Lighting for Profits - Episode 178

This week on the show we welcome, Nick Schriver, CEO of Decorating Elves Inc., who leads a top outdoor lighting company on Florida’s Gulf Coast. With 20 years of experience, he’s also president of the AOLP and a dedicated community volunteer. Nick lives in St. Petersburg, FL, with his wife, Julia, and their two children.

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Ryan Lee discusses everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape business

Lighting for Profits. The number one landscape lighting show in the world. Oh, yeah. Welcome to Lighting for Profits.

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Powered by Emory Allen.

Get rid of your excuses.

Your number one source for all things landscape lighting.

That's where the magic can happen.

You really scale a business. We really had to show up for each other. From lighting design, install sales, and marketing. You're a scaredy cat salesman, Kurt. We discussed everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business. What do you think a hippo has to do with your business, Ryan?

Usually it's some weird childhood thing. Some bully kicks your butt.

I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

Ryan Lee: This is the first show of the year, 2025

All light. All light.

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to the first show of season. I think we're on season five. This is season premiere. What did I, like, almost forget about this. It's the first show of the year, 2025. I cannot wait to see what happens this year. It's going to be a great year. honestly, I think it's gonna be a great year for anyone in the home service industry, specifically the lighting industry, we'll call it. But landscape lighting, holiday lighting, permanent lighting. It's gonna be an epic year. So, I'm just fired up. I was a little tired yesterday. Not gonna lie. Monday was the first Monday of the new year. I was like, man, am I really ready for this? And then I woke up today with, like, I'm, like, okay, finally I feel. I feel normal again. I feel, like, not depressed because yesterday was a little depressing. But I'm excited, guys. It's going to be a great show. I'm Ryan Lee. I'm your host of Lighting for Profits, in case you didn't know. Powered by Emory Allen. And, I don't know if you know this, but we're now the number one landscape lighting show in St. Pete, Florida. So, yes, it's happening. Raise the roof, guys. we got an awesome show for you today. We've, got the one, the only, Mr. Nick Shriver. he is with decorating elves, and he's also the president of aolp. So kind of a big deal. And, I'm excited to have him on as the premier for this year. we're gonna have some great discussion on some of the things that he's done. He's. He's a. He's a veteran. I would call him a veteran in the industry. Done a lot of really cool things and experienced, the highs, the lows, ups, the Downs, all the stuff. So stick around and learn from a pro. We've, got Nick Shriver coming up on in just a few minutes. And, if you're looking, by the way, if you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. The, the value that our guests give you are, is insane. Like, you can't get this anywhere. We are truly here to educate and motivate, to help you dominate. And, before we have Nick on you guys, I want to talk about something real quick.

Light It Up Expo is coming up next month in Orlando

So, you know, most of the, like, really the most important things that, that I've learned in my life, you know, I've, talking to Nick earlier about school and stuff like that. I learned some really good stuff in school. But, really as like a, as a, as a business professional, a lot of the knowledge that I've gained was through, like, the lives of other people. So I've read books, I've attended masterminds, gone to conferences, hired coaches, and this has helped me get success so much faster because, you know, a lot of people will tell you, like, oh, you got to fail to learn. And that's kind of true, but, like, what if you could just learn from other people's failures? Like, how awesome is that? Okay, so I just learned from other people failing. I read their books and I learned what not to do. And, one of the things that I've noticed is about 8 and 9 figure earners. These are like the mega wealthy people that I'm trying to be. Like, when I grow up one day, they understand something and they understand multiple streams of income. And so I'm talking about this because there's, there's different ways to, to make money, right? It doesn't have to come just from designing, installing, selling landscape, lighting. And, it could be. Maybe you're like, well, I want to get into real estate, or maybe I want to start a H VAC company or roofing or whatever. It could be something crazy, right? Maybe, maybe you want to get into car, like buy car washes. People talk about buying storage units, whatever. That seems hard. That seems kind of difficult. So what if you could maximize this opportunity and get multiple streams of income without having to move states or start a new location or start in a new city, right? Well, the easiest way to do this, and this is the easy way, is to offer your existing clients something new. Okay? So when you offer your existing clients something new, like, you've already done the hard part, you already earned their business they already like you, they trust you, they gave you their hard earned money and you didn't run away with it. Okay? So earning their trust is not easy. And you either did it with your time or you paid for advertising, right? And so when you do this, this makes you get multiple streams of income, increase your income really quickly without having to wait for a 20 year asset to pay off in real estate right now. So, I'm the reason I'm telling you this is because I want to invite you guys to Light It Up Expo. It's coming up next month. It's lightedup expo. com and we're basically bringing together the landscape lighting industry, the holiday lighting industry, the permanent lighting industry. And if you want to bolt on any one of these to your existing business and get multiple streams of income, this is the show to be at. we're going to have breakouts so you can attend one and go. Yeah, I want to bolt on permanent lighting or I want to bolt on landscape lighting or I want to bolt on holiday lighting. We're going to have speakers, we're going to have vendor hall so you can go and explore the different vendors. Lunch is included, there's going to be networking, it's going to be awesome. So I want to invite you to that. Right now we're doing our early bird pricing, light it up expo .com to get your ticket. And what's cool is all of our vendors are like contributing to a big giant raffle. So when you get a ticket you're automatically entered. You don't have to do anything. But we're going to draw someone's name out and you're going to win one of, hopefully one of these prizes. Right now it's up to thousands of dollars. Like we're giving away a six month membership of Lighting Academy, which is a $600 value. And there's a whole list of things I won't, I won't go into it right now, but there's a ton of things that you can win just by getting your tickets. So it's next month, February 28th, March 1st, Orlando, Florida. I want to see you there. It's coming up. Get your ticket now. Lightup Expo. com now.

Nick Shriver is going to help you elevate your business this year

again guys, in just a couple minutes we got Nick Shriver. So I'm stoked. He is the owner of Decorating Elves. He's been in business. I, I don't remember exactly how many, but I know it's over 20 years. he's a president of AOLP, so I'm excited to have him on. We're going to talk shop, we're talking business. We're going to help you guys elevate your business business this year in this conversation, I promise you that.

Everyone has these big goals, whether it's personal or business

but before I have him on, I want to ask you. It's the new year. So we talk about New Year's resolutions. And this kind of drives me crazy. I like it. And then it kind of drives me crazy at the same time because everyone, like, has these big goals, you know, whether it's like, personal or business or health or whatever. And, so what are you trying to achieve? And I want you guys to declare it to the world. Because when you do that, it becomes real. And one of the things that I declare to the world, this was actually before New Year's. This was a couple weeks ago, is in 2025, I'm gonna run three Spartan races. And, the reason I'm, like, so excited is because I've never ran a Spartan race. So I don't know how hard they are. And that's why I did three at once, is because I'm like, okay, number one, I declared to the world. This is what I'm doing. And then number two, I purchased all the races already. I already purchased them. Cause I knew I would, like, run the first time and be like, oh, I'm not doing that and quit. So if I wouldn't have told the world and I wouldn't have bought the races, I probably would have already quit. Because running is hard, you guys. I'm not a natural. but here's what I want to talk about is, like, it's easy to set the goal and say, okay, I'm going to run a Spartan race. By the way, I'm doing a 5K, a 10K and then a 21K. Five, K, like in March. 10K in, like, April or May, and then June, 21K here in Utah. If anyone wants to join me, hit me up. I'll send you the links and stuff. but here's the deal. So I started running, practicing, and I'm having these thoughts as I'm running is like, okay, Business and exercise are kind of a lot. There's a lot of similarities. We set this goal. Like, I want to do this race. Okay, I want to do a million dollars in business this year, or I want to increase by 500k or whatever your goal is. Like, you can make your own goals, but too many people get focused on the output. That's the output. It's like, okay, I'm going to run a spartan race. Well, what are you going to do to prepare? What are the inputs that control the outputs? Okay, so your goal is the output of many inputs. Anyone can set the goal. But what very few are going to achieve their goal because they're not focused on the inputs. So my inputs for doing these races is I got to start running, I got to start lifting weights. Like, I got to have a regimen, I got to have a schedule. So right now I'm running, two. Well, when I say running two miles, there's, there's some walking involved, but there's a two mile course that I have set out. Right. So I'm, I'm running two miles, every other day and then I'm increasing that. I just did two and a quarter yesterday, so I'll probably, I think I can run three miles now. but I got to practice, I got to do these inputs.

So what is your goal? What is your resolution

So what is your goal? What is your resolution? What are you going to do this year as a business leader, not only for yourself, for your team members, I mean as a business owner, we have an obligation to provide for our team. What about for your family? Like, what are you going to put on the line? What are you willing to give up in order to get your goal? Because you have, you have to give up something. Like it might be sitting on a couch, it might be working too much, maybe you need to hire a replacement. Right? There's something you have to have to give up. So what is your goal? Like declare it to the world. Share it with us in our, on my Facebook page and our Facebook group, Landscape, lighting, Secrets, wherever it is. Like, declare it to the world so that it's out there and we'll help hold you accountable. And then let's say you wanted, let's say your goal is to. I want to increase by 500K. Okay, you can, I'm just using that number. You can use whatever number you want. It could be 5 million, whatever the number is. But then you have to figure out what are the inputs because that's an easy goal to say, but what are you going to do? How much are you willing to spend to generate an extra $500 or $500,000 in sales? And I'll tell you this, this is like, this is huge. Most people are not willing to spend any money or time to grow by an additional 500k. Like I just see it every day. I talk to business owners every single day. Okay? And people with multi million dollar businesses that people that are over seven figures. One thing that they have in common is they're always willing to take risk. They're always willing to take a risk and they don't know that it's going to work. That's why it's called a risk. Okay? It's a calculated risk. They think it's going to work, otherwise they wouldn't do it. But they're willing to spend money or time into an activity to generate more leads. Okay? And so me personally, I'm willing to spend 15% of, revenue to generate, like, that's, that's a, ah, no brainer for me. So if I want to generate 500k, I'm looking at 15%. That's 75 grand. I'm willing to spend 75 grand as a risk to generate that 500k, and that's how I'm going to grow faster than anyone else. Whereas everyone else is just waiting to grow. And like, you're not going to just magically grow by 500k off of referrals and word of mouth. Okay? You can grow by referrals and word of mouth and maybe by that much, but you better have a damn good strategy for it. Okay? So, if that scares you, like 75,000 to make 500k good, it should scare you. Like, that's why it's called a risk. Okay? And if you want to separate yourself from the herd and you want to go from amateur to pro, you're going to have to get in that mindset to start taking these risks. This is what, it's what is required. Now, it doesn't mean just like the first marketing person you talk to, like, take my money, here's 75k. Like, there's strategy and there's diversification. Right? some of the things I put together is my quick list SEO, okay? A lot of people have bad experience with SEO people, so they give up. That's a failing strategy to just give up on it altogether. Because you had a bad experience with three SEO people. Terrible. Like, you need to be working on SEO. Google Ads, same thing. Social media, okay? And social media has its own. You can't just like, pull up, put up some Facebook ads and get rich doing landscape lighting. Might be able to do that a little bit with holiday, but not with landscape lighting. Okay. proactive repeat referral model. Proactive repeat referral. You're not going to get repeat and referrals. You get a couple. Okay, that's easy. But I'm talking like, if you want to scale, if you want to hit these big numbers. Proactive repeat referral game, referral partners. Okay, the year I sold my business, we did 600 grand in repeat business alone. And we did over a million dollars in referral partner business. That's a landscaper, a pool builder, a home builder, an interior designer, A bunch of different people referring us work. They were higher quality leads, higher ticket jobs, hard to start, easy to scale, direct mail wrap trucks. I see so many non wrapped trucks. I'm like, dude. And then when they do wrap it, it kind of sucks anyway. Yard signs, door hangers, these things right here could be an easy way to generate an extra 500k. If that's your goal. If that's your goal.

So just remember this, success is intentional. When you get intentional like this, you'll see your success happening

So just remember this, success is intentional. Your goals are not going to just happen. You need to map it out. Whatever your goal is, whether it's a health goal, a wealth goal, relationships, oh, I'm going to be a nicer person. I'm going to get along with so and so well, okay, what are the inputs? What are you going to do to get there? Like, you have to map this out. When you get intentional like this, you'll see your success happening. And this is why people say, oh, you can manifest this, man. It's not just about thinking, it's about acting and achieving these things, okay? Because your life is in your is in a lot more control than you think. There's certain things that you can't control. Stuff's just going to happen, right? And you got to learn to control the controllables. And these are the controllables. So my question to you is, how much are you willing to pay? How much are you willing to give up to achieve your goals? When you get that answer and you map it out, 2025 is going to be a success, baby. And I'm looking forward to this ride with you. So. All right, that's all I, I think that's all I got to say about that.

Emory Allen believes customer satisfaction should be the top priority

Hey, real quick before we have Nick on what, sets Emory Allen apart? Well, I'll tell you, bulbs aside, they believe customer satisfaction should be the top priority. Always. In fact, Emory Allen goes out of their way to ensure lighting professionals have access to the best light source available. And they're committed, they're committed to your experience. At, the end of the day, it's what's on the inside that counts. So take advantage of Emory Allen's world class customer service. All you got to do, guys, is email Tom Garber. And his email is tom g.maryan. com when you email Tom G. Ryan. com mention that you heard about him here on Lighting for Profits. He'll hook you up with that discounted contractor pricing. And, you're going to get to experience that single source LED that everyone's always talking about. So email Tom g. @emery Allen. com all.

Nick Shriver talks about his upcoming Spartan race in Tampa

right, guys, I think it's time. I hope Nick's ready. I know he's ready. he. He was. he's. I think he woke up early today for this. So let's get him coming on the show. You guys ready?

All right.

Welcome to the show, Mr. Nick Shriver. Let's go.

Hey, thank you for having me. Awesome, man. I'm excited to be here. And. And, I. All I gotta say is spartan.

Have you done it?

Yeah.

Too.

I've done. And I'm doing it again in May.

Oh, I, love it.

Where's my son? My son's doing it with me.

I don't even know the ruhaha, thing yet, dude.

you'll learn it because they. That's what they all chant right before you take off at the. At the. At the start line. They say, what are we? We say, we are Spartan. And then you say, aruha, Arua. Arua. And then you. You go, okay. Get you jacked up, dude. It's jazz. It's awesome.

Where. Where are you doing the one in May, Raymond?

James Stadium. it's called the stadion race. So, I've done the Raymond James race the last two years here in Tampa. And, my son did the. The. Did the one for the. For the younger kids. Now he's 14, so he's at that line where he gets to go with the. With the olders. Last year, he did half. Pretty much most of the olders and the younger. So, that's a great compliment from Paul. I don't know how much of that is true, but that is a wild compliment.

Are you paying him a lot?

Dude, Paul is one of. One of my mentors. He's taught me so much. man, that guy is a true talent and a legacy in the industry, so. Oh, oh, and he's starting it already, dude. The Buckeyes are gonna take care of old unfinished business ball.

Just.

Just to let you know.

That'S a big old college rivalries going on right now. College Football Playoff. It's. It's. Tis the season, baby.

It is, man. And that's what makes, you know, that's what makes this country great. It's supposed to make College gate football. Great. All of it's great. We can have so much fun with it, man. It's regional. You get to support, you know, support where you're from, support your people. but dude. So Spartan race, it's, it's called a stadion and basically you just do this obstacle course inside the stadium. It's really awesome. On the 50 yard line, there's like this big triangle cage, like net cage. And you get to go up it and then like you're in, you're on the 50 in the middle of the stadium, like looking around like you're at like the second level. It's really, it's super cool.

Which, what distance are you doing?

So the stadium is between a 5k and a 10k.

Okay.

It's just kind of a made up distance. Like they just make it up.

Oh, it's just a different format.

Yeah, they call it a sprint. Like you get the metal, you get is for a sprint. But the, but 20, 22, when I did it, it was like five and a half K on my tracker and in. Or excuse. No, 23, when I did it was five and a half K on my Tracker and 24, it was like eight and a half K. Like so they made it way longer but. And you know, and it's 20 obstacles. It's, it's, it's awesome, dude.

Ryan says he ties his fitness into business because it accelerates time

The reason I love it is, you know, being in my middle 40s, there's not a lot of things I get to do. Like in the world of athletics and what what we call in our household fitness, you got to get your fitness on, that like motivate you to go do something and actually finish it and complete it. Right. Like you get up in the morning, you go to the gym. Like most of the time when I go to the gym, just getting inside those doors is, is what is like, that's what I celebrate. And then from there it's downhill, like the hardest part. And like this morning when I got up to go to the gym, man, I didn't want to. Like my body was like, no, no, no, no, no. Back in bed, lay back down. It's way too early. you know, and then you kind of roll over, you start moving, you get going a little bit, especially, you know, it's chilly out. And you get in, you get in the building, you start moving, you're like, all right, now you're in your groove, man, and you start working, you know, you start working towards that once. And I didn't realize this was going to Happen until I actually scheduled this a couple years ago. Now, like, I have more motivation to do, to go put one more rep in, to put a little more effort in, to put another weight size up, to like, you know, develop that. Because I'm actually, I didn't, I don't, I didn't want to go and get my butt kicked and I didn't want to not finish well. And my goal, here's my goal, Ryan, when I go, my goal is to be faster than half the 20 year olds. That's my goal.

Dang. I'm just. My goal is to finish.

Yeah, well, the first year it was to finish. Now my goal is to be faster than half the 20 year olds.

I like that. Well, that's cool. I like that you mentioned it. Because the reason I'm doing this is for health. But I tie my health into business. I'm addicted to business. Everything comes back when, you talk about motivation and discipline. I'm not motivated to go run two miles right now. That's the last thing I want to do. But the discipline's there and I committed and I bought that race and I told this group of guys that I was going to do it with them. So now I have motivation to go do that because, like, if I don't, I'm screwed. Like, I gotta be prepared. So, the same thing happens in business. Like we're like, I'm not just not motivated. I don't want to grow my business by 500k. I don't want to hire two more people. I don't want to do that. Right, but when you understand, like, no, there's a reason for that, because if you do that, you can get to this level of freedom, then you start to put discipline things into place and you go to the gym and whatever those things are in your business, you keep working on it every single day and all of a sudden you're ready for the race.

You know, and it's interesting too, because with the fitness, a lot of people, where do you find the time? What's amazing is, is once you, once you do that and you kind of start getting into that routine, time just opens up, like your mental ability to accomplish things in the time that you give, it accelerates. When you feed the body, when you work the brain, like when you take care of the physical part of your body, those things just happen to accelerate. You become significantly more productive. And it's, it's just amazing. And I don't know how to explain all of that, but that's just kind of how that works. It's. It's very, very interesting. You know, like, on days that you. That I go and I do my. My fitness early, I'm so much more productive. I'm so in such a better attitude. Like, I handle obstacles and objections and nuances significantly better. Like, I'm a. I'm just a much better person. and I. And that means not just handling my business, handling my personal life, handling everything. Like it. It just. It becomes easier or better decisions. Things don't. Don't hold you down as much. And then you can translate that to business. Right? Like businesses. Business is everything when it. And it relates to everything else in life. Right. It's a full integration. So, you know, it's super important.

Nick says he's working on being more professional and looking good

And you mentioned your resolution. I'm actually going to put. Put one of my resolutions out there, get it. And this is one that I've been working on. And I'm really, you know, I. I like to preach professionalism, and I'm always working on being more professional and my goal.

Hey, by the way, you look nice today. You look very, very professional.

I, you know, a lot of my younger coaches, like, this is all. All for them growing, up when they used to say, if you look good, you play good. And I was bringing it today. I said, you know, I'm gonna look good because the last time I was on, I. I wasn't invited back. I must have bombed it. So at least I'm gonna look really good today. So that. At least I'm. That was my goal. And I was like, and I see myself. I feel like if I look good, at least I. You know, that energy carries. So it's a big part of it. You know, in. In looking good is not just what you wear. You know, your business can look good too, right? Like, your employees should have a look like. And that look should be clean. It should be professional. Like your van should have a look like when you. When. When your techs open the doors. McDonald's shouldn't roll out into the driveway of whoever you're.

What happens. What never.

Right. they shouldn't flip cigarette butts, like, right. You know, into the neighbor's yard. M. There's a. Yeah. That weed. Whatever it is, like, there's a lot of things that should keep things professional, and looking good as part of that. So I. We try to do that in our outfit. We try to make sure that that stuff is specific. But my resolution is to use the word F Truck. And you guys all can Fit that together and just eliminate it from my vocabulary. So wait, to use the word no. To eliminate the word that I just put together and eliminate it from my vocabulary.

Rhymes with buck.

Yes. And starts with fire truck.

Okay. My kids might listen to this, so we'll, we'll keep it clean, you know? Yeah.

And so, you know, there, I, you know, I've had the habit over the years to turn into a contractor in a lot of forms and get into that, you know, tradesman mentality and language. And, you know, I catch myself in sales sometimes being like, that's not what I should be presenting with and I shouldn't be using those and I should be more professional. So my 25 is to make a conscious effort to replace that specific vocabulary and get rid of it. So all, Right.

I'll hold you to it.

Anybody hears me out there, man, they can hold me to it in any accountable way that they feel needed.

Yeah, no, I got you on that. Hey, not to brag, but my mom's listening. And, she said that, I came in first in the fifth and sixth grade, 5K. it's kind of true. one year I came in fourth and then I'm, I'm kind of a competitive person, so I literally trained like I was, she like, drove me around and it was like, hey, this is, I think this is where you ran. And I would run around. We'd. We'd map out 3.1 miles or whatever. Every year they had the end of the year 5K. And I did, I did win first. The. I think it was the sixth grade or fifth grade, I can't remember, but ran it in vans. flat, flat vans. I didn't know that you were supposed to have running shoes, and I don't think she did either. So maybe, Maybe I am ready to be a Spartan after all.

I think you are. And I think, I think you're definitely gonna outpace a lot of 20 year olds.

This is my first one, Nick. Like, I can barely run two miles right now.

Well, wait, like, you're.

I'm training. I'm, yeah, coming. I'm coming for him.

Keep doing them push ups and pull ups too, because there's a lot more than just the 5K.

I know. Well, like, that's what I got to start doing is the pull ups. Because I, I, the push ups are easy for me now. Or I wouldn't say easy, but it's just a habit. The, the pull ups. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta start those.

Yeah. And the deadlift and all the other stuff.

So we, we got right into it. Give everyone just a quick intro of who Nick Shriver is.

Nick Shriver owns Decorating Elves, a leading holiday lighting company

All right, well, Nick Shriver, I live in St. Pete, Florida, the Tampa Bay Market. owner, operator, GM of decorating elves and Decorating Elves is a premier holiday and outdoor lighting company in the Tampa Bay area. We service most of the Gulf Coast. we have a significant business in holiday lighting. We have a really strong business in landscape light. married to my wife Julia. Beautiful woman. my two kids, Jameson and Ayla, 12 and 14. we, we spent that, that was really appreciated too. we spend a lot of time on the weekends doing club sports and doing a lot of outdoor activities. I also am a real estate investor and I own a remodeling company that manages our real estate. So I, you know, I do that as well. how. Ah, State Buckeye. Big time. Super excited about that this time of year and all around good guy.

Cool man.

How did your holiday lighting season go? Just wrapped up

Well, how, how did your holiday lighting season go? Just wrapped up. You guys are doing takedowns I'm assuming now, but how, how did everything go?

We had a. We, we finished strong. Started. It was a really, really rough start because we had two storms. Helene came in in the last week of September and just, I mean just, it just flooded my house. Destroyed it. So that was really disruptive.

Like, literally. I saw pictures and he's not kidding. Like how much water was in the house?

So there's a foot of water inside the house. There was two and a half feet of water outside the house. The whole house was ruined. my daughter was squeegeeing water out of her bedroom. Like, you know, take whatever you live in, you know, draw a line around the outlets and everything that would be below that line was soaked and is ruined and is no longer part of your life.

So this is right, this is right when you're starting to make like half your income.

Dude. We had our first big training, our first big recruiting event scheduled on Tuesday. We canceled it because we were doing storm prep on Thursday. We had. Thursday we had a foot of water. Like, and not just me, it was the whole neighborhood, the whole city. Like half the area. Like it. Devastation. Just disruptive, devastation. So we, so like that was our, what we call like week two, like of our season, like 10 to 12 week season where we're normally doing a heavy recruit and getting like a 10, like 8 to 10 person onboarding and training the following week. And, and then getting a lot of production work started. Like Boom. First day, day two of. Of the big part of the season was just disruptive. And then. So that's just a mess. I don't even know how to explain it. It was disruption on a multiplier. And, you know, I. It's one of those where when you look back, like, how blessed I am to have the resources we had that had the ability to manage things, and get through those things and have just really strong support, family, great, great team at my office. And then we turned around and, during milton, which was two weeks later, it was like 15 days, we had. It was a cat three rolled right over top of us, ripped our building up, our offices flooded, building flooded, ripped a bunch of stuff off the building. So then that was a whole nother disruption. So we, we were down. I mean, we had like 40 of our October revenue is what we did in production like that month. And, you know, you take what normally is your second, maybe third greatest production month of the year, and you just cut your revenue by a significant amount. And that's what happened. Right? So, we had a rough start. Really, really, really rough start.

what did you do to, overcome it? I mean, how did you. You. You're like, okay, well, I gotta take care of my family, but I also got to take care of my business. What was step one?

You know, step one was to just fall back on your foundation, man. Fall back on, you know, your fundamentals. and the fundamentals that we have in holiday lighting is, is we have every week charted right through our entire season. And so that's something that we've been doing for about five or six years. Every week has a script like, this is what we do this week, and this is how we do it. So one of those things was to make sure that we didn't lose sight of who we were and what we were and making sure that. Well, the first thing we did was we made sure that everybody in our. In our. In our business, on our team was taken care of. Right? Like, is your family okay? Are you okay? Do you need help? Do we need to help you? And so we took care of all of our people first, right? So put your mask on. Take care of yourself first. Breathe before you can help others. And so we took care of my stuff, our, manager and then our staff. So all of our people were taken care of. And then we started working back on our business. And one of the things in landscape lighting, we shifted into doing a. For revenue, we shifted into doing a lot of storm Maintenance work. So. So we had, like, a process that we were doing. Like, all right, you know, hey, your. Your system's flooded. You're ready to get back online. These are the steps that we're going to do. And we probably did 200, 250 of those over the next three months, but we probably did 40 of them in the first two weeks.

So do you normally have crews running landscape lighting and holiday lighting together

So do you normally have crews running landscape lighting and holiday lighting together?

We. Yeah. Yes. And it's a phase. So, like, as we go through October, we go from four doing landscape lighting to three to two to one, and then we have one that runs through the whole season, and then we start adding crews on. So we kind of have a phase into prime holiday production, and then we kind of have a phase back out of holiday production into landscape production. Like, it's. It's kind of how we do that. Like, we bring it in, and then we kind of bring it out as the volume picks up and then as we try to capitalize that out.

So are you finding that when. When that happens, that people want, like, landscape lighting done sooner and you're having to push them off until, like, January, February?

yes and no. So on a route, on a regular year, on a routine year, a lot of people, if we're doing holiday lighting, they're okay with landscape lighting. Wait until January, February, March, because. Because they have beautiful holiday lighting. They have beautiful lighting. It looks amazing. Right? The. The challenge is in. And obviously we have a long, deep list of service, and we don't want to lose our service accounts because saying, hey, we can't get to you till. Till January. Now, we live in a market where you work365, right? Like, the weather does not prevent us from working outdoors in December and in January. m. So, you know, we're running. We have one of our Texas running, service and maintenance full time the whole season. And then. And then we try to balance that, right? We're trying to get. We're trying to do projects. And this year, honestly, I had it as a goal was to do a lot more landscape lighting during our holiday season, but that basically got set aside and we went back to just kind of managing fundamentals.

And that. That's mainly because of the storm, right?

Because of the storm. And the. The storm also was super disruptive because we lost about 50% of our renewals in, like, three major metro markets that we service in, like, in, like, a major geography. And so we had to fill that void elsewhere in, like, kind of some other geographies. And we lost Them because, like, all the hotels were like, we're not open. Like, a ton of these houses were like, yeah, we don't even live there. customers said. We said, hey, you know, what's going on? They go, hey, that. We're tearing that house down. We're building it in 25. you can do holiday lighting in 26.

Dang.

All right, well, thanks. Like, you know, like, we're looking forward to 26. Like, right now we're trying to make payroll in 24. but, yeah, you know, that's how, like, so you kind of shift on that. And, and, I leaned on my team a lot, which was really helpful, and they really came through. And, we kind of leaned on a lot of our systems, and our systems came through and so we were really, really blessed that we spent a lot of legwork documenting our processes, documenting our systems, putting a lot of, a lot of things in place so that when something happens, you know, you can manage it. And the thing that, that, you know, a lot of people ask, like, hey, you know, what, what should we prepare for? Like, you have to prepare for the thing that you're not prepared prepared for. Like, that's business. Like, you know, employment is always hard. Finding good candidates to work for you are hard. You know, making sure you're current with marketing is always a constant. making sure you're selling jobs and you're selling them for the right money with good margin is important. but planning for something that you don't know about is really hard to do. and one of the best ways to do that is to have cash or have cash available. So that doesn't mean that, like, you know, like, I'm sitting here with big bundles of money and, and books of cash, and I'm going, yeah, like, I'm holding on to this for a rainy day. But having finance lines available, you know, already in place was a big help because, like, the insurance company still hasn't stroked a check on the claim. Right. They've given us some money, but, you know, we've spent a significant amount of savings and, you know, short term equity credit on building out the house back on, making sure we were making payroll, because we were running payroll for two to three weeks, doing storm cleanup, getting the building cleaned up, making sure my house was in line, making sure everybody's places were ready to go, making sure all our staff was like, hey, let's get all this storm stuff out of the way. And we were just working and the guys were working, all our guys were Working, but it wasn't. We weren't really billing a lot of it, but we were still running that payroll, right? We were still paying those. The guys were still getting their checks, you know, going home and doing their thing. And in the short term, it was like, it was a little struggle, like cash wise. But in the long term, it was really beneficial because we actually had the most productive five weeks that we've had ever as a company, starting November, week two, which I think started on like the third or the fourth, some would call that November week one through December week two. Like, we had literally some of the best five weeks that we've had as an organization. but it took us a. Took us a little bit of time to get there. And then, boom. I mean, we were. When we got there, we were, we were humming and we were. And we looked good and everybody did good. And a lot of that was the ability to make sure all the team had all their stuff taken care of and they could get their families taken care of and they knew their wives and their girlfriends and their parents and their. Everybody was like, had all that stuff addressed. And then all my stuff was addressed. We, we had moved into, you know, rental house and we were set up over there, right. And had all the kids kind of set up and all of that stuff. As normal and in routine as you could be during all of that.

It's good that you brought. I'm glad you shared this because planning in general, like, how many business owners plan anything, you know, and if they're, if they get to that point where it's like, they're in it in a down spot. The hardest time to get capital is when you need capital. Like, it's impossible. Banks are like, well, we're not going to give you any money. You can't even afford to pay us back. The easiest time to get money is when you have money. So, like, if, if you're doing okay right now, you should go to your bank, you should go get a line of credit. You can get a business line of credit just on your receivables. Like, if you have checks that people owe you, and if people owe you $60,000, your bank's going to easily give you 60 grand. And don't use it.

If you combine cash plus some debt, you're going to be fine

Like, that doesn't mean go, like, buy stuff and just use it. It's for that rainy day, quite literally, right? It's for that day when you're like, no, I need this. And when people wait, it's too late. Like, you can't wait to get that funds. And I mean, you said you're not necessarily sitting on bundles of cash, but you should have some cash, right? I mean, if you combine cash plus some debt, some like business line of credit debt, not the short term credit card stuff, you're going to be fine. And that's just contingency planning at its finest. So I'm glad you brought that up because even me right now, I'm not in a cash flow situation right now. But I just went and got a line, of credit with my bank. And I learned that because my last business, my lighting business, when I went to get money, I couldn't get it. And I was like, but I need payroll and I need this. And it's like, they're like, dude, you're broke. I'm like, I know, that's why I'm talking to you.

You know, and it's in, in, during the storm. You know, FEMA has their small business loans and things like that. Well, FEMA wasn't writing any loans because Congress hadn't passed a budget, so they hadn't passed a budget until December, like 20th or 19th. So it wasn't until they passed the budget you could actually get an emergency loan. So if you didn't have those things in place or you didn't have credit or you didn't have whatever, you, you didn't have cash. Now, you know, the great thing about holiday lighting is, is that you get, you know, it all comes at once. So, you know, that's all. That's probably the reason a lot of us do it. but yeah, it's a, it's a big deal. And for those that are listening out there, it's a lot of times it's called a credit line or a flex line. And you, and the best way to do it is to go to whatever bank it is that you currently have your checking account with, because they're just going to flip the screen over and be like, oh, you have, you know, you know, during the highest time of your year, you got 10, 20, whatever it is, 100 and you're checking and now you've got five. We'll give you this. And it's only like a hundred or two hundred dollars to, to sign it and then it's maybe a hundred dollars to keep it. And we keep, I have a couple of lines because of, the real estate that I manage. and we, and we roll money through it every, every year I put some purchase on there and then we, you know, we pay them off. And it's a big deal. And that's, that was a lesson learned a long time ago. And it was definitely learned the same way you learned it. Oh, I need money. Oh, you're not getting money because you're horrible with money. And when you're good with it, especially those holiday guys, hey, go get it right now when you've got it, because you don't ever need it.

The ability to make payroll is very important in any business

And you know, cash flow is a big deal in business, and I think it's something we overlook a lot. and it's not sexy, it never is, but it is the life and blood of business. The ability to make payroll, to me is like one of the most important things. I think it's, it is up there. It's my top, top 1, 2, 3 things in my business of importance is making payroll every week. Like, I want to have really talented people wearing my uniform. And I do have really talent people, talented people wearing my uniform. And I want to pay them good money and I want to ask a lot from them and I don't ever want them to think, hey, is this, is my check going to be good this week? You know, so I want to give my obligations to them and make sure that they, they hold those tight and that they know that that's, that's legit and it's real. And then, you know, I want to be able to ask of them. So those are big deals to me. And, and cash flow is what makes all that happen. You know, you sell a big job, you get a nice big deposit check. you know, you want to manage those, and then you may not get that second check until you're done. And you could starve for a couple weeks, you know, depending on the size of the project, depending on how you're set up, how, how things are. So it's important that you kind of know how all that stuff works.

Oh, it's huge. Well, like you said, they'll take that deposit. Most people get that deposit check and like, oh, sweet, I can pay payroll. They forget that they still have to buy materials and they still have to pay labor when they go do that job in six weeks or whatever. So cash flow, man, you can have a, you can have, I mean, any business. You could have a hundred million dollar business and still run out of money. yeah, it doesn't matter.

Super important. It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's as important as a lot of things. There's, there's a lot of things that happen in the maturity of a Business and cash flow. Understanding cash flow is a big part of that. it took me a long time to understand the P. L. And the balance sheet. you know, and I know you have Dan on, and he does a really great job of explaining it. And, he does it in a, you know, layman's terms. And those are really, really. That's really great information. you know, being a lighting designer, having a design background, being an energetic business person, I think the thing that makes me cringe the most is like, trying to learn a balance sheet. Like, But I hate it too.

But if, if everyone will just go and schedule time if they have to, every week at first with their bookkeeper to understand what, okay, what happens if this and why, like, they will teach you, like, you will learn. And. And then what. What was difficult becomes easy. So, yeah, it's a huge thing in business.

And then having a good team, you know, it doesn't have to be somebody that is on your payroll. Having a good team that helps you kind of keep track of that. And having somebody that is in the home service industry that kind of knows home service businesses help keep track of that is very valuable. It's a big, it's a big piece of the growth, of a business, you know, and it's one of those kind of layers or those stages. And that's something that I did early. I still dive into them real deep. And I like to keep a real clean book. I like to know where my money is. and, it's. It's real. It's really crucial too, because sometimes, you know, and you talk a lot of times, hey, raise your price. but sometimes you should know why you're raising your price. You know, like when somebody goes, well.

That seems like we going, Nick, don't get me going.

Yeah, well, you don't have to get going. But like, you know, a lot of, you know, you talk about sales and hiring and growing a business. Like, if, you should know in business what things cost you, like, what it costs you to produce. That said particular service, that said particular design, that said particular lighting piece getting turned on. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. Like, you know, at the end of.

The day, like, getting me hot over here, Nick.

That's what it is. You know, if you can't go home and, you know, go buy the grocery store and put food in the fridge on your way home, like, what's the point?

Yeah, I mean, it. The reality is, like, too many business owners don't understand how much it costs to run a business and they want to be fair and all that stuff. And I get that. But the problem is you're sacrificing your own family's fairness to take care of this client, this mystery client that you think you're trying to be fair for. And you're doing them a disservice. You're doing your team members a disservice, your family disservice if you're not charging the maximum price that you should and could for your business in order to run a successful business that can give the red carpet white glove. I mean, that's just what it boils down to.

It's important.

How do you market with the name decorating elves for landscape lighting

Hey, I want to ask you about your name because a lot of people, we have a lot of people now that have these holiday lighting businesses that are like, finding out about landscape lighting. And they're like, yeah, they got into holiday lighting because you can make a lot of cash in like two months. It's pretty sexy. But then they're like, well, I had to hire all these people. How do I keep them? So now they're getting into landscape lighting because they're like, this is sweet. I can do lighting year round and I can keep my guys busy. they ask me all the time like, what, what do, what, what should I do with my name? You have a very amazing name for holiday lighting. But I'm like, is that hard to get landscape lighting jobs? Like, how do you, how do you market with the name decorating elves for landscape lighting?

So, you know, it's a good question. It's kind of a twofold answer. for. We are in the process of starting to evaluate adding, a brand name. Right. It's not, it's kind of in. Internally we're, we're processing that because for, for a very long time in our market, we, we dominated it with our brand name. Everybody knew who we were. And up until about five or six years ago, everybody in Florida was from Florida, but like from somewhere else, but from here. So they knew who we were, they knew there was an, there was an association. And our demographic has changed. And so we're getting a lot of regional, like people moving into the area from a lot of other regional areas, which is great because they're bringing their money and they're bringing their six figure incomes with them, their zoom jobs, you know, and they're living the Florida lifestyle and they're loving it. And that means that they don't know who we are and they don't know who the brand is. And when they search us, they're like, oh, that's just a holiday company. So, it's, it's kind of a tricky answer, right? Because we lived on just being awesome at what we do. Like, hey, Nick and his guys are amazing. They're like, they're so professional. Like, they're always bringing, bringing their A game. They made our house look amazing. It's so beautiful. They're so clean. They, everything was immaculate. It was cleaner when they left, than when they started. Etc. Like, we had that reputation for a super long time and, and so we're, we still get that reputation from everybody that knows us, everybody that does business with you at, if you really look at it, it doesn't matter what your name is. When you're working with customers that know you, like, once the customer knows you, the name is, it's important. But it's not as important getting the customer that doesn't know you. That's when branding and the marketing and the names are super important. Right? Because if you're doing, if you're taking care of your customer at a high level, which everybody should be, especially if you consider yourself a professional, then your customer is not going anywhere. They're, they don't want to go anywhere. They want to continue to do business with you. And like you mentioned the beginning of the show, that's when you start working on your integrations, right? Like you start working on your verticals and you have landscape lighting, you have holiday, you may have permanent, you may have indoor, you may have other lighting type services because there's plenty in the scope that can bring revenue or you just.

Audio.

Audio, right. And then there's design work. Right. And so all of that falls within all of those categories. And there's plenty of guys out there that are, that are also electrical contractors. There's others that are in landscaping. So there's a lot of home services that overlap in a lot of different areas and, those are valuable things to continue to work on.

So, um, what percentage of your revenue is holiday versus landscape lighting

So, what, what percentage of your revenue is holiday versus landscape lighting?

It's about 60, 40, 60% holiday, 40%. outdoor.

And do you think at some point you might have, you might rebrand to just be a lighting company that does landscape lighting and holiday lighting?

if we were to rebrand, we would rebrand the landscape lighting service and separate that out. because it's. Decorating elves is such a strong brand and holiday, it would be, hard to not to just warehouse that or shelf it it would be. It would be.

Yeah. And you're big enough too. I mean, some guys are like, they have like 50 grand or 100 grand, and they've done it for a couple years. They don't have that brand. I'm kind of like, you know what, why don't you just make the switch to be a lighting company? you're, you're well established, you've got the revenues. Like, you could sell that business off on its own. Have a. You could have for sure, two different businesses out of it.

Yeah, there's. There's several different verticals to do that and ways, ways to integrate that. Yeah, I mean, and we have, we have enough revenue. I mean, we have people making that kind of money working for us, wearing our uniform. So, in more than one. So we have a bunch.

What's been the most challenging part for you as a business owner

You know what, what's been the most challenging part for you as a business owner? You've gone through the different phases of startup to now. I mean, you're very, I mean, I've never, like, come and, like, seen your business, but we've talked a lot and, like, you're so meticulous. You're very organized. Like, more, I would say above average by far. what's been the most challenging to get from that, like, doing everything yourself to now? It's awesome. You know, you're talking about your team and how awesome they are and everything else.

Well, the guy that's always in the way is the guy in the mirror. Like, and the acknowledgment of that guy being the one that's holding me back, being the one that's the bottleneck, letting go of certain things, accepting of, you know, how the business runs with or without me, accepting that, our operations manager is going to get the job done and he's going to do it in a certain way. And it may not be my way, but our goal is the same. A lot of that, A lot of it just is internal. Like, a lot of the most difficult things in my business have been internal. Like, a lot of them. It's like, that's my life, too. A lot of the biggest struggles in my life have been internal. They've been me.

Yeah, I feel you there, man. I think that that's a common weakness that all of us entrepreneurs have.

Yeah.

And we, it's because one of our strengths is we want to, like, do things right and, like, be perfectionist and all this. But it, it. I don't know, it still surprises me about myself and every other entrepreneur that I Coach and work with. Like, why can't you just let go? Like, dude, you could family better, your team members better, your clients better. Like, everything's gonna be better if you could just freaking let go.

Yeah, it's hard. And, it's just hard to do. It's hard to just be like, okay, okay, okay. Like, it's. It's okay. You've got it. They've got it. I. I would say that that's. And that's an evolution and it. And it comes and goes. And, you know, we've had a lot of challenges and, and over the years, I've been doing this almost. I've been doing this since 2006, whatever that is. I've been doing Christmas since 2003. So, you know, that's 22 years. Business 18. we've had a lot of plateaus. We've, had a lot of great growth, and we've had a lot of backwards moments. And, you know, I think some of the biggest challenges have been, you know, learning to stay thin. And what I mean by that is keeping, the business goes back to cash flow, keeping the business at a level where we can be productive. There's times where we want to get fat and we want to let you know, everybody do everything. And then we realize that that's not the way to do it. And even though that's a good idea, you have to have specific people doing specific things and doing them well and doing them right and doing them with a buy in. so hiring people has been, probably the thing I've learned to do, and I'm still learning how to do it. I still struggle with a couple hiring a couple positions that in our organization that have been a revolving door.

And, what's been the hardest one?

the revolving door is sales. and we've had great success with sales, and then we've had horrible success with sales. But the hardest one to keep in a longevity has been sales.

Is it, more because of the person you think, or maybe something you guys could do? Or is it because they're. You're balancing design and sales?

I think it's because of me, and I'm not the easiest guy to work for. I can only imagine. And the rest of the team gets filtered through our production manager. so. So they love me because they. The really good size.

Yeah. So just have the sales guy report to the production manager and. Yeah, vacation dude.

Yeah, exactly. Right. yeah. So I, I think that's what it Is, Right. So, yeah, anyway, that. It. That one's been. That one's been tough. And we have a system, and design's hard. I. I think design is hard. Those that out there. And I know there's a lot of people listening that are like, oh, I get design. And if you get design, dude, kudos to you. You're amazing. And when we get over to AOLP and we talk about. I talk about AOLP as the museum for the artists, right? Like, there are a lot of amazing designers in that organization. And then. And ALP is the museum for the artists, and there's a lot of people that go into museums and they like this art or that art, and they don't necessarily like all of the art, but they do like certain art. And you can go into any museum and love a different piece. So designers are like that, right? Like, they're like. It's just like going in and seeing paintings. This painting can be amazing and speak to you, and that painting cannot. And it's different than the person that you walked in with. And, designers are like that.

The design piece is definitely, um, a challenge in outdoor lighting

So I think the design piece is definitely, a challenge in outdoor lighting. And it's something that takes a lot of skill to develop and a lot of skill to learn, because I have had really, really good salespeople that really struggled with design and really, really good. Great. That's a great quote right there. and really, really great designers that weren't very good salespeople in. In. When you find the ones that are doing it well together, both, usually they're running their own organization. so that one I've always felt like is a bit of a struggle.

Yeah.

and that. That guy right there is. Is an amazing designer. He's one of the.

Oh, James. James. He's okay.

He's okay. Right?

to the next level.

Oh, yeah. And he's given a great. He's going to be giving a great presentation in, in February at the Illuminate Conference, which is the LP Conference. So we're looking forward to that one.

Talk.

AOP is to promote and advance the landscape and architectural lighting industry

Talk about aolp. before we wrap up. you're. You're the new president this year.

Yeah.

What. What is aolp? Who should be there? What. What's it all about?

So, AOP is to promote and advance the landscape and architectural lighting industry for lighting designers, installers, distributors, and business to business manufacturers. It's the foundation of everything that they do. Right. The purpose of AOP is to support the professional lighting designer and installer by setting professional standards in accordance with making the consumer better and the business to business model. Right. So it's the. Like I just said man, a lot of amazing designers, a lot of amazing installers. So one of the things that ALP also does is they set standards, professional standards. So one of the ways they do that is they do that with the Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer course. That's called Cold. Cold. I'm actually currently taking my cold, to get my designation. I did it a long time ago and didn't finish and now I'm going to wrap it up and finish and crush it. So. Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer is a high level specialized program in outdoor landscape lighting design and project presentation. It aims to foster excellence in lighting design and take a novice designer with some experience to professional status. This is done with the in person and online classroom setting as well as peer review, group interaction and direct learning from an assigned mentor which is a high level experience designer. The program emphasizes the documentation and presentation process of design and ability to create a working buildable outdoor lighting plan. That's a good rap, right? Sounds amazing and it is amazing. that's why, you know like they gave me the title because, because of the vocabulary here. Certified Low Voltage Lighting Technician is another certification. It is also a national certification specifically for low voltage outdoor landscape lighting. It is to test, evaluate and certify the standard of the landscape lighting Technician, to establish the highest standard and ensure that all industry related products and material are installed in a consistent manner throughout all regions and that the ul, ETL and NEC standards are, are followed and maintained.

Currently there are no national standards for low voltage outdoor lighting

Ryan, did you know that currently there are no national standards for low voltage outdoor lighting in the United States?

Yeah, I did know that.

Yeah. In most states there is no or limited licensing overview or standards and in some states the licensing has little to do with and is often misaligned with the actual work being performed.

Yeah, I know. Do you guys have a list of the states that you that require a low voltage license?

You can search it on the website aoponline um. org I do get that question.

From time to time and I, I know like just from my experience like okay, people in Washington have problems. New. one I didn't know but Arizona people have been having problems, certain states, but I don't know if there's a list.

Yeah, the AOP has a list on there that you can search. so you just punch it in. It'll tell you what the state requirement is. now illuminates the conference. It's in February. it's where out there lighting professionals meet to discuss, share and network in all things landscape and architectural lighting. This is where the magic truly happens. During a week long event, bringing installers, designers, manufacturers, contractor specifiers and giving them the ability to come together with one central purpose. And that purpose is better outdoor lighting. the cold program starts and ends. There bookends, the CLB LT's exam are there. And this year in February, it is in Clearwater, Florida on the beach. and the hotel looks amazing. Ah, it had storm damage, but it's all been cleaned up. It's ready for everybody. And what better way to do that? and what I always like to say is the reason to join is to be a better lighting professional. Right. This is where the lighting professionals are. And if you consider yourself a professional, this is where you should also be.

Cool. Well, if people want to get more information, get, registrate, registered, sign up, whatever. How do they, how do they get that?

Yeah, they're going to find all of that@aolponline. org okay, cool.

And then, if people want to reach out to you, Nick, how do they get in touch with you?

They can do that. Nick@decoratingelves. com that's Nick at decorating e l v e s dot com.

Awesome, man. I appreciate you coming on, man. We got, we got through a lot. I actually have about 16 more topics to ask you about.

Wonderful.

But I think we, I think we did good stuff.

So we crossed it, man. I. This was great.

Yeah, I appreciate you coming on.

Everyone have an awesome time this week and declare your goals

All right, guys, check out aoponline. org whatever Nick's email. I'm, I'm not going to say I can repeat that, but Nick, what's your email again?

Nick, first name nick@decoratingelves. com all right, cool. At my company.

Love it. So. All right, thanks, Nick. Everyone have an awesome time, this week and declare, your goals. I'm going to be a spartan guy, I guess, and Nick's not going to use the buck word. So, we'll see everyone. When we see everyone declare your goals, let's get after it. 2025 is our year together. Let's do this. All right, See you, Nick.

See you.