but design is important. If you go in there and design a project that has 24 lights and it could have 36, but you were afraid because you're like, I don't think they're going to spend it. So I'm just going to short my design. Not only could you be leaving money on the table, you are leaving money on the table. So you need to get better at design and better at confidence with your design so that you can sell them from a designer and artist standpoint. No, those. It needs every single light in there. So you're going to increase your price and increase your average ticket by increasing your offering. So this is like double leverage.

Okay.

So that's the first variable, average ticket. The next thing that will dictate your sales is your number of clients.

Okay.

So if you're, if you're gonna get a hundred people to give you 10 grand or 10 people to give you a hundred grand, this Your marketing is gonna control, your number of clients.

Okay?

So your marketing strategy matters, and that's why I start with sales first, is because I wanna know where you're at. And depending on what you're going after, that is actually gonna dictate your marketing plan. Marketing is gonna come before those sales for sure. But it all starts with sales. It all starts with, like, what's your goal? What's your trajectory? What are you chasing? Where are you trying to get there? Then from there we're going to deconstruct it and go, well, what has to be true? Well, if you really want to get a hundred people to give you, or, I'm sorry, 10 clients to give you a hundred grand, that's a different marketing strategy than 100 people to give you 10 grand. Okay, it's different. dollars are going in different areas. Your time and your focus is spent at different areas. so just keep that in mind. It starts with sales, and then we're gonna jump into marketing.

Make sure this is your dream. By now you should already have a vision in your mind

So. Oh, I'm loving this, guys. By now you should already have a vision in your mind. And by the way, you have the vision in mind, but do this activity. You can do it while you're listening to this. You can do it another time, whatever, pause, you know, play, do all that stuff. But you need to spend time really analyzing, like, what is it that you want? Because I can't tell you what you want. Your competition can't tell you what you want. Like, don't do something because you see someone online doing something and like, oh, they're cool because they have different dreams. Like, they have different reasons. They have, they have different backgrounds and family dynamics and all this stuff. So make sure this is your dream.

All right, now we'll get into marketing. So we know we're going to be a million dollar business

All right, now we'll get into marketing. So we know we're going to be a million dollar business. We know our plan. I hope by now you're thinking, okay, I like this. I'm gonna get 20 people to give me 50 grand, or I don't think that's possible. I'm gonna get $10,000 jobs. I'm get a hundred people to give me those, whatever it is.

Okay?

Last week, I talked about making sure your website is really dialed in

But now let's get into how to generate these leads. So I'm gonna make some assumptions. I'm gonna assume that your website is already good. Last week, if you missed it the first 10, 15 minutes of the show, I talked about some keys to, making sure your website is really dialed in. Those are important because if you're going to build your business on word of mouth or even marketing and Your website has these cracks in the foundation, these holes in the bucket. You need to go and fix those. So that was last week's episode. I'm not going to get into that, but you need to go listen to that and watch that and really make sure that your website is dialed in to maximize, when you do get leads, that you're not losing them.

Do free stuff and then the paid stuff. If you have money, do both

Okay, so a couple things I start with, like, the free stuff and then the paid stuff. Free, because I'll just assume you're broke and you don't have any money and m paid. I'll assume once you make money with the free stuff, you can invest some of the profits back into the paid. If you have money, do both. Don't just not do the free stuff because you have money. There's value in both. So, number one, social media, like, social media is taking over the world. And if you're not, if you don't. If you're not producing video content specifically every single week, you're getting left behind. And, I won't get into too much of that, but you got to just be posting. You got to get your. Let your client know who you are, your referral partners know who you are. You got to start following them. You got to start liking them. You got to start sharing their content. You need to join local Facebook groups, name neighborhood groups, moms groups, and you don't spam in those. All you do is add value. You see a pool company that's hosting a. A winter party or a spring kickoff, whatever, barbecue, share their post inside the group. Because if that company posted in there, it might be deemed as advertising, but you are just helping another member of the community out.

Okay?

So sharing those groups share value. another kind of ninja hack that I like to do is go into those Facebook groups and say, hey, we're thinking about, redoing our logo. You can go into Fiverr if this, if this. If you're really not considering doing a logo, go and get someone to give you, like, five different mockups and say, which one do you guys like best?

Okay?

You're gonna get business out of that. You're asking for feedback, which is super valuable, by the way. I would rather ask my potential clients for feedback than, a random group of business owners on a Facebook group because they're not your client. You want to get feedback from your clients. So ask them, hey, which logo do you like better? Hey, we're thinking about doing an offer next month, or next week, and an average lighting system is $8,000. Do you think it would be better to do 10 off or $500 off? Which one do you guys like best? You're gonna get calls. Okay, so that's, that's one way to kind of ninja hack the groups and then getting started. here's, here's a strategy. If, if you are struggling, like you don't have money and you don't have, you don't know what to do, you could post, you might have to get permission from those groups, but you can do this on your own page as well and get your family, your friends, everyone to share this, that you're going to do a free installation, Free lighting installation. Now you're going, I ain't doing anything for free. Well, they're going to buy materials and you're gonna do the labor for free.

Okay?

So if it's a ten thousand dollar job, you get to control how much do the materials cost and you can work that out with the, the people you choose. So you have to say like, hey, we're doing a free installation comment lighting down below and we'll choose a winner, right? So you can call all the people who did lighting, find out about them and then determine who you want to choose at that point. But there are rules, you know, make the rules of like, well yeah, if we do this, you have to pay us, you know, materials obviously, you have to give us a video testimonial, a five star review. Let us put a yard sign out and give us two referrals when we're done. If you're good with for that, we'll go ahead and sign you up. That's an easy way to just get some momentum going and then let's get into some of the good marketing stuff. So I would, without a doubt I would go do the free stuff like Houzz, Yelp, Bing, you need free profiles and there's services that you can purchase that will go complete a lot of these profiles. But like with Houzz, load up some projects, put some of your pictures before and after, stuff like that, you want to complete these and you want to get reviews on all of them. Because if you search on different areas and, and on Google and Yelp and all this stuff, like you wouldn't be, you'd be surprised how many people will find you on Yelp. Even though you're not going to use Yelp, you're, you're only using it for food. People will find you on there. So you need to get good reviews on there and have A complete profile. Don't just have a profile like you need to have about us and you need to have pictures and you need to have really good content and offers on there. Okay, so Houzz Yelp being all the ones you can find and then what I do. Because if, if you're listening to this, you most likely already have an existing business.

Okay?

So this is where it gets magical. You have a gold mine that you're sitting on. You have a client list that's already bought something from you. They've already have experience giving you money, and you showed up and did what you said you were going to do. So you have what we call trust. So this is where you email, you text, and you voicemail bomb, and you call. You personally call your top clients and you get them to start doing, free demos.

Okay?

If you don't need to do a free demo, then obviously don't do a free demo. But if you're newer, then you need to do free demos. It's going to help you learn design, it's going to help you close deals, do the demo. If you've got experience, you don't need to do a demo. You just need a nice portfolio and you can close these deals. But it's about letting those existing clients know what you do. And I promise you, if you don't, your competitor is going to let them know. Someone's going to knock on their door, a landscaper, someone's going to say, hey, do you need lighting done?

Okay.

And they're going to go with them, and you're going to learn six months later, a year later, what. How did they not know? You're assuming just because you did their holiday lighting that they know you did, they know you do landscape lighting. That's just not true. So, you got to let your existing clients know. And one email or one text or one phone call is not enough.

Okay?

They forgot two seconds after they read that or saw that. And they probably didn't even open up the email anyway. You can go look in your dashboard and see people don't open emails. So hit them hard.

When you're making a decision to invest in marketing or to stop investing in marketing

And then we get into the paid stuff. So this is where you start. This is where you kind of separate the, amateurs from the pros, because most people are not willing to do this part. And if they are, they're willing to do it once and they give up and they quit because it doesn't work. So this is where, if you're willing to invest in your business, like if I said, hey, you want to do A million dollars. If I, if I could tell, if I told you, if you give me $150,000, I can generate 100 or, I'm sorry, a million dollars worth of business for you. I guess you gotta ask yourself that question, like, would you take that deal, you give me 150 grand and I will give you a million dollars worth of business. I mean, I think most of us would say yes to that. The challenge is enough of us have been burned with marketing where we're like, I don't know, like, is it gonna work right? So again, if, I could guarantee that you're gonna get a million dollars worth of business in exchange for 150 grand, would you take that deal? If the answer is yes, then these things, this is how you do it. So paid advertising, paid Google Ads. Okay, so if you have a budget of two grand a month, that means you're going to spend 24 grand for the year. But the key here is to not try it for a month. And then if it doesn't get you a, massive return to quit. Because that's where people lose money. That's where you take what should have been an investment. A, ah, $24,000 investment goes to like a $6,000 expense. Try it for three months. You didn't get the results. You thought maybe you got a couple maintenance leads, maybe a small install, but you just didn't get the traction you thought you were going to get. So you give up. So it cost you six grand and you got nothing out of it. Instead of staying in it, long enough to invest 24,000 and actually yielding a really good return out of it. Let me share this with you real quick. This, this will help give you some perspective. And then I'm going to give you some more, more stuff on marketing. We're going to get into operations process. When you're making a decision to invest in marketing or to stop investing in marketing, consider this before you make the decision. And this really will help give you some really nice perspective.

Lifetime value. Okay, so lifetime value is all the value they give you

Lifetime value. If you've never done this activity, you should go do it with your company. What's the average lifetime value of a client? So today, if your average job is $8,000, your average lifetime value should be higher. I can't guarantee it is, but if that customer ever called you back and added lights, then the lifetime value of that client is greater than the, average total contract value. Okay, so lifetime value is all the value that they give you being part of your business. Now there's, there's a few things that you could include or, decide to include or whatever. But consider add ons. So lighting is very addictive. You guys know this. You could tell someone, hey, it's $10,000. They go, you know what? I don't know. Let's just not do those trees and let's see how it looks. So they spend 8,000. Well, the average deal now is 8,000, right? But then you go to, they see it and they're like, you know what? You were right. Let's add those lights. So now you just added $2,000. So the lifetime value just went up, even though your original average total contract value was still 8,000, right. Then what about this? What about repeat business? So that was the front yard. Six months later, they're like, you know what? You were right. We are always in our backyard. Let's do the backyard lighting too. And that's another $10,000. So now you took an $8,000 client to 10 to 20, possibly in the six months. Sometimes it takes two years, you know, sometimes they don't do that at all. Right? But it does happen. And then when you consider if you've been in the business long enough, you understand how this works. Those people, okay, the rich get richer and they eventually become wealthy. So when those people get a raise or a Christmas bonus or they sell a company and start a no. 1, they also get new houses. So, you know, people don't live in houses forever anymore. Like, they, they, they like fresh, they like new, they like to move. So that client who spent eight, then added on 2010 and then did their backyard, spent 20, now moves into a nicer house, and their front yard is $20,000 and their backyard is 25. And so you just added $45,000 onto the original 20. So now the lifetime value of that client is $65,000. Plus they've been spending $1,000 or $1,500 a year in maintenance for five years, and you add another $7,000. So now it's like, wow, this is cool. This client is worth $87,000. So when you make these marketing investments and decisions, make sure you understand the full potential of what can happen when you say yes or no to these opportunities. Because when you say, well, yeah, I only got a, I got a small job, it was like 4,000 bucks. Well, if it's a dead end 4,000, that's different than someone who spent 4,000 and added on $2,000 six months later.

Okay?

And this should change. This should just be like, blow your mind here. For a second and realize, well, maybe I should be willing to take bigger risks. And taking risks is a common denominator amongst all the successful people out there. They're all willing at some level, at some stage to take more risks. And the more risks you're willing to take, the faster you can expect growth. If you're reserved and not going to take these risks, you can't expect the million dollar growth. It's just not going to happen.

Okay?

So your strategy has to be a reality. This isn't just make up stuff here like we're really doing this.

Consider the lifetime value of your clients combined

So consider, the lifetime value. And this is one where it's a little kind of a, gray area. I don't necessarily include it, but I consider it in the lifetime value is the referral. So let's say that same person that brought in originally was just $8,000 deal. Now six years later, they're worth $80,000 to you because they've done two homes. What if they also referred you to a friend who spent 20,000? Well, that's why I say it doesn't really count as revenue because, that revenue counts as a referral, not necessarily the lifetime value of that person. But I've considered that. Okay, look at the path, look at the path that this person came from. And had we not gotten this original customer, we wouldn't have gotten this referral which was another 20,000. So you want to consider all the scenarios and realize what's happening when you decide to move forward with marketing or decide, decide to not move forward because you're saying no to future work as well. Not just the one time business that you were going to get. So that should be gold for you. Like, just remember that. And it makes it easier to make these decisions up front. By the way, not everyone's going to turn into a $80,000 client.

Okay?

And that's why you need to understand the average, lifetime value of your clients combined. Because someone might just spend 8,000 with you one time and that's it. They don't add on, they don't do the backyard, they don't move to another house. So now if you average those two people 80,000 and 8,000, that's 88,000 divided by two. Your average lifetime value is 44,000.

Okay?

You obviously are going to have more than two clients, but that's how the math shakes down. So your average lifetime value is going to be higher than your average deal, but it's not going to be, not as high as, like, you know, as you'd probably want because you're going to have some people that only do lighting one time.

Direct mail is a strategy that is, uh, slow. If you expect to spend five grand and just get money back

All right, so now we're going to get into direct, mail now. And direct mail is a strategy that is, slow. The first is the worst. If you expect to spend five grand and just get money back, then don't do this.

Okay?

You have to have, you have to have some padding, you have to have some money in the bank to afford to weather this, initial storm. Because paid ads, like someone's actually searching for you. Like they said, outdoor lighting installer near me. And you can target, you can really target where they're at and what the words are and everything. Right? Right. So those ones are a lot, a lot better. Like out of the gate, direct mail, you're kind of educating. You're trying to say, hey, your house could look like this. Here's a before and after. You should take advantage of our winter special. Our slow season means we're willing to give you a deal. Take 500 off right now. Right? Free demo. So direct mail works, but it doesn't work if you're just gonna do it once. So if, as long as you're willing to stay in it all year, it's gonna work for you. And the key here is to go very small. So you're not, you're not trying to target the whole metroplex like, you're just trying to target a very unique bunch of people around 10,000.

Okay.

These are the top dogs. these better be at least a million dollar home and up. You're not going to want to go any lower than that. And I would say in certain markets it might even be 1.5 and up.

Okay.

But for sure, million and up and see what areas you want. And that should be around 10,000. And so I'm saying about five, four or five grand a month in direct mail of your own piece.

Okay.

And, you'd be surprised, how, how many homes you can hit and how many times. But you could hit, you could afford to hit those once every month or once every other month for that price. And then I spend another couple grand a month in like a magazine. So like, RSVP or a home mag. those are, those types of people are looking for home improvement, looking for renovations. They're not going to land you a lot of $100,000 deals, but they are going to land you a lot of ten $20,000 deals. So, I'd spend about five grand in your own direct mail and then a Couple grand in one of the magazines. And then, yard signs, door hangers, I mean yard signs are like 500 bucks for a hundred door hangers, thousand for, you know, 10,000 or whatever. And those are just going to go in those specific communities that you're working in. And make sure you're flirting the houses around and stuff like that. And then finally you need to also do an email. So if you don't have an email list for both existing clients and prospective clients, you're missing out. Because everyone, every lead that you get that doesn't buy, they don't just automatically go with someone else. A lot of times they don't do anything.

Okay.

And so you need them in your pipeline. And every single week they need to be getting fed valuable information so that when they are ready, they're gonna reach out to you and remember who you are. So you need to really focus on that. If you need a hint, on that, just like join my email list and you'll see the value that we give in those to help you guys make more money so that eventually when you are ready, you'll reach out. Okay, so just copy like my exact same strategy. And then, so that puts you at about nine grand a month. You know, you've got direct, mail, your paid Google Ads, you can't do this one month and expect to make all your money back and everything's going to be perfect. So you have to be patient. If you turn it off after one month, you might just waste nine grand. And here's the crazy thing about marketing. You could land a hundred thousand dollars job off of these marketing campaigns on month three and that would change everything because now you're like, oh, sweet now, now I've got some gravy, I got some, some Runway or whatever. So just understand this is a long term investment. This is you committing $150,000 to make a million bucks. And if you don't have the strength to do that, then you might need to change your plan because you can't expect to do things without taking the risk, without doing these things.

Even if you don't have any money, one strategy can bring you millions

All right, now I want to give you guys, even if you don't have any money, let's go over that. So even if you don't have any money, but you do have a client list how to get these hundred thousand dollar deals, how to get 20 people to give you $50,000. It's through our referral partner program. And this is huge, you guys. If you will do this, literally just this one strategy alone could Bring you a million dollars.

Okay?

The other stuff, I would still do because that actually helps build your referral partners as well. But you start with your existing clients, you reach out to them, you ask them, hey, who built your house? Who did your interior design? Your living room belongs on the COVID of a magazine. Who did that?

Okay.

If you lead with a compliment, they're gonna smile. They're gonna like you. Don't make stuff up. If their house sucks, don't tell them it looks awesome. Who, did your outdoor kitchen? Who did your pool? Who m sold you this house? Who's your realtor? And you're going to get the referral partner list from them. When you call those people, you don't say, hey, can you help me grow my business? You actually say, hey, you know what? We get asked from time to time, if we know a good AV company, if we know a good realtor, if we know a good home builder, if we know a good pool builder, if we know a good landscape architect. It doesn't matter. Whatever, whatever you're calling, you call and say that thing. Because let's face it, we do get asked from time to time if people. If we know that. I've been asked, almost every trade, do you know a good electrician? Do you know a realtor? Do you know an av? Like, do you know all landscape architect, a home builder? Like, I've been asked all those questions. So when you call that person, you reference their name. Hey, Ms. Jones thought it would be a good idea if we connected. We get asked from time to time if we know a good home builder, and I would love to be able to refer you. When would be a good time next week that we can meet up? I got Tuesday or Thursday open right now, so I can find out a little bit more about you and how the best to refer you. If you guys will do that over and over and over, you will get results. This is a numbers game, but it's the strategy and it's the tactic and the script together that works, okay? And if you try it once, it might work and it might not. You might screw it up. You might say it backwards, you might not say the thing, whatever. Don't give up. If you commit and do this every single week, I can guarantee you get results.

Okay?

And don't expect everyone to give you all 10 referral partners. Like, some people won't give you any. Some people will give you all 10. Some people will give you one, some people will give you two. Doesn't matter. You're grateful for all of it.

Okay.

If you guys will do that and start calling on those people, you will see a list of partners that develop A's, B's and C's. The A's are the ones that are like, heck yeah, I've been looking for a lighting company too. Let's go. In fact, I got a client right now that just asked if we did landscape lighting. I told her no. I'm going to call her back right now. Okay, Those are A's. They're going to get you a job every single month. Then you got your bees. They, you know, maybe a job every quarter, maybe twice a year or something like that. And then your C's. Maybe a job every year, maybe every other year. And sometimes those Cs aren't. Maybe they're just builders that only do a couple. You know, some of these guys only just do like two homes a year anyway. It's not that they're, see in terms of like, they're not a bad person. They're just not giving you the, the number of leads, the number of jobs that you'd expect an A to okay and work with them and dedicate time to them and, and check in on them and make sure you over deliver for their clients and like give their clients that red carpet and go get pictures of those jobs and, and blow up nice pictures and give them to the builders as gifts so they can use that in their sales process. And give, give them the digital photos so the pool builder can use that in their sales process. So that everyone asks, man, we want lighting on our project. This is the way, this is the way to build a million dollar business without it costing you a fortune.

Okay.

And these jobs are higher ticket, they're easier to close. These people aren't like, well, you know, it sounds good, but let me get a bunch of bids. Like they don't want more people in their house. They barely let you in the house. And learn the only reason they let you in the house was because there was trust from the referral partner.

Okay?

So, that is gold. If you just implement that one thing, I can't guarantee you're gonna get a million dollars. I can guarantee you're gonna get results. You get hung up. That's why you need to be in Landscape Lighting secrets because we have calls every single week where we just help you get unstuck. All right, so that's our sales, that's our marketing. We know the plan. We're gonna get here. This is how we're gonna get those Leads now, what happens when we get the leads now it's like, oh, that was the fun part. Now we got to get this stuff installed.

How many installers do you need to make a million dollar business

So here's the operations, here's the process really quick. So you got to look at your capacity. Like can you even do a million dollar? Like how many installers do you need? So I'm going to just give you some scenarios. You can work these numbers yourself and make sure you figure out your plan. But again, all of this requires intentional success. If you're just waiting for something to happen to make you a million dollars and get it installed, it's just not going to happen. You've tried it for this long and guess what? It didn't work. So this is what you're going to do now. So three man crew. A three man crew can install $7,500 in a day. Maybe for your three man crew on week one, they can't. Maybe it takes them, they can only do two grand a day, you know, but that's, that's too slow. But at some point they can easily do 7,500 a day and not want to kill themselves. Like they'll be happy, they'll want to stay there. Okay, so then you just got to figure out how many working days are in your market. If you're up north, it's going to be less. If you're down south, it's going to be more. So let's say you have 200 working days. That means that a three man crew can do 1.5 million in a day. All I'm doing is $7,500 times 200 working days. That gives you 1.5 million. That's a perfect scenario. That's you, you. They always do exactly 7,500 every day. Well, that's never going to happen. Some days they're going to do 6,800. Some days they're going to do 12,000. Some days they're going to do zero. So you're going to figure that out. But you just want to do this capacity check to make sure, like, okay, well a lot of people ask me like how many, how many crews am I going to need? How many guys? Well, just figure out the number for you. So you go 1.5. Well, if that was, you know, perfect scenario, can I sell that much? I don't know. Go back, see your sales and your marketing plan.

Okay.

And then you also got to schedule like service calls and maintenance. So what you want to do is honestly you want to start with a two man install team, preferably a, three man, but if, you know, cash is tight, whatever, just start with two and plan to have that third installer on like about the six month mark. By then you'll have some more revenue coming in and be able to justify them more. But I really like a three man crew. Two people tend to kind of get sick of each other at a certain point and three kind of mixes it up. So at some point get three, start with two and that's going to be your crew. And if you really start to implement this stuff and you're like, man, we are, we're actually on track for 1.5, then you're probably looking at another crew. Right. You're going to need to get help because we're not going to go into it today. But you're going to have maintenance plans that you're going to develop and you're going to have proactive service calls. Not service calls, but proactive maintenance where you're checking in on people and cleaning stuff and all that. And you're providing that red carpet white glove experience. When someone calls, you're there within 24 hours, they're not waiting for you for a few days. and you can't do that with one crew.

Okay?

So, actually we'll talk about process here in a minute. So, and then, so you got your installers, you're going to do the sales. If you're like, no, I want to be business owner, then hire a salesperson. But for now it's going to probably be you, office, ah, manager. And when you're at this level and you got these leads coming in, you need to hire an office manager. At a minimum, you need to hire an answering service. Okay, But I, I like the idea of an office manager and then an answering service for after hours and weekends because an office manager can do so much for you.

Okay.

Which also means you have to get a shop. So this is an investment. You're gonna have to find a space, get a shop, and don't let that hold you back. Like, oh, I can't do marketing until I get a shop. Like, no, just start making money and then do this stuff. Okay, so you're going to get a shop, you're going to get an office manager. She's not only going to just answer your phone, she's going to help you with ordering, she's going to help you with, inventory, she's going to help you with prepping the jobs, staging the jobs, she's going to help you with customer service, you're now going to be proactive with these maintenance plans. She's going to help you with processes and standard operating procedures and all sorts of things that you don't even know about yet. Like you think you have problems. You don't even know the problems yet until she helps you discover them.

Okay.

She or he could be either. I just always had a female, so office manager is going to need to be in place and then finally the process.

You need to answer the phone within two rings. If that's not possible, then you should not do more marketing

So here's the process for you, in my most simple way possible. Of course there's going to be some, some things you're going to have to fill in here. But first of all, you're going to turn on your marketing. You're going to start the referral partners, you're going to start spending money. You're going to start the social media. You can do all the Facebook, all the things. Right? A, lead is going to come in. You're going to answer that phone call within two rings. If you can't, you have a problem, you need to solve the problem. You need to answer the phone within two rings. If that's not possible, then you should not do more marketing. Because if you have more leads coming in that you're missing, your marketing ROI is not going to work out. This is the first test to know if you're ready to scale. If you're not answering that phone within two rings, you better not be doing more marketing because you can't afford to get more leads. If it's you answering the phone, you can't turn on, more marketing. You have to do these things.

Okay?

If you answer the phone, as long as you can answer within two rings, it works out for a little while until you make enough money to hire that office manager, get the shop and do these things. And by the way, if you don't have the money, I hate to say this, but debt can be a good thing. Not credit card debt. Don't put anything on the credit card. But you can go to your bank if you need to get SBA loan. Like there's ways to get loans for this stuff. Now, I don't want to get you guys screwed over with debt because most of you suck at managing money. But if you, if you are disciplined with this, you can do this. so call comes in two rings, pre qualify, you're going to hit them with a price marinade. You're going to make sure they're a good fit. You're going to go meet with the client, you're going to do the price Marinade again with the client. You're going to walk the property. When you walk the property, you're going to ask them really good questions about why, why are you there and why didn't they get lighting before and what's important to them and really create this gap. What happens if they don't get lighting? What, what, what? Who did they hire in the past that put a bad taste in their mouth? What types of contractors were over that they really liked? Which ones did they really not like? Okay, you're. You're basically creating a big gap here. Then when you're done walking the property, you're going to send them inside their own house and say, hey, I'm going to run to my truck, put everything together. I'll come in about 15 minutes. Do you want me to knock on the door? Is it okay if I just come in now? you're not asking permission, and you're, you're also setting the table. You're not just not saying anything. A lot of you guys just say, I'll run to my truck and I'll come knock on the door. Well, when you knock on the door, what do they do? They meet you at the door. And what happens? They push you out the door. Very few will actually invite you in. And they do that because they're human. And for some reason, humans, don't like other humans. So they're trying to, not get closed. Even though the number one thing they want to know is the price. So you're doing them a service, they just don't know it yet. So if you set the scene and say, hey, I'm gonna, I'm knock on the doors. Or, okay, if I just come in, they have to choose one of those. They could say, we'll come get. I mean, you know, they could say, knock on the door. Right. but what you want to do is also say what we're. I'm going to put everything together. We'll come inside. I want to show you our portfolio. I want to go everything in detail. That way you guys can make an educated. In fact, I'll be able to give you your price today. Sound good? They're going to say yes, which is another yes you're going to need to hear. So you're going to go in the truck. What's cool about this is you've already price marinated them. So they're already thinking, holy cow, this guy. $100,000 seems like a lot for lights. I almost shot him in the face when he said that. So they're now having a conversation. There's, no way I'd spend a hundred. Yeah, me either. What would you spend? Well, I'd probably do 50. I'd probably do 20. Whatever the number is, they get to talk about it. So if you've ever had someone give you the objection. Well, we just have to talk about it. Well, instead of complaining how annoying that is, what if you just gave them space to talk about it? Like, it took me forever to figure that out. When you give them space to talk about it, they talk about it. And then they don't say, later on we have to talk about it, because they talked about it. So this separation is super important. You have to separate later.

You want to be as intimate and vulnerable as possible with prospective buyers

Let them discuss something after they have a number. And, this is why I like an in home demo kit, an iPad, a portfolio. Like, you need something to go in there and anchor you into that house and give you an opportunity to go in there. Don't let them stand up and just like, hold you up in the front, saying, you have to lead. You're the guide. You're the driver at this point.

Okay.

You're the expert. If you understand your why, you're not going to let them drive you around anymore. If your life depends on this, you're going to do these things. So it's their house. Sure. And you can still be respectful about, like, hey, why don't we go inside your kitchen there and I want to really kind of open this up, show you some fixtures, show you our portfolio, make sure you guys understand the potential that we're going to be able to offer you today. Sound good? Sound good? Okay, so just walk through them if you have to, like, break them apart, like, just let them, you know, you be their guide. So, go in to their kitchen. I like the kitchen. Some people like living room. I like the kitchen. Because when, when your friends come over, you don't like, go sit in the formal living room. They just come in and you, like, hang out in the kitchen. At least we do at my house. I don't know. So you want to be their friend. You want to be, like, as, as intimate and vulnerable as possible if you can get them to, to give you the house tour. And you can do that by saying, hey, can I look out those windows over there? I want to see what it looks like from your master bedroom. I want to make sure this is going to look good from in there, man. All of a sudden some people open up like, oh, yeah, check this out. And check this out. We got this game room. And, oh, here's our bathroom and here's our steam shower. Like, if you can get that, you're, you're golden. If, if they're hesitant, then, you know, you still got some work to do. So, I like to close in the kitchen and close the deal. Like, give them a price. So many people are afraid to do this, and if you are afraid to do that because you're like, well, I don't know, what if it costs more money? Then just charge more money and do a flat rate price, which I'm not going to go into today. but you're going to give them a flat rate price. It's 500 bucks a light. 600 bucks a light. I got 40 lights. Okay, it's 600 bucks. Lights. 24,000 bucks. It's 24,000 bucks. Give them an op. Give them a decoy option for 50 and they say yes to the 24.

Okay.

You're also going to give them another one that's like 22 or whatever. and then you're going to schedule. This is important, guys. When you, when you. That's closing the deal. But then what you're going to do is you're going to schedule. So, when you go to, when you go to schedule, this is important, especially for a smaller company. Don't book out five days. You. Because you can like book out for five days and then it's like, well, what are you gonna do next Monday? I don't know. We'll figure that out, right? Just schedule three day installation weeks. Limited supply builds demand. Limited supply builds demand. So you're like, well, we've, only got, we're already booked out two weeks. You can be booked out two weeks and only have two jobs sold. If that job's going to take you three days, you tell them, hey, we're booked out three weeks because it's the third week, right? So they're like, well, these guys must be busy. That, that already creates perception. It's like, man, we better decide now because we need to get it done by this party or whatever it is. So you want to, you want to build that out. And worst case, if you're like, well, yeah, but I need to get that job done because I need to get the rest of the money or whatever. You can always call people back and say, hey, our change, our schedule, changed a bit. Looks like we can get you done next week. How would that work for you guys? They're always going to be stoked at that. They're Never excited about like, well, now we have to wait longer, you know, so you could book, you could be booked out zero days and tell someone you're booked out six weeks and tell, them. Yeah, that's when the next available is. You got to order materials, everything else they don't have to know. You can, you are in control of your pricing, your scheduling, everything. A lot of people don't know that you're, you're actually in charge of your warranty. Just because a manufacturer gives you a 10 year warranty doesn't mean you have to give it to them. You could, you could tell them it's three year warranty, but if they want to pay more for this option comes with the 10 year warranty. You see, we are in control of way more than we think. And we tend to just believe what we're told and do what we're told. You can do whatever you want. You can create a million dollar business. So stop letting other people create your own rules and your version of success and your dream. Like you're in control right now. This is you, this is you taking over. So schedule however you want. But I recommend three days a week. And then you're also going to want to schedule your own sales days and your owner days.

Okay?

You only have four days a week to work on your business

Your sales days are going to be maybe four days a week, maybe three days a week. It just depends on like how you're built. But you need to work on your business. And this is what no one ever told me and no one ever gave me permission, so I just never did it. I didn't think there was ever any time because I was putting out fires. But if you will schedule it in, like if your new reality was you only had four days a week to work, you would figure it out. Because I guarantee if I freaking told you guys that you had nine days a week now to work, you would work them. Like I was like, yeah, I reinvented a calendar and now you can do all this. Like, we're entrepreneurs, we're addicted to work. We just work, work, work, work. But you have to limit that. You have to say no. What has to be true? Well, what has to be true is I have to get to a million dollars and I only have four days a week to do it. Because this day is an owner day. This is the day I work on my business. That is what has to be true. You see, until you get intentional with this stuff, it's never going to happen. You're going to keep doing things the way you're doing them and you're going to get the same result. That is insane. Literally the definition of insanity.

Okay?

So that is the only guarantee. You keep doing what you're doing, you're going to get the same result until you try something else. You don't know what the potential is. And I'm here to tell you right now, I know what the full potential is. It's way bigger than you and I even know. Okay, so, that's how you do it. Guys, I, I went quick, I went over some stuff. If you guys have questions, I've got my free group, Landscape Lighting Secrets. Join that group. Tag me, let me know what questions you have. Let me help you. Join Lighting Academy. Join Landscape Lighting Secrets. Come to Light It Up Expo. There's, there's way too many resource. There's no excuse to fail. There's no excuse to fail. We have anywhere from free to low ticket to high ticket. Whatever level you need help, we have it for you. So there's just no reason to get frustrated with yourself anymore. There's no reason like until now it was, it wasn't your fault, but now it is because you heard the message and you know there's a path to success.

Couple last things I want to share with you and I'll wrap up

So m. Couple last things I want to share with you and I'll wrap up. I guess just one. This is that the value of the marginal deal. And this is why I'm so, I don't know, I'm so passionate to help you guys because I never knew this stuff. It took me years and years and years and I literally almost got divorced over running my business. I was trying to do something good for my family and it literally almost became the thing that destroyed me. So I'm doing this as ah, an effort to save my past. Like I literally, I just want to save one person from, from, from failure.

Okay.

And so that's why I'm passionate about this. It's not that I'm passionate about money. Like money is nothing. It's just a tool to get you that freedom. But I know if I can do it, you guys can do this.

Okay?

And so if you will understand lifetime value, that's a huge thing, understand that that client is not worth $8,000. They're worth $80,000. That changes everything.

Okay?

Because you're gonna, you're gonna pour into them more, you're gonna give them better service, you're gonna be willing to invest in more marketing. Like you're gonna, you're gonna do the things that you, you know, you should be doing. You haven't been doing.

Shifting your old way to the new way will give you marginal deals

Another thing that will change your life and change your perspective is the, the, the value of the marginal deal. And the marginal deal is this. You have a current system, you have a current business, you have a current success. And that is fantastic. You should honestly pause and celebrate. You should. If you're listening to this, you're watching this. You've made it further than most people. Most people don't make it past five years. And that's just stats like most businesses fail. So if you've made it this far, you should freaking celebrate. It's amazing. But you should also go, what can I do? What can I do to get there faster?

Okay?

And that's what marginal deals are, is shifting your old way to the new way. And the new way is going to give you marginal deals. And a marginal deal is like an extra deal. So let's say your process is yielding you 50, $10,000 jobs a year right now. 50, $10,000 jobs a Year. You have 500 million or $500,000 business. That's great. Again, there's no shame in that. Like that. You should celebrate that. But what I want to do is help you get one extra deal a month, two extra deals a month, squeeze out these extra deals. Because what happens, these marginal deals pay out way greater than your existing process deals. So let me explain. Your existing process is only as good as it is, right? Like it's proven to get you to 500 grand a million, 2 million. Wherever you're at. It's proven. It works. It works for that. But what I'm going to help you do, if you'll follow this path, is get these extra deals. And when you get the extra deal, it pays out at 60% instead of 10 or 20%. So if your company's currently making 10%, 20%, that's, that's what you make per deal. It's just, it is what it is. Like, there's no fluff in there. But if you can implement some of the things you hear on this podcast and you earn one extra deal this year, this month, 10 extra deals a year, whatever it is, these are marginal deals. These are extra above and beyond, which means your overhead, like, your systems are already paid for, so you don't have to apply all that revenue to that overhead. It's already, it's already been applied. It's already been taken care of. So these deals are going to pay out more. So this is why you need to practice. This is why you need to get better at sales. You need to, Follow up with people. You need to get more intentional about helping people because when you do that, you'll close the extra deal a week. And that extra deal pays 60% instead of 20% because your overhead's covered. So you sell an extra deal. Yeah, you have to pay for materials and you have to pay for the labor to get it done. But everything else is covered. Your truck payment, your insurance, your your shop, your office manager, all those things are paid for with your existing process. You've already got that figured out. So this is so important because now this is where the, your, the profit is hidden in your business. You just haven't discovered it yet because you haven't done these new the new way. So this is the new way. And I want to encourage you guys to move forward with these things because if you don't, you're going to leave this, this unlocked. It's literally like a buried treasure in your business that you didn't even know is sitting underneath you. When you unlock these new deals by doing the new way you now every $10,000 deal you sell is worth $6,000 in profit instead of $2,000. So you like, you make money so much faster and it's so hard to make money when you only have a three or four or $500,000 business. It's so much easier to make money when you have a seven figure million dollar business. That's why I'm so passionate about this. So don't get too hung up on like the money and don't think about greed. It's just this is where it's easier to make money and it's easier to provide value to your clients and you have time to, to over prom or over promise, to under promise, over deliver. You have time to give them the red carpet white glove. You have a money to be able to pay your people better and recruit better. This is where it's at. This is why I'm so passionate about, that's why I want to help you scale. That's want to help you grow. So do me a favor, implement this stuff. Stay in contact inside the free landscape lighting secrets group in Facebook and let me know how you let me know how you do. If you're winning, if you're losing, I want to hear about it. And I think that's all I got.

This is the last episode of the podcast, not of all time

So I just want to kind of close by saying this is the last episode, not of all time. You know, I ain't quitting last episode of the year. So next week is Christmas. Merry Christmas to everybody. The following week will be the new year. And, What's up, Tom Garber? What's up, Brian? Dank. Good to see you guys. so I'm taking the next couple weeks off of the podcast, and so I just want to tell everyone how much I'm, appreciative of you. I'm grateful for you, grateful for your support, Hope everyone has a, ah, awesome Christmas, an awesome new year, and, that's all, again, just super humbled by this opportunity and grateful for everyone out there. I hope you guys take some time off, this Christmas season, and, then get your ass back to work. Start putting these things in place, and don't wait, for someone else to come take what's yours. You know what I mean? So, really, appreciate everyone. Hope you have an awesome, awesome day, and, what's up, Kevin Hunt? Oh, wait, where'd it go? Yeah, hope you have an awesome, rest of your day and rest of your week, and, we'll see you guys on the next one in the, the new year. Thank you, Emery Allen.