Lighting for Profits - Episode 187

This week on the show we welcome, Greg Matthews, the owner of Luxury Illumination, a nationally recognized leader in outdoor lighting with locations in West Palm Beach, Denver, and Nashville. A CLVLT and COLD-certified expert, he also serves on the AOLP board and mentors at illi. As a Coastal Source Brand Ambassador, Greg continues to push the boundaries of innovation and craftsmanship in outdoor lighting.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Lighting for Profits. Your number one source for all things landscape lighting

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 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?

Right.

Usually it's some weird childhood thing, some.

Bully kicks your butt.

I think the key factor here is trust.

Ryan Lee: We got Greg Matthews with luxury illumination joining us today

Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

A. Ah, lot. A lot. All light. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the number one. It's the number one landscape lighting show in West Palm Beach, Florida. Baby. Let's go. So excited to hang out with you, Nerd out on lighting. We're going to be talking all things business. Lighting design, installation, all the good stuff. Got a great show lined up for you guys. listen, we are here to educate, to motivate, to help you dominate wherever you're at. Even if you're in Iowa or Fargo, North Dakota, we don't care. We want to help you guys grow your business. So that's what we're going to do today. We got a friend of the show, someone who's been with us, I feel like on a decent basis. We got Greg Matthews with luxury illumination joining us in just a few minutes. So listen, guys, if you are looking to scale your business, you're looking to land larger jobs, you're looking to go big, you're gonna want to listen to this show probably several times. So make sure you stick around because we got Greg Matthews, luxury illumination. He's our only. He's the only one so far to earn the LMCX, which is $10 million in landscape lighting, since joining landscape lighting secrets. So that's pretty freaking awesome. He's coming on the show today. before we have him. Come on, I do have to ask a favor, guys. I'm still trying to get reviews and I found out that, Greg's showing it off. He's, got it there at his office. I did find out that I only have 74 friends. I have 74 friends because that's the. And family. Family counts. It counts in that, too. I think my mom can only give me so many reviews, guys. I'm trying to get more reviews on Apple, Spotify. I think we got like 44 or something like that, but I want some on Apple because Apple, you can Write nice things. So if you have not gotten given a review, for the show, please do so. Joe Robino in the house. What's up, buddy? Thank you, thank you for one of your reviews. So you're one of my 74 friends. That feels good. Thank you. I'm hoping that I have 75 friends, that's all. I'm just trying to, trying to get more reviews. You guys know how it is when you get a five star review on Google. For me, it's not really about Google, it's about the podcast. So, if you have time, if you want to help a brother out, hook me up. And, again we got Greg Matthews coming on luxury illumination. This guy's a total stud. we're going to be talking about some of the things that he's doing in his business that is probably going to blow your mind. And, in, in, in, in the next, I would say, couple years, you're going to be like, wow. So make sure you stick around. It's gonna be an awesome conversation.

Light it Up Expo aims to help outdoor lighting professionals grow their businesses

Before I have him on, I want to talk about. Guys, just a couple weeks ago we had lighted up expo and I haven't really had a show since then. I took last week off and, really want to talk about that show just for a second because what we're doing, I mean, it was phenomenal, guys. There's a lot of stuff that we're going to do better and different next time. We learned a lot, but honestly, it was a great show. the theme of the show was Flip the Switch. And really the purpose of Light it Up Expo is to bring together the landscape lighting industry, holiday lighting, permanent lighting industry. We're trying to get this outdoor lighting expo together to help people grow their business. maybe you're not ready for community, maybe you're not ready for coaching, maybe you're not ready to, to do that. But we bring in speakers, we have workshops, we have a trade show floor. We can meet with vendors and see new products and stuff. It was, it was honestly amazing. and, the theme was Flip the Switch. So we're trying to help people flip the switch get to the next level in your business faster than if you weren't listening to this show or going to light it up. Right. Because too many of us are just letting our businesses run us. And I've been guilty of that. as recent as this last year, like, if you don't have a plan and you're not constantly executing it, then your business is running you. And the whole goal of flip the switch was to get people to flip the switch and wake up and stop letting their business run them and instead get intentional and start doing the things that, you know are necessary to get you to the next level. Because, no, no. Business just naturally is easy, okay? In fact, it's the opposite. Every business is, like, almost terrible. It's really hard, you guys. and there's the honeymoon phase of your business, first few years and stuff where, like, everything seems fine, but. But, like, when you start to grow and you start to have more demand, and then you have to hire team members and you have to fire team members, and you have to train and be a leader and, like, there's a lot to it. So, I don't have time to give you the full thing, but I wanted to share a couple excerpts from one of my presentations. I felt really good about it, and I had people tell me, they're like, dude, that was one of your best presentations I've ever heard. and so I'm just going to give you, like, the teaser, of it. And I was thinking, I kind of want to do, like, an encore presentation. So if you were there or you weren't there and you're like, I missed out, I want to hear that. I want to hear that encore presentation. Let me know in the comments. Shoot me a dm, Shoot me an email. and, if I get enough demand, like, I don't want to do it because I want to do it. I want to do it because other people want to hear. was really cool. And I'd be. I'd be. I would be down to do an encore if people really want it. So, basically I'm just going to run you through the high. Like, not even the whole highlights.

The Definite Chief Aim is something that gives you purpose with your business

Just a couple things. I started off again, we're talking about flipping the switch, getting to the next level, like, getting intentional with your business. And I started off talking about this thing called the Definite Chief Aim. And, the Definite Chief aim is something that gives you purpose. It gives you something to look for. And, I don't have it pulled up here or. No. Do I have it here? I don't, know. It came from basically, Napoleon Hill wrote this book like, 4,000 years ago called Think and Grow Rich. It's an amazing book. It's hard to, like, just listen to, like, casually. Like, it's. It's serious. It's a great book. I highly recommend Think and Grow Rich, but he said, have a definite target in mind. A date in which you will it will be achieved and what you will give in order to receive it. Okay, so it's like setting goals to the next level and what you will give in order to receive it. And, Bruce Lee, I shared what his was. His was amazing, and it inspired mine. What I'm going to put down, but basically a definite chief aim is like, write down, where are you going? Like, why are you even doing this? Why do you own your own business? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to be like for me? I'm like, are you trying to be like the father that you didn't have? Are you trying to provide for your family? Are you trying to build a legacy? Are you trying to do something that no one has ever done? Why are you doing all this? What are you wanting to achieve financially, emotionally, from a time standpoint? Do you want time freedom? What is it? When do you want to achieve it? Who are you going to do this for? Like, who are you serving? And what will you give? What will you give in exchange for that? And why? Right? So I actually had the whole group at light it up, like, spend a couple minutes starting this. And this isn't an exercise that you're going to just, like, knock out in two minutes, but you could do it now. You could, like, just write down some of these questions and then do it as homework. And it might take you three months to figure out your definite chief aim. I don't know. but remember that just start somewhere. You don't have to know all the details. And your details could change six months from now as you start to progress down the path, you'll be enlightened more and you'll go, oh, you know what? I'm actually going to think bigger because I thought $10 million was big, but that's not. I'm going to go for 20. Or, I thought I wanted to build a business with three installers. I want six now. Like, whatever it is, okay, so just start. But, And I'm not going to share right now my definite chief aim, but it has to do with a billion dollars, okay? And I. My mindset is not big enough. Like, I see some of my friends, they're like, they're. They're like, sharing with the world, like, I'm going to become a billionaire. And I'm like, dude, I don't. I don't know if my mind. Like, I would love to say that so that people be like, yeah, Ryan wants to be a billionaire, but, like, I don't really want that right now. So like, I'm not, I'm not going to make something up that's not true to who I am. But I did come up with, this billion dollar formula where basically I want to help a thousand of you, I want to help a thousand people create an additional million dollars in revenue in your businesses in the next 10 years. And I feel like I'm going to do that before 10 years. But I put a 10 year, deadline on that. So if I can help a thousand people create an extra million dollars, that's a billion dollars in additional revenue created that wouldn't have existed had we not worked together. So that's my goal. That's how I want to, like, chisel at the billion dollar goal. Because I don't really care about being a billionaire right now. It's just not on my fantasy list or anything like that. But it is, it is on my list to help people. And if I can help a thousand of you generate over a million dollars and I give you guys an LMC award, that's freaking awesome.

The average person spends over two hours per day on social media

Okay, so that's, that's a portion of mine I'll call it. And then, I basically put together this framework, I call it the owner framework. And again, I'm not going to go over all of it because I really want to get to Greg and I want to, spend time letting him kind of reveal some of the things that he's been working on. but I'm just going to share the first part of it. So part of the owner framework. O stands for and O is the O W N E R framework really helping you guys go from operating your business to owning your business? This is a brand new presentation. I'd never shared it before, but the O stands for overcoming distractions. And, I read somewhere that the average person spends over two hours per day on social media. That's the average person. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably above average. So that means you're probably spending four hours a day, you're probably spending more than that. But whether it's an hour a day or two hours a day, it's most of the time a waste. Like you're either on social media to create or to consume. Now I go on there and I consume like I'm guilty of the scroll, right? But I also spend most of my time on social media creating. You'll notice by all the videos that I put out, right? So make sure that the ratio's there, that you're creating more than you're consuming But I started to do the math. When you have two hours per day on average, okay. That you're just scrolling and wasting on social media, that ends up to be seven. What is that? 730 hours. 730 hours a year that the average person is wasting, which is 7310 hour workdays. So if you have 10 hour work days in your life, most of us do. That's 73. 73. That's over two and a half months that you're wasting. So the next time you go, well, yeah, I want to do that. You, know, I think I'm going to do that. I'm going to work on my business, but I don't have time. I'll do that when I have time, I'll do that later. I just don't have time. Like you have time. You're just wasting it because you haven't gotten intentional with your chief definite aim. Okay? So it's important to know where you're going and know what you need to eliminate to get there. And so the first one is overcome distractions. That's the, o in the owner framework. I'm not going to go to the next one. But again, if you guys are like, no, I want to hear that, I want to hear the encore presentation, I will, I will put that together. But if there's just one of you, I'm probably not going to do it. but literally, distraction, distraction, you guys. And that's what social media is. It's the number one tool the resistance uses to keep you satisfied. It's just like it feels good to just scroll, right? And ironically, some of you are probably watching this right now on Facebook. So I'm grateful that you're willing to get distracted. I'm grateful that you're willing to waste two hours of time because otherwise maybe I wouldn't have a business. But like, you got to get intentional with your business. You got to get intentional where you're going, why you're going to do this, what is your plan, if not your business is going to continually run you. And the problem is, as humans, we're always like, like we're not going to fail. We're not going to just be homeless. So we always work up into the bare minimum that we have to do. And that's because you don't have a plan. You don't know where you're going. You don't have your definite chief aim. But when you do have a definite chief aim and you've got it and you read it every day and Mine ends, by the way. And I'll share this at another time. I shared it live with everybody. But, the very last sentence is, I see this vision clearly, I feel it deeply and I take action daily to make it my reality. When I read those words every day, it inspires me, empowers me. I'm like, okay, like I wasn't motivated, but I just read that now I'm motivated and I know what I'm going for. So print it out, see it daily and manifest it and it will happen. I think that's it, guys. again, Light it up was amazing. I absolutely loved it. We are totally transforming the outdoor lighting industry. Next year's even going to be bigger and better. We're working on planning the next one right now. if you want to get tickets and you want to get on the wait list, you can go to light it up expo. com we don't have, you can't buy anything right now. But we do have a link where if you go to light it up expo. com you can get on the wait list. We're going to do some pre, sale tickets and promotions and stuff like that for anyone that's on that list. So, we're still working out the details on the location, the date, stuff like that. But if you think you might want to go, go to light it up expo. com and you get, get pre registered. So hey, real quick, where's the button? I almost forgot. You know, a fixture is only as good as the source of light inside it. This light source is what your customers and future customers will ultimately see at night and will result in thousands of dollars in return business for you. Along with glowing ref. Emory Allen is at the top of their game. They believe every lighting 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 take advantage of Emory Allen's world class customer service. Get 10 off your first order. All you need to do, guys. And I don't know why people aren't listening to this because some people still go to their website and then they post on the Facebook group and be like, wow, they're a lot more than I thought because you're not emailing tom g@emeredyallen. com so if you want the best deal, email tom gmeryallen. com mention that I heard about him here on Lighting for Profits and he'll hook you up with that discounted contractor pricing. Tom g@emeryallen. com.

Greg Matthews is the world headquarters of luxury illumination

all right, guys, it's time. I'm excited. We got an awesome show lined up. Greg's in the, at his office there, ready to go. His hq, the world headquarters of luxury illumination. So let's get the music going and let's get him coming on. Welcome, welcome, Mr. Greg Matthews. How are you?

Hello. Hello. Starting to feel like home in here.

Heck yeah, man. I love it. Good to see you. Thanks for joining me on the show today.

Yeah, quick shout out to Tom, and Emory Allen too. we use a lot of his lamps and, my eyes felt like they were off the other night a little bit. They weren't looking like they were the right, you know, kelvin temperature. So I called Tom up and he did some random, testing in the integrating sphere for me to confirm that they were the right kelvin temperature and all of his proportions were in that area. So, yeah, Tom is on top of his stuff.

So what'd you do? You sent back some lamps and said test these out?

No, he went and took some off the shelf. We did a source batch and then actually we talked, about. I have my own spectrometer now because I don't play around. So now I'm gonna test lamps here randomly, as well and in the field.

That's so awesome, man. How many, how many outdoor lighting companies have a spectrometer in the office?

I don't know, but we do.

What is your go to color temperature? What do you usually use

by the way, off topic, what is your go to color temperature? What do you usually use?

So it's actually been 3,000k for a while, but I'm actually going more towards 2700k a lot lately. And it really varies per property, per client, per neighborhood, per house. we're doing a lot of historical houses and older homes and classy estates and things like that. We're also doing like a full color changing, controllable house right now. So we do all spectrum of lighting, but 2700, I'm actually leaning towards, and I'm trying to even get something a little bit warmer for some homes, like 2200 Kelvin.

Oh, wow, that's interesting because, you know, back in the day when LED first came out, that was kind of like our claim to fame. I was like, you know what? We're 2700 K. We're not the, the blue looking light or whatever. But I think it's my eyes. Like, I think as I get older, my eyes are changing. I like 3000K right now. Like, I'm a 3K kind of guy. Yeah, but everyone's. Your eyes change.

and make sure you write down when you do become a billionaire, I can finally do your lighting. So I want to be your first call.

Okay, dude, that's such a good idea. So maybe we'll do it. Because I want to just do, like, YouTube videos when I'm bored, and I'll do a YouTube video and be like, all right, I'm calling the top three lighting people in the country and I want to see their pitch, I want to see the design, and I'm going to choose the best one.

Oh, I'm down. Can't wait for the final album. Yeah, I already get in my head. We're good.

Do you bring the spectrometer with you?

So, yeah, of course. I mean, you show up with all the stuff if it's in a contest, you know, and you can do it like a Gordon and Ramsay thing. Like, you get like the crappiest equipment and you have to make like a five course Michelin star, you know, dinner with it.

Oh, yeah.

We get like a, random, like, tin can and an old, you know, bulb and fixture. I'll call it a bulb because it's so old. Not even a lamp. Yeah, and then we have to make magic out of it. It's like a game show.

And some are even like Halogen Summer LED, Gen 1, Gen 5.

Yeah, I like this 7,000K.

That would be cool. what's up? Bear Black. Thanks for being here. Rover mentor of the year. Yeah, I forgot about that.

I think Bear Black still holds the most, he's been to the most events out of anybody in a single year. Lighting events. Oh, yeah, he did like every single one in that one year.

He's the reigning champ. Yeah. What's up?

And then Tim. I saw Tim earlier today. He's actually down here in, my area. He was at the, Cedia show.

Oh, nice. Very cool.

Greg Matthews owns luxury illumination and outdoor sound systems

Well, you've been on the show before, but would you mind just doing a real quick introduction of who you are for those that don't know you and those that have been sleeping in a cave.

So. Greg Matthews, own luxury illumination. we're about nine and a half years old. Main branch here is in West Palm Beach, Florida. Another branch in Nashville, Tennessee. And we have another branch out in Denver. we focus mostly or primarily on high end residential, super high end res. I'm a lead mentor a lot of the time at ILY International Landscape Lighting Institute. the current Treasurer and on the board of the association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals. And we do only outdoor lighting and outdoor sound systems. We do some pretty killer outdoor sound systems as well. I, got about a $300,000 one we're going to install here pretty soon. Just about our audio. we worked in about 16 states, three countries. I have to go to the Dominican Republic here soon to work on a, console and a design for a client. So that'll be an additional to that. And just, love lighting.

And the only, award winner of the LMCX so far. Yeah, there it is, baby. I got to see it live last, month. When was it? A couple months ago now.

But only one in existence. And I mean, should we tell them the. The hidden, graphic. That'll stay there forever because I mark my territory so that we are keeping it. Now that I'm announcing it, the LI graphic is going to stay on all the LC, LMCXs in the future.

It's kind of like subliminal. Like if you don't. It just doesn't, like, pop out. But then after, when you're staring at it, you're like, wait, is that luxury illumination back there?

Damn, that's sexy.

Yeah.

I was gonna get my gold chain, like one of my gold chains and wear it around my neck like this, but it didn't work out. But you know what? I can't wait to get, like, two of these a year.

Why did you join Landscape Lighting Secrets several years ago

Well, let's talk about that. you know, I guess, I don't know. Let's do this. I've heard people, not, not just you, but other people in Landscape Lighting Secrets that are doing well ask you and ask others, like, what the heck? Like, why are you in Landscape Lighting Secrets? Like, why would you do that? You should be the one teaching him. You should be the one teaching these classes. Why did you, several years ago, decided to join Landscape Lighting Secrets?

well, I mean, I'm a true believer that if you think you know everything, you know, you're already losing. So I love learning something new every day if it's possible. I know a lot about a lot of things, but I don't want to learn everything. I don't know everything. So I'm very happy to listen to people, interact with people, work with people, and you can always get a different aspect of something. So with Landscape Lighting Secrets, originally came on as seeing a different aspect of landscape lighting, and it's really turned into more of a business, you know, aspect.

Do many people know about the Legends? I don't think so

I'm in the legends course, which Is your top. Top tier? I don't. Do many people even know about the Legends? I don't think so.

Yeah, we don't really advertise it because it is just an internal. Like, it's like the top level of landscape. Lighting secrets.

Yeah. And we really don't even talk about lighting very much. So we're talking about how do we get to that next level. You're talking about flipping the switch, you know, and I'm thinking about a dimmer switch right now. And we're kind of like ramping up from 10%, you know, and kind of pushing that dimmer switch up, as we do that. But yeah, when we get together, we meet with, other great business owners. Keith and Billy are in there with me. different areas of the country, they run different kinds of businesses, both successful, but we all have something to give back to each other. And again, we're not talking too much about lighting. We're talking about how do we make this better in the long run. I want to look forward to the future. Neither, I wouldn't say Ryan nor I are really greedy people. So I hate saying money all the time. And for me, it goes back to security for my family, security for my employees. If we're bringing in more revenue, more profits, I want to be the one that's able to give my employees the ability to buy a new home or have children or actually buy a house in West Palm Beach. Was insane right now. so we do this to better lives, not only of ourselves, but of other people. And I want to bring in more people to this company because I think we have an amazing organization and I hear it all the time, but I want to make it better with more better people. Not more better people, but more better people. So we can just keep expanding. we're about to bring on, I think, what's going to be a rock star operations manager who is not even really going to go in the field very much, but he comes from other companies and can help us with all the metrics, the KPIs, setting up manual, setting up systems, making everything stabilized, being an additional me and an additional Stephanie, who's our general manager, who does an amazing job. we're going to be bringing on actually our first salesperson here very soon. We're in the interview process of that, and I do all the sales right now, which I know a lot of companies out there do that. And it's good for a while, but if something happens, it can really hurt. Not only you and the Business, but all of your employees as well. And I don't know if we want to talk about this now, Ryan, like the, you know, me getting sick last summer, or we can talk about that later. But I think that's a great example of why going through programs like this, setting yourself up for the future is super important to do, because you never know what can happen any moment.

yeah, I think we can for sure. So even so even myself, like when, when we first met and started hanging out and stuff like that, and then you're like, all right, I want to be in your program. Even I was like, well, why are you reaching out to me? Like, how am I going to help you? You're already doing like millions of dollars a year. but I think what's important is really. And we can talk about what happened to you. but it really is, it's bigger than just sales. It's just bigger than revenue. And a lot of people from the outside, myself included, will be like, oh, Greg's got it all together. Like, everything's fine. He's doing millions of dollars a year, like, what's the problem? And then introduce what happened to you. Talk about that for a minute.

Yeah, so, I mean, it was basically just a summer vacation, last summer. Not everybody knows about this. I've told some people, but we went on vacation with the kids in Northern California, went to go see the sequoias and all the redwoods, and then ended, up in Sonoma at the vineyards. And when Eric and I were walking around a vineyard, beautiful location. I mean, I could show you a picture of it and it looks like, you know, a glimpse into heaven. Like, it was gorgeous. I walked one way around the lake and she walked the other way because she was checking out a bridge and had about six ticks following me out of a tree just randomly out of nowhere. And it wasn't in the middle of woods or anything. This was literally in the middle of a vineyard. Kind of brushed them off, didn't really notice too much. And kind of fast forward a few months down the road, I was kind of getting sick off and on. you know, I almost thought I had covet again. Got the flu, wasn't sure I was getting tested for everything. We kind of went back to that, over time. But what really set it off is I became almost like, couldn't get out of bed. I felt like a 200 year old man. Had a crazy rash on my arms and hands and palms. and anybody knows me knows that I can sleep for three hours for an entire year, every night and be fine and be able to party every night as well. And I really had my butt kicked. I would have to go and take two naps in a day and try to get stuff done in between. I was actually visiting, Aiden up in Nashville and I had to have him get my little carry on luggage down for me because I couldn't pick it up and down from the car. So I was still traveling for work and trying to get things going. And then we went into the, the fancy dermatologists and all the people taking blood work down here in West Palm beach. Couldn't figure out what it was for a while. I mean, I had so many biopsies and blood tests and all this. They were testing for everything. And then I went into a walk in clinic up in Nashville, just because it had gotten even worse and thank God that guy made me sit there. We went through all this stuff, he tested it and a little eight dollar bottle of doxycycline, a little antibiotics at my life pretty much. But during this time, you know, I was really had my butt kicked. I mean, it was really bad. And then you start thinking about, you know, the revenue is going to slow down, bills have to get paid. not only my bills, but all the people that I'm paying their bills have to get paid. So now it really sets in. You know, I was even emailing Erica to update the will. Like that's how this is kind of like coming to fruition, which was a good freak out on me. but it was all, it was all pretty real and we didn't know what to do at that point. Thank God it started getting better slowly. but I don't want to get in that situation again where I don't like feeling weak. And sometimes you just can't control it what happens to you. I mean, people can get in a car accident, be deep stabilized, you could have a heart attack. Somebody can have that. We know they're people in the industry that had that. It could have been worse. So I think we need to set ourselves up for success for ourselves, for our spouses, for our children, for our employee and for employees and for all of their families as well. You know, it's just being responsible.

Now that you're building this dream team, man, it's going to be epic

Yeah, no, thanks for sharing. I mean, my wake up call wasn't the same as yours. It was a different story, but it was, they all have the same ending. Like it's not good. So we do have like we're doing a disservice to Our family, our team members, our customers. If we're just not willing to take the risk, if we're not willing to build the team, like, there are a few people that make it through life in their business and they're able to just be that solo entrepreneur and everything works out and like, God bless them for that, you know. But the, the odds are not in our favor. There's too many things that can go wrong.

Yeah. And during this time too, we won't talk too much in detail about this, but I had one of my longest employees who was high up and had a position, title, an important one, literally walk out with zero notice on me during the middle of this. So at my weakest point, they left also, which, actually turned out to be fine. But during that time it was, you know, I couldn't even think about that because I was on the way to the doctor kind of thing. So you have to be careful and figure out what you have set up for the future. if you had to bring on somebody new, do you have system setups? Do you have process setup? Do, you have, you know, how can you bring on that next person without having to train them from scratch or who's your backup person? So I think it's all real important to start setting that up now.

Yeah. And you know, it's like, I, I, I know a little bit about what's going on behind the scenes and stuff like that, but I appreciate you sharing that and being vulnerable with everyone because I think from an outside perspective, it's like, oh, Greg, I mean, look, he's got the office, the showroom, he's selling these big projects like everything's fine. And again, as long as everything's fine, it is. But until it's not. now you're really building this foundation and, and you're doing the non sexy stuff. You know, the sexy stuff is to go out and sell millions of dollars. And like, that feels, that feels good too. The, the non sexy, like, boring is building the foundation. Like, if you want to erect this large building, then you're gonna have to dig the foundation. You're gonna have to do all the dirty work. Like, you're not gonna brag about, like, how cool this concrete is type thing, you know? and that's what you guys are doing. And it's going to be freaking awesome because soon, once that foundation's in place, then you guys are gonna, you guys are gonna tear it up.

Yeah. It's like those little, posters. You see the little, the iceberg there, and it shows, like, the one. The. The section of the iceberg you see above the water. It's kind of like where we're at right now. So we're going to start seeing the rest of that iceberg where most of it is below the water. Like, we start building that foundation. yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm kind of fired up. I don't know if you can tell, but.

Well, I've. I've said the phrase before. I didn't invent this phrase. I just hear people say it. What got you here won't get you there. So, like, it's awesome what Greg has. You know, you've gotten your company to this point, but now that you're building this dream team, man, it's. It's going to be so epic.

You mentioned hiring an operations manager. What are some other things that you've done

what are some of the things that you've done? You mentioned you're hiring an operations manager. You got a sales person. What are some other things that you guys have done to get out of your own way?

Well, that. And so I'm really debating on going from one salesperson to three salespersons within four months, over different territories, because now we have more people to manage those people, turning the first one into a sales manager, and then at that point, hiring a whole other crew, like, all within the year. So, you know, we could. I'd say two and a half. Two and a half times XR revenue down here. This is just in West Palm beach. And now in Nashville, we're also building up some stuff up there. We got some new properties. We're walking some amazing clients that we're meeting up there that I can't talk about. So that's also gonna be building up there another foundation, for that area. Once we get up here, we can kind of replicate it in the different areas, customize it for the zones, and hire some more teams up there as well.

Deca Millionaire is an investment that pays off in the end

What has. I was.

So.

I was out of town, and then I saw you. I saw you and Keith and Billy like, texting back and forth. You got you. You seem fired up right now to be like, all right, we're not. We're not even waiting for Ryan at this point. Like, we're. We're going like. We set goals. We all talk about this, but the last time you and I talked, you're like, yeah, screw that goal. We're going bigger. Like, where's that coming from?

I don't know. I mean, I just think, you know, a deca. Deca Millionaire award is kind of cool, but why are we not getting that every six months? Because I totally have the ability to with the right team. And like that's just kind of like, hey, it, it's when you get too comfortable, like when you know, you got to buy a house or you go to clean up the government waste spending or you go to, you know, invest in a building for your company. It sucks at first, but it's an investment that pays off in the end. And even like, you know, business owners out there, all of you should have a retirement plan set up and be donating to that or putting into that every single month right now. And if you don't get on that m, because the longer you wait, the less you're going to have in that account when you're needing for it to use it. So I think it's right now we're doing some pretty cool stuff, but I think we should be doing like much better things. And again, with me the only person doing sales, why don't we have a team doing that? We have all the connections. I have some really amazing new contacts we've been working with working on lighting homes of tomorrow night we're walking the property of a client's house that we lit. He's the number four realtor in the nation. So you're dealing with a person who sells billions of dollars worth of real estate. So you think about that selling houses. So you have a normal realtor selling millions of dollars of houses a year, think they're doing great and this guy over here is doing $4 billion a year or $4 billion over four years. So people can do these things in any industry. If you're going to be the best, you may as well do it. I mean, go for it and do it properly.

Well, honestly, it wasn't until I met you, like I thought I had a pretty good mindset because I was like, man, I did $150,000 job once and you know, I know there's $250,000 jobs and then I met you and I was like, wait, his average job is over that?

Yeah, we have, we have two this year coming up that will be over seven figures each and they're residential.

That's so crazy. Yeah, that's so awesome. I mean it makes sense though. These are like 100 million dollar properties. So what's a million bucks? Like? It's, it's, it's fine.

Well, but honestly, that's how you have to think about it. It's. You don't spend your own money, don't sell your own money. They expect to spend. I mean, it's not even going back to the money, though, if the quality is there, the design is there, the quality of the product is there, the installation is there. They're happy to spend that. I mean, some people spend that on a staircase or a wedding ring. you can spend that on a car. Why not spend it on a lighting that can make your life better every night? And that's a real way to really think about this stuff, because we're not. I know we say this all the time when we're calling them salespeople in this talk, but I hate the word sales. You know, I've done all the work, I've done all the research. We tested everything. We know a project we're using, we know how to design it, we know where it's going to go. So we're not salespeople. We're just designing the proper solution for that client. And I'm not trying to push something onto them that they don't need or deserve. So it's really. That's how we come across as, designers rather than sales people, because we're basically problem solvers. We're trying to allow a client to spend more time with their family, which to a lot of people is worth more than a million bucks. You know, now you can have your family reunion at your home and not have to go inside at 5pm you can, have the yard photograph for a, you know, a TV show. You can hand it down, the quality of product down to your kids. Like, those are the kind of systems we want to build and maintain.

Yeah.

It all goes back to confidence, which anybody knows me

Well said. Tell us the story when you were meeting with that realtor and you start walking around his property.

Oh, yeah. So it all goes back to confidence, which anybody knows me, I do have a little bit of confidence, but I try to keep it below arrogance slightly, in a good way. but when you are around other people like that who are very successful and they know their skill set and, you know, are the top of the game again, doing billions of dollars real estate as we're walking the property. You know, my first time meeting him in person through a referral source, he's kind of talking about areas to light and what to do. And then he starts naming specific and pointing out the specific trees and how he wants them lit. So I kind of cut him off, and I'm like, you stick to selling houses and I'll. I'll light your yard and I'll stick to my job. And you do yours. And he says, you're hired basically right there. Like, I like you, but if you do something like that, you better do an amazing job with the final outcome as well. So it's just like doing a design. Every single dot of those seven or 800 fixtures we do on properties, they better all make sense. You put two lights on there that don't make sense. The clients will pick it out. They become lighting designers by the end of the, process. So you don't want to have too many or too little, on a project. So that really comes into the walkthroughs of the clients getting what they want to do with the property, to your design, to the final outcome. All needs to go seamlessly.

Love it. Yeah. And if the client sees you as a salesperson, they're going to naturally want to fight you on everything because they think, oh, you're just trying to put another light there because that's an extra 500 bucks. But when they see you as a trusted advisor, a guide, a helper, a problem solver, then they're grateful for every recommendation because you've thought of everything. You are the illy mentor. You're on the AOLP board. You're in landscape buying secrets. You've done everything in your power and your, ability to be the best at your game. Why would they not respect that?

Absolutely. I mean, they're going to hire the best, you know, mechanic to work on their car or whatever. You know, I didn't want to downgrade it that much. But let's talk about interior designers and people like that that are, sometimes not even that great at their job. But, oh, my gosh, what they charge is insane. So for what we do and what we can do to a property, if you do it properly with the right quality stuff, we're actually underpriced if you think about it. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of lighting installers, I mean, we've installed projects with per fixture pricing of 800 to $1,000, sometimes depending on the fixture type, the wiring, how it's put in, how many zones are put in, the transformer amounts. So you can go from a 200 fixture project, dollar per, dollar per fixture project, you know, to $1,000 per fixture project, but depending on clients and what they want and how it's going to be installed. So there's a big variance there in what they need and what they deserve.

Landscape Lighting Secrets really is about business, man

Yeah. Well, it's awesome what you've done so far, man, and I feel like you are just Getting started. It's freaking incredible. You know, we do these awards a lot. and Landscape Lighting Secrets really is about business. I'm not trying to be the lighting design teacher of the year or whatever. Like, I feel like I'm actually really good lighting designer. But there's people that teach lighting design. There's teach. There's people that teach installation stuff like that. I want to help people get intentional and live their dreams. You know, like, that's what it's all about. So we have the awards. The lmc, which is a million dollars. The, penta million, the 5 million, the LMCX, which is the 10. Now we're working on the 25. We haven't even come up with the name yet for it. It's the $25 million one. so we do that again. It's not because we're greedy. You're one of the most generous people I know. but it's no secret. The more profit you have, the more you're able to pay your team. It's a, it's, it's actually a disservice to not care about money. Like, you're, you're being disrespectful to your team members, to your. To your, clients, to your family. Like, it's, it's your, it's your. Not just right, but you're. I guess it's your privilege to, like, build, a very profitable business so that you can give back to the community and give back to your people and, and not have to stress out every single week of, are I going to be able to afford payroll?

You know, well, and if you got too much money, then donate to your favorite charity. I mean, you don't have to, you know, there's plenty of things you can do with money, and it's better for good people to have money than bad people to have money. That's, you know.

Absolutely.

How do you approach the first step of lighting design for a project

So how can we talk about design? Let's shift gears. Talk about design for a second.

That's my favorite word.

Yeah.

How do you.

How do you approach it? You get a call, how do you approach the first step of lighting design?

So generally, I mean, a lot of our clients come from referral sources, so we're not really talking to them on the phone very long or much. I'm not qualifying them at all. A little bit different than, you know, cold calling or getting calls into the company that we don't do any marketing or advertising at the moment, really. So we do, like, some build magazines. That's More for the contractors. So if I have somebody coming in from me, it's usually referral from somebody. I'm going to talk to that client, set up a time, figure out to go out with, meet them. on that meeting I'll kind of have a quick discussion with them, maybe 10, 15 minutes. Kind of their wants and needs, how they use our home. look through their windows from the inside out, see how things are laid out, look how old the client is, if they have kids or not, if they have grandkids, if they have pets. Looking at all the different things that they may need for lighting and how much they can see of the lighting, looking at the neighborhood they're in, looking at the age of the home that they're on, looking at the kelvin temperature of the lights in the inside, the color of their house. So these are all different variations that I'm not even talking to them about, but I'm observing. And then we'll drone the property generally. So I'll fly the drone up, take a picture straight down to the property. I'll take front angle shots, with the cell phone. They don't need to be fancy but they're kind of reference pictures. And we'll go back to the, the shop and kind of design things. So we'll go through each.

When you're doing that, like I've seen your like cell phone shots, like you said, there's nothing fancy but you're doing that to remind you what the area looked like. So when you go to mock up the plan, is that right?

Yeah. So I put on the widest setting, I just get straight shot, straight shot kind of look around because when you go back to design, there's a lot of all your detail work, you know, you remember kind of. But like we want really detailed specific designs that, that you know, point out statues, features. I may have 10 different fixture types on a project. so I want to have all those details. Do I need to cordrol this one? Does this need to be a well light or a path light? What size riser do I put on this one? Is it a bullet? You know, so I want to have all those details. So when I'm designing I put the right fixture in the right place.

Yeah, you're not able to see that on a two dimensional plan. It's just a dot on a piece of paper.

No, it's just a dot on a paper. So when I go back to percent so the first visit I'm not really showing in my portfolio at all. So they don't really see pictures of our work because it's not really relevant at that point. So I do go back a second time during that. We have a, beautiful printout printed out on nice paper. It's not on a tablet, it's not on flimsy paper. Reason I don't use a lot of tablets or phones, or anything like that to show off pictures is because they're too bright on a phone or too dim on a phone, or there's too many variations. You may have reflections from the ceiling lights. All these little things that play into a client's mind where, you know, if you have a beautiful lighting picture, but they're seeing their hi hat reflecting off your iPad, it can really, you know, mess up the image.

So let me go back real quick. So when you're on that first meeting, there's not a lot of involvement with the client, maybe asking questions and stuff, but you're really just document documentation.

Correct. And we generally don't talk about budget. So I know it's good to price marinade. It actually is a great technique sometimes. But most of the time we're not even price marinating because I don't know exactly where we're going to be at in our projects. I mean, even a small yard is usually around 70 grand, 80 grand for like, I wouldn't say minimum, but like, that's our smaller projects. A lot of our projects are going to 2, 3, 4, $100,000 depending on the size of the yard and how many plants they are. And again, that's not to rack up the bill. That's just what they need to light the property properly.

Yeah.

so on the second meeting, we're going back, we're taking that print out. We're walking through the placement plan that we've designed in Illustrator, Adobe Illustrator. It's beautiful. It's color. We have different icons we've created.

We have up and down lights. We have all the different ones that have risers

We have up and down lights. We have all the different ones that have risers, we have the different fixtures. We have a legend next to legend shows a small icon of what the fixture actually looks like. So that answers the question to the client when they're looking at it. And then this is when we have our portfolio book out and say we have a light with up and. Or, we have a tree with up and down lighting with maybe some pendant lights or whatever. Now I brought a picture that shows what a finished tree would look like with that. It's not their specific tree, but it's something that would be pretty much how that tree is going to look. So you're now connecting those little dots that don't mean much to a client to a 3D image of a finished product that is real. So they know that their tree can be that same quality. And then, you know, a lot of trees we do, we hardly ever do a single light on a tree. And even smaller trees can have, you know, five, seven lights sometimes to make them just more balanced, evenly lit. You don't have hot spots, especially when you go up and down lighting. So it all kind of adds up. So when they see all those dots, it kind of freaks them out at first. But you have to show what the purpose of each of those icons is going to do and how it's going to light up the tree more evenly and balance it out. And people that understand lighting are you know, totally get it by the end of this process. So by leading them through, it actually works out well. If we do need a reduced budget, we kind of work with them on what areas they want to reduce or take off. But I don't do a good, better best. It's, you know, we do a design and we actually charge for that design for the proposal. Sometimes I'll do a pre charge for some designs if it takes a long time. We have some. We have one property we're doing right now. We're getting $50,000 in design fees just to design the outdoor lighting for that property before we do any of the install. but that's taking me a long time to do and going back and forth kind of thing. But the other ones will actually add a design fee to our proposal. So when they accept it, they are paying for that design as well.

And you're, you're pretty confident at that point because of the referral source that you're getting the job.

Yeah, our close rate is extremely high. Where we're getting the jobs from our closing process, the quality of our work, and this is what's going to have to go on to my salesperson coming on is the confidence, the ability to answer all the questions correctly, talk about the plans, you know, know your knowledge about that. And yeah, that's, that's just how it is. So we have a pretty good close rate because of those reasons.

Eli North: 60 to 70 grand for a small landscape lighting job is correct

we did have one question. So 60, 70 grand for a small job, is that correct? Can you elaborate who your customers are?

People, with 60 to 70 grand to spend on landscape light? No, I'm just kidding. it's all, we do, all high end residential, and Like I said, we're all over the place. Our main area is West Palm Beach, Florida. But like I said, we've worked in 16 states, so there is wealthy people all over the country. There's always people in towns that are willing to spend that. I think a lot of people are afraid to ask for that if they don't have the proper quality product to sell them, if that makes sense. So people can afford that. If you walk in and you say, hey, we're going to do $20,000 in landscape lighting, because to you, $20,000 is a lot of money. That's what you're going to be stuck to. If you walk into a property and don't spend your own money and want to provide them with the best product and make them, like, really? Wow. And it's going to take that much money to create it, then that's all you got to think about it. And with that confidence, that's how you come up with those numbers. The numbers come by what the fixtures are needed to create the perfect lighting scene.

So when you go and do that proposal, they see eight dots on a tree. And what, what do you say when they're like, I mean, do we really need that many lights on that, on that tree?

So my favorite words are, have your portfolio in check. you know, I've talked multiple places about taking pictures, setting up mockups, doing all this stuff. So stupid, silly thing. Why don't you get your camera out, take one tree, take eight lights and put one light on it. Take a picture, put two lights on it, take a picture. Do that for people starting out with this. I can explain it better, and I don't need to do it that simplistic.

Yeah.

But show the difference between this. I think the, the cold program, the certified outdoor lighting designer program for aolp, they have. You do that. They have a tree you're supposed to do for your project and light it multiple ways and see what the best way of doing it is. And you can see how it improves so much when you do it properly. You lower the wattage, increase the, amount of fixtures, get rid of your hotspots. That's what you really need more fixtures for.

Yeah, that's great advice. It sounds elementary to be like, okay, here's one with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. But honestly, like, most people will show their portfolio and they might. Let's just say someone has a tree with eight lights on it. They might show that to someone and then. But the people don't know, like, how good it looks because you haven't shown them how bad it can look.

So and I would say if you take that same picture and you take another copy of it and you drop icons on it for where you had fixtures to make that effect, that really makes them realize, hey, this is what you use to make this lighting proper. if people haven't gone to Eli, you know, ILLY is a great course to take. International Landscape Lighting Institute. You'll put out two, 300 fixtures and there's, it's really. You're, you're working on a, a mock up of a design install with no budget because it's all a mock up. So now it really gets you thinking like what do I need to do to make the design purpose or ah, perfect. And you're not worried about what's my client have to spend for money. Now I'm not saying go to your local trailer park and start trying to sell them $60,000 landscape lighting jobs, but even normal people can spend more on their landscape lighting if it's worth it than I think what people are really going for and charging if, if they have, if their product is, it's correct.

Yeah, I, I just know there's people listening to this right now or tomorrow. Whenever they listen, they're gonna be like, yeah, but okay, so you're in West Palm Beach. It must be easy to sell three hundred thousand dollar jobs. Seven hundred bucks a light. What, what if I dropped you off in like, I don't know, why am I picking on Iowa and North?

Is this like an episode two of the game show that we're doing?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. Like the first episodes you're gonna sell me the lights and then we're gonna drop randomly, just random locations and you have to make a million dollars in seven minutes or you die.

No, but literally working in 16 states. So yeah, I mean I think almost all the jobs that I've traveled for are g to definitely be in the multi hundred thousand dollar range because I'm not going to Travel for a $50,000 job. So we're talking 16 states out of 50 so far. So that gets rid of a lot of excuses for people. They need to get working on this stuff.

Charles says pick on Richmond, Virginia. I know why, because he lives there

All right, so this is a good one. Charles says pick on Richmond, Virginia. I have a feeling you want. I know why, because he lives there. But that's an easy place to pick on. Like, but Greg, what would you do? We drop you off Richmond, Virginia. You have to make a million dollars in the next six months.

So I'm gonna make some political Ads because We're near Washington D.C. right? So yeah, we're gonna go towards that. We're going towards politicians, dirty money. Straight for it. but yeah, you're going to look for your, your demographics, you're going to look for areas, you're going to drive neighborhoods, Find out who needs lighting. everybody. So many. Everywhere there's like. I mean, I travel a lot and everywhere I go you'll see beautiful homes and the lighting is horrible. We're doing 150 million dollar house right now and they had zero lighting on it. Hm.

How old was the house?

Well, I was, They. Well, the house is actually from the 70s, but then they just did a full revamp. But the house has its own island. So it's a house on an island next to an island.

Dude, I was scrolling. I'm like scrolling Facebook or. No, this was Instagram and they're like the top three coolest mansions ever. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. And the first one was this house on an island and I was like, I've seen Greg's. That's Craig's project. It's an island house in Florida.

But see, to get that, I got a referral through a landscape architect who I'd been working on for a year and a half. So it's not like I went and door knocked or put a little hanger tag or we're lighting your next door neighbors. Those people don't even live in the house for eight months after I lit it. We're actually doing more during the summer. They have to redo the whole thing. So there's different routes of doing it, finding. But again, don't go and approach a landscape architect without a portfolio book without knowledge of what you're talking about. And please, please learn what trees you're lighting. You know, you know, a lot of these landscape lighting guys will say, hey, I'm gonna light that pine tree. And it's like, you know, an evergreen or a conifer or like it's not even the right tree. So you want to have that knowledge, to talk about trees with your clients.

Big tree, tall tree, skinny tree, green.

One, the green one over there. but if you're going to be screwing in down lights to a tree, you want to know how to do that properly. That's healthy and you want to explain that to the client. So learn your horticulture. The, the salesperson I'm hiring actually has a heavier background in botanical knowledge than they do in lighting because I can more easily teach Lighting than species and growth rates and, you know, colorations, because trees will even change colorations, you know, in different seasons. What's, going to drop leaves. If you're in the northern states, how you would light that differently. So get obsessed with this stuff, with the business side and with the design side. Like I said, hilly is, like, a requirement everybody should go to. It's not cheap, but it'll change your life. I think Ryan was second place mentor of the year of rover, but there was only one.

That's a lie. Yeah, there's. I was definitely. I was actually. It's. I'm kind of honored because they've never actually handed out that, that award ever, and they didn't even hand it out when I was there because it's pretty, you know, pretty sleek.

How cool was that, though? We got to light a national historic monument during that.

That was pretty intense. I missed. I missed. When you went back and did it for realsy.

Yep. I got that hanging on my wall. That is definitely resume work. That was not one of the most expensive jobs that I've done because we only lit a little section, but it's definitely one of the top jobs I've ever done. You know, it's built by a famous architect with this famous sculpture in it. It was awesome. And we got to represent ILY as well.

I'm. I'm actually kind of hard to please. And I'll tell you guys, if you're. If you have not gone to ily, I don't even know if you can go get it, because they have the reunion coming up, but probably in the fall, you guys need to go. Even again, myself, I'm like, I think I have a pretty big mindset. You go and you learn new ideas, new techniques. You'll. You'll get confidence. Like, right now, you're like, man, I don't know. How am I going to put, you know, that many lights on a project? I'm not. Greg Matthews will borrow some of his confidence, but go to ILY and get some of your own, because, it was a huge, huge, improvement in my mindset and everything. I recommend everyone goes.

Yep. And I should be a lead mentor again for fall, and I believe it's getting finalized for Ontario, Canada area. Not sure if it's Ontario, but it's. I think it's gonna be in Canada.

Well, you know, it's. I just feel honored that I was Rover mentor of the year, so I'm pretty sure I was the only rover mentor of the Year of all time too. So that's cool, that is good.

And, but to go back to that and you go to illy and you're like, I'm never gonna put 30 lights on a tree.

Increase the size of your jobs and make them more profitable

That's just stupid. But we've literally sold like I have a tree, we did in Wellington, and the client does yoga below it and they have a deck and there was nowhere to put lights below and they wanted it very subtle. So of course, when you want something very subtle, what you do, you put 36 lights inside of this tree. And all these lights are very low wattage or one, one and a half watts. So you can come out here, do your meditations, your yoga. You have no light sources in your eyes. A whole tree glows and it's just awesome. But you can actually do things like that in real life if you can correlate that correctly to a client and say, this is what you need for this to happen.

Yeah, and I, let, let me clarify too. Like, the average landscape lighting job in the world is not $300,000. Like the average is like five, $10,000. So maybe you can't go put 36 lights on a tree every time, but maybe you were gonna put two and now you can put five.

You know, it's a big difference.

Still can look better than what you're doing now. And like maybe you're doing a bunch of ten thousand dollar jobs. That's okay. Like, there's, there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of those opportunities out there. But if you devoted a little bit of your time and said, you know what, I'm gonna start, well hunting, like if you want to get to a million dollars, you could get 200 people to give you $5,000. That's one way. You could get 20 people to give you $50,000, or you could get two people to give you 500,000. There's just, there's just different ways. So maybe you just get, you know, one $200,000 job this year and then a bunch of 10 grands. Like, there is no one way to win. There's lots of different ways to win, but it's just a lot faster and easier if you elevate the size of your jobs. For sure.

Well, and I would say even from, there's nothing wrong with doing $10,000 jobs. I'll reiterate that. I mean, that's great. But if you take that $10,000 job and you can turn into 11 or 12 or 15, now you're adding additional Profit because you're not having to go and close another person. Yep. You're having a happier client in the end, you're doing better quality work and your revenue is going to be higher as well. So just adding a little bit onto it, again, if it's needed, is a great thing for you and your client and it's more profitable.

I mean, that's the thing, man. When you really look at it, most people are just barely surviving because again, as humans we just kind of naturally do the bare minimum to get by. But if everyone would just squeeze out an additional 10, 20% that those, those projects pay out higher. Like if you just close one extra job a month now you're going to get paid at 65% because your overhead's already covered instead of 25%, if you raise your price by a little bit, if you add five more lights, like that's where all the money's at. And most people are, are afraid to do that because they're already getting, because they don't have the confidence, they don't, they don't have these skills to be able to, to demand those higher prices.

And, and it takes time to build the confidence. But the only way to do it is to start. You know what I mean? So start making better quality products.

You need your presentation to be correct before you go after higher clientele

Now.

One question from Joe Rubino. Sup Joe? Joe's in landscape bottom secrets. What helped you get into a, higher clientele market?

So Joe looks like he's from New York based on his little, picture there.

Chicago.

Oh, is that Chicago? Yeah. So one of our biggest projects was actually in Winnetka, Illinois, right outside of Chicago. And we also did a job up there in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which is nearby. But you need your presentation to be correct first before you go after higher clientele. So if you don't have your portfolio perfect, if you don't have your brands perfect, if you don't have your design layout, how you're going to present to a client perfect. You need to work on all those now and then after that, figure out your route. I mean there's tons of people who are in the high end market. Do you go after realtors? Do you go after, you know, even landscapers are doing the high end landscape projects. How do you find somebody who's already dealing with high end clientele? Do you spring out ads if you have the great pictures in these magazines, Take out a back cover, you know, spend the money on the good advertisements, for the high end magazine? Something like that. But before, before you do any of that, you need to perfect all your processes of the design, the presentation and the clothes. Because once you get in front of that person, you're only gonna have one shot at it. And if you fumble, you know, you may as well start over onto the next, referral.

Love it.

You need to diversify your sources. So if you're only doing mail marketing

a couple things before we wrap up. Number one, I hear a lot of people saying, oh, man, it's slow right now. I need more leads. A lot of people are asking me, I need more leads, I need more leads. But yet I know, like, you seem to be doing fine, Billy seems to be doing fine, Keith seems to be doing fine. A lot of people in the top levels of landscape lighting secrets. What, in your, in your opinion, what's the state of the lighting industry?

I think it's a great state. Oh, my gosh. I mean, let's just talk about like 10 years ago, where it was at, even so if you go back even that far, which is not what we're really talking about, but all the resources, all the new products, all the knowledge bases, all the trainings, technology changes. I mean, everybody has it easy now. Compared to like, even before me, we had halogen. So let's start back then. So now everything has kind of progressed to a place where everything's gotten a lot easier as far as economy wise, I think we're kind of, you know, you need to diversify your sources. So if you're only doing mail marketing, if you're only doing online ads, if you're only doing this, look for new lead sources, I would say that kind of diversify where you're getting your leads from. So don't kind of put all your eggs in a basket. You may have to switch up things, change things. we don't see a slowdown where I'm at. Plus, we were walking some new houses up in Nashville that are amazing. Like I said, we're actually meeting with a celebrity client I think in a couple months up there. So it's not just this market, it's around where you just have to adapt and, you know, make sure you hunker down, keep your kind of cash on hand. But I would definitely diversify where you're going to be going out and looking for new leads, through different routes would be my suggestion. You know, I'm, I'm networking all the time. I have a dinner at 7:00 with the owner of an outdoor audio company that we're researching to actually look into that as another source. We already do a lot of outdoor audio, but I'm looking into a new company to see what they have to offer as well. So we're always adapting, kind of advancing. Even if we have something great, let's make it better than that.

Is that a networking group or you reached out to them individually?

That's in. Well, the networking group I'm in, I'm in a few. There's one. It's actually kind of a cool concept. A lot of cities don't have this, but we actually. Each company that's in this networking group donates $10,000 a year. So it's $10,000 a year is all pulled together. And Together we donate $100,000 at a time to charities. So now what we can do is we're donating to charity. Charity giving money back, helping people. We're also getting pr. We're meeting with the right people, getting with good organizations. So that's helped out a lot, where we're also meeting with other top companies and different industries that we can network with and build our companies together with. It's kind of a unique one that I'm in, but tonight I'm going to meet with the owner of a manufacturing company to see what they have to offer. But I'm always kind of working on the next thing.

I feel like the groups you go to are different than, like, the Chamber of Commerce and the, What's the other big national networking one? I can't remember the name of it right now. Yeah.

like tomorrow night I got a cocktail hour on a yacht at the boat show that I got invited to through a networking group. So we're going on a, $20 million yacht to drink, have some drinks with people and network. So I do that for two hours tomorrow. That's my job, which I'm turning it more into my job because that's what I'm really good at.

Well, and the thing is, like, I don't think people realize that you're not just, like, sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. Like, you are intentional. And, you know, it looks cool. It's like, oh, cool, Greg's having fancy food on a yacht again, or whatever. But, like, there's. You're not just there to have a good time. Like, you're going to get a lead out of it. You know, most people go to these networking groups, and it drives me crazy. And even to the chambers, I'm like, well, if you're going to go, which I don't know that those are the best ones, but if you're going to Go. You need to leave with a lead. Like, you need to present yourself differently. Like, hey, my name is Ryan Lee, I'm here and I change lives for a living. What? Someone's going to listen to that and be like, you change lives for a little. Like, what do you tell me more, right? And like, and by the way, I'm not here just to dick around. Like, I, I want to help you grow your business. So come over here. I want to help you guys get, get a lead today and lead with value and then walk out of there with a lead. Like, have a plan instead of just showing up. Because the problem is most of us, it feels good to be busy. It's like, oh, yeah, I did my networking for the day, I can check out. But like, if you don't have a plan and you don't know what you're going after and you don't have your chief definite aim or Definite chief aim. Definite chief aim, it's not going to happen. So, I think you're, you're a lot more intentional than I think people realize.

Yeah. And I would say if you're going to go network with people, have a solution for them. I won't say everybody's lazy these days, but everybody's busy these days. So if you want to do a networking thing with, another professional, say a landscaper or whoever, present them with a nice printed printout, shows what you do, how the program is going to work, if you're going to give them commission or not, how you get the referral source, lay it all out for them. So within 10 seconds, you're not like, trying to figure out on the fly how you guys are going to work this out. And if you need to adapt something, adapt it and change it. But at least you have something to start with.

Have you ever implemented a referral program? You were talking about potential commissions

Hey, we got one last question. Have you ever implemented a referral program? You were just talking about potential commissions and stuff like that. I'm not sure if he's referring to like referral partner program or a client referral program, but have you implemented, implemented either of those?

So we do a lot of referrals. we don't do a whole lot of commission referral programs. Like, luckily our work is great and clients, the people that we work with want their clients yards to be great. And we're also able to bring a lot of work into those people that refer us work. So I have an AV and I T background, but we don't go in, into the houses anymore doing AV work because I don't want to step on the toes of my AV referral partners. So it needs to be a separation. Yeah. If they bring that job or what I'm going to do is I'm going to refer one of my partners to a job if they need internal av, because now they can refer me to a different client. It doesn't have to be that particular job. If I can bring work into one of my referral part referral partners, that helps them think about me again in the future.

And I know you don't really do a lot of commissions, but I feel like you do like gifts or dinners or just different things like that to give them a thank you.

Yeah, I think our dinner budget last year was 75,000 bucks. Like, seriously, that was a food budget. so we do a lot of dinners, a lot of goings out, things like that that are fun, but it's a lot of networking. and that's how you really meet people. Like, if you can do dinner, break bread with them, as I say, come up with plans, then meet up again, actually get things going. That's a way to do it. But yeah, networking and then doing what you say is the most important thing. If you sell yourself like we talked about, I don't like selling. If you sell yourself as somebody and then don't follow up with it or don't produce, then you've just wasted all that time of both of yours.

the last thing I'll say that I noticed about you is you definitely have this abundant mindset. And I don't know if you were born with that. I don't know if you learned it, I don't know if you developed it, but it's the opposite of everyone else. Everyone else is like, oh, I don't know how much is that going to cost? Or oh, like, like 75,000mill budget. Like, that's crazy, right? So most people would be like, oh, I can't even afford like $750. You know how, like, how does that, how do you work through that? Where did that come from?

That's an investment. I mean, that's not, you know, I mean, I get to eat the food, but I'm eating it with other people. And that's an investment. So, you got to see what works for your company, what's actually producing results. If I was spending that much money on meals and I was getting nothing out of it, it'd be a great time, but that wouldn't be part of my referral program.

But, I love that. Scare you. It's like, well, that didn't work, so I'll just do something else, like money. I feel like one of those trees in your backyard. I didn't find one, but one of them just prints money. And I don't know which one it is because you feel like, you know, it doesn't matter. If I screw up today, I'll. I'll solve it tomorrow.

Well, and then I'd say the other thing. Every business owner, I mean, it takes a while, but do have some cash in the bank, in case we get Covid 2.0 or stuffing gets shut down again. Have some backup money in the account. Have your, you know, lines of credit set up, even if you never use them. What if you needed money next week because something really went bad? We have all that kind of set up in the background where if I didn't get work for three months, we'd be fine. You know, it's gonna suck and I'd freak out a little bit, but we would survive and everybody would get paid. So be a responsible business owner as well, where you're not just blowing all the money, you're investing it, but have a. A backup plan if something does go wrong.

All right. Love it, man.

Landsat Landscape Lighting Secrets is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year

Well, we're pretty much wrap up. I do. We. We want to do one announcement. So, this is your. How many years in business? So I think.

How do we. How do we correlate this? It's going to be my DECA year. Is that how it comes back to the award? My DECA year? Because it's my 10th anniversary.

Yeah, it's your X here. It's X. Oh, wow.

Informally known as Twitter. illumination. X. L, I. X. Dude, I'm getting that printed later. That's going to be. The theme of the party is going to be the X from luxury. This is awesome. Yeah, this is live, people. We're doing planning. This is happening.

Like it. It. This is how we, like, make happen.

Yeah. But, yeah, it is going to be our 10th anniversary party dates, getting finalized into September, and our grand opening party. I believe we had people here from 16 different states. I think it's about 250 people, 300 people that came. So we want to break that record for our 10th anniversary. So we needed to figure out how to do a state call out and get at least more than 16 states coming.

Yeah, well, so basically everyone's invited. The only rule we had last time was no douches. I think.

Yeah, that. That's still. That's standing rule in my Office all the time. I'm gonna get that printed. But we're gonna have. I gotta get the band book. We're go live band. We'll have the food truck. probably gonna set up a lighting fair and Ryan Lee is going to tag along again here and set up the entire. You can tell them about what's going to happen right before.

Yeah. So we're, we're still finalizing dates, but we, we think we know it. But end, of September, ah, we'll announce the dates. We're doing Secret Summit Thursday, Friday, and then we're gonna have luxury, ah, Illumination X party that Saturday. It's gonna be epic, guys. so obviously Secret Summit is just for members only, but everyone in the landscape lighting community is going to be invited to the luxury Illumination X party. And you're not going to want to miss it, guys. the last time was like, like Greg said his grand opening and it was phenomenal. Such an amazing networking opportunity. It's like we didn't even, it's not like we even sell tickets. It's just like, just show up. Like we're gonna, we're gonna throw a killer party.

Yeah. And I tell people this all the time. Like, I'm pretty good at lighting. Like that's kind of a thing for me. But throwing parties is my real specialty. So like, that's what I was born to do. and we are kind of in a crappy part of town right in West Palm beach, near the water. But I'm just saying you can probably get a hotel nearby, make a weekend out of it, have some fun. and also reminder the first party that my grand opening party was actually the first Secret Summits for or Landsat Landscape Lighting Secrets.

It was the first landscape lighting live we had done ever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a full, full circle here.

Yeah, I love it, man. No, it's going to be cool. I mean, everyone who's coming to Secret Summit is just going to get a bonus free party. and then again, even if you're not in Lighting Academy or Landscape Lighting Secrets, you'll still be invited to the, party. Just no douches allowed. That's the only rule. So should be pretty easy to live that law.

Yeah, hopefully.

Well, that's gonna be excited. So we'll, we'll announce the date soon. But, congrats on your 10 years. We're gonna, we're gonna definitely celebrate. Party hard. We got. Is it gonna be the flyers? We booking the flyers.

I'm playing on It. Yeah, I gotta call them. I don't. I don't know if the flamethrowers will come out again because there was kind of a fire hazard last time. But we'll see. We'll see. You never know.

Yeah, but, you know, everyone survived.

We didn't make the. The news or anything, so it was fine. Maybe that was fun. Now you tell me

We didn't make the. The news or anything, so it was fine.

We'll get the hose out. Maybe that was fun.

Wait, the hose? There was hose there?

Never mind.

Now you tell me.

I'm excited for you, man. I know you're working on building your foundation

All right, man. Well, hey, thanks so much for, jumping on here. I know you inspired a lot of people today. Thanks, for sharing your story, your ideas, your processes. I'm excited for you, man. I know you're working on building your foundation. It's not easy. You've hired people and fired them, and things don't always work out. But the thing that I admire about you is you just keep moving forward. So, I'm just excited and honored to be part of your journey and, look forward to seeing you in September, for sure.

And I just want to say thank you, I think by a lot or from a lot of the lighting community, because I think you genuinely do help a lot of lighting businesses out there. and you are improving lives in the lighting industry. So not everybody knows you, but I think you have helped a lot of people. Oh, geez, the shirt comes out.

Thanks. Greg, you're the best. I just forgot that I was wearing this. I'm like, that's so nice, Greg.

That's hilarious. That's hilarious. But, yeah, no, thank you for helping what you do with the industry, and let's all keep moving forward as an industry together. I think we can help each other out a lot.

Love it, man. Thanks so much for saying that. I do appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate your time. Go make some money. Go spend time with family. And, thanks a lot, Greg. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Hi, guys. Everyone have an awesome week. Now just go implement this stuff and go make millions of dollars and get financial freedom and spend time with your family and go on cool vacations and eat expensive steak. Love you guys.