Lighting for Profits - Episode 231

With over 34 years in the landscape lighting industry, Jeff Hesser shares the lessons, systems, and mindset behind a career built to last. From installing irrigation and lighting for iconic clients like Longwood Gardens and the Dupont family, to training contractors and expanding distributor networks with CAST Lighting, Jeff breaks down what it really takes to design, install, and educate at a high level.

This episode is packed with real-world insight for contractors, designers, and anyone serious about mastering landscape lighting.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Lighting for Profits, powered by EmeryAllen

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

Let's go.

Ryan Lee: Lighted Up Expo coming up in Orlando in three weeks

It's Lighting for Profits powered by EmeryAllen. I'm, your host, Ryan Lee. What's up, everybody? Hope you're having an awesome day. We got an amazing show lined up. We got Jeff Hesser with Cast lighting. Guys, I'm telling you, if you have not met Jeff, you. Are you even living? are you. Can you even call yourself a lighting professional if you don't know Jeff Hesser? this guy's a legend. This guy has been in the industry a long time and I love being around people, that add value to, to the lighting world. He adds value to that. He adds value to life. He's just got a cool perspective, great energy about him. And it's just, it's. It's kind of rare to meet people that are this passionate and this nerdy about lighting. So, we're going to talk about, his experience in the lighting world, his experience with cast. We're going to talk about his own lighting studio in his house. I mean, this guy is nerd level 11 when it comes to landscape lighting. So I'm stoked. I can't wait to have him on the show. by the way, guys, we are looking to educate and motivate to help you dominate. So if that's what you want, this is the place to be. guys, we got Lighted Up Expo coming up in just like three weeks. So kind of crazy. And, it's going to sell out. if you asked me, you know, a few months ago, I'd be like, I don't know, we'll see. I hope people come. You know, if you build it, they will come. Is like, I don't know, are they coming? But we're. It's going to sell out, really, probably any day now. in fact, our landscape lighting class is full. Okay. So just want to be totally transparent. There's. That doesn't mean you shouldn't come. Like, there's still tons of value in our partners, the manufacturers we got cast on today. so many awesome people in the room with our speakers and our breakout sessions. but as I promised, these classes would fill up and so, if you want, there's the advanced holiday lighting, which is really about scaling your business. there's also the permanent lighting class that still has spots available as well. And we, added on the outdoor audio class is still available as well. So Lots of opportunity for learning, for networking, for growing, scaling your business. Go to lightitup expo. com. it's going to sell out. We literally only have so many seats left. Maybe like 30 or something like that. So get your tickets and we'll, see you guys in Orlando. And again, we've got Jeff Hesser, coming to join us today with cast lighting. don't forget, I'm still looking for those five star reviews. So even if you don't listen to the show on Apple, do you have a, an in law, do you have a friend that has an Apple account? If you listen on Spotify or YouTube or Facebook, that's cool. Still love you, still appreciate you. but trying to get to 100 five star reviews on Apple. So go ahead and if you can figure it out, apparently only 92 people have because you have to like, like log in, scroll down, hit write a review. it's not, they don't make it easy. So I appreciate everyone, and your support even if you don't give me a five star review. But I would appreciate you more if you did. That's kind of how it works, right? So, again, in a few minutes we're gonna have Jeff Hesser with cast lighting join the show.

You talk about using leverage in your business to control your own economy

And, before we have him on, so actually it was this last week I went and spoke. I was a keynote speaker at aolp, the AOLP Conference. And, had a lot of fun doing it. actually spoke twice and, talked about a couple different things. But one of the things I talked about was using leverage in your business. And I talked about the five profit levers that you can pull in your business right now and really, anytime to control your own economy. You see, I can't stand it when I meet people that just are full of excuses at saying things like, well, yeah, I can't do that. I mean, I used to, but the economy's changed. I can't hire good people. You know, the workforce. I can't do that. Not in my market. Can't, can't do hard things, right? It's like, no, I met a guy, okay? And I didn't ask for permission, so I won't use his full name. But I met a guy named Andy and he's in South Carolina or South Carolina. He probably wishes he was in South Carolina. He's in South Dakota, okay? And he's not making excuses. And I freaking love it. He's got an outdoor lighting business. And I was like, he's the Only guy that's allowed to make excuses in the room because he lives in South Dakota. Like, I could think of a lot better markets, right? But he chose not to make excuses. So I just, like, I love meeting people like that. I love associating myself with. With other winners like that. and one of my original sales trainers taught me, control the controllables. Like, you can't control the weather, you can't control certain things. You can't control what's on the news. You can't control a lot of different things, right? But you can control certain things. You can control your attitude, you can control how you think about things. Even if a random thought comes into your mind right now, you can decide to get intentional and get focused and say, no, I'm not going to listen to that thought. I'm not negative. I'm positive. Right? So you get to control the controllables. And so I talked about this, this concept of leverage and how you can control certain things regardless of the economy. One of the levers, for example, was pricing. Like, how you can actually pull the pricing lever and make more profit for your business in any economy, in any market. Well, I'm not going to go into all those details. One, because we're limited on time. And number two, because you should have came and seen me, and that's on you. You should have come to the show. And, But someone came up to me, asked and asked me a question afterward, and they're like, yeah, I know it was kind of a dumb question. And so I. I didn't want. I. I didn't want to ask it in front of the group because, you know, like, what if everyone already knew the answer and I was the only one? And, I've. I've never been asked a question that somebody else didn't also have. Right? Like, if you have a question, chances are somebody else does. And so, I. Well, I appreciated him, asking me. Yeah, I think it'd been fine to ask in front of the whole group.

Leverage is minimizing your inputs while maximizing your outputs in business

And the question was, can you give me. I mean, I appreciated the talk, but can you give me, like, a better example? When you talk about leverage, what, what exactly do you mean by leverage? And I thought, well, that's. I'm, glad you asked, because I have. If you asked me at a certain period in my life, I probably would have been like, I don't know what leverage is. Right. But I happen to know what leverage is because I use it as often as I can now in my life and in my business. And so I thought it'd be a good idea to just realize, talk real quickly what I mean by leverage and pulling on levers and kind of like, what does that mean and why it matters to you in your business? So the word leverage is really coming from like, lever. And I remember learning about this, like, some point in like schooling about using a lever. So, like, if you have like a big boulder, it's sitting in a field or on the top of a mountain or whatever, and let's say it's like £300, and you're like, I can't move this boulder because I'm not strong enough to move a 300 pound boulder, right? Well, you can use a lever. Okay. You could literally get like a. A rod or a stick, you know, a bar. Okay. And when you. When you put that underneath there and then you put another like wood or rock or something underneath that, you can pry it, right? And the longer the lever, the longer the bar, the easier this is. If it's like a little short screwdriver, like, you don't have much leverage. It's like, it's like pointless, right? You get a little bit longer and it's a couple feet, and there's a little bit better leverage, but you're still not moving. Get that bar to be like 5, 6, 10ft long, and now you can put your weight on it. Now suddenly you're using leverage, you're using force that's stronger than you to be able to move this object. So how does this relate in business? Well, you can leverage many different things in your business. And m, my kind of, I guess, caveman style definition of leverage is minimizing your inputs while maximizing your outputs. Okay. So in order to move that, that 300 pound boulder, you could be like, you know what, I'm gonna go train, I'm gonna eat, right? I'm gonna like, lift weights, and it's gonna take me a year, but I'm gonna get strong enough where I can lift or move this 300 pound boulder. And there's people that do that. There's nothing wrong with that. Or you could just use leverage and go get the tools to move that boulder like today. And you don't have to be very strong. You literally don't have to be very strong, and you can move that thing, right? And so in your business, I want to help you guys use leverage, which is minimizing the inputs to maximize the outputs, which is also being like, dude, how do I. How do I build a business and not have to Work my ass off. Like, can I be lazy a little bit? I. Listen, I don't always like working. There's days where I love working, but there's days where I kind of just want to chill. Right? And I don't really want to build a sales system. Like that doesn't sound sexy at all. Right. I want to increase my sales, but I don't want to build a sales system. So we're going to use leverage. So you can leverage lots of different things. You can leverage information, you can leverage debt, you can leverage software. Right? And so there's lots of different things you can do. So let me give you an example of leveraging software. Leveraging software would be like building a process where you build it once, but then it can just be an automation that happens every single time. So maybe you build an automation that is, triggered that every time someone pays you a final invoice for a new installation, you take the time to build this automation that they get an automatic text that says, thank you so much, we appreciate working with you. We'd really love it if you'd give us a five star review on Google. Here's a link. Okay. That is leverage because you're leveraging technology and automation and software to do things. You just build it one time. But now every single, you could have like two clients a day, five clients a day, whatever. Every time that thing happens, they're going to get that information. And it doesn't require you lifting the heavy object. You don't have to do the heavy lifting. Heavy lifting was done before you went and got the bar, you got the lever, you put it in there. And so now all of a sudden like everything that every time that happens, you're leveraging software. Does that make sense? Another way you can leverage something is leverage debt. So you'll see banks do this, you'll see companies do this, institutions, whatever it is, where you borrow money at a certain rate because you're making more than that on return. So you could borrow if you wanted to grow your lighting business. And now most of you are not capable of doing it this way because you suck with finance, because you're bad with debt. You'll take out debt on a credit card for $25,000 and not pay it off. That's the opposite of leverage. Those companies are leveraging you. Right? So if you take, a loan out though, let's say you took a, line of credit out on your business and that line of credit, let's just say I'm Making up numbers, they charge you 10%. Well, as long as you're leveraging this debt correctly, as long as you're making more than 10%, that's probably a good thing to do. I mean, if you could borrow money, let's say you borrowed $100,000 at 10%, but then you were able to use that, a hundred thousand dollars to now generate more money that's paying you out. If your business is making 30%, that's probably a good thing to do because you're making 30, but then you pay the 10, so you're still making 20%. That'd be like, hey, if every dollar, every, every time you gave me a thousand dollars, I gave you a thousand two hundred in return, 20%, like, you'd be like, how do I give you more thousands of dollars? Like, it, could take my money, right? You're just going to keep making more money so you can leverage debt.

Use leverage in your business to help you scale without working harder

And my favorite one is leveraging information. And so I shared these five levers, which is really just information. Like, here's how you can execute in your business. Pull one lever at, minimized effort and maximize your output. And pricing. Pricing, my friends, is one of the most easy, best, fastest lever that you can do in your business. And I'm going to try to break it down. I don't have a visual thing here to show you. I have a slide. But let's just say your business is making 20% point, like net. Okay? So you go out and do a million dollars and you make 20%. You make $200,000, it's 20%. Well, if I were to be able to convince you to raise your price by just 10%. Okay, just a 10 price increase. Well, now you're going to make instead of a million dollars because you, let's say you already, your, your lead flow stays the same, your closing rate stays the same, you don't hire more people. Your, your throughput doesn't change. Like, everything's the same. The only thing you did was raise your price by 10%. Well, now you're going to make $1.1 million instead of a million dollars. Okay, it's just 10%. It's just math. So now you make $1.1 million. But what's cool is your expenses stay the exact same because again, all you did was raise your price. This is like the best definition of leverage. All you did was raise your price. Expenses stay the same. So now instead of making 20%, you just added another 10% to that. Okay, well, 10% divided by 20% is 50%. So, a 10 price increase gives you a 50% gain to your bottom line, gain to your profitability. That is definite. That is the definition of leverage. I'm just going to do a small tweak over here. 10%, but it's going to give me 50% boost in profits. If this is not blowing your mind, I don't know what to tell you. Like, listen to it again, because this is how you can win the game. Like, I'm not asking you to make, huge moves here. I'm asking very simple, like, you don't have to get stronger. You don't have to do now. You will have to get stronger at some point. You can't just keep raising your price infinitely without adding more value. But in most of your cases, you could literally raise your price by 10% and make a, 50% increase to your profit and go from 20% to 30%. Okay, that, that delta, that change, that 10% is literally 50%. Because 50% of 20% is 10%. That might be confusing to you. If it is, I'm sorry, I got nothing to say. anyway, guys, that, that was, that was. What I want to leave with you is use leverage in your business. These are the things we're constantly talking about in landscape lighting secrets. We have calls, we have all sorts of things. How you can use leverage in your business to help you scale without working harder. Okay? It's not about outworking someone that's great for getting started, but you can't scale that leverage. That's what helps you scale.

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All right, what do we got here? Oh, I think I put. Yeah, I picked this music because I thought Jeff Hesser would appreciate the 1970s, the era of disco. I think he would. I know I do. Hey, listen, if you like callbacks, angry clients, project, do overs, well, then by all means, skip Emory Allen. But if you want your installs to look like a million bucks, well, you know what to do. Emory Allen makes premium LED lamps for lighting professionals who demand the best. Don't settle for less. Upgrade your designs and installations today with Emory Allen. Reach out to Tom Garber by emailing tom gmeryallen. com to learn more and take advantage of their contractor pricing. Don't forget to mention that you heard about them here on Lighting for Profits. Get that discounted contractor pricing. Email tom g@emryallen. com. thanks, Tom Garber. Thanks, Emeralen. We'll see if Jeff is in the disco when we bring them on.

Jeff Hesser joins us for a guest interview on the podcast

All right, it's that time. Where is our guest intro music? I think it's right there. All right, please welcome to the show, Mr. Jeff Hesser. What's up, Jeff?

Hey, man, thank you for finally getting me on here. I appreciate it. And we had some difficulty getting this set up.

Yeah, man, you know what? That's life. That's why, you know, I just like to take action. And sometimes it's imperfect action, but it's action. You know what I mean?

Yeah, but he's great, man. Oh, my God. I gotta tell you, she's on it.

All right, well, let's. You know, hopefully she's not listening. You know, anytime you give someone a compliment too much, they're like, all right, how do I get it? How do I get a raise? But no, she. Dude, my team is. They're. They're freaking rock stars. So she's been with me for a few years now, and maybe four. it's awesome. So anything I don't know how to do, they know how to do.

Well, shout out to her because she was very helpful.

That's awesome, man. I appreciate you saying that. I'll definitely forward the message.

Jeff Hesser is a lighting legend, an icon in the industry

So, Well, dude, I'm excited to have you back on the show. I was just asking Mike, wait. I know you've been on before, but when was I Camera when it was. If it was last year or the year before. But, you know, you're someone that, Honestly, up until maybe five years ago, I didn't even know. We didn't know each other.

Right?

And, I started doing what I'm doing now, and I'm starting to, you know, meet different manufacturers, distributors, and go to different industry events. But every event I see lighting people at, I kept seeing cast and I kept seeing Jeff Hesser, and I've gotten to know him. Like, dude, what. Why did. Why do. Not everybody needs to know who Jeff Hesser is. I mean, you're a freaking lighting legend, an icon in the industry. So I'm excited to have you on, and I appreciate you taking time with us today.

Oh, man, I love it. I like coming on. You're. You're a good guy, and I met you through Bruce. That was it, man. You know, I knew right away you had something going on. So kudos to you, what you got going on. Nice job.

Thanks, man.

Jeff Hesser launched Light It Up Expo last year; it's second season

Well, we're going to talk about a lot of different things. I. I appreciate your support, too. you know, we launched Light It Up Expo last year, was the first year. This is our second year. It's our second season. And, right away. You know, you guys are like, hey, I want. Call me up. I want to be a part of it. What do we do? tell me what's behind that.

What's, what's.

What's got you excited about with Light It Up Expo?

Well, you know, I just kept on hearing from different contractors, and look, your social media presence is, is unbelievable. So, you know, how could you miss it? So I reached out to the, vice president, who's the, you know, the numbers guy, and I said, I'd like to do this show. I think it's something we should do because, we, you know, we have an incredible product to offer, and I think you're going to introduce us to a lot of people that we're looking to do business with. So, hey, it's a win, win for all of us, really.

I love it, man. Well, I'm excited. I mean, honestly, my goal is to get everyone in the room, you know, anyone who's serious about growing their business, anyone who's serious about being a, reputable brand, manufacturer, distributor in the industry. And then it's kind of like I feel like I've done my job. Like, I don't want to. I don't want to represent a brand per se. And we've got lots of amazing people. Cass is going to be there, and it's like, at that point, it's like an even playing field. And it's like, you know, if you're looking for this and this and this, you probably need to talk to Jeff and do. Do just a quick intro for those people that don't know you. Who is Jeff Hesser? Like, what have you been up to the last, oh, 20 plus years in the industry?

So I started off right away doing irrigation. I got, certified in irrigation in New Jersey. Certified, contractor. And then the bos, I did a lot of business with them, and they offered me a job to open a store in South Jersey and started a store in South Jersey for them. Rob Boselle said, hey, come work for me and open a location. I opened a store in South Jersey. I ran that for 10 years. And then, Dave Bosley started cast 25 years ago, and he said, look, why, don't you come work for me? So I jumped from Rob to Dave. So I went from the selling, irrigation ponds, lighting, drainage, irrigation, you know, all that stuff, and then went to work for Dave. That's been almost 23 years with Dave.

23 years you've been with cast?

Well, 23 years with cast and 33 years with the Bosalis.

Wow. That is. That is cool, man. I mean, I feel like it's rare to find someone who's loyal, you know what I mean? Like, that's. That's hard to find. So if you've been with someone 23 years and that's. And 30 years, whatever, that's. That's loyalty right there.

Yeah, you're.

You're a rare breed, my friend.

They take good care of me, man. They're good people. Yeah, listen, this day and age, everybody's getting gobbled up by the big person and everybody. And I hear horror stories about people who are jumping from job to job, and then they're like, you know, they jump for the money, but then they hate their job or. Listen, I. I really am blessed with what they have allowed me to do with their time and their resources and. Yeah, I don't know what else to say. I'm very grateful. Then, you know, I. Hopefully I make him a lot of money. That's all.

Let's go.

You have this enthusiasm that is contagious. Where does that passion come from

Well, dude, I. There's just. You. You have this personality, that is contagious. It is, it's attractive. I mean, like, what. Where does that passion come from? Because I've. Anytime I've seen you, I run into you at a show, and I'm like, dude, that guy is acting like he's six months into the industry. Like, this is his first six months he's trying out for a job. Like you. You literally. You just bring so much energy and passion. And that's. Like I said, that's contagious. Like, people want to be around that, but where. Where does that come from?

I got my mother. I'm telling you, my mom was a rock star. She was. She was the personality of the family. yeah, she was something else. She was just high, high energy. She had friends in every business she was involved in. She gave a lot to charity. Like, she just. She was a saint and, lost her at a young age, really. And then I just was like, you know, that was. That's who I wanted to be. I wanted to be like her. My dad's a badass. You know, that's where all the hunting and the dirt biking and all the adventurous stuff comes from. Right. But, you know, my mom was the foundation of, you know, how you treat people, really, and create relationships. So it's fun, it's worth a good company, makes a great product, and they allow me to go out to these incredible locations and incredible jobs with incredible contractors and architects. It's Nuts. I can't believe I can do it, man.

That's just so cool. I just. I want to tap into that. Like, if someone's struggling, like, what advice would you have for them? Do they need to find a new, industry? Do they need to find a new job? Do they need to just hang around you for a couple hours?

Like, again, hang out with me for a week? I swear I'll get you pumped. My nephew's probably back there laughing right now. But, you know, it's funny. Like I said, I got guys from the Philippine Flower show here, you know, from Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, My nephew and a buddy of mine's, grandson, and they're building stuff for the flower show in two weeks, so.

Okay.

You know, it's always doing something different, man. Never the same thing twice, ever.

That's awesome. Well, yeah, I was going to ask you, Mike, are these guys, you know, held against their will? Are they chained up? Like, what do you got? Is this how you guys manufacture fixtures? Like, what's going on over here?

Well, I'm paying my nephew and the other, kid, Mikey, money to help out, but this. This is all his gig over here. I'm just helping out the guys from phs, they're good. They're a good client of mine, and they install a lot of our product on projects they have. So I've had a relationship with him way back when he worked for a contractor. He worked for down it Big landscape contractor in Pennsylvania, and that's how I met him. Ah, it's just relationships, you know, man, you just carry on from one, job to the next and to the next.

So one of your tips is just mix things up, like, try new things, whatever. Like. Because, again, like, you come at this industry, you've got so much experience, but you come with such, like, a childlike enthusiasm, you know? And I literally, I've. I've come around. I remember coming around the corner one time at the gie, and there was a cast booth, and of course, there was Jeff Hesser just going. Just serving, just pouring into someone, like, man, we got you, and da, da, da. And I'm like, man, look at this guy. Like, he's been doing this a long time. And you would net. You wouldn't. You wouldn't get that. Because normally someone who's been doing it that long is, like, usually they're complaining and whining about something, or, oh, this show, that. And it's just like, positivity. Positivity. Positivity, yeah.

You know, you can't let things get stagnant, you always got to be learning.

R D: I love learning new stuff from other people. I'm learning something every day

I know what I love doing. I love listening to your, the people that you have on here, because the guys, that, there's a lot of incredible contractors you have on here and people and other manufacturers and I mean, what we have to offer out here and how much fun we're having, it's ridiculous. It really is. Like, yeah, everybody that comes on here is pretty happy. Go lucky. They're, they're always great personality people. I think this industry kind of, builds that and, and, and feeds that kind of energy, really, you know, and everybody kind of feeds off one another. I, like I said I love learning new stuff from other people. I'm learning something every day, and I try to steal it and incorporate it into what I'm doing. Maybe.

Yeah. What they said someone's, definition of R D the other day was rob and duplicate or something like that. You know, I think that's what it was. you know, like, I, I actually, you know, I, I, I don't, I don't promote, stealing, but at the end of the day, there's, there's people that are further along in their journey that have, have already come up with good ideas. And it's not about reinventing the wheel, but it's like, hey, how do I make this will work in my business? How do I customize it so that I'm not ripping everything off? But how am I really trying to model what works and apply that into my business? I, I'm a big fan of that. I, I model people's businesses every single day. and if, if you don't like that, it's like, well, maybe, maybe that's why you're stuck. You know, maybe, maybe you should learn from others because that's why they're putting it out there. That's why we're producing this content. Like, we're hoping to help someone, at least one person on today's show, you.

Know, and make them a better, well, think differently, maybe, or try something new or, you know, don't afraid to be challenged. You know, we're in an industry where there's, there's never the same thing twice. Think about this. How many jobs do you know that have been cookie cutter that you've done over the years that you walk on a job and like, I got the same do the same thing again today, but it's never been that way. It's like every day is something different, A new challenge or a new part of the Property you have to work on or a new person you're doing business with or, again you, you've captured that with this event. Really, you're bringing all these people together. You know, when I first talked to you, I remember when I first talked to you about this, I was like, that's pretty, like that's a pretty good idea. Like, hey, he's onto something there. Like, you know, the thing is it.

It wasn't my idea. They do it in other industries, you know what I mean? All I'm doing is modeling what works. Right.

And lighting is always an insignificant thing of the job and it still is. That's the problem. Like, you know, even though I feel like there's a lot of manufacturers out there now and how this has grown with how many manufacturers are out there, there's still a lot of homes out there without lighting. I mean a lot of homes without lighting. And then you add in there, when LEDs came out and so now he's got more contractors doing it and not afraid to step in and try it out. Right. And then it's just a matter of them growing these companies from there. It's kind of crazy how they're exploding. A lot of guys that wouldn't do it are now knocking it out of the park.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, I mean I've only been in the industry since 2007. I've seen a lot of changes from the progression of halogen to LED and, and the ups and downs and stuff like that. But what are some of the things that you like, that you really like about the lighting industry as it stands today?

so the technology obviously growing like the transformers, the control systems, the WI fi stuff, the Bluetooth color control stuff. I mean the, the Lutron doing stuff with big homes and Lutron systems and home automation and the speakers now. I mean it's, it's kind of amazing how this has all been kind of melded together. You know, where the lighting and sound have been almost, just linked together now. It's kind of crazy how that's all blowing up, right? The sound systems with the lighting.

Oh yeah. Well, we actually just announced we're having Sonance, is doing this for us. We're doing a pre show class on outdoor audio because we have so many people asking about it like, oh, like light it up, Expo plus audio. You know what I mean?

Well, that's the way it's kind of going. You know, I talked to Dave a couple years ago about, I'm like, maybe we should do speakers. He's like, oh, my God. Because I got so much other stuff going on. Like, yeah, I get it. I. I appreciate what you're doing. Don't worry about it. Let's stay in your lane, I guess.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

You mentioned color changing, Bluetooth app control. What percentage of your clients use that

So you mentioned, like, color changing, Bluetooth app control. Do you have any idea, like, what. What percentage of your clients are using that? I feel like there's people that are, like, have really leaned into that, and almost every project has at least that ability, whether or not they might only be using it a couple times a year. where there's other people are like, nah, I'm staying away from technology. I'm staying away from color changing. Do you have any idea on numbers there?

I would say for my business and my territory, and I cover the mid Atlantic pretty much from the Hamptons to the South Carolina and the Caribbean. And I would say most of my business, I'd say it's probably 20% of my business now. 20, 20 plus maybe that growing. What's that I. Growing? Because here's what's going on now. You don't have to have color all the time. It could be 80% of the time, it's your white light. And the other 20% is your. Your holidays, your seasonal, your. Your favorite sporting team, an event and whatever it is. So you can have all these scenes and you just walk out there and go, boom. I turned it to 4th of July or Christmas or Halloween or whatever. And then afterwards, turn it back to your set, you know, Kelvin temperature, lumen level. That's the cool thing. You can dial it in. It's not like that. But the white light and then the dimmability, set it at 5% or 100%. And then save that scene as your normal scene. You hit normal and the whole property changes to your normal setting. It's there 80% of the time. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah, I. I've heard a lot of people doing that too, where they're like, I'm not a big fan of color, but. But they do like to dial in the color temperatures for different times of the year. If the foliage is changing for the fall or whatever it is, change it for down lighting versus up lighting or the color of the home M versus the color of the plants. So I could see that getting more and more popular, for sure.

Dave kind of handed this off to me, the color control stuff. About five years ago, I came back from my stroke and my brain was still scrambled. And Dave goes, hey, look, I got other things Going on. I want you to run the RGBW program. And I'm like, what? I'm like, you sure you got the right guy for this? I just came off the stroke. My brain is scrambled. I'm trying, I'm like trying to learn everything all over again. And we went right into the app development and locked in a really good app development company. And then we just started growing and for the last five years, I spent a lot of my time on rgbw. I know the insides and out of this app better than anybody because I help design it. Like, I tell them how I want it to look and function and operate. And then our programmer does all the, the crazy, coding, which is nuts. And then he sends it back in test light and it's, it's been an involving. It's really been fun. Really challenging. Yeah.

What, what's been some surprises? Were there things you're like, hey, we're going to go down this road. And you were surprised that it would have been easier or you would have had, you would have liked that idea. But now you're over here. what have you learned throughout that process?

So getting it to the cloud, like trying to get your device to get all of that stuff programmed and then push it to the cloud and then be able to bring it down from that one device to another. Like to go from an iPad to a tablet, from Android to Apple through different devices. IPads, tablets, cell phones, it's nuts. Like, I have four devices. I sit on my workbench, I have a tablet and iPad, and then I have an Android and an iPhone. And through those four different platforms, I got to be able to look at the icons and the functionality and everything has to go up and drop down the same, which is absurd. Like trying to get the icon to look the same and the function, and it's nuts between the two, I gotta tell you, that's probably been the most challenging is getting the app dialed in.

It's probably a good thing that you didn't know all those problems in advance.

You nailed it. You listen, I, I said to my wife one night, I'm like, oh, my God. She's like, you know, you put a lot of hours in at night. I'm like, well, what am I going to do? I have no choice. Like, failure is not an option on this. Right? So my house is set up with everything. Like, I have every fixture that we manufacture around my whole property. And the first stuff comes to my place and I test it here with the new app and then we Push it to the cloud. But it's. It's consumed a lot of my time. But let me tell you something. The Dave Bosley stepped up and took care of me for it. I mean, really. Like, he said, I know you got a lot of extra time in here, and this is what I'm going to do for you. And I was like, wow, you know, thank you.

That's cool.

When I started lighting business, I had no idea what I was doing

Well, it reminds me, and I hope I think everyone can relate to this. We oftentimes don't know what we're getting ourselves into, especially anyone who's ever started a business. Dude, you had no idea what you were signing up for. You just thought you were going to make more money than the guy you were working with before, and it was going to be easy. It's like, no, that never happened. So I remember when I started my lighting business, at some point, like, maybe seven or eight years in, I was like, dude, I'm so glad I didn't know, like, how hard that was going to be, because I never would have done it. hey, you can sign up for this thing, make hardly any money, not pay yourself for five months in a row. have all these problems and challenges, like, no, you wouldn't do it, right? But now I'm so grateful that I was ignorant enough to do that because I've learned so much along the way. Like, my family's been so blessed because I'm in the lighting industry. Like, it's. It's just one of those things where that's why I tell people, like, take action. Action will reveal the answers. If you take action and you fail, then pivot, you know, you're gonna have to do something else. But if. If you map it all out and. And figure out what the master plan is, it's probably going to too be too overwhelming for you to start.

Yeah.

sounds like a lot of work.

And I gotta get kudos for that because it takes a lot, you know, Look, I don't have a company. You know what I mean? All I do is hopefully I help Dave make money and I run it well for him, My division, what I'm doing. But, you know, it's so funny. Like, I just go out to these jobs and I get to meet these incredible people and these projects, and I have so much fun. I can take my wife with me and go, hey, let's go to, you know, St. John's or the Caribbean or whatever. You know, take a week vacation. Let's go, let's travel. Come with me. And someone's paying our Ticket? Why not? Right? And I'm getting paid to be there.

Don't you need another, I think. Don't you need like a podcast host or a landscape lighting business coach in the Caribbean?

Listen, you know what? You. I honestly, it would be great. Come hang out with you for a couple days and pick your brain too, because, listen, I love it like, when I'm out on the job site, but guys, like, what do you want to do here? How do you want to do this? Like, all right, let's try this tonight. And if that don't look right, then we'll. Tomorrow night we'll change it and do this. So we kind of look a couple of nights ahead because you know how it is. You gotta wire it, get it there, and then that night you got to go back and, and move it around 30 times and then go, there it is. Or cut it out and put something else there. Yeah, with your headlamp. yeah. I don't know. It's. It's an addiction, man. It really is.

It is an addiction. Well, the good news is I just checked my schedule. Other than March three through six, I'm available to consult in the Caribbean. So if you need me to wear a headlamp and go out and do.

Some night adjustments, it would be a lot of fun. Seriously, just, you know, the best part is at night when we fire everything up. We're walking around now at this point now we're having a few cocktails, maybe, you know, walking around and that's when you get really creative, have a couple beers in you and you're.

That's awesome. It doesn't hurt, you know, Comes out.

Tell me what happened when you had your stroke in 2020

Well, you know, I didn't know. I didn't know if I forgot to ask you before we went live, but you brought it up. So I'm just going to ask you what. Tell me what happened when you had your stroke. What year was that and what. And what happened?

2020. I was in Maryland. I have. My wife and I have a vacation place in Maryland on the Chesapeake called Kent Narrow. Kent island across Minneapolis. We had been down for the weekend and I had set up meetings with contractor that morning at a local house. I was at Mel Kuiper Jr. A VSBN's house actually, when it happened.

Wow.

I was. I was at Mel Kuiper's front yard and they had a house on the water there. And we were sitting in the driveway with the contractor, talking, having a cup of coffee, and we're laughing. It's like nine in the morning. On a Monday, beautiful day in July. And I felt like I was being electrocuted. I thought someone tried to hook electric to me and kill me. My hand just rolled up and I blacked out, hit the ground. And I woke up and I was, like, crawling around and I couldn't talk. I. I could. I wanted to talk, but I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. I must have been going like a guppy. And my eyes are open, but I can't see. But I could hear everything going on around me. And the contractor was, get on the ground. So I guess I laid down and I'm like. My mind's like, what is going on? What is going on? And then I hear him call 911 immediately. And then he called Mel Kuiper's wife and said, hey, look, there's going to be a scene in your front yard here shortly. And then she came out. And then I remember waking up weird. I sat up and I looked around and I could see the people come up the driveway with the gurney and I. And I'm like, oh, that. That was cool. That bit that. I'm glad that's gone. Like, what was that? And then when I thought it had passed by, I was out again. And I woke up in the hospital paralyzed. My whole right side lying in my eye couldn't and everything. And burning in my skin from top to bottom, like, nerves are just like millions of needles in my skin. And that's how I woke up. One minute I'm living a dream. One minute I'm living a dream, and an hour later, I'm laid up in the hospital emergency room.

So when you woke up in the. In the emergency room, you. You felt pain immediately, but you couldn't move.

I was on fire like I still am. As we sit here and speak right now, my whole right side feels like there's hot needles in my skin. Like little neuropathy from my face, my eye socket. This. If you put a laser down my face. In my body, the one right side is burning and tingling, and the other side's perfectly fine.

And how long did it take for you to get movement back?

man, months. I was in a rehab. Then they found the problem. I had a hole in my heart from childbirth that created a clot. And the clot went through the hole and lodged into my brain. So they had to go in and fix the hole that caused the clot. So they went up three months later, they closed the hole. And then I'm, paralyzed and laid up. I'm like, what is going on? And my brain, I'm like, I swear, my nephew's laughing, right? My nephew was there. He saw how up I was. Messed up I was.

And, you couldn't talk, or you thought you were talking and it wasn't.

I could talk, but I would forget what I said 10 minutes later.

Okay.

My poor wife. I would repeat myself. And it's just madness. Madness. And then, they fixed the hole. I laid up for a month. And then I was. I had to go find a personal trainer. This is or Covid now. And I went and, fired a. Hired a personal trainer at Attila's Gym, the only gym that was open during COVID in New Jersey. They're. They're going to win a 10 million dollar lawsuit coming up shortly because of it. And they, they took me in and they, and they. As a community, those people all helped build me back to where I could go back to work. crazy.

Your movement and mobility are way better now than they used to be

How long did it take for you to actually, like, you know, move and walk again?

I. Well, I mean, it was progressive. Like, I had to learn how to walk upstairs again, like, use my right hand, like. Yeah, I mean, I still can't use this. This hand sucks. Still. My right hand sucks.

But even.

That'll work for a year even.

When I met you was that your movement and mobility is way better now than used to be. I mean, I'm like, this is crazy. I. I can't believe this happened to this guy.

Yeah, it was nuts. Like, man, what people. Listen, what you take for granted, man, I could give you a, A drill down of all this. You better be grateful for. So, yeah, so I just said, look at. Failure is not an option. I got to get back to work. I got to make a living for my family. And they would. I couldn't have got four disability. And I said, nope. And I worked out for a year, six months here and eight months. And then after that, the boys. I was able. They gave me an okay to go back to work without work for a year and eight months, I think.

A year and eight months?

Yeah.

And you're like, no, I want to. I don't want disability. I want it. This is what I do. I'm in the. I'm in the. I'm a lighting nerd. I'm in the industry. Let's go.

Yeah, well, thank God I do something that's pretty easy, right? Or I would have been out of a job. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, lighting is. Other than the labor part of it. Like climbing ladders and stuff. I'm. I'm a lot more careful climbing ladders. I used to be like a little. A spider monkey. I mean, I could zip up a tree in a ladder. Now I wear my hunting harness, my tree harness, my strap in when I go up there. And, yeah, I take a lot more precautions now, so.

I mean, you have the, the needle sensation on right side of your body still. It's just burning non stop.

And stop doesn't stop. Now it's subsided. I guess it's probably 30 better than it was.

Sheesh.

Six years ago, 40 better. But I probably still got a level pain of 6. We'll say from 1 to 10. It's a 6.

That's what's crazy.

Like, it's nuts. Like, this side is fine and this side is all burning.

I'm telling you, that's. That's what I like. I. I don't know. I admire a lot about you, but you still show up with just so much positivity, such good energy. Not whining, not complaining, not, like, oh, well, you know, poor me. Like, dude, it's like, it's infectious. I mean, I want to be around it because I. That's. That's who I want to be. So keep doing your problem, doing what you're doing, man.

People have a lot bigger problems than I am. I mean, I walked. Me and my wife will walk around, we'll see something and I'll go, look. I go, know, that could have been me. Like, I'm like, really? I'm like, that. That guy's in a wheelchair. He had a stroke. That could have been me. I'm like, nope, wasn't. So that's all.

It's really a miracle, you know, honestly, that you're not still paralyzed. You're not in a wheelchair. Like, they were able to, you know, modern medicine, whatever it was miracle. Like, whatever it is, is. Is honestly amazing.

So it was the ability to get me to hospital that fast. Like I was with. Within under an hour. They got me over the Bay Bridge to Anne Arundel Hospital and, And sa. That clot, clearing medicine. That's.

The contractor on the job site saved my life, you know

That's what did it. The contractor on the job site saved my life. Like, to this day, I thank him all the time. Like, you're the man and you saved my life, you know?

Wow.

My wife said. My wife always says to me, you know, you. How lucky you are you were on a job and you weren't out riding your dirt bike. Like, you know, you're A dirt bike rider. What if you're out in the desert and you had a stroke out there or something, and now what do you do? Get on your. Your. Your, device that links you to the satellite or. Because you have one, right? You drive with one of those.

I don't.

Okay. You need to get one of those.

I do, actually. Yeah.

Okay. Please, next time I talk to you, you better order one of those. When we go up to this.

Let me. I'm gonna put it in my. My notes right now because I should do it. I shouldn't. I shouldn't. Not just. I should take action. Yeah, Send me which one, too.

I don't remember what we did, but I know my buddy brought them out to us and we put them on, so if anything happened to us, you know, we could get help immediately. Either medevac out or something, because there's no cell phone service out where you are, right?

No, I, Mean, well, yeah, some places, but even then, I. I know what you're talking about. You can hit that button, and they'll. They'll come right to you.

Yeah. Yep. So that's. That's just, you know, something to think about.

I would have liked to use that. I hiked Mount Timpanogos several years ago, and I would have liked to have that button because I didn't want to hike down the Hiking up. like, can I just hit the button down?

You better have the insurance, because that's an expensive flight.

I mean, you know, a couple miles down, I was like, how much would you pay to not have to hike down the rest? Ten grand. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. You thought it was. The up part's easy. It's the downs, the problem.

Huh?

Huh?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I was like, man, I love hiking. I don't like hiking down because, you know, you have, like, the destination. You get the view, you get the. The win. And now. Now you're like, dude, I got. I have to hike down to my car.

You should have thought about this a little harder.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Like I said, I. I got back on my dirt bike for the first time m. In five years this winter, and it was unbelievable to be able to just drive right around and get to the top of a mountain that I haven't seen in five, five and a half years. It was. It was game changing.

And you can do that now. I remember we. We've talked about this for years. Like, I can't keep my foot on the pedal.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't feel the foot.

Doesn't work you know, so. But you're, you're back on it now?

Well, I, I can't say I'm back on it, but I wrote it. You know what I mean? And I, I felt comfortable. but yeah, I can't feel the foot pedal under my foot. I gotta look down, make sure my foot's on the foot peg and locked in. And the throttle is not really good throttle response. And there's no two finger front brake anymore. You know what I'm saying? You know, you can always feather the front brake with two fingers.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. And if you can't fill the brake. Yeah, this. Maybe we shouldn't go do some gnarly single tr.

Listen, I would never say, I would want to do gnarly stuff. I would say, like, look, you know, what do they call that? The bunny trail?

You probably still ride better than 60 of the guys down there

I guess some.

Yeah, we can go on the dirt road. I feel like you'll be fine on a dirt road.

I can do better than dirt roads. Yeah, I can probably still ride better than 60 of the guys down there.

Dude, I believe that you probably still ride better than me.

When we were 8 years old, my dad got us dirt bikes. And that was all. Ah, I got my yard, like right now in my garage. My grandkids, I have a Z50 with training wheels. Then a Honda 70, a Polaris 90, an XR90, a 125, and then my KTL. But my grandkids, I got them electric bikes already. They're gonna be. They're already off the races.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's sweet.

Why did you create a lighting studio at your house? Talk about it

well, so what's going on? So you're at, you're. You've got a studio at your house. Talk, talk to us about that. Why did you, why did you create a lighting studio and what the heck do you do with it?

I have a lot of square footage out here and in one corner, again with this RGBW stuff. And I didn't want to drive anymore. I was tired of driving around in my truck just to do, you know, some training where I can do it from here. I can, I got camera set up where I can zoom in and zoom out and do, you know, go to meeting or team training with, with a bunch of people. Like tomorrow I'm having a bunch of people come to my garage here, to my house, or driving here. But then the next day I got, I think 14 people from site one from different locations. I'm getting in and I'm doing a full training with them. Friday morning for like just an Hour, two hours maybe. You know, you don't want to bore them, but they're sending me their curriculum. They want to learn. And then I'll have everything set up. And then like a transformer, like, I got a camera here. This camera can roll down like this over my workbench, and I can wire a transformer or troubleshoot a transformer or rebuild a transformer. It's kind of cool. Like, I can do almost anything from right here. I don't got to drive anymore.

That's awesome. So if you have a customer that has a question or they send something in and you need to, like, you know, like you said, troubleshoot or recreate the problem or issue, whatever. You just do that at your house?

Yes. Yes.

Cool.

Yeah. So, But yeah, I have a decent sized garage here, and I said I'll take one corner and I'll make that my little work workspace. That's all awesome.

80% of our bronze cast fixtures are now made in South Carolina

Well, talk about cast. I want to. I want to know more about cast, I think.

Okay. There's some, like, I got to tell you, this might. The best thing about this is we brought our manufacturing back to the United states. Our bronze. 80% of our bronze cast fixtures are now made in South Carolina.

Wow.

So huge, right? I mean, that's one of the best things I think about the company right now is we. We were in Barran, Colombia, for a long time, and then we saw the writing on the wall, and Dave was like, man, I'm bringing it home. I'm bringing it back. And he's. He's been able. And the molds are nicer, the finishes are a little. I mean, it's kind of crazy. Like, the attention to detail the foundry in the United States does versus what it was in Colombia. It's a great product, but this has a lot more fit and finish to it.

So as the name implies, cast. talk about that process. What it. What is a cast fixture? Is it sand? Ah, casted. How is it made?

Sand, cast, bronze. 88 copper, 6% zinc, 4% tin, 2% lead. That's the makeup of bronze. And we, poured in. It's like 2200 degrees. And they poured in molten. it's sand with oil in it so it doesn't just burn up. And they pour these incredible molds and they pop them out and they. They machine them and thread them together with copper. It's kind of crazy. We have videos on our website you can go check out. But the process is. Is unbelievable.

And so why did he. I mean, was. Has it Always been cast. I mean, why did he decide, you know what, I'm not gonna do aluminum or brass or copper, you know, like some of the other manufacturers out there. What, what was his thinking? And like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna do this different.

So his father started aquarius supply, like 55 or 56 years ago. George Bosley and George, we, you know, was a distribution. Well, I think I sold seven different brands of lighting out of my store in South Jersey. Like Kichler Focus had code, nightscaping, I can't remember. Just a bunch seven and Unique was one of them. And then Dave was so tired of, I guess, watching the, the powder coated aluminum chipping off and people returning stuff by the, by the box loops. And Dave was like, I can't watch this anymore. And he started saying, what's the best metal to make a fixture out of? And that's how he started cast, because he was tired of all the returns coming back to Aquarius.

That's pretty cool. Well, if you've ever, if, if you've never felt a cast fixture, I mean, I imagine, you know, putting that in someone's hand when you're, when you're like, selling in the lights. I'm like, I don't know, why is it so much money? Just like hand them one of those fixtures and see what happens, right?

Yeah. I tell everybody I can't sell a cast. I go, did you put it in the customer's hand? Did you just say, hey, look, can you put this? And they go, when they go like that, they go, oh, I get it. Like you're wanted. Listen, this is one and done. I mean, some people don't like that because they like to go back and, beat the homeowner over the head, I guess, for like replacing stuff. But I just say, look, maintenance, you know, just maintaining the system as you return income and put it in one and done. Because people, if you sell them, like, look, how many times will you buy that system over again? 3 times, 4 times compared to a cast system? How many times we have to replace whatever other fixture you're using or just buy it one time. So if they kind of figured out, like, you know what, you know what, I'm gonna spend the money now. And, and it's really. You look at. Honestly, if you price this out, we're not that much more expensive than some of the other stuff out there, really.

Okay, cool. And I, know it's not just spotlights, right? I mean, that's kind of like the most Fixed.

A lot of the jobs that I. do is oceanfront stuff

Like when someone does a design or an install, like, obviously you use a lot of bullets or spotlights, whatever you want to call them. But talk about, like, your other lights, like path lights and, and deck lights and those types of fixtures. Are those all cast as well or.

Yes, yes, our spotlights, our wash lights, or path lights, our deck lights, or tree lights, our niche lights. if it's not bronze, it's copper. so we got to mix the two together sometimes, you know, to make it fixture out of it. Can't pull everything in bronze. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things where you want to put it. Here's the thing. A lot of the jobs that I. That I really like to do, or I'm lucky to do is oceanfront stuff. Keep it down back there. Oceanfront, stuff like houses that they're on the ocean and they don't have bronze, it's going to turn to dust. It's just going to burn up and fall apart, really does. So you put it along the ocean, and that just gives me the ability to go work for really incredible people with these incredible homes. But yet you put it up in the mountains and trees could fall on top of it. You roll the tree off of it and I mean, I've seen some ridiculous stuff happen to these fixtures over the years. I'm just blown away how they fared at the very end. and we'll rebuild them, you know, it's kind of nice.

Yeah, that's cool.

What are your most successful contractors doing that others are not? What's different

Well, you know, you do, man. You do so much. You're on demos with people, you're helping people with sales, you're helping them with designs and installations and I mean, such a valuable. I mean, I don't know, you're a human being, but you're a valuable asset to the lighting industry and obviously to cast. So congrats on everything you've done so far and thank you on behalf of the lighting industry. Seriously. what. As you go around and meet with people, I'm sure you know who the all stars are. You know, the people that are just making it look easy, and then you got the people that are making it look hard.

Yeah. What.

What's the difference? Like, what's. What are your most successful contractors doing that others are not?

So I. A lot of the guys look like there's guys that want to just sell a cookie cutter job. I'm going to put in five or 10 path lights or, you know, a couple spotlights and. And that's it. Like, that's your basic dice. Then there's designers, like people that really dig in deep and get a little. We're gonna put lights under there. We're on a wire across there. We're going to pull this up. I mean, it's, you know, the technical side of this is unbelievable. You can take it anywhere. Core drilling stuff, you know, putting stuff on second and third story gutters. But, you know, some guys just fall passionately in love with it and some guys just go, you know what? It's just the icing on the cake for this job. So, ah, it depends on the passion of the person and also who's going to go out at night. And I tell them who's going out at night to adjust this system because you just can't put this in and walk away. If that's what you want to do, then maybe you shouldn't be in the lighting business. But you got to send someone out there at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 at night and dial it in and then go back the next day and bury up the changes that you did. Like, you know, you know, the system, how it happens. Yep, it's. It's difficult sometimes, man. You're, getting done and I'm driving to a hotel room and sleeping and getting up next day and going over to the next place place, and. But it's, it's, hey, let's have coffee with, at a new spot with a new guy or a new customer, and then what do you got to throw at me? Let's do it. You know, I love it.

Yeah. So the guys that are doing better are, are just getting, they're thinking outside the box. They're not doing the cooking cutter. They're focusing on design. They're taking care of their customer. Obviously they're going back, making it exceptional instead of just an average install. I, like that.

Yeah, they really, it's. It's the time they spend it. And that's hard for some people to bid that into their jobs. Like, think about the hours you have. And also with programming, programming the color stuff, man, I tell guys, you gotta add more time in for that. Like, you got to come up with a formula that how long is it going to take your guy to program the app and how many scenes you're going to give them for that price. And you know, but that's a whole other avenue of revenue too. Oh, ma', am, you want how many scenes? You want nine scenes? Okay, well, it's going to be 300 or 400 or, you know, whatever it is. Per scene. So they're making a lot of money too. There's a lot of, ability to make extra money and add ons on these jobs.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because I think a lot of people just think, oh, I'll give them the app and like, they can change the colors, whatever. And maybe that's true, but, like, most people are hiring you because they don't want to do stuff, you know, like, you could also just go buy some lights from Costco and install them, but they don't want to. So. Yeah, not offer. You're offering a luxury design, a luxury installation. Why not offer a luxury service? I like that.

yeah, it's been,

It's unbelievable what lighting, how it's growing

It's interesting, I gotta tell you, as you know. I mean, look, we talk about this live all the time we're together. It's unbelievable what lighting, how it's growing and still, you know, we're still in the infancy of landscape lighting. A lot of manufacturers out there, but there's a lot of homes out there without lighting right now. A lot.

You know, that's. This is. This is one reason why I'm doing Light it Up Expo, because I've. I've literally, the last three years, I've been attending other industry events like these has nothing to do with lighting, but I'm going to these other industries because there's so much further along in terms of their progression and how they do business and. And how they grow their businesses and everything else. And I, That's what I see, man. I see, like, you, like, the Runway is massive over these at least 10 years. so much opportunity now. The old guys that have been in the industry for 30 years, they're like, yeah, ah, you know, we've already done everything. There's not much left out there. You know, it's like. Well, that's. That's a great opinion. It's just not right.

Tom's over here laughing.

Wait, does Bob sound like that? Does Tom sound like that? I didn't mean to do an impersonation sound like that.

Not at all.

No.

Yeah. That's why I hang out with guys like him. Yeah. I can't have any Debbie Downers. I can't do it, man.

Oh, dude, I can see you kicking them right out of the circle. They're not allowed. Yeah, yeah. These youngsters, they coming into the industry thinking that they're gonna outsmart us. You know, we've been in this, market for how long? You know, ah, there's only maintenance, you know, only do maintenance now. There's so much opportunity, you know, it really is.

Less than 5% of the homes have professionally designed and installed lighting

And the LEDs have been obviously opened up. But I remember I think I was selling away was eight, I think it was eight or nine manufacturers at the time. 10. And then now with LEDs, how many are there? 50, 60, 100. I don't know. I can't keep track anymore. My head spins.

Seriously. And sometimes I'm like, I've never even heard. Like someone will be like, do you know them? I'm like, never heard of them. You know what I mean? So, so many. And, and you know, some of it's good, some of it's bad. Right? like from a contractor standpoint, this is why I'm, I'm excited because the, the old dudes just have never. That's always relied on word ah of mouth and that's like a badge of honor. Like, hey, you know what? We've never had to advertise. I'm like, yeah, but that's not a good thing. Like that just tells me how much opportunity you left on the table. And that's why less than 5% of the homes, probably less than 1% of the homes have professionally designed and installed lighting. So what's going to happen? These other business owners that already run multi million dollar businesses are going to bolt on outdoor lighting. And they understand marketing, they understand sales. And so it's gonna, it's gonna help the whole industry. Because the reason why there's not a lot of landscape lighting is education and awareness. Homeowners just don't know. They don't know what they don't know.

Correct.

start showing them on social media what they're missing out before outdoor lighting. After outdoor lighting, they start getting more direct mail. M. They're gonna be they're gonna be educated on it. It's why Christmas lighting industry took off is because once you have saturation in a neighborhood and 40% of the homes have it, well, now all of a sudden you're missing out if you don't. Right. And landscape lighting just hasn't hit that, that lever of momentum. And once it does, holy cow, right people.

I'll probably be retired by then. I'll probably be retired by the time it hits that level. When.

When is. Do we. Are we announcing a retirement date? Like what?

As long as the birds ladies will keep me. I don't know if they, if they go me, I'd probably retire after that. Do something else. I don't know. I'd probably go into installment. What I would do is I would just take all my knowledge and I would call all my contacts and I didn't just start installing stuff in the Caribbean. I would only sell to high end stuff and I would make a vacation out of it.

Yeah. And you need me on your team again. I'm the Caribbean team. Team Caribbean.

There's an. Opportunities are all over out there. You know, they.

Light It Up Expo is coming to Orlando, Florida, in March

All right, well, Jeff, I guess if people want to get a hold of you, if they want to get a hold of Cast lighting, what's, what's the best way to do that?

So, cast, I guess it's cast hyphen lighting. com is our website. All right. And, again on that website, it's unbelievable. We just redid it again, I think, and there's all kinds of training videos and I mean, it's our, our website is quite incredible, I would say. I mean it's, it's amazing. Every time I go through it, the people we have doing it are really amazing. and I'm Jeff H. At Cast Hyphen Lighting dot com. That's my email. But if you need training, like I said, anybody wants training or wants more information, send me an email. I'll set up a time, we'll do a zoom or a gotomeeting or whatever. We use teams, I think. Teams. That's. This is the first time I've used this duck one before. I'm new to this.

No, it's all good, man. yeah, we use a lot of zoom. This one is. I, I use a different software because I'm streaming to so many different locations or whatever. So.

Right. Yeah, this is the first one for me, but yeah, I mean, you know, look at our team. They're incredible. You can call our office, somebody always answers the phone. We're a small company. Honestly, at the end of the day, we're a pretty small company. But, we, we just do it right. And we, we're small, but we're profitable. How's that?

I love it. Well, I love working with people that I like and kind, of like you. If you, if you, if you're negative, you're not in my circle. If I don't like you, you're not my circle.

yeah, right. You're not gonna hang, you're not having a beer with us, that's for sure. No Debbie Downers. No, we're not dealing with any of that.

Yeah, we might as well make that. We don't have core values for Light It Up Expo yet, but let's just make that the first core. Core value. No. Debbie Downers. If you are a negative person, like it, go somewhere else.

Right. This is, this is not the right industry for you.

Yeah, we're gonna have a lot of fun. really looking forward to having you there. This is the first kind of, like, formal thing that we've done together, so I'm super excited to have cast as part of it. And, I'm just glad we're aligned on vision in terms of our. On what we know is possible in the industry and how we can help people. And, yeah, I'm just. Just excited to have cast involved in that so highly.

Go there. I can't wait to go to Florida and get out of this cold weather up here and, and hang out for a couple of days, have a few cocktails with some professional guys, you know.

It'S going to be great time, man. Orlando, Florida, in, the beginning of March. Sounds like an epic trip. So we'll. We'll not forget to, like, do some education, you know, it's not just going to be fun, but we're gonna have fun.

80, 20 rule. Is that how it works? Right?

I think so. Okay.

Yeah.

Come for the fun. Stay for a couple of landscape lighting things.

My nephew has been bugging me. He wants to come with me. Bring him, but ask me, hey, is there room for me to go down there?

But, yeah, we can put. Yeah, we got room for you. We got one that says, light it up Expo event staff. We can put you to work. So if he, if he's, good with helping, out, we gotta.

He is a hard worker, that's for sure. Yeah. You know, but he learned from me, so how else. But he's not gonna be lazy around me.

Yeah, he'll be out on the streets.

Yeah. Right.

Well, guys, I highly, highly recommend you reach out to cast. Um, connect with Jeff. He's great company, great guy

Well, guys, I highly, highly recommend you reach out to cast. connect with Jeff. Just such a solid dude. and, you know, the type of person that's like, you know, for you, you know, and if. And if he doesn't have a product that can solve your needs, he'll connect you literally with someone else who does. but literally, like great company, great guy. So just appreciate you, Jeff, and thanks so much for taking time with us.

Yeah, I'm glad we got into the event. M. It was, it was great that we were able to slip in there at the last minute.

Really love it, man. Well, we'll see you here in, like, two weeks.

Yeah, I'll see you in two weeks.

All right, thanks, Jeff. Have a good night.

Have a great night out there.

Ryan: It's hard to stay positive after what Jeff went through

All right, guys, now just go be awesome like Jeff. Duh. It's easy. Kind of. Not that all. It's really hard because how do you stay positive after you go through all what he went through? But, Jeff, you're the man. I appreciate you.

Thank you, Ryan. Have a great night.

See you guys.