Lighting for Profits - Episode #189

This week, we sit down with TJ Lucero, founder of Redwoods Landscape Lighting. With a unique business background and years of innovation, he’s redefining outdoor lighting. Join us as he makes his full-length podcast debut and shares the vision behind Redwoods' groundbreaking products.

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Episode Transcript

If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, this podcast is for you

Welcome to Lighting for Profits.

All light. All light. All light. Powered by Emory Allen.

Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

A lot. A lot. All light. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the number one landscape lighting show in Augusta, Georgia. I can't believe this, guys. We've been in Augusta, Georgia before, but we're still the number one landscape lighting show there, so it's pretty cool. I'm excited, you guys. If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. We got another doozy lined up for you. we're here to educate, here to motivate, because we want you to dominate. So let's do this together. I'm so excited. Love doing this show. Love, building the community. There's so many amazing things that are about to happen in the landscape lighting industry and, I'm just glad that I get to be a part of it. So today we got an awesome guest. We got TJ Lucero with redwoods landscape lighting. And, it's kind of like their, their, this, like their debut to the landscape lighting industry. They, were at Light it Up Expo a couple weeks ago. A few weeks ago maybe now, I can't remember. It was like so long ago, a few weeks ago. But, TJ's an awesome dude. I've got to know him, got to hang out a little bit. And, so if you're looking and you're like, hey, you know what, maybe I'm looking for a new product. Maybe I'm, in exploration mode. you're going to want to listen to this episode. We're going to talk about their product, but we're also going to talk about his journey as an entrepreneur, and some of the things that differentiate them in the industry. So excited to be joined, by TJ in just a few minutes.

I'm still asking for five star reviews on Apple Podcasts

hey, by the way, if you have not, I'm still begging, I'm still asking for those five star reviews on Apple. So click those five stars. Go to Apple Podcast, click the five stars, write something nice if you got some value. And, you know, give, give our guests, like, maybe if you had a favorite episode, a favorite guest, give them a shout out, that'd be cool in the review, right? So appreciate you guys for doing that and just want to thank you for your support. I can't believe we're getting closer and closer to our 200th episode. And, it's, it's just, I just, I don't know, it blows my mind. I love this lighting industry, the people are amazing. The, manufacturers, the distributors, the service providers, everyone. So, just super, super grateful. But again, in just a couple minutes, we're gonna have TJ Lucero with redwoods landscape lighting. You're not going to want to miss this.

I've been more focused on my health lately

Before I have him on, guys, I want to talk about something real quick because, this, this is happening to me right now. And I like to talk about topics that are real to me because I feel like they're going to be real to you as well. And, most of you guys know if you've been listening, I kind of declared to the world that I'm going to be doing these Spartan races. And the reason I'm doing these spartan races, there's a concept called misogi. I'm not even sure if I say that right, but it was actually this guy on social media, I saw him talking about this concept of misogi. And however you say that, M I S O G I. And it's like, come up with one big thing a year that you're going to do that's going to challenge you, push you, and help you get uncomfortable. And, and m. I was like, dude, I love that because I love, like, I love jumping in cold lakes because I don't like jumping in cold lakes. Like, I like doing things that I don't want to do. And, so I was like, hey, I'm going to come up with something. And I was like, what am I going to do? And lately I've been, like, more focused on my health. I mean, we always want, like, health, wealth and relationships. Like, those are the things that create happiness. But I feel like it's not that I've achieved a level of relationships or wealth that I want. Like, I'm always growing those. But. But it's just. I don't know if I'm. I guess I just turned 45. I'm just more focused on my health. So I'm doing 200 push ups a day. I'm drinking about 100 ounces of water a day. I'm doing things, but I'm like, I want something to challenge me. Like, and those are a challenge too, by the way. But I want something big. I want something that. And the masogi he said is something that, by the way, is so big that there's like a 50% chance that you're gonna fail. And, like, that's scary because you're like, you. You tell everyone about it and then you tell them, how's it going? Oh, I failed. Like, no One really wants to say that. So you're gonna. By declaring it to the world, you're gonna, like, do things that you otherwise wouldn't do, right? So I told everyone, okay, I'm doing three Spartan races. And a friend of mine had invited me, and said, hey, you should come to these Spartan races with us. And so there's a 5k, a 10k, and a 21k. And I started training. I started running. I started lifting weights, doing all these things. And, and I was. I was staying really disciplined. I was like, no, I'm gonna be running three times a week, lifting three times a week. I was going to do this thing. Well, here's the problem. Getting started is fun. I remember I even. I even, did a. It was a Facebook Live or something like that. Like, me running the first time, and I was, like, smiling like, hey, I'm on mile two. I'm doing this, and let's go, and let's be motivated together. And it was a blast. And then, like, three weeks, four weeks, six weeks in, it's, like, not so fun anymore. It's kind of like a grind. And, you know when it became a real grind is when I had to go out of town and I had to go to Light It Up Expo, and I had to prepare for a Light It Up Expo, and I was gone for a week. And then from there I went to Switzerland, and I was gone for a week. And then I just got back from my dance, My daughter's dance competition in Vegas. Like, I'm not at home in my home environment where I can, like, control what happens. It's harder to find time to go running when you're putting on an expo. It's harder to find time to go running when you're skiing in the Alps or when you're in Vegas. Right? Like, it's just harder. Like, all of a sudden, what happens? Excuses. Excuses come in. And so, you know, discipline is an interesting topic. It's. It's, the honeymoon phase. Whether it's starting a business, starting a workout routine, starting a diet, the honeymoon phase is fine. Like, anyone can get through that. It's fun.

If you haven't declared your goals and your destination, then the grind phase presents itself

You're like, oh, this is kind of cool. But then. Then the grind phase presents itself. And that's. Man, that is tough. And that is the reason. The grind phase is the reason you need a why. You need to understand, like, why are you doing this? And if you haven't declared your goals and your destination, like, what. Where you're going and why you're going if you haven't declared that to friends, family, the world, like, I just do it, like, online like a crazy person. But if you haven't done that, it's a lot easier just to retreat. Like, by now. If I wouldn't have declared everything to everyone, I'm just telling you right now, like, it would have been easier. Like, ah, I, I. Yeah, I mean, I would add excuses with the. The Expo and then the ski trip and all. Yeah, I'll do the Spartan next year. Like, that would have been the easy way. But because I declared it, I'm like, no, I'm effing doing the Spartan race. And by the way, guys, so I've got five of them. I'm gonna do or three of them this year. I've already missed the 5K, so there's a good chance I'm gonna fail because I've already missed one race. The good news is I bought another race in Montana. I think it's like, in May or something like that. So I'm still. I'm still gonna do it. I'm still gonna not fail. but it hasn't started out smooth. It has not started out smooth. Monday, I got back into running and I ran, like two and a quarter miles and my legs were, like, dead. The next day I was like, oh, my gosh, like, this was yesterday. I'm like, I don't want to run. And, I was like, well, I gotta run. So I went running even though my legs were sore, and I thought, oh, this. Loosen it up. I'll probably feel better. Well, it turns out, no, that's not true. They feel worse. Like, they feel like, like just dead weight. Like, I can't even pick them up to walk. I'm walking like an old dude. And the reason I'm sharing this with you guys is because, that's how discipline is. Like, discipline isn't perfection. So the next time you think, like, well, I'm just not disciplined enough. I don't know if I can do that. Like, it's not perfection. it's probably like the ideal version of discipline is to just be perfect on everything. But that's not what happens. Like, you know, I'm, I'm doing the Spartan thing. I'm doing the running and stuff like that. Like, yeah, I missed. So what am I going to do? Like, I. I just have to start now. And a lot of people start to feel guilt. They start to feel left behind. Like, oh, since I already missed it, I'll just keep missing it. But that's not the solution. The solution is if you want to achieve your goals, you want to, you want to achieve that dream desire of the diet, the, the exercise, the, the dream business, the dream life, whatever it is. Like you have to, when you fall off is get right back up. Okay?

You talk about your definite chief aim. What are you going to sacrifice to get there

and I talked about at the, at the Light it Up Expo, I talked about your definite chief aim. Like, where are you going? What, why is this so important? What are you going to sacrifice to get there? Well, you're going to probably sacrifice some, some desires and things like that. Like, I don't, I don't desire to go run right now. I don't desire to go lift weights. But I've, I've got this definite chief aim. Like I'm going to do these spartan races and my goal isn't to get like first place. Okay? I'm also like, I just want to finish the dang thing. After I finish it, then I'm probably like, no, I want fifth place, I want third, I want first, whatever, right? But right now I'm just trying to finish. And so, the key is to get through the grind phase as fast as possible.

How do we get through the grind phase from an exercise standpoint or business standpoint

Now how do we get through the grind phase? Well, like from an exercise standpoint or from a growing your business standpoint? If you guys are in a growing your, your business standpoint and you're in your grinding, the easiest way is to find a guide. You find a helper, you find someone, a mentor, someone who's already done what you want to do, okay? And I'll tell you whether you're going to run a marathon or a Spartan race, whatever, you can go find a guide. There are people, there are trainers that will say, this is what you need to do. How much time do you have? Okay, you got six weeks. This is your regimen. Oh, you got six months. This is what you got to do. Same thing with business. Okay? How long do you have to succeed? A lot of you guys haven't set a destination. Like I know I have a spartan race on April 12th. Like that is a true deadline. If I'm not ready to freaking run a 10k and do 25 obstacles by April 12th, I'm going to fail. Have you set a deadline for your business? Have you set a deadline, a dead by date to say, you know what? Like I'm going to be, I'm not going to do sales, I'm not going to do installs, I'm not going to answer my phone by this date. Because if you haven't, you'll just put it off. Like, again, if I hadn't defined 4-12-4 as my 10k date, I promise you right now I would just be like, oh, I'll do it later. I'll probably run a 10k, like in June or something. And again, it was because I have excuses that will take me through that and be like, yeah, but that was before I got busy and I did a good job with Light It Up Expo, so I deserve it, right? And we start to make all these excuses. So this is key, guys. You need a guide, you need a mentor, and you need to define where you're going and the date in which you're going to do it and then just do it. That is discipline. That is discipline. And, and then doing it when you don't want to. Like, I don't want to do 200 pushups every day. Some days I do. Some days I'm like, dude, I feel great. I'm gonna go bust these out, do four sets of 50, right? And then other days I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so tired and I just don't feel like it. And if I hadn't declared to the world and I have people that check up on me, people will send me a text, send me a message, hey, have you done, how's your pushups going? Like, that is a motivating factor that keeps me going, right? I know I'm going to see people, and like, you can tell, you can tell if someone's doing their push ups or not. Okay? So, like, I have real consequences to this stuff.

So what are the real consequences of you not succeeding in your business

So what are the real consequences of you not succeeding in your business? Because most of you, if you're listening to the show, you're not average. You're not just like mediocre. You're not like, oh, yeah, I wonder what I could do to get by to just, you know, be mediocre. Like, you're trying to level up, you're trying to be the top version of yourself. But you got to get specific and clear, crystal clear on what you're doing, where you're going, when you're going to do it. By what are you willing to give, up and declare it to the world when you do that? And I mean, let me give a, a, pitch here for real quick for Landscape Lighting Secrets. That's what Landscape Lighting Secrets is. Like you're part of a community, you declare it to the people and then we hold you accountable. Like, that's the whole point of, of a mentorship, a guide. And you don't have to Join Landscape Lighting Secrets. There's. There's other programs, and of course, we're talking about business. If you want to get a fitness coach, whatever it is, like, this is the way. And I promise you, I can tell you that because if I. I'm living proof of it. Like, it's not easy. I fell off the wagon for a while and now I'm back on. And now I got just a short period of time to get ready for that 10k. So it's amazing what will happen too, when you do fall off. Just for like a couple weeks. I feel like I'm starting at ground zero again. It's almost harder to start this time. but what I have noticed is if you do stay disciplined, like when I do my 200 push ups every single day, which is that one's, I'm. I'm pretty locked in on that. It's actually not that hard. Like, I don't even get sore anymore, you know? But, that's the advantage of being disciplined. When you stay disciplined, it starts to. What used to be difficult isn't as difficult anymore, and it becomes easy. So I want it to get easy for you guys. I want you to get through this grind phase as fast as possible. And so you don't feel like if you, if you, if you don't work out, go do as many push ups as you can today and tomorrow you'll see what I'm talking about. You will feel the pain. You will feel it like, oh, man, that's sore. Or if you don't run, go run two miles. And the next day, like, dang, my legs hurt. What will happen if you create discipline and you keep doing those things over and over and over for just a short period of time, like a couple weeks, you'll be like, I'm not in pain. I don't feel the pain that I was feeling before with push ups. That's what I want for you guys. I don't want you to feel the pain anymore. And if you get through the grind phase, you reach the momentum phase. And momentum. Oh, my gosh. It's beautiful. It's painless. It feels good. You're happy, you're excited again. That's where you guys want to be. So, that's all I got for you. let's see. Let's do this. Where's my music? Oh, there we go. Let me know if you guys are as. I mean, motivation and discipline are two very different things, right? Sometimes you're motivated, but you don't like the discipline. Sometimes you have the discipline, but you don't have motivation. But anyway, hey guys, performance matters. And you know, this is a true statement for a lot of things, including the kind of lighting you use. So don't sell yourself short with your customer. By using budget level products, Emory Allen is at the top of their game when it comes to performance. Take their VA rating for example. Lowest in the industry. Well, what does that mean? With efficiency, you get a low voltage ampere rating, you're able to drive more bulbs on a circuit with a given transformer rating. With lower quality bulbs and the same transformer, you won't be able to put as many lights on that same circuit. So make the switch to Emory Allen today. All you need to do is email tom gmeryallen. com and he will hook you up with the discounted contractor price. Just email tom gmeryallen. com don't waste your time going to the website. Just email tom gmeryallen. com and mention that you heard about him here on Lighting for Profits and you'll get that discounted contractor pricing.

Ryan Redwood welcomes TJ Lucero to the podcast

All right guys, now the moment you really came, it, ah, wasn't really to talk about discipline, it was to talk to our guest, TJ Lucero. So let's get that music going and let's get him coming on. If you guys have questions, let me know. But let's get our guest joining us. Are you guys ready? I hope so. I, am. What is up? Mr. T.J. lucero, thanks for joining us.

Hey Ryan, thanks for having me. Long time coming. Finally, excited to be here for the full, full podcast.

Absolutely man, I'm excited. I was telling people this is kind of like Redwood's, debut to the landscape lighting industry.

Yeah, we've been doing this, or been doing this, six and a half years, almost seven. And this year is really the first time that people are hearing about us. Not to say we haven't been selling and shipping a lot of fixtures, but, the AOLP and Lighted Up Expo, were the first time we ever went and, and did, did any expo or shows. So, yeah, it's on.

Nice man. Well, thanks for joining me. I'm excited to have you on here. I've gotten to know you a little bit at Light It Up Expo and hanging out and stuff like that, which was a lot of fun. not just during the show, but after the show. You, you and your buddies provided some good entertainment to me. So I appreciate that.

We try we try.

You talk about discipline in your intro about growing your business

just on your intro there, you know, talking about discipline, I've been thinking a lot about that, lately. you know, discipline is really a journey. Like. Like any journey, you have setbacks, kind of like you did temporarily. Right. But you just gotta. Gotta keep it going. And, you know, kind of like you said, it also is. It's like a muscle. You gotta keep working it. The more you focus on it and do it, the easier it gets, as you know. So, yeah, I wish you luck in the, Spartan races. You'll get. You'll get back on it. I. I used to do tough, mudders. I've done, some half marathons. Done a full marathon. Been a little while, but been, thinking about doing. Doing something again. the, The hard, 75 workout. You heard that one?

75 hard. Yeah.

75 hard. Yeah, 75 hard. I'm contemplating it. It's. It's, it's legit. But, we'll see. We'll see here.

I'm assuming it's hard, but I. I'm a little bit torn because the thing that I appreciate about 75 hard or even, like, the Spartan that I'm doing, I can assure you that if I didn't, like, commit and pay the money and say, tell my friends I'm doing these Spartan races, I would. I would stop. I would not be running right now. Like, there's no way I would have ran the last two days, especially the second day, because after the first day, my legs were beaten. I was like, oh, I deserve the day off. Like, so I like it because when you commit to something, like, you're committed, like, that's what creates discipline. If you don't have a. Why, if you don't have a destination, if you don't have this thing, then there's no reason to have discipline.

Yeah, it's one of the strategies, Right. is telling others about your goals and what you want to do, and they hold you more, they hold you accountable. People are following up with you. I mean that for people that are serious about anything, whether it be, working out, fitness, or even business goals. I mean, that's why a lot of people go and say, you know, my goal is 5 million in revenue this year. and people hold them to it and ask them about it. So, you know, in business as well.

Yeah. And I guess that's one thing I didn't share is, like, you know, I'm talking about fitness, but, like, if you're here to grow Your business. And you're like, you know what? Like, I don't even really care about revenue. I just want to get it to where, like, I have a salesperson, I have an office manager, I have two installers. Okay, cool. Like, that's the start. When, when is that going to happen? Because if you don't say it's going to be in 18 months from now, then it's gonna, it might never happen again. Like my, to my Spartan race example. Like, if I said, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start running. Like, when, like. No, but like, literally April 12th is like a real deadline. I have to run a 10k then, you know, so if you say your real deadline to have two installers, an office manager and a salesperson is 18 months from now. Declare it to the world. Tell us about it. Like, it will happen. If not, it's, probably not gonna happen.

Yeah, absolutely. And have your goals there, your steps, you know, break it into little steps to achieve it. you gotta, gotta have a good plan. But no, absolutely.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background

Well, dude, tell us a little bit about yourself. I know, you waited till I left Utah to come to Utah to come skiing. So thank you for that.

Yeah, luckily, Utah treated us well. Went, with some friends and my son and my wife. We went and met some friends that, just moved to Salt Lake City, this summer, from Chicago. Longtime friends. And we went to Brighton. it was awesome. We had about 30 inches of fresh powder that first day. And then the next two days, Bluebird days. It was fantastic. We will be going back. But, yeah, so a little bit about myself. Been married. God, I was thinking about it. Or been with my wife. we were college sweethearts. we're closer to 30 years than not being together. And then I have a seven year old son. he's, he's seen this podcast, he's seen me watch it. So, he's pretty excited when he heard I was going to be on.

So.

Shout out to Maxton. I love you, buddy. But yeah. So, yeah, the way I got into lighting, you know, one, thing you notice once you get into this, no one ever starts off in landscape lighting. I've yet to meet a person that does that. And it's always interesting to talk to people about what their backgrounds were. And some were very convoluted. And they get into it and you're like, you did what before? So, me, I graduated, you know, undergrad, in the midst of the dot com bubble. If you remember that two thousand one, May of 2001 I graduated, I think it started in 2000 and the NASDAQ I think had its lowest level October 2020, 2020 or 2002. so it was in the middle of it I had an opportunity. I started with John Deere as a, as a software developer. and I was happy to get that opportunity, ah, because of the situation, the way the economy was at that time, for those that remember. But I started off knowing I, because I love tech, I always wanted to move over to the business side. So in 2004 I got an opportunity to move over to the operations business side. Supply, demand planning, forecasting. And then over the next, while at the time I was there 16 and a half years, moved up in different positions. Actually had a great opportunity, worked in or lived. We lived and worked in Germany for a couple years at the John Deere European headquarters in Mannheim. And we got married right before we moved over. So it was like a two year honeymoon. It was fantastic. my wife, she couldn't work because she didn't have a work visa. So so she was planning our weekend trips and we made the most of it, it was fantastic. But, and then came back to the States. But the whole time I was, I was at John Deere I was exposed to a lot of product programs, combines, tractors, attachments and it really exposed me to what goes in, to really designing and developing and offering a great product. and then in 2000 so I thought I was going to stay there the rest of my life. And then in 2015 I got an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. with Apple, working in Cupertino headquarters, on iPhone, in iPhone operations and I talked to my wife about it and she's like you have to go like you'll regret this if you don't. So I loved every day that I went into work working with some of the smartest people in the world working there, in that whole, you know, Silicon Valley area. But again working on products, really great products and learning what goes into it. also got exposed to you know, China and Asia manufacturing. I was over there a lot at a lot of the factories. so got got exposed to that. And then what happened is our son was born in 2017 and we were living in South Bay area, beautiful area but we were living in 1200 square foot home California, nice. Which means a washer and dryer in the, in the garage. And we're spending like $4,100 a month on rent and beautiful, beautiful, you know, area. But we're like, this is crazy. you know, and we had to decide whether we were going to stay there or not. And then at the same time I was. The house we were living in, I was wanting, this is how I got into lighting. so at that house I was wanting to put a couple up lights on the front to kind of light up for security and make it look nice. so I walked to the Home Depot and had never looked at the lights before and there's just crap like you go to Lowe's Home Depot. Sorry, Lowe's Home Depot. But you know it's, it's really bad quality. Inexpensive aluminum, fixtures. then I went to a couple design lighting design stores and they had much light, much nicer lights, light fixtures. But what I saw, knowing product and manufacturing, they were so overpriced for what they were. And I could not believe that there was this differential. I looked for something in the middle, really couldn't find it. So I have a buddy that's been in landscape lighting for a long time. Called him up and said hey, this is what I'm seeing. And he's like, yeah, that kind of is what it is. There's the lower end, there's the higher end, but there's not a lot of really mid level priced fixtures, with great features. So we talked for a while. I'm like that could be an opportunity. I looked into it more obviously and In March of 2018 I decided to go ahead and try to design some fixtures while I was still working full time. So over the next four months I designed what are. Now we still sell them. Our first three fixtures, the Aspen Accent, the Redwood Accent and the Pine. And on one of my trips over to China or to Asia, with, with Apple, I stayed, you know, took some personal time and I went and vetted potential different manufacturers found one that we still use today. We have a great relationship with them and we kind of grew from there. So long convoluted way of, of telling you how we got into it or how I got into it. But it's. We've been growing the business. We've been growing the business the last six and a half years. We have a full, full product line. And Yeah.

Nice man.

If you guys are not paying your kids, there is a loophole

Well, like Usual, all roads lead to lighting. So, it is kind of interesting because everyone has a different way they discovered the industry. maybe Maxton, like, someone. Someone's kid is going to be on a podcast one day and be like, well, yeah, you know, I've been in the industry my entire life.

That's all I know. Grew up in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get him here. He, he helps, you know, label. Label products. I pay him. Pay him a little bit of money, you know, so it's. It's great.

Nice. Well, not to get off topic too much, but if you guys are not paying your kids, there is a, The IRS is okay with you paying your. Your kids a certain amount of money every year that you don't have to pay taxes on. So check that out.

Look into it. Absolutely losing money if you don't.

Yeah, I love it. well, that's cool.

What do you stay disciplined on with your lighting business

So, you like skiing. You lived, in Germany. You, have a tech background. Of course. It got you. And then, you know, looking to get lights for your own house and stuff like that. what else? What, like what motivates you? What do you. What, what, what, what. What do you stay disciplined on?

I tried to stay disciplined on, on the business. You know. one. One thing I was thinking about this the other day. One thing that I really enjoy, that I really didn't when I started this, I didn't think about was the. The employee aspect of it. being able to get large enough to offer health insurance and matching 401k, which we do. I've had employees in the past, but that was working, you know, for large companies. but really being the owner and being able to offer that, it's great. And, you know, I want to grow this, you know, not only for my family, but also for the employees, to give them more opportunities. so really, obviously, my family and the employees, Our employees, are a big, motivator. as far as discipline, I do try to. I am focused. Trying to go to bed at better, ah. Times and be more disciplined. about that. Ever since I was young, I'm a night owl, but now I'm trying to, go to bed between 9 and 10. But still, you know, like I said, it's a journey. trying to wake up at 5am to work out, you know, before work every morning, wake up before maxed in and be able to, take, them. To take them to school every day. well, I thought that was part.

Of why like, that was the allure for me. I'm a night owl, too, and I'm like, dude, the lighting industry is where it's at. Ah, you get to hang out at night, you get to make money, you get to design. Like, you hang out with cool rich people. Like, why would you not want to do this? So, like, can't, like, I, I think it's okay to, like, lean into who you are just because, like, Like, a lot of people will be like, oh, you got to get up at 4am and work out and stuff like that. I'm like, do you, like, can you. Why can't you just be a night owl, too, you know?

Yeah, I, I, I enjoy the morning. I love, you know, you know, after you work out, especially early, you feel great the rest of the day.

Yeah.

so 4:00am is a little crazy. You know, 5, 5:15. I'm good with that as long as I go to bed in time.

My family is like my number one motivator, Mike Lee says

what motivates you?

Hey, this is my show. You don't ask me questions, tj. Why, why. Why are you asking me questions? Well, no motivation for me is honestly, like, it's my kids, it's my family. in fact, I was on a call. Was it. I can't even remember my, My. It might have been today. And they're like, oh, dang, you have four kids. I didn't know that. And I'm like. And, like, how do you get, how do you get everything done? And I'm like, well, what do you mean? Like, that's why I get it done, you know? Like, if I didn't have any kids, I don't think I would be as disciplined and motivated. I would just be, like, selfish and probably, like, I don't, I don't know. I just, like, Mike, I do everything for them. And so, like, when I was younger in business, I basically sacrificed my family for my business. I just, like, I didn't know what I didn't know. And I thought that I was, like, pouring into, my business for my family, but then I wasn't there for them. Now what I've done is I've rewritten the rules, and I go, hey, what has to be true for me to be, like, dad of the year, husband of the year, and entrepreneur of the year? You know, it's like, how do I win in all phases of my life? And then it's pretty awesome because you, you can. You write your own script. Like, that's the, that's the, the honor and privilege that we have as entrepreneurs. Is we do get to decide that. So. Yeah, definitely. My family is like my number one motivator. They're. They're the reason why I do the. If I don't want to do the thing, I do the thing, you know, because I'm like, it's gonna pay off. Yeah. It's the short term suck for the long term success. But yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah.

And to set an example for them as well, right?

Oh, yeah. Well, I didn't have, I mean, you know, my mom raised me, I didn't have a dad growing up. And like, it was amazing. It's amazing how much that affected me to be like, no, I want to show them that, like there's, there's a, there's a better way, you know? And hopefully my son one ups me and is like, he knew nothing. Let me show you the better way, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Same situation here, you know, single mother, no dad. Luckily my grandfather, you know, stepped in as he could, but still, you know, not, not quite the same, but, at least it was something.

But. Yeah. And then, you know, the other thing that motivates me now is like, like I never knew that I could do what I'm doing now. It wasn't even, like, it wasn't even an option, you know. But now it's amazing to see the impact, like you mentioned the impact on your team members, your employees. I love having impact. I love it. I love the impact that just one small business has on the world. you mentioned just your team members like you. Yeah. The health insurance and benefits and all that stuff. And then their ability to go out and impact the world and they're going to go buy from businesses and that supports the local economy, the world economy. It's crazy when you see the ripple effect of what one action can do. And then now to be having this lighting community where we're impacting lives like crazy, that is a huge motivator to where I'm like, if I'm having a bad day, I, I think about like individual people that I've met and I. And I imagine their faces and I'm like, I'm not going to let them down. I'm not going to quit. Like, just because I'm having a bad day. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go easy on myself because I, I owe it to them, you know? So, it's not, it's my family number one. And then secondary to that is like this internal calling that I felt from God where I'm like, no, I'm doing this. There's a, there's a bigger purpose other than just trying to do what Ryan Lee wants to do. Because some of the stuff I don't want to do. I never wanted to do a Facebook Live. I never wanted to do a podcast. I never wanted to be a, an influencer, if you, if you want to call it that, you know, but it's, it's bigger than that now.

You do a great job. and I remember from, Light It Up. Billion Dollar Impact, right?

That's right, man.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Light It Up Expo was your first outdoor lighting expo

and then in the intro you said, you know, you, you did a good job at, at Light It Up Expo. I'd say you did a great job. That was an awesome expo and looking, forward to next year.

Yeah.

can't believe that was your first one.

Yeah. What was your experience like again?

That was only my second show ever. AOLP was right before that. that was great. they were very different than each other.

You don't have anything to compare it to. So you're like, it was great. Then you go to another one, you're like, oh, never mind.

No, I would say two things stand out. I love talking to the other entrepreneurs and there are a lot of guys and gals that were brand new to lighting. That was really cool. I've had some follow up conversations with a lot of them. and then the other thing, the speakers you had, they were top notch, speakers. So, don't know how you got some of those speakers, but great job.

That's awesome, man. Well, again, I appreciate your involvement with it. really all the vendors and stuff. I mean, can you imagine if, if no vendor showed up? You know, can you imagine if no attendees showed up? Like, we wouldn't be doing it again. So, I do appreciate you being part of the inaugural event. It means probably more than you'll ever know because if we can't do the first one and get it off the ground, there's not gonna be a second. So I'm, we already, we're already planning the next one. We don't have the dates and location yet, but we'll have that soon. And you, you felt the energy like, and that, that was just year one. Like, we're just getting started. It's, it's going to be, it'll be the place to be. If any, anything in the outdoor lighting industry. Everyone's going to want to be there.

Count me in next year for sure.

Love it, man.

What's been the hardest part so far with redwoods lighting company

Well, so let's talk about redwoods. what I guess up until before we kind of talk about product because basically I want to get into product like what you guys do, like for quality control, what separates you, stuff like that. But before I do that, what's been the hardest part so far? You guys have been around six years. You're just now kind of getting, I imagine you wanted to kind of work out some of the kinks and stuff like that and kind of have some beta clients and then kind of organic growth from there. Similar to my journey so far, a lot of organic stuff. But now we're going to start turning it on. We're going to start telling the world who we are. You guys are in that phase. What's been the hardest part so far?

The first, the first two to three years are the hardest, you know, I think with any, any business. within the first two to three years we had the tariffs, you know, section 301 tariffs which are still in place and actually much, much higher now. I remember finding out about it via presidential tweet on a Sunday morning. so that was a challenge. But you know, with it everyone else is going through it as well. So all you can, you can cry about it or you can figure out you know, how you're going to maintain your cost structure, all that type of thing. The other thing was obviously Covid, regarding our products. So I mentioned our first three products. Redwoods was, was designed as an integrated company, in terms of we do only integrated fixtures. I didn't have an Mr. M16 fixture until Covid started or until Covid hit because everyone, you know, the first two weeks of COVID everyone was trying to figure out what the heck are we going to do, are we going to survive. So one of my thoughts as I was, as I was gaming it out was you know, people still buy lighting but they might be a little more cost conscious. So I'm like, I need to get a lower still a quality but lower, lower cost fixture, out there which was our, you know, our Magnolia, which we sell a lot of. but until then we, we didn't even have an Mr. 16 fixture. And to date we still don't do a par 36. We don't do a BI pin. Our Mr. 16 is the only, only one we have.

that's, that's your only like drop in fixture is the Mr. 16 and everything else is integrated Magnolia.

Yep. And we now have the the Magnolia Max and Elm Max where we have a module. We took our Gen3 module from one of our other fixtures and you can actually get up to just short of 700 lumens with it. And it's a, it's a module, it makes it actually a m, integrated fixture. so you can do either. That's one of our new, new products that I introduced at light it up. and it's changeable via remote control. you can, has four different lumen adjustments, modular or ah, swappable optics, all that type of stuff. But let me, let me go back to again. What, what separates redwoods? A couple different things. I mentioned earlier working at Apple and John Deere on a lot of product programs. Redwoods is first and foremost a product focused company. Now people say well every company either provides a product or service. what separates us as a product service company is we come up with products that we don't even know if people want. We're trying to provide the best product. We're trying to come up with something new. I always say if something has been done it's and I can't improve upon it or bring the price down, I'm not going to do it. Like what's the point? I'll do something different. so an example of that I mentioned the Magnolia, our Mr. 16 fixture. So yeah, designed it fairly quickly, had a price point in mind but we always look at what features we can design into that. So Spring loaded, ah designed it. So the Mr. 16 actually goes against the brass, the lip of the brass and we use the brass as a heat sink. did that type of thing, you get more, more output. Just little simple things like that product wise that we build in is what we try to do and add more value, make them easier to install and really differentiate our products help differentiate our pro install partners from the competition.

I think that's important to really pause on for a minute because from an outside perspective you see a fixture and you're like cool, we got another spotlight. Like what am I gonna do with this? Like how much do you charge? You know it's like okay, if you're, that's how you differentiate. But like the fact that like the Mr. 16 is pushed up against the brass and is using that as a heat sink, which means you can drive more output out of it. I mean that's, that's a different differentiating factor. So you really do have to have that conversation. It doesn't can't look at it. And it sells itself.

Yeah, absolutely. And once people understand that, they love it, you know, because, because if you have A fixed socket Mr. M16 or any fixed socket fix fixture where it's inside the fixture, air's an insulator. Right. So that that lamp is literally baking because it's not pushing up against anything. so yeah, little, little simple things like that.

Nice.

All of our drivers are fully potted. Um, that really helps with longevity

And what are most, what what are your, what are the materials you guys use?

So we're all you know, premium non recycled brass. We have no aluminum fixtures. we have one in ground fixture that has an aluminum housing, but that's underground. That's the only one. so all high efficiency Cree LEDs. another thing we do that differentiates us m many things but on the product side is all of our drivers are fully potted. Which means so you've got the you know, silicone based potting material that covers all the electronics on the circuit board on the pcb. that really means something for two things. Or there's two reasons for that, two benefits. One is it helps to dissipate the heat and get it outside the fixture to prolong the life of the driver and the led. Second is it stops moisture from getting on the components which over time is going to oxidize some of those metal components. So it really helps with the warranty rates, helps with the long longevity. and just even our Mr. M16s, you can actually open one up and see that the PCB is fully potted. so every, everything we have is like that. another thing we do is custom optics. One thing I learned. So let me take a step back. It's not hard to make a good light really. You have a current, right? And you're driving a, driving an led. You have a quality LED and then all you really need is a quality optic. That's. Now the differentiators besides that are what, what it's made out of. The IP rating. you know, the, the, the assembly processes, the quality checks, all that type of thing. But, but very, very simple to do it. so we really focus on on, on, on quality products, quality, checks. Another thing we do, that people can't believe until they see it is One of the quality things we do is when, when we come, when, when the product gets here, we actually open up and unbox every single fixture that lights up every single Mr. 16, every lamp, every fixture and we burn them in between 24 and 72 hours depending on the product. so I have a full time team that I page that. That's all, all they do is they're checking the fixtures. We have a bunch of burn in racks with a ton of transformers, use a lot of power. And really what that is, that's our last quality quality check before we ship it out. and then all our products are serialized, uniquely serialized. So our clients get a true warranty date. When when we get an order, we actually scan in all of those unique serial numbers to that order. So say you know, four and a half years from now, an Mr. M16 goes out. We get that serial number from them and we can see when we actually ship that product to give them a true warranty date. true warranty range, not some arbitrary or you know, built date from overseas or wherever.

And what are the warranties?

right now we're at, on our white products we're at five years with the exception of our Mr. M16. When you order it with our Mr. 16 lamp or fixture, because we know it's going to get proper heat dissipation. So you got 10 years on that. and on our color series because those are extremely complicated. I mean there's literally five unique drivers in every fixture, bunch of LEDs, full color. those are three years. That being said, we are going to extend the warranties. where we've been watching the data, we will be extending the warranties most likely, later this year, on, on, on our products. But more to come on that.

Gotcha. Well, I mean so when I used to sell product I would sell it like and I did this, this was last week's show on the triple option. I would have like drop in then integrated and then rgb. And so people would naturally go oh, so like the, the, the it's more money for the rgb. So that's the best one. I'm like, depends on what your definition of best is. There's, there's a lot more components in that RGB thing. So actually the warranty is going to go down. Like if you're, if you're buying for warranty then you could make the argument that like that's not as good because there's just a lot more that can fail. There's just, it's just how, how that product is. So I don't, I don't think it's a huge deal that the, the warranty goes Down. I think that's normal because you're just being upfront, honest that there's, there's more things that can fail in this fixture.

It's much more complex. Much more complex. But that being said, we track one, that's one of the other things we can do with those serial numbers. When we do have a failure, we can go back and look to see if we made any component changes, or see if there was a special run we did manufacturing, wise, and try to track down to root cause and fix. If it's a component issue, fix it. If it's a water intrusion issue, we fix it. so we're, yeah, it's three years right now, but we're doing everything we can to get that up, even though it is complex.

So you guys have been, uh, doing this about six years

So you guys have been, doing this about six years you said, Is that right?

Six and a half years. My computer is going to die. Keep talking. I'm going to plug it in real quick. Sorry.

Okay, so six, seven years. what have you found? Like, I guess, what are your clients telling you? What's their favorite thing about your product? Are they finding new ways to use it? Are they surprising you? Are they giving you ideas to innovate on new products? what's that process been like?

Yeah, sorry, that plug is not working. I may have to, to move for a second. I don't know why that's not working. sorry.

Quick, quick.

repeat.

Yeah, go. Do you need to go plug it in?

Yeah, just, just one sec.

Well, What? Well, well, TJ's gone.

I think it's important to give people options when choosing lighting

I'm going to just kind of talk about my, my triple option because I do think it's, it's important to give people options. and I like that Redwoods, is kind of, I guess probably listening to the feedback of clients and saying, well, you know, they want rgb. There's people that want drop in, there's people that want integrated. So I do like the fact that they're offering those options because when you go in and even as a lighting designer, you think, oh, well, I'm the pro, I've done the research. I know what people want. When you go in and just give them one option, it doesn't, doesn't affect the internal desire. Like most of these homeowners are born with the desire to go get three quotes. So you could actually be the person that gives them three quotes. And you're like, hey, we can fit any budget. If you want to be the guy who drives the, the Maserati the Lambo, whatever. Like we have that. If you want to be like middle of the road, like still really premium line, we've got that. Or if you want to do more basic drop in stuff, we have that as well. Yeah. How do we do? Did you get it plugged in?

I'm good to go, man. yeah, that plug wasn't working. I just used a different one.

Sorry about that.

You've been in business six, seven years now

what I was asking about is talk to me about your experience. You know, you've been in business six, seven years. What are, what's your client experience been like? Do they have any favorite fixtures? Have they surprised you in the way they're using things? Do they have ideas for you to innovate and come up with more, more products? Like what, what's that been like?

Yeah, that's my favorite, One of my favorite parts of doing this is talking, talking with with our clients. we have, as I mentioned, we're product first, so we generally will design things and then kind of get feedback on it, even though it may be way out there. but, but we do, we do a lot of feedback. there's a couple of products that we had where I, I listened to a client. clients, they said they really wanted these products and a couple of them has, have been. We haven't. Luckily we have pretty good track record, but a couple of those have been dogs. So you got to take, take what they say with a grain of salt sometimes. that reminds me of, you know, that, that quote that from Henry Ford. what, what, what he said or.

Which one actually said.

Yeah, which one. Right, the, if I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. in a lot of these cases, you know, people don't know that they want, you know, like our almond series or, or color or, or something else. You kind of have to put it out there, tell them the features of benefits and lead them to it. but we do you, we do get a lot of feedback. I welcome it. Actually. All of my clients, they have my personal cell phone and I get, I get calls here and there, but they don't really abuse. but I, I encourage them with any product ideas or feedback to, you know, call or text me. And we get, we get a lot of that and incorporate it. Some of our best products have been on things that we came up with with slight design changes based upon their feedback.

Yeah.

How much RGB are you guys moving? Are you seeing a lot more demand

How much RGB are you guys moving? Are you seeing a lot More demand for that.

Yeah. So we're on our gen 2. so let me talk a little bit about that. So we've been in the RGB game from the beginning. So we started right after we got the first three products out, started developing our Bonsai color series. We started with our high output Accent light. Started that in 2019, early 2019. me stupidly thought it was going to take about six months to come up with a working prototype to put into production. Ended up taking 19 months and way over budget. And again being product first I laid out some really hard things to do. So one, wanted to make sure that it wasn't like a par 36 diameter. I challenged myself and the team to make it a standard diameter super high output brass fixture. also you know with some of the rgb you have the color bleed on the side where if it like if it's on pink, you know that's blue mixed with red and on the edges sometimes you'll see the, the blue and the red. I wanted none of that. third, because the majority of our of our products are sold to homeowners right? a little bit of commercial but mostly homeowners. And with that the, the majority of the time that these are going to be on, they're going to be on white. So I wanted the white, the tunable white to be just as good if not better than the vibrant rgb colors that came out. So the biggest challenge was the diameter size. It was extremely difficult to get the optic, the shroud, the power output, the spacing of all the LEDs. M. So anyway we got that. we've been selling, we sell a lot of those. we now have a full, full color line, path, light so on and we're on Gen 2 of that product. it is, it is moving. It is moving. I'm surprised. a lot of cases, we in a lot of homes it's not a small install like it's you know in some cases 30, 40 fixtures where game day that you know they want full color Saturday Sunday for their favorite teams or whatever day. but the majority of time they're on that tunable bite, you know 2200 K to 5000 K. So it's been, it's been really really good. we're working on some future additional color products. another what does that thing we did is we're not using our products don't.

What's that tell us what, what are, what's the future?

another thing is that you can use any, yeah, so you can use any transformer, with ours, you can control them from anywhere in the world and you don't need WI fi. That's one of the big differentiators from our technology. the future is, is you know technology is going to continue to improve. Materials and LEDs and driver components are going to continue to improve. So our RGB is just going to get smaller and smaller. I have, I have clients asking you know, well, can you make a an RGB fixture the size of our almond, which is you know, 1.3 inches in diameter by 0.6. And I'm like I, I would love to. The technology is not quite there yet for the output you want, but someday, some days we're at the forefront of that. We keep working with our manufacturer, our key suppliers and and when it's there we'll, we'll, we'll move to it. But just a matter of time think you know these, these products are going to continue to get smaller, higher output, more efficient and that's that and more connected and that, that's where it's going.

Redwoods is working on an AI support chatbot to help customers

Cool man. Well, I appreciate the rundown. Highly recommend you guys check these out or check out redwoods. I think, I swear I remember you, you talking about AI and I'm like wait a minute, I've never heard a manufacturer talk about AI. Is this a way you're going to differentiate yourself too?

Yeah. So we're One of the goals I set for myself this year was everyday GPT, for looking stuff up or integrating processes. We're actually experimenting with using AI to create business dashboards. but one of the things we're going to have by the end of, end of April is ah, we've been working on an AI support chatbot. So you know we get a lot of questions, we get calls, text, emails and the vast majority of them we have the information on our online product guides. So we have very detailed guides that they can go and look up. Mobile friendly but you know, sometimes they don't want to look it up. So we're going to take all that information and more and put it into this. We're already working on it. Put it into this AI chatbot where 247 anyone will be able to pull out their phone or computer, either. And there's multiple ways that you'll be able to do it. They'll be able to send a text to a certain number. They'll be able to go to a dedicated app. They'll be able to go to our support website and put in whatever technical question they want, and hopefully get an answer. The, great thing about it is, any questions it can't answer, it logs. So we'll be able to, you know, on a daily basis go and respond to those so we make it smarter as it goes. so I think it's going to be really beneficial and further, you know, just help our clients, our pro install partners.

Love it, man. I like it. that's one of our big initiatives too. Like, we, we're already using a lot of AI, but we're going to help our clients use it a lot more and stuff like that. So it's, it's. That's awesome, man. Well, anything else, man? Anything before we wrap up, tj, about, redwoods or anything you want to share with the world?

Redwoods Lighting sells only to approved pro install partners

Yeah, last thing. I should have mentioned it earlier, but we, sell only to, approved pro install partners. we don't sell, through distributors. We don't sell direct to consumer. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those, but we, we, we just choose not to go that route. Not that there's anything wrong with it. but there are a couple benefits for, for our partners is, we can control how many we have in a given territory. So if we've got a couple that are relatively large in a large city, we might say no to anyone else because a lot of our clients use our product to differentiate themselves from their competition. so that's, that's one of the benefits. Also really value those. I mean, I talked about relationships. I really value those relationships. so having those, those relationships and, you know, helping them and get their feedback, you know, helping them with their business if they need it. I'm always here to talk to them. yeah, so, so, if anyone's interested in finding out more about redwoods or, or becoming potentially a redwoods, pro install partner, go to our website, Redwoods Lighting. Redwoods with an S lighting dot com. Scroll down to the bottom and click on become a Partner. And there's some information there, a short form, and we'll get back to you asap.

Awesome. Well, tj, it was a pleasure, man. I appreciate you coming on here. I'm, still slightly offended that you waited till I left Utah to come skiing without me. So next time let's just, you know, make sure I'm here, okay?

You. You left. You knew I was coming. You left. So you left me, man. But next time. Next time, we'll hit it up.

Heck, yeah, man. Well, thanks for coming on here. I look forward to getting to know you better. look forward to working with you guys in the future. And, highly, highly recommend you guys check them out. It's Redwoods lighting dot com. Then, click on Become a pro install partner. So, thanks, tj. I really appreciate you, man.

Appreciate you and, everything you're doing for the community.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

All right.

Bye.

Maxon.

Yeah, Give another shout out. See you, Max. And, my Max. Is my Max watching. See you.