Lighting for Profits - Episode 226

Patrick Harders shares how 25+ years in the dirt shaped his award-winning approach to outdoor lighting. From designing over 10,000 landscape lighting systems to building products for installers, Patrick dives into craftsmanship, innovation, and why staying hands-on is the key to creating lighting that truly lasts.

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Ryan Lee: Lighting for Profits kicks off designer series with Patrick Harders

Welcome to Lighting for Profits.

All light. All light. All Light powered by EmeryAllen.

Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

All light. All light. All light. So excited. Love what I get to do today. We're going to nerd out on landscape lighting. We are going to nerd out on the design aspect. This is Lighting for Profits powered by Emery Allen. I'm your host, Ryan Lee. Gonna be an awesome show. We got Mr. Patrick Harders in the house. I forgot to tell Patrick this, but when I used to talk about Patrick Harders, to Lindsey and I'm like, yeah, Patrick Carters. And she, she thought it was Patrick Carter's Carters. Like, no, it's Patrick Harders, but however you pronounce it, however you want to say it, we got Mr. Patrick Harders, the co founder of Sterling and the owner of daylum. So, Patrick's been a guest on our show several times, but today we're doing something different. We're, we're kicking off our designer series where we're going to break down a few different projects that he did. And, to be honest, like, I don't know of any. I don't know if I have any friends on my friends list that are more qualified in terms of outdoor lighting design. I think he has all the, the things, including the latest lc, if that's what it's even called. So I'm excited to have him on. and so, you're gonna want to stick around. We're gonna break down and I was just kind of getting a preview right before the show of some of these projects that we're talking about. And they're just really cool projects, so we'll take a look at those. before we have him on, just, wanted to remind you it's actually coming up soon now. Now we're about seven weeks out from Light It Up Expo, so if you have not got your ticket, go now to lightitup expo. com. we've got so many cool things planned, from training, relationship building, fast tracking, your business, product finding. We're going to have so many different manufacturers and distributors and industry service providers, so marketing companies, lots of different things. Whether you're in landscape lighting or holiday lighting or permanent lighting, or you want to bolt on one of those. This is the room you're going to want to be in. we've got some amazing speakers lined up. we're doing some of those announcements over the next few weeks. We're doing some Facebook lives to promote our vendors and speakers and all this stuff. so it is turning out to be quite the show, quite the experience. Don't forget, light it up expo. com. you can use 150 off as a promo code. 150 off will save you 150 off your ticket. as always, thank you guys so much for your support. We're up to, I think 89, five star reviews on Apple. we've got 50 some on Spotify, so still trying to get to that 100. So if you guys could give me a five star review on Apple, that would be awesome. Really, really appreciate it. Again, we got Patrick Harders with Sterling Lighting with Dayloom coming to join us in just a couple minutes.

Don't sell the trip, sell the vacation, okay?

before we have him on, got, a really cool story. Max and I, we went night, ah, skiing the other night. And we were really pumped because in Utah here the snow has just been terrible. I mean we didn't even get snow until like mid December. And so all the ski resorts are hurting and everything like that. And we just hadn't had an opportunity to go out. And finally last week, literally in like a week, like four or five days, there was. The mountains got like five feet of snow. They got over 60 inches in just a few days. And so we're like, let's go. Right? And so, Lindsey actually bought him this pass where you can go up and do like a two hour lesson and then ski the rest of the night. And so I was just gonna ski by myself while he was in his lesson. And so we're, we're going, we're pumped. He gets home from school at 3. I finish work, we get in the car, we're just so excited. And we're driving up and there's like no traffic. I'm like, this is great. We're gonna get there on time. We're supposed to be there by 4:30 for his class. And we get, literally we're a mile away from the resort and all of a sudden there's just a traffic jam and just cars everywhere. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And it's not that they're just going slow, they're stopped. And we're like stopped for like minutes at a time. And then you finally move, but you only move like 20ft. And I'm like, oh my gosh, dude, this, that, this type of stuff just frustrates me to no end because it's not like there's a car accident. It's not like, oh, you know what, these things happen. Just have patience. It's the resort's fault. They don't know how to get people into their parking lot. They don't know how to get people out. They oversell tickets. I'm just like, I'm starting to get frustrated. And Max knows his dad, right? So he's like, is this why you like going to Sundance? Because we were going to Brighton this night, and Sundance is like, right by our house. Literally. We can get there in 35 minutes. It's never crowded. It's never hard to park. You can always just get right on the lifts. The skiing's not quite as good. The trees aren't as good. It's just not as good. But I. There's no stress. Like, yeah, I do like going there. And so it was funny. He's like, this is why. This is why you like going to Sundance. So, he was right. and I, you know, in my mind I'm thinking, should we turn around? Which we do. But, you know, time goes by. Suddenly it's 4:30. We're obviously missing his class. We get there an hour late. We get there at 5:30. And I'm just frustrated because it's like, it should not take us almost two hours to get to this resort. It's right by our house. And so I'm sitting there and I realize as I see this line of cars, this thought came to my mind, don't sell the trip, sell the vacation, okay? And this, this applies perfectly to sales and a lot of things in your business. If you think about a. If you're, if you're watching TV and you see a commercial for a cruise line, an all inclusive, some type of vacation, right? They're selling the vacation, they're not selling the trip. And here's what I mean. These M ads, they don't talk about. They don't show like, the TSA lines. They don't show a family missing their flight because it was delayed or a connection misses or whatever, they don't show crying kids. They don't show the. The long line at the hotel to check in. Okay? You guys have been there with me, right? You're like, so excited on these vacations. And like, the vacation doesn't even start and you're frustrated. They don't talk about the bad food. They don't talk about how you have to wait 45 minutes to go on that cool water slide that you saw in the commercial. They only show smiling people. They only show the cold drinks, the ocean views, the couples laughing, the kids having fun. They only show the great Outcome, okay? And that's not lying. It's just selling the dream. Okay? And so I want to remind you this, because homeowners, when you're selling an outdoor lighting experience, homeowners do not buy transformers. They don't buy 12 gauge wire, they don't buy 10 gauge wire, they don't buy connectors, they don't buy trenching, photocells, timers, maintenance plans, voltage drop. They don't buy any of that, okay? What they do buy is their house that makes them feel wealthy. Their neighbors that are slowing down to look at their property, they're buying the proud feeling that they get when they're pulling into their driveway. The they're buying and investing in hosting parties in their backyard. They're investing in a sanctuary in their backyard. A, place to relax and unwind after a hard day. They're buying safety, beauty status, okay? They buy the vacation. And unfortunately, most lighting designers, they accidentally sell the trip, okay? Don't sell the trip, sell the vacation. So these are things that, you'll hear people saying, like they say things like, well, you know, we're have to trench over here or we need to access this panel or, you know, you're going to need an annual maintenance plan.

Don't forget to sell the dream first, protect the dream second

You know, we'll be out here for two days. And that's like the equivalent of one of these vacation companies like saying on the ad, hey, you'll need to be at the airport at 5am okay? And just so you know, security lines are probably going to be 45 to 60 minutes. You know, your room's not going to be ready until 4pm like, they don't talk about those details because it's not going to help someone make the decision to move forward. Okay? It may be true, right? But it doesn't make someone want to go. And by the way, just kind of a quick side note here, like, I love maintenance plans. I just don't believe in selling them too early because I mean, you know, maintenance is of course, like, it's responsible, it's smart, protective, like it's all the good things. But it's not sexy, it's not emotional, it's not aspirational. And quite frankly, like when you're, when you're buying a vacation or booking a cruise, you're not booking a cruise because they promise the great lifeboats. Like these are constructed a high quality. They don't talk about the lifeboats, right, because you book a cruise because of the blue water, the white sand, the pina coladas, okay? It has nothing to do with Some of the necessary things, right? So don't forget, sell the dream first, protect the dream second.

Most business owners quit when they're in the canyon, Tom Garber says

Okay, so let me go back to my frustrated in the canyon story. Me considering turning around, right? I mean, I literally. I was just so annoyed. I've already had a bad experience at this resort before. I felt stuck questioning the decision, like, why are we doing this? Right? But here was the cool part. M. When we finally got there, later than I wanted to, the snow was perfect. I mean, it was epic. It was so. It was actually probably too cold that night. It was. It was really chilly. In fact, I can't. There's still a, part of my big toe I can't feel. So that's weird. But I'm just telling you, like, from a ski standpoint, it was the best night skiing I've ever had, ever experienced. Okay. we had a blast. his friend was up there with his dad and his brother, and we, connected with them, and we just had a blast. It was just such an awesome night. And what I realized is, at some point, the pain of the trip that I was experiencing stuck in the canyon completely disappeared once the vacation started. Okay? So I want to remind you, most business owners and most lighting business owners quit when they're in the canyon. When they're in the traffic before they even get to the mountain. They get stuck in hiring problems. They get stuck in slow lead problems. They get stuck with when you get price resistance from a client, oh, I can't afford it. You're twice as much as the other guy, blah, blah, blah. They get stuck with cash flow, stress, and they think, well, maybe it's not worth it. But I'm telling you, the ones who win, they endure the trip to get to the vacation. Okay? So I just want to encourage you, stop selling the trip, start selling the vacation, and don't quit in the canyon. If you want the lifestyle, if you want the money, if you want the freedom, you have to be willing to sit in traffic a little bit longer, and sometimes a lot longer than everyone else. Okay? And just remember, every great business, just like every great ski night, it, literally was such a great ski night starts with a frustrating drive. I mean, there's no doubt about it. There's not a business. It's just easy out of the gate. It starts with a frustrating drive, but the beauty is that it can end with an unforgettable ride. Just like my night skiing the other night. So keep moving forward. You got this. And if you don't believe in yourself and you need to Borrow some of my confidence. That's cool. You can do that for the week, but I need it back. I picked out some country music because I feel like Pat's got a little country in it. Hey, guys, stop settling for cheap, unreliable lamps that ruin your projects and your reputation. Emory Allen's line of premium LED lamps deliver the performance, the longevity and color consistency your clients expect. Trusted by lighting designers and installers around the country and backed by decades of lighting expertise, don't settle for less. Upgrade your designs and installations today with Emery Allen. Reach out to Tom Garber by emailing tom garyallen. com and take advantage of their contractor pricing. And by the way, don't forget to mention that you heard about him here on Lighting for Profits, and he will hook you up with that discounted contractor pricing. Just email tom g.maryan. com.

Patrick Carters: Sales process is hard. But it is. It's a journey

All right, well, it's time, guys. I think we kick off our designer series and, get Pat on the show. So let me see if I can figure this out. where's our guest intro? Here we go. There it is.

Foreign.

Welcome to the show, Mr. Patrick Carters. What's up, Pat?

How's it going, Ryan? Love your story. And, I actually had a funny one. Talk about maintenance plans. We devised a maintenance plan. I was so excited about it, and I had a customer in front of me, went through the lighting design. They're about to sign the contract. And I went public. But wait, let me tell you the best part. And started explaining the maintenance plan destroyed my sale. They're like, wait, so what is it? I'm gonna pay how much? And, like, that never had crossed their mind. And I learned, you know, really simple old sales is like, when you got the contract, get the damn contract signed and move on. Don't bring up things. So, yeah, I, agree with you 100%.

No, I appreciate that. It, man, this game's hard. Business is hard. Sales is hard. And especially when you're in a moment where you feel like, okay, I got this, and you get excited, and maybe if you're only booked out six hours, it's like you just want to oversell. It's like, oh, yeah, and by the way. And then this and this, like, dude, just get the check and get out of there.

And here's my fixture, and here's. Yeah, you become Tommy boy. Jumping around and you get so excited about it. And I think the sales process can be the same way, because, you know, I was just telling you today we started a project, and I think I first met with them, like, June 1st, and it's like 10 visits out there, two Zoom calls, like, redoing plans, coming up with other plans. Just like. And finally today, we're out there, and everybody's excited. So it's at a country club, and they're like, we're so excited to see these come on. So it's like, you know, those six months of, like, I'm just starting to get annoyed. And for me, like, I. Once you start getting into, like, the fifth change, actually the second change or third change, I'm just starting to check out at that point, I'm like, all right, you want me to adjust this and move this? And we haven't even gotten a check yet, you know, but the exciting thing is seeing their excitement now and then, you know, probably tomorrow, the next day when we get all the lights on, you know, that that's where it's fun. And then, you know, getting the check. But, you know, the fun part for me is always the. The design and then getting to that final stage. But it is. It's a journey. Sometimes even the sales process, you love the jobs that you walk in, they write you a check for 12,000, you install it, four days later, you walk out. Those are the best. But there's some of them that go on and on, and you keep making adjustments and changes, and it's just stuck in traffic. But then when it all comes in, it's a fun project.

Yeah, well said. I mean, I'm instant gratification, too. Like, I want everything I want right now.

So.

Of course. And I think it's a good reminder that we have a vision of, like, how. What our company does and how we do it, and we expect everyone to just immediately understand that. And we have, you know, a sales process and stuff like that. But if you mentioned, like, a country club, sometimes there's committees, sometimes there's multiple decision makers. Sometimes we're involved with other projects going on at the same time. So I think that's important is, like, most people would probably have already given up on that. I mean, you said it was from June.

Yeah. She had actually two other competitors. And, you know, the. One of them, the second time she asked for an adjustment, she's like, they just never got back to me. Yeah, so I think that happens a lot. And it's, you know, just being diligent and understanding, like, what my destination to get to. And, you know, it turns out they own two other country clubs, so, you know, it could be a really very lucrative project for us. And, you know, but it was a lot of work, and I had to take that one just because it's different than our standard, you know, 10, $20,000 project.

Yeah. So many good things there. I know. I had a. My. My top designer salesperson. He. He was so good at closing on the spot. And he knew, just like you said, like, tonight he's gonna get a $12,000 deal. So he just wasn't as excited about follow up because it's like, well, take it or leave it. If you don't want it, like, move.

On to the next.

I literally have three appointments tomorrow night. So he's gonna make his money. And, what's. What's crazy about this is that I think our presentation and he was so good at, like, giving these a really good impression on people. They would call in the office and say, hey, we can't get a hold of Chad. We want to move forward with you. And I'm like, holy cow.

That drive you crazy?

Yeah. I'm like, what is happening?

Is hunting your salesman down. You're like, yeah, like,

If you make a good impression, people are going to want to work with you

And you guys still want to move forward with us? I hate us right now. Why do you like us? You know?

Yeah.

So if there's just lots of things, I mean, if you can make a good impression, like, people are going to want to work with you. And then like, yeah, don't give up until someone tells you, like, no, stop calling. If you call again, I'm calling the police. Like, why? Why would you stop calling them?

Yeah, and there's certain customers that are just going to take a lot more handholding. You know, my favorite ones are the ones that say, do whatever you want. We'll write you a check that comes around, like, you know, once a year. Maybe you get that. That fantastic customer that's just so simple to work with, and they write you a huge check. But, you know, a lot of times it's a process walking through the whole thing and seeing your vision. You know, especially something like this where, you know, the head of the. The. The head landscaping person actually had to go and present it to the board. And so then I had to train her up. I'm like, can I just do it? And she's like, no, the board wants me to do it. So, you know, it was. There was times that I thought that deal was dead, but, you know, that's awesome.

Patrick Harders has been doing lighting since 98

Well, in a few moments, we're going to jump into, like, project Walkthrough. You've got a few different projects you're going to walk us through, and Some of the design challenges and what you did to overcome them and, you know, dealing with different client personalities and tastes and stuff like that. Before I do that, though, or before we do that, do. Just do a quick intro of yourself. And then I also want to ask you a couple things about. About kind of like what we're talking about, but just who is. Who is Patrick Harders? Who am I, the politician?

Just somebody. Just a guy. yeah, I've been doing lighting since I started in 98. I was actually working at the time, decided to finish my degree, went back to school. A friend of mine owned Outdoor Lighting Perspectives, the franchise system, and so kept bugging him. Like, he kept bugging me to come work for him. And when I went back to school, I started doing nighttime demos for, the franchise headquarters, and then, you know, took my lighting career off from there. 2011, we started Sterling Lighting and started the manufacturing side. Kind of did everything I could to not manufacture, but just couldn't get the product I wanted. And so we jumped into that, got into politics this year. We just do a lot of different things.

So, you know, build barns, do podcasts.

Yeah, I'm in my barn. Yeah. Wrestling barn. Well, it's a barn that we throw wrestling mats in technically, but yeah.

What's kind of like your guys's average size project this year

So, I want to ask you about Delim, because we're talking about this type of stuff. What. What is, like, what's the state. What's the, state of the union for Dayloom right now? What. What's kind of like your guys's average size project? And what are you guys looking forward to this year?

It varies a little bit. You know, if we go by last year, and I. I tend to take a little more of the fun projects. I think, like, my average proposal last year was around 75,000. O. Andy, who works for me, his average proposal. And Andy's become, you know, a really good designer. He's been with me about 15 years, been doing design for 10, 11. He's won, like, two AOLP awards. his average proposal is about 19,000. His average close is around 12. And then I've got Danny, who's. Come on. he's been a technician for five years and starting to do design for the last year and a half. And, his average proposal is probably more in that nine to 10,000. But he's had two jobs go over 50, 60,000, something like that.

Sweet.

Yeah, but it's been a. It was an interesting year this year. I think our. Our biggest challenge we had was leads were Way down. They've kind of steadily gone down over the last three years. and there was a shift into much bigger projects to try and make up for that. But that's something we're looking at this year. And I think that middle project, you know, the bread and butter $10,000 project that I personally love the most, if, you know, I could send two, three guys out on a job and they could knock out 10,000, 8 to 10,000 in a day and have a second job going on. I love those because you could close them. I think those are coming back more. For us it was just, you know, for us it was like that 800,000, $1, $.4 million home weren't buying the way they used to buy. And so, you know, but I've talked to other business owners locally and they've been seeing an uptick in the last four to six months. And some of those jobs coming back, a big kitchen designer, same thing they said they went to, you know, their $50,000 kitchen went away and you know, it's just three to $400,000 kitchens and you know, now some of those normal kitchens are coming back. So I've got hope for 20, 26. Cool.

Yeah, I mean there's lots of different ways to win of course. and I tend to like those two. I think, you know, you can as long as you are really doing it right. I've, I've come across some members that are doing like, they'll sell like a 10, $12,000 job and then if it, if it, if you, if it's a three man crew and you've got decent amount of overhead, like, like we do, like you got to knock it out in a day. If that goes into two and especially three, like you might feel like, wow, this is cool. I keep selling ten thousand dollar jobs like a multiple of weeks, like. Yeah, but there's not gonna be any money to show for. Like you've really got to get efficient. And I like if you can knock out a 10k a day, that's 50 grand a week. And, and you can do really well with just one crew.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's efficiency and you know, really that was a big focus a number of years ago is efficiency on the installs. So you know, everybody's working the right people in the right seats, you know, because that could kill you. If the guys get 90% of the job done and they leave at 4:30 and then they have to drive back and by the time they get done with the next day it's one o'. Clock. So you've just shot two days on, you know, really something that should be done in one day. So efficiency is so important.

Yeah. I mean, one thing that we talk about in Landscape Lighting Secrets is like daily overhead. And I think everyone's surprised when they do that activity for the first time. I know I was. And it's just like, oh, dang. Like, I didn't know it cost me, like when I put in like, actually the salary that I'm going to pay myself and insurance and all this stuff, it could be as high as $3,500 for some of these companies. And so, you know, just on a $10,000 job, 3,500 right off the top, you, you just by the time you buy materials and you put invest in there and yeah, you just can't go into that second day. And again, some people are doing it in three or even four days. I'm like, ouch. Like, that sucks so bad.

Now if you're all by yourself, you can make a ton of Money doing a $10,000 job. It could take you four days and it doesn't matter.

Yep.

I loved that for. I did that for about a, well, about a year by myself just doing installs and it's profitable. But you're not going to last long. Well, I said I wouldn't last long. Some guys do that and I'm amazed with it. But Trenchy gets really old.

Sterling stepped up last year at Light It Up Expo

Well, I appreciate you sharing that stuff. so Sterling is going to be, representing. Sterling stepped up last year at Light It Up Expo and again this year, which we're super grateful. not only a vendor, but also a sponsor as well. So I appreciate you guys doing that. that's coming up here at Light It Up Expo and I heard that you're gonna make a, guest appearance, which is cool.

Yeah, I'm heading. I think it's three days I'm gonna be there. I'm not really sure. I just told everybody, whatever, you know, my guys are going to send me in and so I'll be there. I think I even get a roundtable.

So, yeah, we're doing a expert, roundtable on Fri on Friday, the last day. And I, I don't know. There's. We have so many good speakers and stuff and just so many good things planned. It's hard to say, like, oh, this is going to be the best thing, but I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most, is the expert Roundtables, because it's really informal. It's not like you have a slide deck or anything. You literally just go up and be like, dude, Patrick, tell me like, your deepest, darkest secrets. How do I do this? How do I, how do I build a multi million dollar business or whatever they want to know? Like, it's just more like casual conversations and less presentation, you know, so really good access to good people.

I think that's the second best I always find at any conference like this. And I think you're looking at potentially having the largest lighting conference out of any of them right now. You know, all the numbers hold true, which is, you know, pretty outstanding. But, yeah, I think one of the best things that I always find is just getting to know other people and having those conversations after the conference. Like know, you know, you and I have both planned out all these conferences in the past. And then people write at the end, like, what did you get most out of? It's like, I was sitting at the bar, I had a conversation with this guy and he told me X. And you're like, I didn't even plan.

It wasn't on the agenda.

I could have just invited you guys out to do come and have a drink or do whatever. But yeah, there is that camaraderie and just getting to know people and talking to other people, you know, there's so much insight you can get from that.

Yeah, our biggest challenge is keeping people from doing fake phone calls because they actually, they don't want to get vulnerable. It's like, oh, I'm just going to run up to the room, I'm going to do this. Like, we need them there because we are manufacturing a little bit of this and kind of stimulating some of these, conversations. But then after that it's like, no, just build these relationships, get to know each other. And this should extend way beyond Light it Up Expo. this is just like the introduction for people.

Yeah, I did that. We, like when we started off, we didn't have programs like this. So a lot of times I just go and connect with somebody and make like go and visit them and see their, what they were doing in their business. So, you know, you're kind of bringing all that into a community. so that's a great thing. But that is, that is, there's so much we can learn. And a lot of times you're not going to always learn it just on a presentation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Today you're not going to learn.

Today we don't have jack. So if you're gonna stop listening. Now's the time. Yeah, no. Well, that's the thing. So I've learned this, that everyone learns differently. And so, like, at a light, it up expo, you're going to have. We're going to have someone say, oh, I really liked that speaker. I really like that thing. But I didn't like that. That's normal. We're not trying for 100% perfection here. Some people like to be spoken to. Some people like smaller breakouts. Some people like the vendor hall. Like, so we've got a little bit of everything so that no matter who you are, if you're. If you're, introvert and extrovert, like, you're going to find your people, you're going to find your ability to learn. And it could, like you just said, it could be a conversation at the bar. One hallway conversation could literally change the trajectory of your business. So I'm. I'm so pumped up. I'm, like, nervous because I still have to do, like, my presentations and I got to finalize things and. Oh, we've got.

It'll. It'll all work out.

Tons of money on the line. Like, we've paid all this money. But I really am so excited. I'm just like, why can't it just start now? Let's just go now.

Yeah. I say that to my son who's in college, and I'm m. Always like, hey, finals are going to come. Don't stress out about them. Like, that day is coming no matter what you do. So just sit back, enjoy it, enjoy the ride. It's going to come. It's going to be great.

That's good advice. See, that's why we're friends.

Patrick says design is the number one way to differentiate yourself from your competitors

All right, so we're going to do. We're going to transition now, so to our little design series here. I'm going to see if our technology works. And, Whoa, what do we got here? Do we got to have, like, Google Translate? So, basically, I was talking to Patrick last week, and, I had this idea, and I was like, hey, why don't. And he had some ideas, and I was like, hey, let's. Let's do it on the podcast. So basically what we're gonna do is just walk through some projects. and like, no matter what, like, you know, you guys know me. Like, I'm hardcore. Like, let's double your profits, make more money, buy back your time, hire your replacement, go from operator to owner, like, all those things. Right? But there's a lot of different elements to that. And I truly believe that design is a, is a major way that you can differentiate yourself and how you solve problems for your clients. And I've just gotten to know Patrick over the years. He teaches our design, classes in landscape Lighting Secrets and Lighting Academy. And I mean, I just see the way you speak about it and like the emotion and the feelings I get when you show your projects is just different than most. So I appreciate you coming on here and kind of walking through some of this stuff.

Yeah, I always look at it as, I think it's the number one way you differentiate yourself from your competitors. And, you know, I'm a fixture manufacturer. you know, that would be the easiest way for me to walk in and talk about, you know, this is the fixture, I design this, you know, get into all that. But in the end, you know, I don't think that's what sells a product or sells your systems as much as your design and your vision. And, it's the destination that you were talking about. And you know, quick story, when I first saw, when I first saw Tom Fanning and drove around with him in lighting, it's like 1997, I was like, what do you do? And he's like, I do landscape lighting. Like, I light up houses. I was like, the question we should always ask. I was like, why? Like at the time I didn't get it. Like, I don't understand why you put lights on the front of the house. He's like, let me show you. I'm like, okay, yeah, that looks good. And I didn't get it. I was just like, it looks better that it didn't. And it was once I started working and then seeing like the dark, I did a lot of nighttime demos or mock ups. So I would set the whole thing up and I'd see it go from darkness, turn it on and just feel what the customer felt where it just got silent and quiet. And they were so impressed. And, that's where I got really excited about lighting design. But then, you know, when I started it, really I was excited about selling lighting design. So one of my first jobs I ever went on, I sold 83 fixtures on a third of an acre lot. And Tom's like, what, what did, what did you do here? I had like every island, like they had all these little islands all over and every one of had like seven path lights and then two trees lit up and then the next one. And she loved it. She thought it was great. And I thought it was really cool because it was A lot of money. But, you know, when I drove by it a couple years later, I'm like, I can't believe I did that. That sucks.

That's so true, though. If you go back to look at any first lighting project, I'm sure we'd all be embarrassed at what we did, but the clients loved it. Any lights better than no light in their mind?

You know, it, does. It does make a difference. But it. There was a shift for me, you know, around 2008 or 9, where I started to go from, like, you know, selling the features and benefits of the light fixtures and how good the installation was and how quick we could get it in and our service afterwards into, you know, getting more into the design and just working on that, working on that. And I, I think it's a skill, skill set that you, that you could learn and get better and better at. you know, obviously some people have, they could see it more in their mind and, and picture it and everything. but I think ultimately it is a skill set and, you know, having restraint and it's very important. So, you know, you go from like, why are we lighting? And that's still the question we should be asking is like, why are we doing this? To like, how should we do it? Well, and so these three, these three phrases here. I was actually at a lighting training program and they were similar to this. I, heard. Heard a interior lighting designer talking about it. they're Latin. there's sentito, which would be Italian or centire, and I probably mispronouncing, but that's an emotional, like, sentiment, sentimental, like, that's where that word comes from. So there's the emotional connection, and then soma is body, so it's physical. And then semper is trusted. So a lot of times we focus on one thing and not the other. And I hear a lot of lighting designers where they focus on the first two, the emotional and physical connection, but the, the third part of the trusted and lasting. And so you're building it out. Right. I think all three things have to come together. So if you have the greatest lighting design in the world, but you don't install it right and you don't maintain it right, it's going to look like crap and it's going to fall apart. And you've done, no, sir, you haven't done any service. And if you build the best install system, but you don't take into account how somebody physically, is like, there's glare, there's things like that, that Makes it uncomfortable or the emotional connection you have with lighting. And I was actually very proud of this picture. Is one of my lighting designers, Danny, who is, who's an installer. He's only, I think he's 26 years old now. And so he's been working with me for about five years. And when he created this scene and we went out, got a photograph of it and I love, I always, I love always breaking down your full lighting design into scenes. And this was a major focus point here, but really understated on the lighting. That little shed doesn't look like much during the day. You know, didn't do a lot on the sides. And it would have been easy to put three lights on each side and do more than that, but just kept it really simple and you know, it looks like a piece of, piece of art. It looks like a painting when they look out and they sit out on their deck. it's just a beautiful scene that he created there.

Hey, real quick. For those of you that are listening to the podcast and you want to see what we're talking about, you can go find this episode on, on YouTube landscape lighting secrets, because we are looking at some photos on this. If not, then just feel the emotion that Patrick's talking about.

It's got a real soft downlight on it. Is that just reflective lighting on there or is there. Is there?

I, I do have a question on this. Is that just reflective lighting on there or is there.

Is there? It's got a real soft downlight.

It, does.

I, think there's two down lights on that project. One in the back to get some of the fence line and the tree back there, and one on the front softly washing the shed. So cool. And it's. I think it's four up lights on the. Four or five. Well lights on that tree. So, but just a beautiful little scene. And you know, I think it's always nice on any project or always, you know, really important is to find scenes that you can create, and things that really make the project special that you're drawing people to. So they. Around it there we left some darkness around it. So it really stood out a little bit more where a lot of times we connect lighting together. Sometimes, you know, we could use some darkness in there and that just makes it accent much, much more. Makes it more impactful.

Yeah, great point. It really does draw it out to the eye for sure. Yeah.

Three different customers used different lighting techniques for different projects

But the, the next projects, these are interesting, you know, and I, I chose to do something. We, we first talked about doing a walk through, through one project and instead I had three different customers. They all lived fairly close to each other. Like within 10 miles of each other. And it was just three totally different scenes and three different techniques on lighting design. so this first one is more of a traditional landscape lighting project. We went with all 3k. We have a lot of down lights, getting some ground cover. When I started off, everything was up lighting. And what you miss is just tying everything in. You'd see the trees lit up, but then you wouldn't have anything really tying the trees. So it's really softly lighting, some, some of the ground cover, some of the path. I think the customer had me add two pathway lights which I didn't want to do. but what I was trying to create is that visual destination of that seating area. And they have a deck and actually an indoor pool, small indoor pool with a screened in room. And I said this little seating area down in, you know, in the middle of the woods is, is our visual destination. And they're like, we never go down there and we're never going to go. They're like 70. Like we're not going to go walking down there at night. I'm like, it doesn't matter. We're creating a destination for your eye to go to. And what was fun about it is they actually rearrange their furniture inside of their sun room so that they're. When they're sitting out at night, they're now facing and looking outside because they're just surrounded by soft lighting. you know, but keys on it are always down lighting. Go softer than you think you want to go.

what do you normally do? do you do like 60° or what? What do you normally recommend?

I, I always. Yeah, a lot of times I'll do some 60 degree. I like going up high. I like this one. We had a tree climber out, so we are about 45, 50ft high on most of these. And we are only at that like 350 to 430 lumens. So it's just really soft way lighting. We went a little bit brighter on the, on the seating area. So that that came out a little bit brighter, a little bit more of an accent. But most of it, you know, and I learned it the hard way. I, I was really excited when we came out with like a thousand lumen downlight with the shrouding and everything affects that. But you know, I wanted it really bright and I put them up at my house. I'm like, this is way too bright because you know, typically lighting and there's so much air that it's not reflecting 100% off something. When you're down lighting, it's reflecting 100% off the grass, the ground cover. so I think it should be softer anyway. So, you know, I tell almost everybody whenever you're doing downlighting, go one step softer than what you're thinking. So, you know, we're in our system, it's usually going to be like one click down or two clicks down. So it's like 3:30 somewhere in there. And a lot of times we'll use some lights that are even like hanging lights or mini down lights. And you're going to be in that 100 to 2, hundred lumens on them.

Will you do brighter lights for older people even if you don't think it looks right sometimes?

I mean, if it's, if it's a, if it's a practical light, like a step light or something like that, I, haven't really changed it much for, like, up lighting trees or uplighting the house. you know, because I don't think that's like, lighting they need. It's lighting that they're visually seeing. Obviously, your eyes don't pick up lighting as well as you age. And, you know, I'm already 50, so I'm, you know, getting there. We're having to wear glasses and everything.

We don't do them brighter. We just do them as bright as I think. And I go out there like, wow, this is really bright, Pat.

Yeah, and it's. A lot of it is, it's, it's not the number of fixtures or luminaires. If you want to be fancy like we are, you know, what we're looking for is a softer light level, which is usually going to be more light, spread out a little bit more and a little bit softer, to give that better look. And, you know, try not to get, I'd say, you know, from this angle, that one tree, you know, has two lights on it. But we're, we're kind of lighting that trunk a little bit bright from this angle. the main viewing angle is from the, deck. But as alpha theory always says, you know, there's no such thing as a viewing angle. They're all viewing angles. So it has to be done from all. And I'm like, you're better than me. I, I look at viewing angles and everything else. So, Yeah, but. So that was an interesting one. And then if you go to the next slide, you could see this is the same backyard and the house really wasn't that exciting. Of a house for lighting. You know, we had the little bit of stone work, and I went real soft on that. We had a little bit of lighting. We put. We had basically like, little, our slo2s we put underneath the deck canopy on the right side. they had some lighting that we softened up underneath the decking on the left side. And we didn't put any path lights in. We went down lighting on it. And we used the back of the house to really define the roof line. And so back casting that, put the lights high up in the trees, or about 50ft, 55ft up in the front, shining through the branches. So it wasn't just light shining down onto the front walkway, but instead it was giving some shadows and some texture, so you could see everywhere where you're going, but it didn't feel like there was light everywhere. And, you know, that's what we're trying. Trying to accomplish is something that looks magical. And, you know, my favorite scene. My favorite scene in this front is actually not even shown in. This is off to the side, there's a bench, that we put down two down lights on, and it went through the trellis and created some beautiful shadows. And that one was. That won some AOLP award at some point, but, as a featured focus. But that was an interesting one.

How much do you consider maintenance when coming up with your lighting designs

And then we go to the next photo.

Let me pause on this one real quick, because I love the dappled shadows. I mean, it's just. It looks so good. how. How much do you consider maintenance when coming up with your designs? Putting the light 50, 60ft up in a tree?

Yeah, it sucks. That's why I try and put in the best lights you can. And what's nice is, you know, if we're using a light that is designed to be a thousand lumens, and I'm running it at 300. I'm only running at, like, one third of its capacity. So, you know, it's like having a bigger engine that I'm not having to push as hard. so you do get a longer life, you know, fortunately, you know, part of my design cheating on this is this one's not too far from my house is during COVID and I was kind of like, in the. Towards the end of COVID when this one went through, or we began the front part of it, and it was done in two phases. And so I knew I could get to it really easy. And the lift is not far away, so, you know, that. That helps out a lot. But that is something taken account Especially when you're having jobs. You know, I did one in Birmingham, and she called me up because two lights were out. And, like, I'm not flying to Birmingham for two lights. but, you know, that's all things you have to. You have to consider, but it is something to look at. And, you know, most of the time, the good thing about down lighting, if it's put in right, you have the offset in it. You do the wiring right. You know, you should get a long life out of it. It's not getting banged around. It's not getting hit all over the place. So it's better from that standpoint if you have path lights. I've seen path lights all the time in the grass, and it's like, that's gonna be a much higher maintenance than a down light. But, take that into account. If you're getting it 50ft up in the tree and you don't have ability to do that every time, then don't do it, because, you know, it's a pain when it does go out and you don't have the equipment or the tree climber for it. But, you know, the first key that I did early on was, partnering with the arborist and just asked him, like, hey, do you have guys that are available on a Saturday? And all their guys wanted to do. So I found one. One climber that any Saturday I needed him, he would go out and put my down lights in. Cool. If I read service, he could take care of it. A couple hundred bucks, and, you know, they were. They could fly up those trees.

Yep. Yep. Okay, cool. Yeah, we did a similar thing. We. We had a friend who was an arborist, and then we hired him for our first job where we're like, man, this would look so cool, but we. We don't know how to do it. And then eventually, we just hired him to train us, and he told us what gear to get. And so we had our own trained climbers, which was nice. But then the challenge became like we were putting them way high, and then all of a sudden, like, our maintenance team was not climbers. And so we're like, oh, didn't think about that one. Right. So. And it wasn't always, like, a light bulb out or a luminaire out. Right. It was sometimes a. A wire that had, you know, gotten chewed or, you know, started to get swallowed up in a tree or just something, you know, got hit in a windstorm or whatever. And so it's just, you know, something to think about. I, think it definitely Looks better going up higher. But, you just have to consider what resources you have available, when you're doing these types of things.

And I always try and run the, run the, wire where the squirrels aren't going to get pissed off. If it's on the top of the branch, they're going to get pissed off and chew on or get annoyed with it. So you run it on the sides. You try not to go too much into the crotches of the trees where they're going to build their nest, things like that. So, ah, try and think of all those things.

Another project that we did involved blending natural lighting with man-made lighting

this was another project that we did, totally different. And, what was interesting about it, they wanted the back tree line lip. But what you can barely see is if you look over on the top. And this was actually one of my favorite scenes that we created. If you look in the top right hand corner, they had a walking path. So they built a stream in a walking path, a little prayer garden, a fire pit. And so they had this little area and they said, we want it to be set apart from the rest of the lighting. So it's a different designation. They had a lot of parties out around the pool, in the pool house. But they wanted to have another place that was just, just different. So I experimented with a technique. I went with 4000k lamps. I got a really gray, blue, theatrical lens from Apollo Lighting. They were in Indianapolis. I think they're still around, but you could find them a glass lens. And I did it. I practice at my house a lot, trying the different lenses. And I was trying to mimic a softer, bluer light because, you know, blue light. I was in my wife's minivan one time and I'm, you know, I'm looking and I'm like, I could see my hand. I don't see where the light's coming from. And your eyes don't pick up blue light as much as other lights, like white light. so I tried doing that if you see the next scene, like when you do a closer view of it. So it was a weird look a little bit. I thought this was going to win every award possible because I'm like, this is different. Like we had a party and everyone's, everyone's walking around and they're just like looking and they're like, I could see everything, but I can't see where the light's coming from. And it doesn't really feel like it's like, it doesn't bother your eyes at all. so it's just a different technique. Obviously moonlighting, was something you saw really big in like Dallas, Atlanta, Northern Virginia here with the mercury vapor, which is sometimes green and sometimes blue. But this is trying to get closer. I was trying to get close to moonlight and you know, I don't know if I accomplished it. I think I did, but I thought that was just an interesting thing. Interesting way to use lighting to separate a section of the property because it was totally distinct from the other areas.

Yeah, that's cool. I mean it does, it does make it feel a little bit more natural. Like you said, like you're not really, your eyes not drawn to the lighting where in some scenes I think that we're all guilty of that. Like it's a little too much where people know, oh I love your lighting. Probably one of the biggest compliments I ever received. We were doing a ah, lighting for a wealthy family and then they, it was for this party and they were, they loved us. They're like, we're going to get you guys so many leads, it's going to be awesome. Blah, blah, blah. We do the thing like hey, how the party goes? Amazing. And I'm like, so what everyone have to say about the lighting? And I go, oh man, you know what, we forgot about it. And so did everyone else. They just kept saying how awesome our backyard was, our landscaping and the wood line and all this stuff. And I, I took that as a compliment that it wasn't about the lighting, it was about the, the experience we were creating with, with the lighting.

Yeah, I was thinking about because I'm prepping for you know, some design training and like a great landscape architect blends in like the natural world with the man made world and they make it feel like like this is a scene that a landscape architect designed. And it feels like a little, it's in a backyard in a sub gated subdivision, but it feels like it's out in the woods somewhere.

And they do a really good job of blending it in and you don't really even notice because it just feels natural and, and lighting's the same way. Like when we do it really well, we're blending in the architecture, the you know, the nature that's out there, the trees and everything else and it just blends in and it just doesn't, it's not overpowering, it's not trying to overdo, and just make a scene look really bright. And so you know, that's the restraint that I didn't have at the beginning and I think actually helps you out more as a lighting designer. You know, I was scared to go down the road a little bit because I thought, like, well, I'm good at selling fixtures. Like, I'm good at putting in 83 lights, seven lights in each bed. But this looks better. And overall, the people enjoy it more. And when they enjoy it more, they tell their friends about it. And it grows your reputation. And, you know, when you get to the point that there you don't have competition because, you know nobody else can design like you can design. that's where your business is really special. And then you can work on everything else. You still have to work on doing the installs, right? The efficiencies of the guys answering phones, all that stuff. But that's part of the growth in the business.

It's a great shot. I'm sorry you didn't win any design awards?

Nothing. Not even an honorable mention.

Man, you suck.

I do.

It's a great shot, actually.

Both of these projects were in Haymarket, Virginia

And so these next two. This is, I think, a step brighter than I typically do. And you may have heard this story, but we were working with, both of these projects were in Haymarket, Virginia. This was at Willing Warriors. So it's a soldiers retreat, and they were dealing a lot with, ptsd. And so I said, we. We donated a system to him. I said, this will light this whole area up. They really wanted to bring families to have them go and sit by the fire pit, but since it was so dark around it that nobody was going out. And then you also. We had to look at breaking the plane of glass because when they're sitting inside the house and they would look outside, it would feel uncomfortable because they're surrounded by darkness. It's out in the country a little bit. So I did go a step brighter than I usually do. this one didn't win an AOLP award, but it won a. A lit award. So one of the big ones in that. So, but it's just a little different technique. It's still using a lot of down lighting. You can see, like, right by the first center tree. That light's only about 35ft up. I think I climbed that one. So, I'm a chicken. the one on the back is much higher, probably 45, 50ft up, and then a little bit of lighting. And then there are two main viewing angles. There's two houses they house the soldiers in. And so the next photo shows the other wood line that didn't have the fireplace.

This one here.

So, yeah, similar looking because it all crescendoed. Up, you know, right in the center, which was nice. but it was the same idea. A lot of, well, lights and, you know, up lights and then some down lighting to light up the ferns around there. That just tied everything together. But, definitely gave a sense of comfort for the people there and comfort for when they're inside the house. Which is a, a whole nother perspective is once you start getting on the inside of the house and want to get that scene, you either have to shut all your lights off or make it a little bit brighter. So all things to consider in the lighting design.

So, yeah, I think it looks awesome.

James: I think you want a variety of scenes and, and different light levels

I think something that I'll mention is like when you are putting, putting together your portfolios and showing off different things, I think you want a variety of scenes and, and different light levels. Because I've shown people pictures of stuff that I just thought was absolutely awesome. Like some of our best work and they're like, oh, that's, that's too dark. That's spooky. And I'm like, oh, wait, what? And but if they saw something like this, it's a little bit brighter. Like they're like, oh, that's what we want. And so, everyone sees things differently. Everyone's coming with different backgrounds and whatnot. And I try to not judge pictures too much. I mean, there are some pictures that just look terrible. Right. But like, this is hard. Like if I was there in person, then it's like, oh, I do know, I see what you're saying. Or I don't think it's too bright or whatever it is. Right. But I've seen pictures where I thought they looked really good. And then I walked through it, like physically, and I'm like, oh, wow, that's. It actually looks better in the photo. And then I've seen others where I'm like, the pictures just didn't do it justice. I get there, I'm like, holy cow, I wish people could feel this. I wish they could. Like the photography just didn't match the project. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's hard to judge some of these things on a computer screen.

Yep. but it gives some good idea. And I do think that the lighting book that's coming out there was one previous a couple years ago that came out. I think one thing that's really nice about that is it's showing different lighting designers.

And you know, I think everybody's heard me talk about this, but you, you compare Greg Matthews and Jim Ply, two of the best Lighting designers out there, totally different techniques, and their projects look a lot different.

Yeah.

And I'll show customers, like, here's a great lighting designer. Here's another great lighting designer. So I'm not afraid to showcase other people's work to get some, you know, feedback for, like, where do they. Where do they fit in here and how do they like it? this is a real simple. And I'll go through these next ones kind of quick. But this was at a historic home from, like the 1740s. we got out here and somebody had lined path lights all down each of these walkways. And you know, the first thing that if my me starting off, I would have done the same thing with path lights going all down the walkways and focus on the crepe myrtles. That's what's stealing the show. but then what we did is we really had a much greater focus on all the boxwoods. That's a very nice comment, James. Thank you. we focus on the boxwoods. And that was really what I felt was the star. That is real subtle. But having down lights that are down lighting all the boxwoods, getting the pathways lit. this allowed. They do a lot of tours here at night in Alexandria, Virginia. And, it allowed people to come out at night and do the tours at night. But the down lighting is really what makes a scene look so much better than anything else. And, you know, that was one thing Jan Moyer instilled in everybody is, you know, you start your lighting designs with down lighting and build from there. Where I know, guaranteed, starting off, I wouldn't have had that. And you would have had a lot of darkness, maybe some stupid path lights. And then, you know, the crepe myrtles would have been brighter than they should be.

One thing I see when people start to do down lighting is excessive glare

One thing I see when people start to do down lighting, and I'm sure I was guilty of this, I need to go find some old photos. But they'll. They'll be. They'll see stuff like this, like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do that. But then when they. When they do it, because you need that light to go through the branches and whatnot, it creates that hot spot in the branch. What are some things you do to help minimize that?

I, think height is your bit best friend. And that's, ah, you know, light always comes out of fixtures angry. And so the height is a huge difference. And, you know, what I personally did is I designed three different lights so I could have different light levels at different heights. but you don't want to have a light that's 25ft high, that's right in your eye level. And then you're also lighting the branches really, really bright. so I'm really careful with that. And I'm trying to get it through more of the. The smaller branches. So I don't want to try and make it go through. Like, a real large branch is just going to put a big shadow on the ground. I'm trying to get through some of the smaller branches and leaves to create more texture. And this one didn't have as much texture. Put in a couple spots here and there. There's another scene near a gazebo that had a little bit more shadowing on it. but it was really getting that soft lighting onto the boxwoods.

Yeah.

And I'll show you these. These are just some challenges that we had. And what's nice is these are some of my designers, that are young. Like, Andy's been with me 15 years, and he's really, you know, becoming accomplished. And Danny's move is coming along. And Andy had this one. so this is your typical house. And this. These are the things I hated when I started off. It had this big front walkway, and you can't really see what the light's doing on the underneath it, but a big front brick walkway. And then it opened up into a big brick patio. And so there's nowhere to really put light. So in the next picture, you see and what we had to do and James. James is a big advocate of this, we did have to lower the lights on the side of the house. We had to dim down the lights on the door. And then if you look up on the top, up in the gutter, and I'm pointing to it, but you can't see it. We have, I think we have all together, six mini down lights, coming off the soffit to light up that whole area. And just went really soft. I think it was like 130 lumens is all we put down wide, wide beam spread, shroud, glare, guards, everything we could put on it, to get light into this area and then accent the walls a little bit brighter. so I say that only because I get calls all the time where someone has these big, big structures like this that are built. They say, I want to get lighting, you know, or how would I. How would you design this? How do you put lights on the steps? And they're putting strip lights in or doing weird things like that. And I didn't want it to distract from the house. And the, and the landscaping because it's a really symmetrical house and kind of an old colonial style home. So you know, the down lighting really did a great job of giving you the soft light so people could pull into the big horseshoe driveway. so they could pull into the driveway, come in and out, and you could have everything safely lighted from that standpoint.

Yeah, I like that. So the minis are just in that second story Eve shining down onto that whole like landing way.

But there's a million million glare protection. Like we did a number of steps to reduce glare on that because that's what, anytime you're going up, you're always fighting glare.

Yeah. But I do like it. I think especially someone newer in the industry, they see steps like, oh, well, yeah, I'll just do strip lights or step lights or whatever. And they're not considering like the whole cohesive scene. They're not trying to like bring it all together and don't realize. You know, again, they just don't know, but they don't realize. It's just distracting at that point. It's just pulling all the attention to that one piece instead of being part of the whole scene.

Yeah. And there were hard shadows we had to deal with. Like because of where everything's placed at, we had the lights a little closer to the house. So, above that doorway there was a large shadow. So we have two small lights shining down above off the soffit to reduce that shadow above the door. Because that's the focal point of the whole front is that entrance way. And that was going to be a big dark spot above it. So there are two small lights, coming down from there to give you a little bit of lighting to reduce those shadows.

I'm assuming you're using sterling lights here.

I do tend to, I, I, I use more sterling lights than anything else. Yeah.

So, so, but the, how often are you. Because I think when you're, when you're canceling out shadows with other lights, how often are you going back and adjusting it after the fact to make sure it's not too bright or sometimes not bright enough.

We do. And you know, I, don't know if it's, it depends on the project. not that I'm going back, but I do cheat a little bit. I always tell my customers, like, I'm so excited to see this. Can you send me a picture tonight? You know, I'm like 90% of the time I'm going to get everything perfect or get a lot perfect. But I'm like, send me A picture tonight. And I. And that night, I always get it, and we study it and look at it to go like, all right, just from the photo, we could, you know. So we're not going out there for the first time with ladders and everybody, but we have a better idea of what adjustments are going to be made. Yeah.

35% of our sales came from our existing customers this year

Okay.

So I don't always do the nighttime reveal, like so many people, and I know that's heresy in our industry. but if we're doing a lot of projects, cancel.

Cancel culture, baby.

And I had so many nights out that I wasn't with my family. I'm like, I got to figure out a better way to, you know, when we're going to do it. We're as efficient as possible. A lot of times, if I see it, see a photo of it, I know what I need to do. And we could go during the day. It's much safer to be on a ladder during the day than, you know, going out at night and trying to adjust it. It's usually a step down, but, I almost always. I always try and go a little bit softer. You know, that's typically the answer. It's not. It's very rarely is that. That just needs to be brighter sometimes, but most of the time, it's going a level softer.

I'm surprised that wasn't, like, the last question to get your lc, like, do you go out and do, you know, nighttime reveals? And if not, I'm surprised.

That was like, prison lighting, office lighting, you know, two by twos, two by fours, things like that. So a lot of crazy questions, like, 12 of them are with lighting. Basically, it's just a very symmetrical house. It's got two bushes on side, two crepe myrtles, two chimneys.

That's a beautiful shot. That looks so good.

And that was Andy Shoemate. So one thing that I think is really nice is to bringing up. Bringing up your people in the industry and start building up your lighting designers. I think it a. Is going to keep your technicians around a lot longer if they start getting into lighting design, and gives them a greater avenue and a lot more opportunity and frees you up. so, yeah, that was. Andy Shumate designed this. And, you know, I'm really proud that, you know, someone from my company, you know, could go out there and do really good lighting design now.

No kidding, man. I mean, it's like. It's cooler that you didn't do it.

You know, I got to be home.

Yeah, no, that's. That's pretty spectacular. I mean, There is that sense of accomplishment of like man, when I actually help someone else, you know, create this masterpiece and create their accomplish something that they didn't know how to do before. That's super rewarding. So congrats man, that's cool.

And he tried forever to get them like he showed them the picture that we saw earlier with the back of the trees. Now this, this house is higher than the one that I had. Mine was like a, basically a one story house so the trees were much more pronounced. But lighting up the back actually, you know, ties into the front scene because those back trees would help you see like that roof line just disappears into the darkness where if we had the tree line lit up and back. Customer just hasn't moved forward with that yet.

Phase two, It'll happen, It'll happen.

Can't forget them. I, I think we just ran a study on it and we did like almost. It was like 35% of our sales came from our existing customers this year. So there's a lot of money, a lot of. We almost never get everything we want on a project.

I think that's important, I think it's important to bring up because you know, I always talk marketing and sales and profitability and all this stuff. It's like, you know, you're going to invest in some type of marketing channel and it's going to bring in a lead, it's going to give you a certain amount of money. But like that first project is not the lifetime value of the client. And this is really why it's important to have good systems beyond that first interaction. Because now all of a sudden that client is going to have phase two. It might be six months later, it might be two years later, it might be 10 years later. We don't know. But like the chances of them adding are high because that's just what happens in our industry. So the longer you can stay in business, the more unfair advantage that you get. Like you just have like you said 35% like guaranteed most a new company, they're not going to have you know, seven figures worth of like guaranteed revenue next year just off of repeat and referral, you know.

Yeah. And there's huge opportunities. We're actually starting some marketing plans to our current customer base because I'm like, we did that much business without know, just sending like a crappy email newsletter last year once a month. And so I'm like all right, we're going to get back to marketing towards our customer base. And you know the best thing about it is they're not shocked by the price because they were already shocked. They still will be, but not, not at first shocking. Like, you know, can't believe you'd charge this and offensively priced.

This next scene is off a small backyard in Reston, Virginia

this next one is just a beautiful little scene off a small backyard. And I could tell you right now how I would have let that in 2005. It would have been like two path lights on either side. My focus would have been underneath that, that, bridge. I would have put some small lights and you know, done something that way. And you know, I would have over complicated it and you would have seen a lot more fixtures. And in this scene, you don't really see where any lights are coming from at all. And it's just.

I thought this was, this, was the 85 light job you were talking about. This was. Yeah.

Well, if you go back to that one and she actually called me, to ask me if I could put colored lenses in all of the path lights. I'm like, I've already made it ugly enough. Yeah. But this is, it's in Reston, Virginia. Small, small, little property. And this is right off their deck. That bench was like his prized possession. So we wanted to make that the, the focal point. And you know, there's some. That strange little tree growing sideways, you know, that was. Had an uplight on it and a downlight, and then downlight obviously on the. On the decking. So it's pretty simple lighting design. There's nothing crazy about it, but it is a beautiful scene. and so I think it's soft. It's just trying to create something special without drawing attention to the lighting, but drawing attention to, the subject we're actually lighting.

Do you happen to know how many luminaires are here?

I don't think it's that many. I think that was under 25. It won some award. Like it might have been the under 25 or small lighting project.

in this scene, there's 25.

I think the whole backyard I think was 25 in this scene. It's not many. I'd have to go back and look, but 1, 2, 3, 4. Looks like maybe 10, 8 to 10, something like that.

Yeah. A couple up lights and a few down.

There's one path light that they deck that wasn't needed.

You just had to. You're like, nah, this is. It's just like old habits, good old days. I'm just staking one in. Yeah, I get it. It's a temptation. We all fall. It's okay.

Danny: One of my favorite projects this year was lighting for a party

And that's back, that's back to Danny scene. And that was one of my favorite projects this year that we did. And you know, there were some things like going back and one of the hard things is when you have lighting designers under you is they're going to do things that you love and you really celebrate. And you know, the customer wanted his front wall lit and so they put little wall lights all along this big, you know, circle, circular wall. And to me I was like, it doesn't add any excitement because it's, you know, the front entrance wall and there's really not a great way to light it up. and that stands out more than anything else. But in this back scene, he crushed it and did a great job.

Yeah, I mean, it really is awesome looking well. Dude, that was fun, man. I appreciate you walking through these projects.

a couple different techniques and different ideas to you know, trying some, something different out. The 4100k one, that, that was a very scary one because we finished it and the party began and I'm like, you know, really second time seeing it was in front of a group of people and I'm like, I hope people like it. so, you know, you have to try new things out and, and push the envelope a little bit and challenge yourself at least. I do. Otherwise it gets boring.

Yeah, I mean, I learned quite a bit today. I appreciate you walking, through everything and yeah, that was cool. I think we're gonna, we're gonna do some of these more design breakout sessions on the podcast. I, I, tend to get, you know, I love pricing and sales and marketing and all this stuff, you know, But I do, I do love design. I do love lighting. The, the emotions that it invokes and, and just we're able to change these areas and these atmospheres, you know, it's just, it's such a cool thing to do.

So.

Yeah, I appreciate you doing that.

Yeah. Always a little nerve wracking, putting your own work out there and someone's going to go, that sucks.

I did say that about the thing because you didn't get an award. I mean, I actually thought it was cool, but apparently the judges voted and it sucks.

Yes. No, I've spoken.

You are, you are right. I mean, you know, they say lighting is subjective, but I think you can tell, you can tell when someone like when it's good. And like I said, maybe it's a bad photograph, but it's like, oh, they know what they're doing and you can tell when Someone's just bad because, it doesn't matter if they had a good photographer. It's just. It's just bad.

I've been doing this for, I don't know how many, 25 years or more, and I still don't put my. I don't go on to, like, you know, landscape lighting wraps and be like, just finished this project. Give me your feedback. I'm like, heck, no. I don't want to hear what everybody says. Like, I'm happy. I'm good. I don't need to hear it from everybody else. I'm always, I'm inspired by the courage that some people have. Like, my third job, and I'm going to post it online, and everybody just critiqued me. I'm like, you know, good for you. But I never did that. I. I just kept working and studying myself and showing it to a couple friends, and that's about it.

Yeah, it's hard because, I mean, I appreciate someone wanting to be vulnerable. That's how you grow. That's how you change. And you got. You're going to get beat up, and it's like, it's going to help you become stronger. At the same time, what scares me about these groups is, like, there's a lot of bad advice. And, like, yeah, it's like, well, hold on. Like, that person just shared advice. Like, they're an expert, and that's actually terrible advice. Like, I'm not even qualified to comment on this. Like, how is that person jumping in and. And telling them what to do here? So now then all of a sudden, someone thinks it's good advice, and now they go down that road and they keep doing that over and over and over, thinking, this is. This is what I guess is good, because it was my third job and two people told me I should do more of it.

Yeah, that's just bad advice on the Internet. Take it for what it's worth. Yeah.

Well, that was awesome, man. I actually really enjoyed it.

Yeah. Thank you for. Thank you for the idea. It's kind of a fun little different. Different thing to do on lighting, but it's, you know, it's what we're doing every day. We're doing lighting design all the time.

Patrick Harders will be doing a lighting expert roundtable at Light It Up Expo

All right, guys, well, if you want to come annoy Patrick Harders, come hang out with him in Orlando at Light It Up Expo. He's going to be doing the expert roundtable. We haven't figured out exactly the format on that other than just, like, you know, informal. There's not, like, presentations or anything like that. But, if you want to get vulnerable and say, hey, Pat, what do you think of this picture? What do you think of this project? And he can tell you how terrible it looks. he'll be willing to do that.

I'm, actually always nice, Mike. Looks good. It's like someone m. Like, how does my baby look like? Cute, I guess. I don't know.

Usually what I do is I'm like, do you want me to give you, like, the friend response or, like the coach response? You know, because I've got two answers. Yeah, well, that was cool. I appreciate you doing that. Guys, if you have not checked out Sterling Lighting, Dayloom Lighting, how if someone wants to get a hold of you, how do they do that?

Either 1. Sterling lighting. com, dayloom lighting or dayloom. com is my design website. And I'm still, still. That's always a work in process. Process. I'm always just like, you know, tweaking it, changing it. My poor web girl. I just said, like, how about I just give you a monthly fund? Because I'm never, it's the artistic side. So I'm always like, messing with it and trying to make it better. But yeah, either one, go to sterling. com or sterling lighting. com and we'll, take care of it. I think if you're in Canada, it's Sterling Illuminaires. do you have Canadians yet?

Dude, we got Canadians. We got our first, England. We're worldwide. We. I, I messaged someone from Australia the other day. I mean, it's, it's getting out of hand. It's insane.

Wow. I didn't know you were this big.

I didn't know either. All right, that was good. Thanks, Pat. Appreciate you, man. Guys, go learn lighting design. Go hang out with Patrick Harders. Go check out Dayloom. Go check out Sterling Lighting. Awesome, awesome episode. Thanks a lot up at. See you guys.

Still have that.