Lighting for Profits - Episode 190

This week on the show we welcome Tom Garber, With over 35 years of experience in the lighting industry, we specialize in developing cutting-edge products for all lighting channels. As an active member of the American Lighting Association (ALA) and the UL Technical Committee, we contribute to shaping industry standards and engineering advancements.

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Episode Transcript

Lighting for profits. All light. Powered by Emory Allen

Lighting for profits.

All light. All light. All light.

Powered by Emory Allen. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

Landscape Lighting Secrets is the number one landscape lighting show in Charleston

Okay, all light. All light. All light. Let's go, guys. We got, we got an awesome show lined up today. We got, we're gonna be joined pretty rapidly here with our guests. In fact, we got Tom Garber leading us off. He's the owner, the CEO, the top dog at Emory Allen. They've, been a supporter of ours for several years now and, very relevant in the landscape lighting industry, in fact, in the lighting industry in general, but especially the landscape lighting. So we're going to have him on. And I, just want to remind you guys that we still are the number one landscape lighting show in Charleston, South Carolina. So that's pretty cool. I don't think it's easy to do. but, yeah, this is like our second, third, fourth, maybe even fifth time being the number one landscape lighting show in Charleston. So if you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place today. After we have Tom on, we're going to talk about, some really cool things that Tom's been working on and been doing in at Emory Allen. Then after that, we're going to talk about tariffs. So if you guys are wondering what the heck is going on, what to do about it and, and really how to survive and in, maybe even thrive in this economy, that's a discussion. So we're going to have a panel discussion. We've got TJ Lucero with Redwoods landscape lighting, Jimmy Tompkins with Omni, and we're going to be talking about the impacts that the tariffs and all these things are having on the economy and what you can do about it. So it's going to be an excellent show. Want to remind you guys, and by the way, I started asking again for reviews. If you've not done it, please give me a review. I saw TJ gave me a review the other day, on Apple. So if you have not, please give us those reviews. Write something nice if you've gotten value from the show. My goal, again, you guys, is to give as much value away as possible so that when we do make you an offer to join Landscape Lighting Secrets Lighting Academy, Come to Light It Up Expo, whatever it is, that it's not costing you anything because we helped you make enough money here on the show. And if you listen to these, these episodes and listen to what our guests are talking about and implement, you're going to make tens of thousands of dollars so that when we ask you and make you an offer, it's going to be an easy no brainer decision. So I'm not trying to take any money from anyone, just want to help you guys for free.

Emory Allen believes every lighting professional should have access to a

all right, so I guess, you know, what is it? It's not time yet, is it? Wait, what is it? What's this, guys? 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 referrals. Emory Allen believes 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 make sure you take advantage of Emory Allen's world class customer service. Get 10 off your first order and actually all you have to do is email our guest today, Tom Garber. His email tomgmery allen. com. just email tomg ryan. com he will connect you with that discounted contractor price. Just mention that you heard about him here on Lighting for Profits. And he's gonna be on the show today, so maybe you could just send him a dm, and say, hey, hook me up. I want to get that Emory Allen product. A lot of people are using it more and more are. So, All right guys, well, you know what, with that said, it's time to get our, our honorary guest on. So let's get the music going. Let's get Mr. Tom on the show.

Ryan Garber thanks Tom for joining the show today

Welcome to the show, Mr. Tom Garber.

Hey Ryan, how you doing today?

Hey, thanks for jumping on the show, man. It's always good to see you.

Absolutely. Good to see you too.

How the heck have you been? I know you've been a busy man.

You know, I haven't been at home a lot this year. It started off beginning of January with the Dallas, residential lighting market. And it seems like I just got home last week, so, just been show after show, visited with you. Where were we? Orlando. but, Orlando, New York City. Naples, Florida. I mean we've been all over the place, so it's nice to be at home for a change.

Well, I'm sure it is. You know, you are a hard working man and I, and I want to thank you for all your contributions you've done for the lighting industry. I haven't been at some of Those other events you mentioned. But, you're always looking to improve your business and see what's working, what's not working. and you know, just me personally, thank you for being such a supporter of Lighting for Profits. You, were also the Platinum sponsor of Light, It Up Expo, which was a huge, I guess, risk. It was the first time we've ever done that, you know, so, to step in and be like, yep, want to be the Platinum, that was pretty cool. Really appreciate your, your support with everything you've done for us and the whole lighting industry. It means a lot.

Absolutely. It's, it's been my passion for many, many years. And I enjoy doing it. You know, I enjoy helping people and solving problems and all that. So I'm, all in. you know, my family's all in and my whole company's in, so it's a lot of fun.

I love it. I love the family aspect. you know, in a few minutes we're going to have Jimmy and TJ join us and we're going to talk about, how everyone thinks they're a global economist and a, tariffs expert if you go on to social media. But, you know, your background is in engineering and what. Where did that come from? How did you get super excited about engineering and lighting and, and having that technical aspect?

You know, I don't know. Probably, goes back to, the way my dad was. He was a mechanic, you know, coming out of World War II and everything. He was a mechanic on boats and for the automotive industry and a lot of automobiles that don't even exist anymore. but I think I got all of that from him and, and hence, the, Emory part of Emory Allen was, It was specifically my dad. It's also my son's middle name and my, My grandson's name as well. So we've got a legacy of, of Emry's. And I'm the only oddball. My middle name is Alan. So that's how the whole Emory Allen got put together.

Nice. That. That's awesome. Yeah. I don't know if everyone knows that. I'm pretty sure you've told me that before, but I have, a really bad memory. So I'm glad to re. Remember that.

Yeah. A lot of fun. A lot of fun.

That's cool.

How do you think your engineering background has helped you build this business

How do you think that your engineering background has helped you build this business?

You know, the biggest thing that, you know, I see the, something, the passion in me more than anything else is the problem solving. You know, my wife, my son, my other daughter, they run other parts of this business. It's like I don't want to have anything to do with finance or this or that or anything else and employees and problems that, you know, you might have with that. all I want to do is what I enjoy doing and that's problem solving, new product development and, and all of that. So, you know, that's, you know, that ability to be able to solve problems is probably where, you know, you know how Emory Allen got started.

Yeah. Well, it's a good example because, you know, I'm always trying to help people grow their business and get out of the things that they're either not good at or don't want to do. And when, you get intentional like that, I mean, I'm sure if you had to, you could do all those things. But, but you found the right people, you've delegated and you're doing what you want to do in the business, the things that you're good at. That's where we, where most entrepreneurs suffer is like, ah, it's just easier to do it myself than train someone who might not be around in six months. So. Yeah, well done on that.

Yeah, there's nothing worse than doing something that you don't enjoy doing. So why not just give it to someone else to take care of?

Yeah, yeah, big time. And then it's hard too, because when you really want to scale your business and you have to even hire people to do things that you do enjoy doing, like there's sometimes we enjoy doing it, but it's like we can't scale. We can't really provide the most value to our clients if we don't delegate it to someone else. Because we can't give 100 in that role.

Right, right. No, you're absolutely right with that.

This year is Emory Allen's 10th anniversary

Well, news to me. I just found out that it's Emory Allen's ten year anniversary. Is that happening this year?

Yep. I, when I was talking with Darcy week or two ago, trying to put this whole thing together, I said that, this year is our 10 year anniversary. It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years, you know, doing this. We started our, our product line 10 years ago was somewhere between 30 and 40 laps. And we went at it specifically then, to solve some of the issues with California's JA8 Title 20 Title 24 issues. Ah, which a lot of people probably don't know about. But it's a performance, based.

Certification, that you have to have, that your lamps have to do, you know, perform with low, or good power factor and lumens and they get heat tested and all of that. So we, we started our company just based on solving that problem. And then today, I think we're probably somewhere north of 525 or 550skus.

Dang. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I mean, it's. It's a good thing.

Yeah. That's awesome.

You know, it's. I'm, fortunate that you know, our products are only like this big and they're not like huge lighting fixtures or something like that, because that'd be a real problem.

Well, congrats on your success so far. And I, I know you guys are just getting started. You got, you always are, you're always thinking ahead and what ways you can innovate and be better and provide better service and stuff like that.

So let's talk about some of the challenges you've faced over the last ten years

So let's talk about real quick just some of the challenges you've, I guess, faced over the last ten years. what comes to mind?

the first thing that comes to mind, the biggest, one of the biggest issues is, just some of the regulations that goes on. whether it's in California, it's federal regulations, or dealing with the Florida wildlife. folks down there, you know, you want to do a good job, you want to be able to pull all the information together so you can solve certain issues. But trying, to get that information sometimes isn't the easiest. So, and that's fresh in my mind because we're kind of dealing with some of that right now, and it's a little bit frustrating. So, you know, the regulations are a little bit, ah, challenging. I, I've always dealt with UL and InterTech, ETL, you know, for my whole life. So that's, that's fairly easy. It's just, all these other regulations that you have to, A buy to.

Yeah, I hear you. and I'm sure that, was somewhat of a surprise. I mean, I'm sure you thought, oh, there's going to be regulations or whatever, but there's just things that you don't even know about until you start getting down that path.

Absolutely.

More people are accepting LED lamps than they were 10 years ago, Tom says

what about what's. What's different? What's different today than it was 10 years ago? What changes have happened?

I think that there are more and more people that, you know, are accepting, LED lamps than there have been 10 years ago. I mean, incandescents were around 10 years ago, and, LEDs, you know, kind of like compact fluorescence, when they first came on, got a bad rap because the color wasn't right. People were too green or too white or something like that. So there's been an awful lot of, Been a lot, Awful lot of change in technology to perfecting, you know, the color of the lamps. recently, probably within the last couple of months, we were just awarded a project that we had to jump through some hoops for because they wanted an R9, which is the red color in CRI. They wanted an R9 of, you know, somewhere around 70 or 80, a very high CRI and, you know, dimmability and all of that. So they wanted something as close to incandescent as possible. And we were able to pull it off. And we. I think it was within the last couple of weeks. We were just featured, or our products were just featured in, a lot of the local newspapers. It was Carnegie hall in New York City.

Wow.

And there was just thousands and thousands of bulbs throughout the theater. And, you know, they knew what they wanted, the lighting designers and. And all of that. So, that technology has certainly changed a lot. and, you know, one of the nice things about being diversified in so many different areas of distribution is you learn so much that you can take one thing and apply it to another. You know, it's the whole thing with the Mr. 16s and the high, power factor and all that. Well, we learned that by accident doing something else. So, that's, You know, those types of things are always changing.

I don't know if I wasn't. I didn't hear it, but Greg Matthews said he's proud of you for using the word lamp. I thought. Tom, did Thomas Edison invent the light lamp? I think he did.

No, I must have done that by mistake. you know, I should have said.

Bob, you normally do. So you're good. what.

You guys recently came out with a couple of LED fixtures

What else has changed? like, for. For Emory Allen. Like, are you guys still supplying halogen lamps? Incandescents?

No, we never did. Everything was always, Everything that we did was, you know, one form of LED or another.

You guys recently came out with a couple of fixtures. is that, Is there going to be more of that, or are you guys going to continue being a lamp manufacturer, or are you considering getting into the fixture game?

Minimal manufacturer. you know, again, it goes back to my earlier comments about problem solving and, you know, I've saw on a Lot of different forums and everything that people, were having difficulty lighting up second stories of houses, dormers or this, that and everything else. And that's when we came out with our little Ranger lamp. but it just happened because nobody else was doing a good enough job with coming out with a fixture that solved that problem. So that's why we came out with that. And then we also came out with the Scout. Both of these are IP68 rated. And so it was, it was another problem that existed that we wanted to solve. So, are we going to come out with more fixtures or anything like that? You know, if we do, you know, it's going to be niche little fixtures like this that can, that solves small, little issues that currently exist.

You just got back from Legucation lighting show in New York

Okay, well, I guess maybe along those lines, you know, you, you said you just got back from which show. Which shows were you at?

the latest one was Legucation.

Okay.

And that's in, that's in New York City. Every year it's at the Hilton, downtown Manhattan. This year there were over 475 exhibitors and over 10,000, attendees. And this is everything from residential fixtures to, a lot of commercial fixtures. There's a lot of component manufacturers there Talking about their LEDs or reflectors or whatnot. And so, it was just a lot of fun going through there and see kind of what's coming down the pipe.

And what was your reaction? Were you blown away? Did you see all this new stuff where you were shocked or are you thinking like, you know what, it's just kind of the same old stuff.

You know, it's a little bit of, you know, 50, 50, you know, we went there and we met some of our customers who, who were exhibiting, our OEM customers. And it was nice to do that face to face and see some of the cool things that they're coming out with. and then there were some things that, ah, it seems like, yeah, somebody went over to the Hong Kong lighting show and just copied this thing. And then there was probably six or seven other people with the same type of product. So kind of a mixed bag. But you know, I was looking more for, what's new, what's innovative and, and all of that. And this is probably the show to do that at.

So it's, it's hard. I mean, how does someone innovate? How does a new manufacturer come in and innovate? Or is it just easier to imitate? Is it just easier to come up with, like you said, go over to the same factory and say, all right, put my name on it.

I hate imitation. I hate, you know, when I see something that's a knockoff of somebody else's, it's like, really? This is all, this is the best you can do? so now I think you just need people with, you know, you know, some type of intellect, a good thinking cap and whatever. It's like, how do you make something better? And, you know, that's, that's what I enjoy. You know, there's nothing that we do that copies, anything, you know, you know, right down to our Mr. 16 that, you know, people said it looks like a spaceship. So, it's a lot more fun to innovate new types of products.

Nice.

Emory Allen celebrates ten year anniversary with special podcast

Okay, well, before we, bring on T.J. and, and Jimmy and, and get into the nuts and bolts of tariffs and global economy and everything else, anything that you want to share with the world about Emory Allen or final comments now, I just appreciate everybody's.

support and you know, we couldn't have grown, you know, without, you know, folks like yourself, this podcast, all of our, OEMs that we deal with and all of our customers, you know, just like to thank everybody for all of their support and, and I'm sure we're just going to continue on.

Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you and congrats again on the ten year anniversary. I feel like we got to throw a giant party or something because it's, it's pretty cool and it's fun because the more shows I go to or put on or whatever, more and more people are using Emory Allen, of course. And, every, everyone has good things to say about the product and you, your family, the company, the, the team members that they meet and all that stuff. So it's been a lot of fun.

That's great.

Tom Garber sabotaged our planned Tom Garber episode

All right, so should we, should we do this? Should we get into this?

Are you ready?

I think we're ready. Let's get our, so Tom Garber is our first panelist that we're going to be, talking to. And by the way, thank you, Tom, because this was supposed to be a whole Tom Garber episode. So we'll have you come back on. We can dedicate some more time to it. But there was like, kind of this tariff thing going on. It's like, you know what we should do, like an emergency podcast. And I was like, dude, Tom's scheduled. let's just, let's just do it. So thank you for being willing to, let us sabotage your, your own episode.

Sure.

Lottie welcomes TJ Lucero with Redwoods Landscape

Let's welcome our next, guest. Who's it gonna be? Let's see. All right. Please welcome Mr. TJ Lucero with Redwoods Landscape. Lottie. What's up, TJ?

Some fighting music. I love it.

Thanks, for joining us, man. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. Tom, thanks for, letting us hijack your episode.

Absolutely. Anytime. For the good of the lighting industry.

Love it.

Yeah.

Emory Allen welcomes Jimmy Tompkins to the show

All right, now let's get our, next guest coming on here. Let's find his music. Where's it at? Oh, here we go. Here we go. Jimmy Tompkins.

Oh, yeah.

What's up, Jimmy?

What's going on, guys?

Hey, thanks for jumping on here, man.

Absolutely. Thank you. I learned something new about the Emory Allen names. That's a really cool name, by the way. That's pretty cool.

Thank you.

Keep it in the fam. I love that.

That's right.

It is very cool stuff.

People are generally and genuinely worried about tariffs, Jimmy says

Well, a lot has been going on. I posted a couple things on my profile. Jimmy, I've seen you posting stuff. I think I. People are generally and genuinely worried and they're hearing about these tariffs and 57 and 127 or whatever. TJ's gonna share this big number with us in a minute. they're hearing this and it's like, holy cow, how am I gonna. I'm having a hard enough time charging the prices I am now, and I already quoted these people and, and all this stuff. So I'm excited to get in it with you guys, and I'm confident that we're gonna. I don't know that we're gonna have a resolution at the end of this, but I think we're gonna give some good advice to people so that they can know. not just to overreact and maybe not even underreact, but just find out. Okay, here's. Here's what I can do. So thanks everybody for jumping on here. let's see. Brian Groats on. Tom is the best. And Grant Fields. Let's go, Tom. We are doing a, Well, Greg, I think we let the cat out of the bag when he was on. He's doing a 10 year anniversary party and we're doing a combined, secret summit. So maybe we'll do the Emory Allen lighting, luxury, illumination and secret summit all together. 10 year anniversary.

Where's that going to be?

In, West Palm beach at Gregg's.

Oh, that sounds great.

Details releasing soon. Let's Just say that. but so tariff talk. I guess.

Jimmy, what does the reciprocal tariff mean to the lighting industry

Jimmy, let me ask you kind of the first question and then this is just more of a discussion. This isn't like super formal, like I not moderating anything. Jimmy, can you tell us what is going on? Like I think they're calling it a reciprocal. Reciprocal tariff. what does that mean? What does that mean directly to the lighting industry?

Well, I mean I think the long and short of it is obviously it's a political thing and we'll try to stay away from the politics of it. But I think really what we're seeing is the reciprocal tariffs are in place to mitigate or reduce the trade deficit, which at the end of the day can value or devalue the American dollar. So I think what our government strategy is at this point is try to leverage us being the best country in the world, and the largest consumer of every product in the world, to level that playing surface and a way of creating fear and getting their attention is to basically kind of start shrinking down that pipe of that pipeline of inbound products. And by doing that, they levy tariffs, which have been done over the years, and you see sometimes more success than others. So it's definitely a tactic to use to try to build value of our dollar and get our economy strengthened. so I think there's obviously lots of good intention behind the tariffs. and I do think, me personally, I do think it's a long term place, not all about the short term. and hopefully our government and the opposing countries at this point will be able to come to terms and we can get this thing behind us. But at this point I think we saw today we're going 104% China effective tomorrow. so there's definitely some, some you know, China is a. We need China and China needs us. So we got to come together and figure out a way to make this thing work. But how does it affect our industry? Well, it affects our industry because not much in the lighting industry is made outside of Asia. You know, we've seen some, some people that have moved to Cambodia and Thailand and Philippines and others. But at the end of the day we've got a lot of our livelihood requires, and lives off the Chinese production. And I think we've seen it very difficult to manufacture lighting products and bulbs, lamps components, in the States, and to remain competitive from a price standpoint. So bottom line is going to read, it's going to directly attribute us to dealing with some increased cost m right out of the gate. But hopefully those are going to be short term and, we'll get back to being able to be lighting professionals and not trying to figure out tariffs.

Well, exactly. And that. So you mentioned long term, short term. I mean, this stuff's changing almost by the hour. You know, so what, we say 104 tomorrow, that that could last, you know, hours, days, weeks, years. We, I mean, we don't know. Right. And I don't expect you guys to be like, speaking on behalf of the government by any means, but how much of that do you think is like, for us to say, okay, we're going to put these tariffs in place so that these other countries will come to the table and reduce their tariffs. Like we see that happening. Is that the play or is the play to actually bring back manufacturing to the US.

That's a great question. you hear both going on, right? Or is it also to, reduce the deficit? I, mean, if it's to get other countries to reduce their rates, then that keeps manufacturing over there and, and manufacturing doesn't move back. If you keep it up, then it potentially moves manufacturing back here. I don't honestly know exactly what it is, honestly, given, our situation, my situation, I, really don't care, but it's just something we have to navigate through, regardless of the politics.

For brass landscape lighting, it's under Section 301 tariffs

but in terms of landscape lights, we're at 133.7% now, just to break that down. So everyone's aware of how that breaks down for brass landscape lighting from China specifically. So we started off prior to 2018 with a 4.7% duty that was there for quite a while prior. Then in 2018, President Trump enacted the Section 301 tariffs, which added an additional 25%. and President, Biden kept those on. They didn't go away. So we've been at basically a 29.7, tariff, rate on brass landscape lighting from China since, 2018. Then, in March, President Trump enacted an additional 10% plus another 10%, 20% in total IEEPA tariffs. Then last, I believe it was Friday. Was it Friday, Jimmy? where he announced the reciprocal tariffs, 34%, last week sometime.

Yeah.

Yep.

And then just a few, an hour or two ago, apparently he announced the retaliation tariffs because China is refusing to take their 34% off that they put on after we put ours on. So you add all those Up. And for brass landscape lighting, right now we're at 133.7%.

So how did you get to 133 when the news. And what Jimmy just said is saying it's 104%. Yep.

Because for brass landscape lighting, it's under the Section 301 tariffs, which adds an additional 25%. I'm not sure if Jimmy's products fall under that or not. and then brass lighting also has the prior 4.7% duty. So there's an additional 29.7% on top of the 104.

Yeah. And we're also seeing that on, that's also power supplies, controllers, are also underneath that same 301. So 301 is the crutch that nobody really even knows about, acknowledges. Cause we've dealt with it for the last 10 years. So that's just an understood. That is just. It is what it is. and that's what's really funny about these people that are going, trying to go direct to China and they say, oh, you know, you get it for this price. And then they've been getting tacked with a, basically a 30%. if they're bringing in more than 800, which that's all going to get shut down as well. so yeah, there's, there's in the Christmas industry and there's, there's several items that fall under that, as well actually.

So what, what are you guys gonna do? I was messaging back and forth today with Michael Kaplan

So what, what are you guys gonna do? I was actually, I was messaging back and forth today with Michael Kaplan and he was, you know, kind of messaging about this stuff. Like, man, if it's 105%, then, you know, a 5 million dollar order is now $10 million. And do you order, do you, do you order less? Like, do you stay in budget or do you guys just have extra money floating around where you can buy whatever you want? and then, and then how does that affect your, your throughput?

I'm, gonna ask Ryan Lee for a loan. No, I think, I think honestly, you know, of course you, you know, our industry is you bring on inventory and we call it good inventory, good debt. and you bring that on with expectation to be able to sell it. Well, now that debt's really bad debt. So you, what you bring in, you must push through and you must sell out. or you could be caught with, with trying to sell something next year that's going to be completely inflated. You're never going to get out from under it. So I think unfortunately you're going to have to make adjustments. You can't just go cold turkey. you know, and you got to look at the end user costs, how that's really going to be affected. You take a, you know, a landscape light for instance, and yeah, you're at 100 and whatever, 30%. But that still only attributes to probably about 15% of that contractor's job. So by the time that number gets dwindled down, your net cost to the end user still probably somewhere 10 to 12%. You know, you're selling a luxury item, you're not selling a necessity. People buying lighting are going to pay a premium because it's a premium product, they don't have to have it. So it really becomes a psychological part of the sell selling yourself that, hey, I can go out there and sell this. I just got to be realistic with what my costs are and I don't have to go and just adjust my price 140%. I just got to adjust my cost by whatever that is and everything else is the same factor. So there's just going to be ways that guys are going to be creative and I think opportunities like this are where companies really push through and come out successful. And then you got. The other guys are going to sit on their hands and be scared to death to go out there and do anything and they're going to be ones that are going to disappear. So some people might say that's a good attrition, I don't know.

Well, I'm actually glad you brought the pricing thing up because you hear, oh wow, 104%, my products are going to double. People do freak out. It's, it's not, it actually hurts the manufacturers and distributors a lot more than it does the contractor or the homeowner. Because if you're pricing right, your materials should be about 20% of your cost of goods sold, you know, and so if you're increasing that 20% by a certain percentage, whatever you guys, and we'll talk about absorption and stuff like that. But it, we're potentially talking about a small increase for the homeowner. You know, if the, if the contractor is just trying to, to maintain their profitability, if they want to make some money on it, they can because they can blame it on you guys, which I would probably recommend too make you.

Guys bring it on.

But yeah, it's, it's not a, they're not doubling their price just because you might, you guys have to increase your price, you know, and, and I don't think, I don't know I'm interested to ask you guys how much your prices are going up because this 104% increase, do you pass that along? Do you guys negotiate with your suppliers? Do you work out deals? Do you work out bulk stuff that you weren't doing before? And how does all that work?

Yeah, I can speak to what we're doing. I ran the numbers prior to the, the recent 50%. So this was before that. I have an idea of what it'll be. So I went through product by product. Jimmy has been on top of this. I saw his Facebook lives last week. and we're going to do kind of, I think what Jimmy's doing, or at least what he mentioned on there, which is short term. Hopefully these are short term on any new containers coming over on those products. we are going to take a hit on the gross margin percent. we're going to try to keep the same margin dollars even come down a little bit. but we'll take a hit on our margin percent assuming that this isn't going to last long term. so any increase we have will only be to pay for the additional tariffs. And when I looked through product by product, when I ran the analysis, it was going to be depending on the product, anywhere between 3 and 9% increase. now with the additional 50%, I think it's probably going to be, it's probably going to add about four or five points to that is what we're looking at. I'm still looking at it.

A lot of people get hung up on percentages versus dollars, TJ

another thing we're going to do.

Even, I'm sorry, even if you have a total of 100%, you're saying your prices would potentially go up 15%.

And I think if you could just re clarify what you're talking about, percentages versus dollars, a lot of people do get hung up on like, well I got to make 20% or 40% or whatever when at the end of the day I think Dan Platt, I used to say this is like you don't deposit percentages into banks, you deposit dollars. Talk about why, why how you're able to do that. Just worrying about that. Your dollar, versus your percentage.

Yep. So I'm gonna throw some random numbers out here. These aren't our numbers, but let's say your goal Is to make 30% gross margin on all your products or on average. Right. So if normally, if you have to do a price increase, you want to maintain that percent. Right. So if you go up by, by 10 bucks, that's another $3 that you want, and you maintain that gross margin percent. Now, let's say with that, you're making, dollar wise, making $6 net or, I'm sorry, gross margin dollars. We're, going to try to keep that same number or come down slightly, which is going to, change, our percent. which is fine because we think it's short term. So we're going to try to keep the same dollars, gross dollars, but we're going to have more money coming in, more revenue just to pay for the, the tariff.

Got it. Yeah. So on paper, your percentages, it's. This is not a good time to sell the business. It's not going to look like you're making that percentage, but you are going to still maintain the same dollars as close as you can, correct?

I think one.

Yeah. Also go ahead.

people really have to look at is how this affects a company's cash flow because at one point, you know, you're throwing out $100,000 for an order and whatever, whatever percentage on the tariff was, plus your shipping cost, and now you're looking at doubling it. So you just have to really be careful with your cash about this time as well.

Yeah, yeah. To add a little bit to what TJ was saying, that's exactly what, I've been kind of talking people through is. And I didn't know Dan Plattus said that. I knew he was a genius, but I didn't know he was that smart of a guy.

no, he probably stole it from me.

that's it. You know, you don't put a percent in the bank. You put a dollar. People get hell bent on percentage and margins. And margins. And it's an accounting tool. It's not a performance. It's not a KPI, in my opinion. So I think that's it. And I think there's other things that we can do. You know, what we did is we immediately stopped fulfilling any orders or selling everything was cold turkey. And, we really wanted to see what was going to happen so we would sell anything. And then what we're doing is we took our blended margin, so we took our inventory and said, hey, you know, we got a million dollars of this sitting on, on the shelves, and we got $2 million coming in. And instead of inflating that $2 million coming in at full, we're going to blend that, blend that margin over across that $3 million. So that reduces our, our, our potential hit by 33%. if those numbers were, you know, actual Factual numbers. So, you know, I think by doing that, you got to get creative. So right now, inventory is king. Those that are sitting on inventory are sitting. Their inventory instantly gained 20, 30, 40 points in value, which is not normal. so that's absolutely something we did. And then the other thing to think of, which really doesn't help Tom or TJ at all, but it helps us is large cube, large cube items. shipping rates right now are absolutely nothing. You can get Ocean Freight for three grand, all, the way to North Virginia. and two years ago, we were paying 23, 24, 28 grand a container. So for Tom, who's probably air freighting just about 99% of the stuff over, if not 100. That doesn't really help him, TJ. It helps him, but he's got to spend $1.5 million to take advantage where us, we can fill a whole container up with, you know, a hundred thousand dollars of product. So we're actually going to be able to counterbalance that on our larger scale items for Christmas, like our treats, trees and wreaths and things of that nature. So just got to think outside the box a little bit and not just feel sorry for yourself, because I have been feeling sorry for myself quite a bit here.

The tariffs on imported steel and aluminum become effective midnight tonight

And some days you wake up, feel better than others.

And these price increases, they're not like, hey, this is going to happen in 30 days. Like they already happened. Right.

1201. Tonight they become effective.

Yeah, Ours. So we're doing, on Omni. No. So, so on OMNI, we did 22%, effective immediately. And then all holiday orders that are not filled are at 25%. However, if tariffs come down, that money is not added to the price. It's just a line item. And if they go away, that number completely goes away. So we'll be able to adjust it as necessary. And we're going to do the same even with our, with, with our Omni. if things go away, we'll just take that line item and it becomes a credit for the client.

Yeah. Just because of the volatility. Anyone who's doing a proposal for anything, it's like, if you commit today, I can almost honor this price. If you want to think about it, that's fine. It's America. You can think about it as long as you want. I can't guarantee the price is going to be the same because literally tomorrow there's probably going to be a price increase. I think I, I posted the other day about like, the five things I would do right now to fight back against the tariffs. And that was one of them. It's just like, use it as a sense of urgency because people. And people were like, well that's, that's too late. Like it's already gone up. I'm like, well, just by the news today, you don't know if it's going to go up again tomorrow. You, you. We don't know what. We don't know.

Gotta, we're gotta get on a buy today.

Yeah, what we're doing. Sorry, I thought you were asking when the tariffs become effective, which is midnight tonight. so what we're doing, we're taking a little different, approach. we're, as Jimmy said, people that have a good amount of inventory and good situation right now. Luckily we're in that situation. we're ready for the busy season. So, ah, what I've committed to my clients is that we won't have any price increase until June 1st at the earliest. we've got enough inventory of current inventory to get through that timeframe. and then hoping hope's not a strategy, but hoping that some kind of agreement is reached or at least they come down before we get our next campaign container, which isn't for another couple months anyway. So we're in a little better situation I think, than some others and we've got some time. and we'll wait and see what happens over the next month. I'm sorry, Go ahead.

Tom, you announced that you were not gonna, you were gonna absorb the first tariff and the first price increase. What are you guys planning on doing moving forward?

We're doing a lot of, calculations right now, ourselves like T.J. we really ramp up for the whole Chinese New Year thing and we bring in, you know, excessive amounts of product. So we're sitting pretty good on, you know, on inventory for the next, you know, couple of months. you know, come, you know, May 15th, June 15th, something like that. Some things are going to have to change. then we're, we're crunching numbers as we speak right now. what makes it, a little bit difficult is we do a lot of special, orders. And when we do a special order for somebody, then that is brunting. That full 104% makes Ah, it a little bit more difficult to roll that into the rest of your inventory or anything like that.

Do you have something, T.J. or was that Jimmy?

Yeah, some other things we're doing just. And others might, might take some of these, take them or leave them. one of the things, because my employees had had questions about it, they hear about it but they don't follow it too closely. So we had a meeting today, all hands meeting, where I communicated exactly what the facts are. Here's what's going on. and I said, you know, what we're going to do is we were going to hire someone later this year. What we're going to do is because things are in flux, we're going to become more efficient. Some of us might have to take a little more on. And my goal is to not have to. If things get bad, hopefully they don't to be able to keep my current staff. So we're going to get lean. We're going to look for efficiencies. we're going to also in the warehouse, and the office, but mostly in the warehouse, we're going to look for any, opportunities to reduce waste. So we're going to implement some of the lean principles. If people are familiar with, you know, any of that. look at our processes, our layouts, try to get more efficient so we can do more with less. the other thing we're going to do is if these tariffs do hold, any additional inventory we do have to bring in, we're going to bring in only what we need. So we're going to run a little more lean on it in hopes that if they do go away and we do have to bring some with, with higher tariff rates, that we don't have to hold onto that inventory very long. Or we can, like Jimmy's saying, blend it out and say, okay, we will reduce it, but we know that we've got other, other inventory coming that's going to, going to bring it, bring it or average it down. the other thing we're not going to do is we're not going to stop, R D. We're working on a bunch of new projects. you know, when these things happen, the companies that continue to invest through it, that can afford to do it and invest, they come out the other side even stronger because a lot of other companies will stop R and D, they'll maybe not make it through. And we're, if anything we might even increase it. So, some of the things that we're doing.

You can simplify your process. You don't have to cut corners

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I, when I wasn't necessarily thinking about manufacturers or distributors, anything like that, but when I did my post the other day, it was about, you know, the designer, the contractor, and I'm like, yeah, one of the things is innovator die like you, you can simplify your process. You don't have to cut corners. Okay. You don't have to like start not using wire connectors on your projects and just using electrical tape or whatever. There are ways though, this, events like this really promote, people to innovate and creativity can come out so you can bundle your things differently. There's ways to increase the value so you can actually give people a better deal. And this is what these events force people to do. So it's cool to see that you guys are doing it. And I'm hoping that the landscape lighting, the contractor, the designers listening to this, figuring out, okay, how could I, what processes could I simplify in my business to help absorb some of this where, okay, I don't have to raise my price, but maybe I could cut back on my offer and move some things around to make it actually more valuable to the end user.

Yeah. Something I hear about, you know, is, is look for, look for waste. Like are your guys wasting a lot of 12 gauge wire, you know, from not cutting it properly. all those things add up. You know, look for any of that type of thing for, for the installers.

The techs love it.

Do tariffs apply to supplier already on the water to supply our

we did have one question, from Donovan. What's up, Donovan? Do tariffs apply to supplier already on the water to supply our.

Yeah, 10% if it's on the water before. Well, basically right now if it's on a vessel, it doesn't even have to be on the water. It's 10% plus the pre existing 3001 and any duty.

So what about. I, I swear I saw a letter that was Michael Kaplan sent me and I don't know all the details if it was on the water, whatever, but they're like, yeah, your price went up today or 25 today.

Yeah. So if you look at the executive order the way it's written, it has to be on a vessel by, you know, by the, by the end of business here today. and then there's a set of requirements that you have to have. So we actually were able to, we were trying to get this, but China was on a holiday from Friday basically into Saturday. so that was great timing. But I think, yeah, so, so the other thing that is in there is if it's on the water, and it comes in and it's enacted, say we pay the tariff today and they tomorrow abolish it, you don't get your money back. There's, it's Zero credit. So at this point it's a gamble. And where that's going to become really tricky. Where I mentioned before, you can get a container for three grand. Now, the day these tariffs are pulled, you're not getting on a vessel. The outbound. The demand of those vessels is going to be so high because everybody's stockpiling right now. and, and you're not going to find containers, you're not going to find vessels, and your ocean freight's probably going to be in the tune of 30 to 40 thousand dollars is my prediction. Because you're going to see a lot of. And then the people that are going to Cambodia, forget it. Getting m. Getting ships out of Cambodia already is outrageous. It's going to get worse. So they're going to go where the cheap money is. So I, I think, you know, it is a domino effect. So the people that are sitting on their hands and wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. They're gonna, they're gonna get there. They could be in for rude awakening for sure.

Does this.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. This is, this is Covid 2.0. When it, when it gets to the containers and you know, you talk about an industry that just takes, advantage of the situation. Holy cow. Yeah, you're right. I've seen containers go up to 30, $35,000. so it's going to be pretty crazy.

Well, in customs, a little slow did AI to all their custom screenings and they don't even know what they've got there yet. so that's going to be a whole nother little thing that they're going to be screening more container. Their plan is to increase screening by I think 35% in 2015 before all of this. And they're using AI to screen. So basically what they're able to do is take all the, the value of the, of the shipment cross reference into all other imports and if the value is slightly off, they're going to start going into that and that's going to really slow down that process. so I think there's a lot of other hurdles that we're going to have to overcome before it's not just tariffs done and oh, we're back to day one. No, I don't think you're going to see some prices come down because I think we're going to be chasing it once, once they are lifted, unless they're lifted, of course, within the next several days, which, I just don't think that's going to Happen, unfortunately. And you know, us being a heavy fourth quarter based business with the holiday side, I mean we're getting, we're getting screwed. We're getting it really bad. Like you know, T.J. and, and Tom, you know, they loaded up heavy that they're on the spring load. That's amazing. They win. All those Christmas guys, you know, Donovan obviously just on here, us and you know, Kaplan who you referenced, we're the ones, we're sweating a bit, you know.

Oh yeah, big time. And it's, it's like go time. I mean that stuff can only be stockpiled so long until it's got to hit the ship to get here in time.

And it's already as is a very competitive industry, the Christmas industry. You know, and I mentioned attrition before. Maybe, maybe some attrition is good for us. A lot of people out there trying to sell product and really created a really low margin game for us. So you know, then they sometimes, sometimes everything happens for a reason. And ah, it can work out for contractors, distributors, manufacturers all the way through.

So you all import from China? China. does this, does an event like this, does this make you want to bring back manufacturing to the U.S. does this make you want to do a.

Plant here for me? Yes.

Yes.

Jimmy. If, if you look at the different industries that ah, supports around, just lighting in general, I mean there is not one LED chip manufacturer left in the States. They're all buying from either Japan or South Korea or or China. There might, Taiwan might be in there as well. I mean you look at, you buy capacitors, resistors, PC boards and all of that integrated circuits. They're all coming from overseas also. So you're going to pick all these components up, you know, bring them here stateside, put them together, assemble them. Where are you going to be? You're probably going to be more than.

100 tariffs if you can even get people.

Yeah. And I think, I think there's different things that can be brought here. You know, at the end of the day, like I agree. I mean Cree, Cree's office where they started is literally from where I'm sitting right now, about three miles down the road.

Sure.

They're gone. They're gone. They couldn't keep up. Right. So they're, they're on they're in China now, I believe the company that bought them up. So you know, it's, it's. You can't you. Those type of level, those, those types of products. I don't think you were going to see here. I mean, for that to happen, the cost of those items are gonna have to go so astronomically high, we're gonna be on to the next technology at that point. I just don't think that's gonna happen.

That's. That's what my question is, is with the advancement in technology, it used to be, it was China because of labor, but now we got AI robotics, all this technology, will it matter where it's at? So if you did bring it back to the US and we have all this advancement in technology, could the argument be made that it would be better here?

Jimmy: I would love to make all my products here have more jobs

I mean, that it's all about capital costs at that point? You know, that equipment isn't inexpensive.

I have to get the equipment from China.

You do 100, you know, you walk through some of the fab labs and all of that that are making the, you know, LED components. And a lot of the machines aren't made there. They're made in a lot of other places. They're coming from Japan or something like that. But I guarantee you they're not cheap.

Yeah, well, it's just something I was thinking through. I'm like, I mean, the world's different now than it was 30 years ago, you know, and it's not just labor. I mean, we've got. We have AI and technology that's advancing so quickly. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. what. Tj, what about you? Ah, so, Jimmy, you're. You're four. You're. You're thinking, man, maybe I should do something us side, Tom.

I mean, if there's a. There's a will, there's a way. But there's also. I mean, there's. There's also some, you know, duh moments where it's like, just impossible. But I would love to be able to figure out things that we could do here stateside. and I think there are some things. You know, I've actually got a call tomorrow night, so we'll see. You know, gotta, try. And if you can, you can. If you can't, then, yeah, at least you can say you tried.

Yeah. So I'm conflicted on this. So, yeah, I would love to make all my products here have more jobs for me.

What?

It comes down to a couple things. One, does it make sense for some of these industries to be here? You know, we move from a, ah, very physical, good centric economy to a service economy, which adds a lot more value. Should we have a bunch of brass factories here? Well, can you even get People to work in them. you know, Asia is just in China in particular for you guys that have been there, is set up so efficiently for these, for these, industries. I like the value add of, you know, I think like Tom doing the engineering, doing the design, doing the more value add work and then getting the product made to your specifications, you know, and what they specialize in, and then focusing back on the market, marketing and sales. Honestly, if I had to choose, I probably would get out of this industry before bringing it back. I've worked in factories, I've worked in manufacturing. I enjoy what I'm doing now. I enjoy providing the high value jobs that we have. I don't want to get back in actual manufacturing. Honestly, I would get out and do something different.

Good to know.

May have to. We'll see.

China's on very, very tight margins. And there's volatile pricing of raw material too

is there anything else you guys, can do? Tj, you hit on it a little bit. You're trying to go lean, simplify some processes and, and figure out where you guys can, you know, shave some pennies and stuff like that. is there, is there such thing as you guys going and negotiating with your factories and saying, hey, if we stepped up to this volume or commit to this for the, the last quarter, which we don't normally do big or anything like that, are you guys doing those types of things?

We have, for sure. And you got to remember, China's on, China's on very, very tight margins. you know, it's volume play. So, you know, if you get five points out of a factory, like, that's a massive score. I don't think you'd ever be able to get any more much. Maybe six, six to seven at absolute dire scenario. and, you know, but they're also dealing with volatile pricing of raw material too. So they're, they're playing their own games over there. Copper's been all over the place. I mean, huge jump. Then it plummeted and back up again. So, I don't track. I mean, brass isn't really traded as brass and that's a big factor in the quality of some of these brass fixtures. But I don't really know what that seems to be relatively constant, tj, Right. Yeah.

The biggest component, you know, factor of brass is copper, which, you know, I think was last I looked, 73,000 RMB, per ton. so yeah, it was down, now it's back up a bit, but it's all over the place. To your point.

Yep.

Yeah. So they're nervous too because you're, you know, they're it's contractual orders, all these, you know, nobody owns factories. We contract factories. So, you know, you're doing business with another business person and you only have so much control. But I mean, they want the business and they desperate for the business. They understand the ramifications of this. And there's orders getting canceled left and right. but at the same time, they've got to make money. and I'll be honest in my conversations, they're kind of on our side, you know, at least that's what they tell us. They, they want this to be over and basically are asking, what's it going to take? And, it's definitely been interesting. So you can beat them up, but just not too much. They just, they just don't have much in there.

And especially if you look at the prices that we're developing product for, whether it's a brass landscape light, whether it's, you know, you know, holiday lights or it's a light bulb, you're not talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars like you are a regular light fixture or something like that. So the margins are so very, very tight.

Can, can a contractor come to you and say, hey, I normally buy per, per project or per week or something like that, but I, I want to invest some more to shave a few points. Is that a possibility with y'all 100%.

Bulk buy and bulk and save?

Yeah, we don't, we don't do that. we do. since we limit who we sell to in the first place, if we get you as a pro install partner, we're fit for each other. You get our best pricing from the very beginning, regardless of volume. That's one thing we do.

Yeah. Our mindset on it is you're breaking cases and your open cases. That becomes potentially lost inventory. That becomes, becomes more to manage, more to re box, more packaging costs. If I can take a box off a shelf, slap a sticker on and hand it to the brown tuck out back, we just save some points because that's less labor. That's how we look at it. you know, but it has to be case quantities, and it has to be typically more than a pretty sizable. but absolutely, we do that. I mean, all of our stuff is tiered that way where. But we're pretty transparent with that too. So our new website that's launching is going to have, all those tiers shown right there so everybody can see it so that they understand, hey. Because the worst question is, hey, how do I get it cheaper. Well, we're just going to show you how to get it cheaper. And yeah, you got to, you got to bring your bigger credit card that day and you'll get it cheaper.

I like it. Project pricing and case pricing.

Tom: Unless these things get resolved quickly, we won't see resolution

So where do we go from here? Like, I know you said tonight some deadline to go up to 104%. I mean maybe, maybe there's some negotiations that happen before then. Maybe they're tomorrow. What, what are your guys's plans? Are you like just announcing to your clients that this is our new pricing and you'll find out like tj you said it won't be till July. Tom.

June.

June 1st at the earliest.

June 1st. I was trying to buy people an extra month.

I know.

Same thing. We're, we're. And sometime middle of May 1st of June. we'll see what happens by then.

Jimmy, you're instant. Right now. is it just wait and see what happens, how you guys get affected and just constant communication with the clients in there?

Yeah, that's, that's pretty much. I've talked with everybody in the Christmas industry. and, and that's across the board. Everybody's doing a 25 to 30 immediate on inventory. It's. It's a, it's an umbrella. It's an umbrella insurance policy at this point, just as a protection. And then, I think everybody that I know in the Christmas industry, has done that and implemented some sort of immediate.

Ah.

And then I think everybody else. The landscape lighting guys are pretty well insulated because they're all at full stock. So, I know I've talked with a couple of other guys out there. Lumion Dower, I know have something coming. They just don't know when that's going to be and what that's going to be. but, it is going to come unless. Unless these things get resolved quickly. And I, I personally, I hate to say it, but I, I don't think we're going to see any true motion probably for at least two to three weeks to. Before we really understand what's gonna. What's going to ultimately happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. People are going to be stubborn for a while and see who blinks first. So I think, I think it's going to be a few weeks.

I, will. There is one thing. Their Congress did something last week where if this is not voted on by Congress and approved within 60 days, they can be completely removed and expunged. So something that, I'm about 99% sure did pass last week. and it was a bipartisan thing within Congress, so there might be some relief at 60 days, but I would expect we'll definitely know what ways that that's leaning over the next three weeks. Three or four weeks.

Can't, I haven't read up on this, but can't, ah, the president veto that unless they, have 2/3 majority. I'm not sure.

Yeah, I did see that. and I've read both sides, so I don't know that. I just know that that's been thrown out there. It is good to see that there is some potential incentive to get things done and done quickly, knowing that that is on the table.

Yeah.

And Ryan, this is the thing. I mean, everything is so volatile and dynamic. I mean, we're trying to figure it out hour by hour, day by day. It's, it's, it's, it's fun.

I'm concerned for the business owner. And you guys are too

Well, I would say this as we, as we kind of wrap it up. you know, I'm really, I mean, I love all of you guys, but I'm concerned for the business owner. I'm concerned for the. And you guys are too. They're your clients and we want them to win every single day. And there's a lot of people that are worried about a lot of different things. And yes, there's going to be. It reminds me a lot of COVID Someone brought that up. Like, there's going to be some Covid style reactions and stuff like that where when Covid first happened, there was this giant pause and everyone thought kind of the world was going to end and oh, crap, what am I going to do? And then like, man, if you were in the lighting world, you did very, very well. you didn't have to know what you were doing and you did well. And part of this is me helping people see that, like, there is always a way. There's always a path. And you might have to make some zigs and some zags and do some things that you didn't have to do in the past, but there's a way through this. And if you will find that path and use your innovation like there's a way to win. And if you will, upgrade your client avatar to that wealthy person who at the end of the day, yeah, they probably lost seven figures on Friday in their portfolio, but they have a lot of seven figures. They might have eights, you know what I mean? So, like, they're going to have this pause. There's going to be this thing, when I started my business, it was the mortgage crash. I started. End of 2007, 2008 was a giant mortgage crash. Same thing happened. Oh, crap, I'm dead. What are we gonna do? And then what happened? People started spending money. Wealthy people get bored quickly, and they realize, oh, I'm still rich. I should spend some money because I can. And so I think that's what's going to happen. If you guys will stay persistent and, and use these tariffs to your advantage to say, hey, listen, I talked to tj, I talked to Tom, I talked to Jimmy. My. My pricing for permanent right now is up. It is what it is. But landscape lighting right now, I can offer you that same deal that I gave you last week on that quote, but I just got off the phone with them, and the prices could go up literally any minute, any day. If you want to move forward, I'll honor that old price. This could be a time to flourish. Like, think about all the deals that people haven't had a yes to yet. Like, when I talk to clients, there's people that have literally hundreds of thousands, almost seven figures worth of deals that they haven't closed yet. This is a great time to close.

From a contractor perspective, buy your products early because prices are going up

So, anything that you guys want to share as we wrap up, final advice or anything like that to people that may be listening, I mean, I think.

Sorry, you could go. Go ahead.

you know, contractor perspective, if you can afford to buy your products early while people still have inventory, while still people have inventory at lower prices, buy early and buy as much as you can. Cause you know it's going to go up.

Yep.

Yeah. And I think my thing is, once again, let's just talk Omni for a second. With Omni, our average cost, per foot was around $9.20 per linear foot. When you look at a 22% hit on that, to the contractor, that's going to take your cost up to, you know, $12. Worst case scenario, at $12, you know, that's. That's a $2 increase per foot. You just check, take your job. That's $35 now, charge 30 there again, it's a premium service, and that's a. That's nothing. Right? So I think. I think a lot of people. The misinformation of a percentage of tariff is a direct correlation to the percentage of my job price is completely false, and people just need to shake that. so I agree with you, Ryan. There's. They don't need to know that. Hey, it's only A two dollar increase. But let's. Hey, you need to buy these lights, and you're going to buy them today because tomorrow they're going to go up and you're not going to be able to afford it anymore. So create that sense of urgency to buy it and buy it now. And, I think that's what, what people got to have in their mindset. They can't be scared of their price. They can't be scared of their, their, their. Their process. It is, it, is what it is. Take it or leave it. Because next week it could be 50 bucks.

Yeah. And if, and if you're in front of those people and having those, those negotiations over. 35, 37 a foot, all that stuff, either your sales process is broken or you're in front of the wrong person. Because 100 a ton of people that will pay 45 a foot. You know what I mean? Like, it's not about the price, it's about the value. So. Yeah.

Tom: Anything for us as we wrap up? No, I think we hit on all of the points

Well said, Tom. Anything for us as we wrap up?

No, I think we hit on all of the points. you know, it's just, you know, wait and see what happens and, just kind of take it one day at a time.

Cool. Well, listen, I appreciate all of you guys for jumping on here, and I would say this, I mean, you guys have all become friends of mine, and so I think I can speak a little bit on your behalf. But if anyone has questions you, want to, you're working on a proposal or anything like that, all these gentlemen are super easy to get a hold of and, and willing to help and, and we would act on your behalf. You know, they're, they're like business partners that don't take a percentage of your company. So make, sure you reach out to these guys. I appreciate your, our relationship. I appreciate, you guys coming on here, so thanks a ton.

Yeah, likewise.

Thank you. Stay amazing. Peace.

Thank you.

All right, guys. Stay amazing.

Later, y'all.

Peace.