Lighting for Profits - Episode 152

This week on the show we welcome Eric Holmgren, known as a music man, Eric transitioned to becoming a lighting specialist before returning to his musical roots. His designs are characterized by meticulous attention to detail and an innovative flair, resulting in the creation of distinctive styles that he brings to the outdoor lighting and audio industry. With a background in music and a creative mindset, Eric has quickly excelled at developing relationships that expand business opportunities in unique ways.

Listen to Episode Here

Watch the episode

Episode Transcript

Welcome to lighting for profits. All light, All light. All light. Powered by Emery Allen. Get rid of your excuses. Your number one source for all things landscape lighting.

That's where the magic can happen. You can 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.

Bullshit kicks your butt. I think the key factor here is trust.

Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

All light. All light. All light. Oh, yeah. Guys, we got an awesome show today we got lined up. If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. We, got an epic show. We got Mister Eric Holmgren coming on. And, Eric was not born into the landscape lighting industry, really, like most of us, but, this guy's got an awesome story, some awesome experiences, and, some great things that we're going learn today, so make sure you stick around. We are the number one. We are the number one landscape lighting show in nashville, Tennessee. You guys give it up for landscape or. Yeah, lighting for profits. I don't even know the name of my own show, so. Really, excited, guys. We're here to educate and motivate, to help you dominate. if you would, and you're just feeling kind today, and you want to do something nice, go give us a five star review, go to Apple, go to Spotify. Do it right now. Put down that. Whatever you're doing, just go do it. It takes just a couple minutes. it's not the easiest thing to do. If I could I just send you a link, but, just go into the app, hit the five stars, write something nice. I'd really, really appreciate it. we're trying to grow our audience as much as possible. And plus, it just feels good. You guys know how it is. It feels good to get five star reviews. So maybe if you give a five star review, you'll get one, from the universe today from one of your clients. And, again, in just a couple minutes, we got mister Eric Holmgren, with landlight pros out of nashville, Tennessee. And, I've known Eric for a few years now. I'm excited to have him on, to share his stories, share his journey, and, there's a lot to be learned from that. I want to give you guys a reminder, secret summit is coming up August 19. It's coming up in a couple months here in park City, Utah. Now, if you want to come to this event, it's a members only event, so you do have to be in landscape lighting secrets. We just announced today on social media that landscape lighting secrets 2.0 is about to come out, and we're announcing all the details and everything at secret summit. So hope to see you there. If you're interested, just go to landscape lighting secrets. com, schedule a strategy session with me. Just click start now, and basically we'll just talk about your business, see where you're at, see where you want to be, and see what that gap looks like. No matter what, you're going to walk away with tons of value on a clear trajectory. And then if you decide, you know what, maybe I do want to know more, then we could talk about our coaching program. But no matter what, it's just a free strategy session. And then, again, if you do, if you do decide to be inside landscape lighting secrets, you're going to want to join before that summit because the legacy members are getting hooked up big time. So make sure you, check that out if you're interested, if you've been on the fence and of course, want to thank, Emory Allen. So, you know this, right? Nothing hurts a quality landscape lighting install quite like flickering bulbs, a yellow fringe around the perimeter of the beam spread, or bulbs that burn out after a few on and off cycles. Don't jeopardize your customers experience by buying a budget bulb. If you want to go out of your way to provide a world class customer experience, choose Emery Allen. At the end of the day, it's what's on the inside that counts. So take advantage of emery Allen's world class customer service and get 10% off your first order. All you have to do is email tomgryallen. com. he will hook you up with the discounted contractor price just mentioned. You heard about him here on lighting for profits. Again, just email tom g@emoryallen. com. if you want the hookup. So, by the way, guys, they got that single source led. It really does make a difference, you know, that you don't have these leds competing and, it just makes it super clear. It's like, you know, going from not wearing glasses to putting your glasses on. It's super clear. So check out their single source leds. Tom G. At emory allen. com dot thank you so much, Emery allen, for your, support over the years.

Systems and simplification can help you scale your lighting business, right

Okay, guys, I'm, gonna share a quick story, and then we've got eric holmgren, landlight pros. the title we came up with was from music man to lighting maestro. I hope I said that right. but, he's both. I mean, he's an artist, right? So he went from being a musical artist to a lighting artist, and now back into music and everything. So it's, super exciting. before we have him on today, I went to chick fil a, which is kind of a normal thing. Like, my Tuesday is my chick fil a day. I always hit the drive through a chick fil a before the podcast. I like it. It's just simple, it's just fast. I know what I'm going to get. and, it's pretty much every Tuesday before the show. So, you know, I'm sitting there and I'm like, dude, how do they do this? Like, the drive through at chick fil a is so fast, it's amazing. Like, if you didn't know it was fast, you would, you would see the line and you would turn around, you know, because it's like, dude, I'm not going to wait that long in that line. But the line goes so fast. So how do they do it? Well, it comes down to two things. Number one, systems and two, simplification. How can systems and simplification simplification help this business move that many and serve that many clients in this short period of time? Right? It's really, remarkable. So think about how simple their process is. Okay? They don't offer that many items. It's chicken, okay? No burgers, no hot dogs, no onion rings, no g roes. Like, it's just chicken, okay? It's super simple, but they provide this amazing experience, and people are lining up to get there every single day. Right? They're not trying to be the cheesecake factory of the world. If you've ever been to cheesecake factory, you know what I'm talking about. Like, they have so many options, it makes you sick. Okay? So chick fil a does a few things, and they do them very, very well. The food is always consistent. Okay, so what can we learn here? Like, what are you doing in your lighting business to streamline your systems? What are you trying to do in your business to offer, simplicity to your clients. Okay. If you really want to scale, you can't offer a ton of different product options. Now, the, the hardcore, you know, like, one sided designers are going to come after me and be like, what? I can't believe what he's preaching right now. But honestly, you don't want to offer all the different manufacturers. You want to find a few spot. Like, you want a spotlight, you want a wash light, you want a path light. You want a few specialty lights, right? Keep it simple. One, well light. Keep it simple. And I'm telling you this based on experience, right? And not to say this is the only way to win, but if you want to scale your business, okay, if you want to be able to build a machine that doesn't rely on you to be everywhere all the time, this is the way to do it. It's through systems and simplification, and you'll be surprised at how good your lighting designs can be even with this simplified approach. Okay? And best of all, your life will not be chaotic. Okay? Maybe you don't win lighting designer of the year 2024, but you also don't have, like, a ton of different styles of spotlights on just one job, right? So keep it simple.

Most situations, you are the bottleneck in your business

Now, let's talk about chick fil a's process a little bit. So, first, you notice when, during busy hours, right, when you pull up, there's multiple people meeting the vehicles, and they're not waiting for the vehicles to come to that one window, that one bottleneck. Okay? Are you the bottleneck in your business? Does everything have to go through you? Are you are the people coming to you? So they've, completely eliminated the bottleneck in this situation. And all other fast food companies still have this bottleneck. It's like they're not paying attention right now. When you get to the person, the person approaches your vehicle, they ask. Their process is simple. It's always the same thing. Can I have a name for the order? Okay. They write down the color of your vehicle, the make or model. They take the order. They confirm the order. They take the payment. I mean, the whole process, if you're just ordering for one or two people, literally takes under two minutes. Okay? Then the next step is it's a separate team. Now is on, like, the food delivery. Okay? Again, now they're eliminating another bottleneck. And what's cool is this same team is not waiting for you to always come to them, at least the one by me. They're, like, approaching you. Like they're getting ahead of the queue. It is quite the well oiled machine. Okay? So think about what you can do in your business to simplify and make sure that you're assigning people to the right roles. Okay? And you're eliminating the bottleneck in all of your systems. Most, you know, the hint here, the key is most situations, you are the bottleneck. All right? So find as many places as possible that you can eliminate, eliminate you from your systems.

Just leaving out a simple step could mean the difference between someone getting frustrated

Now, I want to tie this into another experience I just had the other day. I was in my backyard, and, we're, we're adding some lights to our backyard. And I got my son, he's eleven years old. I was teaching him how to do the lighting shrink connections. And, if you haven't used those, by the way, I highly recommend them. They're just an awesome connector. So I'm teaching Max how to, use the crimp tool, you know, how to strip the wire, how to use the torch, and, and I was like, man, why have I, I've been in the lighting industry since 2007. I've never, like, shown my kids, like, how to do a connection, so it's kind of embarrassing, but, I'm like, yeah, let me show him how to do this stuff. And so at one point, he's holding the torch, you know, he's getting ready to, like, torch the, connectors. And I said, okay, now grab these two connections. And I handed him, I was trying to hand him some wire, and I instantly saw in his eyes confusion. And he's like, well, I could just tell if he was thinking like, well, how am I going to hold more things? I'm already holding the torch. And you want me to use two hands to do this? I don't have three hands. I could just see this in his eyes. And I realized in that moment that I had failed, okay? I'd failed to tell him to put down the torch for the time being. Seems so simple. Like, to me, it's common sense, but he's never done this. So the last thing I told him was to hold the torch. So he's holding the torch, okay? He's following the system that I presented. So how many times in our businesses are people actually following the system that we presented? And we get frustrated with them because they can't figure it out because their common sense is different than our common sense. Right? And so there's a lot of, self accountability here. There's a lot of ownership that we need to take as leaders. And so all I said was, okay, put down the torch and then hold these things, right? So he set it down, and now he could easily hold these wires and these connections that I had asked him to hold, right. It just reminded me that when we're building systems and processes, that we need to make them crystal clear. Okay? We need to make them so simple that an eleven year old can do it. An eleven year old who does has no experience, right? Imagine if your systems and your procedures were so clear that an eleven year old with no experience could do it just by reading the list and following the instructions, right? And just remember that your common sense is not the same as everyone else. Okay? You can't assume that somebody is already going to know how to do something. And if they were you, if they were like you, they would own their own business, too. They wouldn't be working for you, right? So, you know, in this experience, just leaving out a simple step, like put down the torch, could mean the difference between someone getting frustrated with their role. Maybe he gets frustrated, maybe they don't do their job right because they're trying to do too many things at once. Or maybe they even get hurt, right? And your business, this is key. Your business will never outgrow your leadership. So how good are you at leading? How good are you at teaching? Okay, if you're constantly blaming others because they can't figure it out, well, then you better get used to it. You better get used to, blaming others, complaining and dealing with these types of people, right? Or not. Like, you could change it. Okay? The change starts with you. So stop expecting others to be you and start helping others achieve their full potential. When you're building your standard operating procedures, your sops, make sure to not leave out steps, okay? And especially if you've been doing something for a while, you. You consolidate steps one through ten into one step, because there's just all these automatics, there's these assumed things. There's these things that, for you, really are just common sense, right? But remember, there was a time where it wasn't common sense for you that steps one through ten really were steps one through ten. So the best way to test your sops is to get a greenie, get someone who has no experience, get your eleven year old son to go through the steps, right? And if they get that confused look on their face, you know, you got to rewrite the steps. Okay? If they're able to go through it and complete the task without asking any questions, then you've got a pretty badass sop, okay? So, you know the chick fil a drive thru, it's got to be every, Tuesday. That's where, if you want to find me, Lehigh. Right off the, highway there. I'll be there every, every Tuesday, in the drive thru. It's got to be the fastest fast food experience anywhere. Right? And remember, it's running by a bunch of teenagers, okay? And, they, they don't necessarily look like the smartest bunch, okay? And it's not because of the people why your business is failing, it's because of your systems. Okay?

So the next time you get frustrated with a team member, take a step back

So the next time you get frustrated with a team member, take a step back, see where the system is broken. Chances are it's something simple, right? And it's most likely not them. It's you. Okay? And when I say it's you, I'm speaking to me as well. Right? So sorry. Not sorry. Add or change the steps to simplify. Just do one step at a time. You know? I used to get so overwhelmed when people would tell me to build my systems and sops and all this stuff. You're not going to do this. You're not going to build your entire operating manual in a, in a day, right? It takes time. So just start with one. Okay? Just add a little bit every single day and you'll be surprised how much further you are just one month from now, six months from now, one year from now, how much can actually get done. So that's my message of the day. I want to encourage you guys to take, action on that and, learn from your experiences. Learn from like, you know, I learned a lot in that drive through today. I learned a lot from my son the other day. So there's, always something to be improving. Always something to be learning.

Eric Holmgren is the newest guest on the podcast

Alright, guys, it's time. I'm super stoked to have this guest on. Let's get the music going and get him in the show. Welcome to the show, Mister Eric Holmgren.

I'm gonna be somebody. Oh, hey guys. What's going on?

There you are just always playing the guitar randomly at, computers. That's awesome, man. It sounds pretty good.

But that is a great song to use and as an example, because, I mean, that is kind of the whole point of this entire system is we're all trying to be somebody.

Love it.

And I love the second. I love the second line of that too, because it's, just trying to, you know, trying to break those chains. And that's exactly what this system is all about. Which is why I love what you do. Because it's. It's catching the entrepreneurial bug, if you will, but doing it successfully. And it's breaking those chains and not just having a business. That's a side thing that you do that makes you extra money and actually becoming your own thing. And then taking that availability to expand it and let other people be a part of that thing and you can change their lives at the same time because that's really what it's all about.

Love it, man. Well, I'm excited to have you on. We've known each other for a few years now, and it's just a matter of time. Like, dude, why have we not had Eric on? So I'm excited to have you on, and find out who Eric Holmgren homegren is, who you want to be.

Let's talk about how you got into the landscape lighting industry

Right. if you would maybe just kind of, let's go back in time a little bit and start before you were even in the landscape lighting industry, like, what you were doing, how that was going, and how, you know, you got into lighting industry, not because you were like, man, I love landscape lighting. I've always wanted to be a land lighter. Like, no, you know, you, you were doing something else. So let's talk about that and then how you got into the industry.

Okay, so, yeah, so we're in the Nashville area, obviously. and, I moved here for the music industry in 2008, and I did it for twelve, about twelve years, full time. So I come from the music world, spent, a lot of time touring, spent a lot of time playing. I've played thousands and thousands of shows in that timeline. I, was doing, you know, over 200 dates a year. And then 20, 18 came around. And my wife and I had moved into this house that we're in now. And, she got pregnant. And she was working at the time as a, she was working as a bartender at legends down on Broadway in Nashville. So if you've ever been to Nashville, you probably know that name.

That's awesome.

That strip is nuts. So she was doing that, making good money, and then she got pregnant. And then we had the conversation and she was like, I really want to stay home. I want to be able to homeschool our son. I want to be a stay at home mother. And I want to change my role and not be involved in this nightlife thing, which is just not going to work for a child, having a child anyway. So I said, okay. So, I was playing as a musician at the time, which means I was doing fine, but I was not doing fine enough for the lifestyle that we had to then become one income. So I had to reinvent the wheel and started, a handyman company, if you will. I, I'm somewhat inept in common sense these days, and I have found that I have a knack for just learning how to do handyman kind of things. Like, I know how to do, you know, painting, reconstruction stuff, plumbing, electrical, all that kind of stuff. I just had a lot of background and knowledge, and it's always something that fascinated me. I just, like, I like being hands on and doing my own stuff. So we did that. And then I got a call from a couple of my neighbors, and they're like, hey, can you redo our landscape lights? And I was like, maybe don't know anything about it, but I'll take a look at it. And so I did it, did some research, realized that it was, you know, wasn't honestly that difficult. So if you're on the fence about that, like, it is not that difficult. It's pretty simplified if you get down to it. And so I did them, and I was like, okay, this isn't so bad. I kind of like this. And I had always enjoyed the look of the difference of a house that did or didn't have lighting because it is significantly different. So I just started doing the research, and I was like, there might be something to this. So I started an actual company that derived itself into landscape lighting, which eventually obviously added on the audio application, too, because I came from the music world. But, I did it by myself for a few years, and then, or a couple of years, and then Covid hit, and then the music industry went no more, for a while. So I had no income coming in that way, so I kind of had to drop all my eggs into a different basket. And I was already starting this. So when I did that, it just started growing. Covid was a really great thing that happened to this industry, ironically, and another, you know, and a lot of service industry applications. So, I took it and ran with it and then got, with you, in 2021. And just kind of opened my eyes because at that point, I was the guy running the business, the guy doing the installs, the guy who had a helper on his side that he was paying under the table, doing nothing by the book that I should have been, not any way, shape or form. And I realized that if I kept at that rate, I was going to burn out very quick. Because I came from two years worth of running the business every week, going out and playing shows and on the road every weekend. I was working over 100 hours a week, killing myself to then, you know, music industry get shut down. So this is the only thing I have to do. Then I realize that I have all this extra time, and now it's like, okay, well, what can I actually do with this? So I met one of the guys at, a thing at a lighting, convention that I went to, and they brought up your name, and then we had our conversation, and I will tell you guys that are listening, I was very, very close to on the fence, and Ryan may or may not remember that conversation, but, like, he pushed me a little bit, and I was so, so close to not pulling the trigger because I honestly didn't have the money. but the conversation that went into that was that it was a light bulb, that it went off in my head. And I was like, if I'm going to truly build a business, then I don't not have the money. So I pulled the trigger, dropped it onto a credit card, figured it out. And the funny thing is, the next job that I sold was a color system, and I was going to sell that job at 75 or $7,800, I think it was. And I sold it for 13 and a half overnight from signing that contract because I changed the numbers. And you were like, no, you got to up your price. So I did. I upped it immediately, and I dropped an extra, like $5,000 in my pocket right there, and, you know, helped take care of that bill that I thought I had no way to pay for right there.

That's awesome. That's killer.

It just kind of fell right into my lap. And then, obviously, a lot has changed since then, too. But, yeah, that's kind of what got me into it and got me into this program and kind of drove it, drove it home that it was a, you know, it was a. It was a necessary piece of it, 100%.

Most people don't reach out for help if they're already doing good

That's cool. Well, you know, you mentioned, like, not being able to afford it, it's. If I feel like it's a common occurrence because most people don't reach out. Most people don't, like, go to join something and try to ask for help if they're already doing good. You know, it's like someone, Like, they're just not coachable at that moment. You know, most people. There are. There are some people, right? But most people are in that same position. They want help, they need help. And then they're like, but I just can't afford it. And it's the people that succeed as entrepreneurs are willing to take those risks. You know, they're willing to spend money on advertising, they're willing to spend money to make money. And the people who aren't, it's not that they can't be successful it just takes a lot more time. It just takes a lot more time. So that's pretty cool.

And. And I'm a shiny object guy like you, so I don't want to wait.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Your sales have gone through the roof. You've hired people. Tell us a little bit about that journey

Well, it's. It's been really cool to see your progress, and and maybe we can talk a little bit about your journey in the lighting world, because you've had your ups and downs, too. You've had those moments where you're like, holy cow, dude, I just raised my price. I'm closing deals like crazy. Your sales have gone through the roof. You've hired people. Tell us a little bit about that journey, and then maybe some ups and downs of that as well.

Yeah, there's been a lot of that. So, that's very true. So, you know, we blew through that. You know, 2021 was there. so a little bit of recap. When I set up with the system, I was doing, you know, maybe, about 150,000 a year in sales, not, profit sales. So let's think about that. so I was doing, like, 150,000 when I came into this in 2021, going from 21 to 22. so 2021 taxes, if you will. That year, we doubled our numbers. So we went from 150 to about 230. Then 2022 season hit, and that's when I really started kicking off. Now, there's. There's an up and a down to that. So we went from doing 230,000 to doing 760,000 from one year to the next. The problem that came in with that was I got chaotic with things. And then ultimately, you know, like, I grew to the point where, you know, I had a guy who was working part time in sales applications doing stuff, and then I had four installers in the mix just burning through this stuff. The downfall with that was, one, quality control became a little bit of a problem. but two, I also realized that I wasn't hiring people properly. I was just getting who I could find to hire. And it caused a lot of problems in my overhead and my cash flow, because what we were doing was not dialed in very well. These guys were not efficient. you know, and so the. So we got to the beginning of 2023. A couple of them disappeared on their own. I got rid of one of them, and then we got a couple more in the mix. We ran through 2023, and then the fall season of 2023 hits, which is literally just last year. I fired everyone. Everyone. It was back to a one man show because there was no structure like you just talked about. So I'm really, really glad you mentioned that. Before we came into this, there was no systems, no structure. There was nothing in place for these guys to have the quality control and to know that you had a system in place that they could follow, and they weren't cutting it. So. And one of. One of those guys was with me for almost two years, and I let everybody go, and I started from the ground up, coming into the beginning of 2024. 2024 has hit. We've restructured all that stuff. I have revamped that. You know, I just had a meeting this morning. We're bringing on an operations manager, so, we're drastically rebuilding in a more structured manner. And I'm playing the opposite role that I was before because I came into this thinking, okay, now I know how to run a business well. As I grow, I need to look like I'm bigger than I am. And in my mind, I thought, the more people I have working for me, because what does everybody always ask when they. When you talk to them about a company? They go, well, how many employees do you have thinking it's going to make a difference? If you tell them it's a bigger number, they're going to be more impressed by you. It doesn't matter how many employees you have. It matters what your numbers are at the end of the day and what your overhead versus your profits are. So I can tell you that this year, the amount of people that are working for me is drastically lower, but the amount of profits that we're doing in the quality control and the turnover is drastically higher. So my big push on that, for anybody that's listening, would be, don't overindulge yourself in trying to get too many people to fill that install role because you think you're getting busy and you think, I need to just slap people in there because I want to look good and I want to look better for these clients that I'm talking to, make sure the numbers make sense, find the guys that can really knock it out of the park, because I can tell you, I've got one guy right now that does the same amount of work that I had for three people before. So I'm literally, you know, like, I was paying those three people $62 an hour in total. I've got one guy. Yes, I pay him much better than them, but the reality is, like, he's getting paid better, but it's still saving me, a ton of money because he's doing the same amount of work that they were doing.

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that and being vulnerable, I think it's a common. I mean, I remember being there. I remember doing similar things. Sometimes. Sometimes it was me firing people. Sometimes it was me. Like, wait, they didn't show up. Like, they just ghosted me. Right? And the common thing. The common denominator here is entrepreneurs. Just naturally, we're not good leaders. Like, we're not good managers. We're good leaders. We're not necessarily good managers. So even if you. I mean, your cells. Congratulations, by the way. I mean, freaking skyrocket, right? Then you start installing, but then it's like, well, who's managing these people? So the thing, I love that you mentioned an operations manager, because there are people that love to do things that we hate to do that are good at things that we're bad at, and they're operations managers. Like, there's people that can help put in. Like, even if you have a system, it, it doesn't mean that it's working. Right. It doesn't mean that. So, like, who's holding them accountable and who's rewarding them and. And taking things away if they don't? Like, there's no accountability. Right? And so when you. When, as an entrepreneur, it's hard, and the only way to learn some of this stuff is experience it. And now you kind of know, like, okay, well, that worked really well, but. But then that caused this problem. So next time, I need to avoid that or.

Eric Holmgren performed at a Nashville bar last year

Or figure out a way around that before we get to that point. So. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that.

Yeah, absolutely.

last year, so we. Last year was, we had our first. It was our first actual, like, secret, summit event, where it was our members only event, and we did it in Nashville, and I called you, and I was like, oh, man. Eric plays the guitar. I've never heard you. I mean, I had heard your YouTube, which, by the way, you guys, go look up Eric on YouTube. There's a song called jacked up pickup. Just, put in Eric Holmgren and YouTube, I think. But that show or that. That song is, like, a radio song. Like, dude. And I'm like, you're, you know me. Like, I don't know music very well. I don't know any lyrics to any songs. I'm definitely, like, the trendy guy. That song is a freaking radio song. Like, it deserves. It needs to be on the radio immediately. but I called you, and I was like, hey, do you think, like, it would be really cool? Like, and I think someone actually requested it from the group. They're like, oh, is Eric gonna play? And I was like, dude, that's a good idea. So I called you, I said, hey, eric, would you play?

And you're like, I think somebody commented on one of the posts on the Facebook group, and they were like, hey, we're gonna be in Nashville. Is Eric playing?

Yeah, it was. And I was like, dude, that's a. That's a solid idea. So I call you, I'm like, can you, like, bring your guitar? And you're like, no, I can do better than that. I can. I can play. I'll jump. I'll jump on a stage on Broadway at AJ's. And I'm like, you jump out, you jump on a stage. What? Like, I don't even know what that means. And that was the coolest thing ever, dude. Like, we go downtown Broadway, and I'd never heard you perform live. I'd seen your YouTube, but, you know, maybe it's AI. Maybe. Maybe you don't know how to sing. Like, maybe it's a.

Maybe I am an AI.

Yeah. And that was. I mean, that was the coolest thing, dude, you jumped up on there. You owned that stage. You. You. You set the audience to a new level. Like, the. Everyone was having fun, drinking, all that stuff. But that bar transformed when you went up there and played your set. You played four or five songs, and you were way better than any performer in that bar. We bar hopped. We went down to all the. Like, you were the best one there. Like, that was passion, dude. Like, you. You were in your happy place.

Talk about your passion for music, for lighting. How does that contribute to your success

Talk about that. Talk about your passion for music, for lighting. Like, how does that contribute to your success?

So, when I transitioned, I mean, the idea was that I wanted to build an investment, because the reality was I was coming from an industry where I knew, like, I can't make money unless I'm physically working, you know? And there's. There's a limitation to that. If you don't get on a level where, you know, you can get a record deal and you could have, you know, you can make millions. Not saying you can't do that, being independent, but it's not as common. the reality is that, you know, I wanted something that was a residual investment when I started this all along, and I really wanted to find something that I could be passionate about that still gave me that creative edge. And doing lighting design is very, very artistic. It gives you, you know, m much like music where people write it for a reason, is it gives you a feeling. And the goal with this process is we're always trying to accomplish a feeling with our customers. You know, you want. You want to give them something that just knocks them out of this world when they get that reveal point and they're like, oh, my God, this is amazing. You know, you want them to feel the same way that they feel when they hear that same song they remember from high school that just kind of transforms their mind. So, yeah, it kind of went hand in hand because I knew I needed to do something creative. I don't really know how to do anything else. I don't feel comfortable doing anything else. And, you know, and coming from the music world and being an entertainer, I also knew that it was going to be very easy for me to network, with people and just talk to people because I was used to talking to people, whether there's a microphone in front of me or not. You know, I had a way with just kind of crafting words and, you know, putting things together and making people feel a certain way off of that. So I was like, well, what if I can take that same interpretation and do it with this? But now I get to paint a picture as well as, you know, creating a listening fixture, if you will.

Yeah, well, I think it's cool. Like, like I said, like, I saw this. I saw you, like, shift gears. Like, you know, you're just kind of like one of us, and then you got on that stage, and then it was like superhero, you know?

Yeah. I kind of attribute it to being, like, acting almost, for me, because I like, if I'm not on stage or if I'm at home, realistically, I'm a very introvert type person. Like, I'm not, I'm not a super, super outgoing. So when I dove into doing this business, it was the same thing. Like, I needed to treat it that way because I'm not very outgoing. Like, if you put me in a crowd, I'm very socially awkward. I, you know, it's one of those things. It's one of those anxiety feelings. Like, I'd rather be on a stage than in a crowd watching a stage any day. I don't like the feeling. Being in a crowd, it's very uncomfortable. You kind of get that weird, sense of, like, people staring at you and things like that, versus when, you know, you're on the stage or you're in that element, then you command that position and you control it and you direct it. So I wanted to take my sales approach with doing this and do the same thing with it to be able to control that and direct these designs and what we did and basically have something that I could manipulate in a way, so that it was allowed to be on my terms, but with the interaction of the response out of the customer, which is the same thing as the response out of a crowd on what you do when you're on that stage.

I love it. I hope people can take from this that it's okay. Like, it's not that you're being someone different, you're not being true who you are, like, but you gotta shift gears. You gotta find that 6th gear, 7th gear. Like, turn into that alter ego when you're doing sales, you gotta get them excited. You're an entertainer. You gotta, like, yeah, the guy before you was doing fine. It was just, you know, whatever. If I said, like, if me and you and let's say, let's say I was musically talented, if I could even play the guitar, but it was like, here's the notes, here's the guitar, here's the setup, here's the words. Just go sing. Like, there's a difference, there's a complete difference between the guy before and then when you went up there and smashed it. So it's like, if people can understand that and take that sales approach and understand that you're providing an experience here. If you just. If I give you the script. Yep, that's not enough. Like, you can't just say these words. You have to get energy. You have to shift gears. You have to show up in a different headspace to make sure you understand this is, this is an entertainment game. We're trying to entertain these people. You're trying to get them excited.

And I have, like, I relate what I've done to what I do a lot with these customers. I can't tell you how many people we get into conversations, and then they find out that I'm a musician in the process of doing that sales pitch to them. And a lot of times that's literally what makes the sale, is because you create the trusted rapport with that, and then you're like, oh, yeah, go check, you know, go listen to my stuff and stream it on Alexa and all this kind of stuff. And now, now they start understanding, they really get to dial into my world a little bit, and I'm opening up to that immediately. So now there's that trust, you know, trust factor that falls into that.

A lot of people are afraid to ask about their clients

And I remember, I want to say it was probably a year or two ago, you had somebody on here that was talking about that factor of, like, getting in with customers and really understanding about them and their lives and building that trust factor. Sometimes even before you have the conversation about what their design is to where they're ready to hand you a paycheck before they even know what you're doing, because they trust you that much.

Yeah, I love it. And it's crazy. A lot of people are afraid to ask about their clients. And the people I've talked to, I think they're afraid of, like, well, if I ask them what they do, and then they tell me that they're a heart surgeon, that then I'm, Then they think I'm going to take all their m money or something, I was like, no, no. People love to talk about themselves. And the more they talk about themselves, the more they like you. They're like, man, he was just so great. And, like, you don't have to say anything. And they're like, he was great because they talked about themselves. So it's totally.

Yeah, I mean, and when you, if you do run into somebody that is a heart surgeon, I mean, to be honest, I actually did, I, we did a project for the guy who did Steve jobs transplant surgery. So, I mean, you want to talk about high end surgeons. you know, I mean, he's one of the top on the planet. So, But having conversations with them, when I found that out, it's great, because then it's like, okay, you treat them like a normal person, and they're going to, they're going to appreciate it more than you coming in and being all standoffish and awkward because you think you guys are on a different level. Don't treat it that way. You know, I mean, you. And I tell every customer I meet with, I'm like, listen, it doesn't matter what size this project is. I don't care how little, how big it is. I'm going to treat everybody with the same process, and I'm going to treat everybody on the same level. I don't care if we're doing a $50,000 design or we're doing a, $3,500 design. They're all going to get the same treatment. They're all going to get the same options.

Love it.

Because you have to have that consistency there. And a lot of times, the people that are on that higher end of the scale appreciate that because a lot of people don't do that to them.

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Treat them differently.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the time when someone joined landscape lighting secrets

Well, I want to talk about something. Switch gears a little bit. This, this was so cool what you did when people join landscape lighting secrets at first, you know, there was only one person and then five and then twelve, and then now we've got a pretty good following. But now it's kind of like we do a post, right? We do a post and we say welcome and we announce their name and then where they're at so people can be like, wait, that's in my city, that's in my state. And a lot of people get a lot of anxiety around this. Some people are totally fine with it. But let's talk about the time when someone joined landscape lighting secrets. And I think it, I think it was the first one. after, after you. That was in Nashville. Like they were in Nashville. We announced them. We seen that. How did you feel at the time when you were, you were the only Nashville guy to now then seeing that.

Post stress level goes up. And I know that, I know that for everybody. Like, if you see somebody in your area, you're going to have that little tick of oh shit. And every time, because even, even today, like every time somebody gets posted, and I know a lot of people probably do this, every time some new member gets posted, you immediately get that little stress factor and then you look down to see where they're located and see where that competition comes in.

Yeah.

So I think that's hilarious because it did happen to me and that was my reaction. And then, I ended up meeting, the guy who ran that company. And ultimately we met because we were having a conversation about marketing. I knew he was doing something in the same realm as what I was working with and we had a discussion.

About it, which, by the way, I actually think I remember a question from him in the group. And even though you had anxiety and stress about competition, I'm pretty sure you reached out and said, hey, I'm in Nashville too. If you need anything, let me know. Which I was like, I do. That's some, that's some big boy conversation, right there. A lot of people would not be willing to do that.

I did, and we did meet and we had a conversation about that and, just kind of, you know, went with it and, realized that our markets were somewhat the same, but maybe not directly the same. They were doing, a little bit of a different system than we were as far as approach. And then, and then we ended up meeting a second time because his daughter was running all of their digital ads and social ads and everything like that. And she grabbed a bunch of stock photos and they started running Facebook ads, and, one of my guys brought it to my attention. They were grabbing photos off of a job that we had done south of Nashville and using it to advertise their company. And so we had to run a cease and desist on him. And he was super now, like, and I say this very, very lightheartedly, he was super embarrassed about it. So, I don't want that to be confused any way, other than that it was purely an accident. But I think it's funny to where it came, because what happened was they got into their business, about a year, year and a half, and then he had it set up to where he had some family that was doing the actual day to day operations, and they chose not to continue with it, and they left and they moved out of state. So a little bit of time goes by, and then he reaches back out to me and he says, hey, so we have this company, and we don't really know what to do with it. I don't like, I don't have the means to just set something up with it. So are you interested in maybe talking about what we could do to partner together with this? And I said, absolutely. So, we worked at a deal where we were doing kind of a backdoor acquisition type of thing, where they were porting us the leads, and then I was giving him a small commission as we would contract them, which was kind of helping him feed into some of the investment that he had put into the company, because he wasn't getting much out of it anymore. And this went on for about eight months. And then about two months ago, he came to me and he goes, I just don't want to do this anymore. So I bought him. We came up with a number that worked. It was a great deal for me. And I now own music city outdoor lighting, and I think it is a ridiculously marketable name for the area that I live in. So, we are going to go through a rebranding process moving forward here. It's going to take a little bit of time, but, landlight pros will be disappearing and music City will be taking over.

Dude, that is so cool, man.

And because of that, they had a listing in downtown Franklin, south of nashville, which is literally the most affluent. To give you an idea, the mean household, income in, Franklin. No, I'm sorry, not household income. The mean property value in Franklin, Tennessee, is $1.5 million. Mean, we're not talking just a couple neighborhoods. Like the average cost of a house in that town is $1.5 million.

That's pretty decent.

so now I have a listing there and a listing north of Nashville. So we are going to cover the market better than anybody in our territory now because we now have two locations to work with.

Love it, man. Congrats. Music city outdoor lighting. It's such a cool story because you go from anxiety and like, what's going to happen to sending a seasoned desist to be like, dude, why did he.

Right?

And, and you know, I, I know the guy too. He super good guy. That was unintentional, but still it happened. So you, you could, easily at that point be like, oh my gosh, competition. Da da da. and you just kept moving forward, you know, Brian's on here. He said competition to collaboration. Competition truly happens at the bottom, collaboration happens at the top. I think so many people are missing out on these opportunities. Instead of complaining about the new guy in your area, what if there's an opportunity? What if they get worn out after six months? We've had a lot of people. That's, that happens. Okay. Not every business, I don't know if you guys know this, but not every business in the world lasts longer than twelve months, five years. Like, people try things, they don't always work out.

What is the statistic? It's like, it's like 80 something percent don't, don't succeed past five years.

Don't make it to five years. Yeah. So like maybe you should offer some collaboration by, hey, maybe I can help you. Right? Because you never know. And now you just scored yourself a really good deal on a lighting business that's going to give you some huge opportunity. So.

Absolutely.

That is just, I love it so much. I hope somebody in their market does something similar.

And I love, I love that it's come full circle that I come from the music world to then getting into this world to then coming back and saying, now I have a company that is labeled Music City Outdoor lighting.

Eric is the owner of Music City Outdoor line

I know.

So it's, it's like a full, it's like a full circle application and it's this, it's really, really been, it's been fun in that aspect. It's been, I mean, it's been, it's been a bit of a crazy year for me as far as expenses and transitions and all kinds of things. I just had all kinds of stuff going on. But, nonetheless, it is exciting. and I do see a massive growth potential with it.

I could see, I can already see a Facebook ad of you you know, playing the guitar and then like, oh, oh, hey, how are you? Eric, owner of Music City Outdoor line. In fact, I'm a musician here and also the, the founder of this company, whatever, you know.

Yeah, that's already in the plans where, I mean, like, the girl that does my marketing stuff, we had that conversation, and she said she made, she jokingly made a comment that she was like, you know, like, you know, doing a crazy ad with you playing some taylor swift music or something like that. And I was like, don't tempt me. I will do stuff for advertising. I do not, I love, I don't care. It may come out that way.

That's so good. well, that's such a cool story. Congrats on it. I can't wait to see what you do with the brand and, all that.

Ask about referral partners and how to grow your business

another thing I want to, jump to is ask about referral partners. So I'll never stop talking about pricing. I'll never stop talking about referral partners. It's like one of the biggest topics. It's one of the best ways I grew my business. If you look at any successful outdoor lighting company, they, all have a very strong arm with referral partners. A lot of people struggle with it. A lot of people just kind of, they'll, they'll call on a couple people and don't get much traction with it. how, what have you, what has been your secret? Like, how have you been able to make that and such an important part of your business?

So there's a couple different formats to look at with that. Number one is you need to realize that there are a lot of companies out there that are on the same types of jobs that you want to be on, and you have to take that from a structured approach. So we have a lot of success in the pool industry. Everybody knows that. That's kind of what I've gravitated towards. but that's not where it stops. I've got success in other industries as well. But I would say number one step is put a spreadsheet together. Go make a list of everybody in your area that are pool contractors, landscapers, custom home builders, landscape architects, interior designers. Put a spreadsheet together, get all that contact information together, and then start going through that list, because you don't realize how many people are out there. And you're exactly right. They're going to reach out to four or five people, and then they're going to feel like it's not working. And then they just abandoned it. And then they're sitting there wondering why the leads aren't coming in. And we all know that that's a reality right now, because the industry, or, the market in general, not just our industry, a lot of service industries, is changing because we are getting out of that post Covid free money category, and things are starting to take that reign back. So you got to reinvent the wheel. And much like you guys had success because you hit right in, you know, a recession time. And I think the testament to success in your world was that you built those referral relationships. You were able to dial into that right clientele. How I've approached that is, and I see guys comment and post about this on the group a lot, and you got to get over the idea of being afraid to ask. You just got to go out there. And I can tell you the number one successful way that I have with this is every time I talk to these guys, I bring it up, up front. I don't sugarcoat it, I don't leave it in the back end is I lead in with the idea of, hey, you want me to show me. You want me to show you how I can make you money on your next few projects? As we get into this, and they go, what do you mean? And I go, well, you want to sit down and talk about that? Let me take you to lunch. Let's put this together. And then you just lay it out for them, and you show them how you can become a tool for them. You are not there to piggyback on them, even though in a grander scheme of things, that may be what you're doing, but you're really not, because you're working with what's already an established marketing machine, and you're bringing a tool to that entity. So you're expanding their business, you're expanding their offers that they give to people, and they get paid for it. So, like, it's. It's win after win after win, and then they're getting money in their pocket on top of it.

Yeah, I love it.

And you build it up in that format to where they're like, oh, my God, I can't lose with this.

You know, when you were talking about, you know, making the list and calling more than four people and stuff like that, I had this vision. I remember seeing someone who's like a big youtuber. I can't remember who it was, but I mean, big time YouTuber. And they showed their. Their graph of views and downloads or with subscribers. I don't even remember but, like, forever for like, you know, a couple years, it was like, like my YouTube channel. I was like 60 views each video or something like that. And it was just small, small, small. And then something happened and it went up and then all said it just spiked and it just goes crazy. Right? And most people are not willing to be. They're either not willing to be or they run out of money. And so they're not in the game long enough to hit that spike. They're not in the game long enough to get that referral partner that gives them a $50,000 job, $100,000 job, a $500,000 job, whatever it is, and multiple jobs throughout the year. So kudos to you for, like, staying, sticking with it.

You should be continually calling those people and following up until they sell

is there anything that you did other than just, like, determination and not giving up? Like.

persistency? I mean, I can tell you there was a number of them that it took me six months or more to even get in touch with somebody or for somebody to give me a call back. you know, people think they call a time or two, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, you know, we're done. And they just didn't return my calls. No, screw that. Just treat it like you treat a customer. Like, how many times you gonna call a customer if you know that that's still open ended? Which is another point. Like, you should be continually calling those people and following up until they sell, you know, until they tell you no, we're not doing it.

Yep.

Then you can put them on a backlog list. But if they don't tell you no, keep calling.

Love it.

Just like with these guys, if they don't tell you no or you don't get a response, just keep calling.

Love it.

It's old school technology. It's putting the pavement, you know, pounding the pavement. It's. It's getting out and doing that, you know, that, that generic board of door sales aspect, because that's literally what it is. You're cold calling these people. And then I think one of the things that you had in your training thing, which was really good standout, was, when you call in and you ask, try to get in touch with them and you start dialing through that. Make sure that first time that you call, you ask them. When they tell you who the right person is that you're supposed to be talking to, you say, okay, and what is that person's name again? So that when they don't call you back, the next time you call them, you just say, hey, is so and so available. Can I get transferred to them now? It sounds like you already had conversations with them. You bypass that, that gate that's up front, and you. You go straight to the person that you needed to be with in the first place.

Yeah. Awesome, man. Very cool.

You've had a lot of success with referral partners

along the lines of referral partners, you've had a lot of success with that. But I remember one time you telling the group about how you became a referral partner, yourself. Because, you know, it's kind of like, man, wait, we're paying these people. Like, all they have to do is send a text with a name and a number and intro. We're going to pay them that much money? It's like, heck yeah, we are. Because there's no risk. Like, this isn't like paying money to advertising that we don't know how well it will work. Like, it's a guarantee. It's like a. It's a commission, not a guess.

How did you become a referral partner for someone that you're working with now

Now, how did you become a referral partner for someone that you, you're working with now?

So, that comes into the category of think outside the box. And we had this discussion at the summit last year that we did when everybody was bringing in their $10,000 ideas, and it was like, what can you do to make extra money? And a little before that, I had had that conversation, with myself, I guess you would say, when that was brought up was around the same time that I got a phone call from a commercial developer. And, you know, because we're listed on Google and whatnot as a, you know, an outdoor lighting expert, if you will. So, there's no category for landscape lighting, as we all know, which is a pain in the butt when it comes to Google. But, so they reached out to me, and he was like, we're looking for some help with some parking lot pole lights. And I was like, okay, so you need some replaced, or what is it? And he was like, no, we, have some projects that we need to do, new installation on there. And I was like, okay, so here's the thing. Much like all of you guys, when you get a call like that, if it's something that you don't deal with or you're not familiar with, a lot of times you say, yeah, it's not really what we do, I'm sorry. Maybe try calling this person or that person, but put yourself in the seat of the pool contractor or the home builder. When somebody calls them and they say, hey, can we get this done? Do they turn around and say, yeah, we don't really do that stuff. Why don't you go and call this person? No, they work with the system that you built with them by talking to them. So I said, why don't we reverse that scenario? Because this guy just called me, and I had gotten calls like that previously, and I said, you know what? I got you let me make a couple phone calls. I'll put some stuff together. So I called my guy, who's an electrician that I deal with that helps me on certain applications of things. And I said, hey, are you involved in this world? And he goes, yeah, I've got a guy that does, all the ditching and the poll work for a lot of projects that I do with these new build smaller, communities and stuff like that. And so I said, okay, you guys want to, you guys want in on this? And they were like, yeah. So we turned it and burned it. And we've done a few projects since then, and I can tell you that, like, one of them was about $350,000, and that equated to them doing the work, me subcontracting, just like the other guys would subcontract you. And then I simply did what they would do. And what we would pay them is instead of paying out the 10% to them at the end, I ran it through my business. So now I've really inflated my, you know, my cash flow on paper, which makes the business look better, and then I take 10% of the profits like I would to the other system, and I just basically reverse engineered the entire process. And 20, 24, I have made about $40,000 off of that in profit so far.

That's crazy. That's awesome. Yeah. That's honestly the definition of leverage. You know? Like, yes, you're doing something, but you're not doing the work, you're not doing the heart. You're just, like, a connector at that point. you're, you know, as entrepreneurs, we're problem solvers. The better you are at solving problems, the better you are at being an entrepreneur. That's, that's a, that's a problem. It's a cash problem. Right. problems with team members, problems with clients, like advertising, all these different things. So, it's awesome. I mean, it's so cool. That's why I, one of the reasons I love this group is, like, you know, we, we have a path for people. We have concepts we teach. But, like, I never invented the reverse, referral, partner program thing or whatever that you did. Like, you just take a concept and make it work for something else. Use leverage, make some money. So there. There's a lot of opportunity, you guys, out there. That's just one example in every market where you can also be a referral partner. And that helps subsequently, if leads are slow or whatever it is, it's going to help your cash flow situation.

Exactly. Yeah. And that's what I liked about it, is much like the idea of utilizing, maintenance contracts and things like that. It's a great system to have a back end, to be able to pad your account. And in essence, rather than needing to use a line of credit from a bank or something like that, if you have scenarios where you need to pull. Pull money, or let's say you have a couple weeks where things are slow and you got to dump a bunch of materials into something to finish it out, and your cash flow gets upside down, then you have a system like this that can pad that account so that you can keep things like payroll and expenditures covered, and you'd be able to ride those waves in a much easier format. And I understand that very, very well. Knowing that I've built 90% of my business through referral partners and knowing what goes into that roller coaster of, you know, sometimes we do a contract, but we might not finish that job for six to eight months. And, you know, it's great. It was a $30,000 contract, but $30,000 spread over the course of six to eight months ends up not being a whole lot of money on a weekly and monthly basis.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying that's the only contract you have over that timeframe, but, you know, having those larger payouts in those increments of time where you put all that vested man hours and having the materials up front and all that sort of thing, when you've only got half that money, then that's a. You know, it's. It's tough sometimes to kind of ride that roller coaster when you get really deep in those dives.

Yeah.

You mentioned that you do a lot of work with pool builders

Well, you mentioned that you do a lot of work with pool builders. I see a lot of your work, is, you know, around the pool. So you get into a lot of linear lighting. yes. You know, a lot of people are afraid to do custom stuff. You know, it's like, man, I don't know.

yeah. How do you. How do you do that? How do you work with subs? How do you ensure that your conduit still there when you. When it. When it. When you've got it stubbed up or something like that. Any tips you can share with us?

communication, I mean, over communicate everything that you possibly can, I think is very, very important. I will say that there are some struggles in that world and we've run into struggles over the years. You know, we've had good and bad contractors that we've worked with, so, it isn't going to be a perfect world. And you do have to understand that, you know, the lead sources that come from these systems might be great, but you also need to understand that there is going to be a little bit more legwork and networking, and communicative factors that go into that, as opposed to just getting a straight lead off of a Google source and a cold call where you might have the availability, availability to do that job whenever you want. Getting into this world, you're not going to have that availability. So you need to understand that there's going to be a little legwork that goes into that. But the trade off on that is that those tickets, on average for me, have been trending more in that $20,000 range. So spend a bunch of money on marketing to get jobs in the, you know, six to $10,000 range or have much better solidified leads that you can turn on a, you know, 80% turnover, but maybe have a little bit of more communication work involved. And the average ticket being $20,000, I'll take the latter any day because the cash flow is much more, it's just better, ultimately.

Yeah. What I found is we would do those jobs because a lot of people were afraid to. It was kind of like red ocean, blue ocean, like we had our own blue ocean we were swimming in. And then we could, as long as we did a good job with our installation, our follow up, our service, our communication with the client, we could then convert that client six months to a year later, sometimes less, but six months to a year later to now. Deck out their front yard. Right, and then.

Exactly.

And you find out they have a lake house and then they move in three years. So, like, it's not just the job that we're doing today, it's the lifetime value, which is, in a lot of cases, way larger.

It's the life value of the customer. And I think people don't really think about that because everybody's always focused about the here and now. But you have to look long term.

Yeah.

You know, and that's, that's where you know, putting either that, I think, comes back to that same scenario of like, building the networks and putting, you know, pounding the pavement, you know, not taking the quick turn of, you know, just dumping a bunch of money into some digital marketing that might spit you out immediate results. That isn't. I'm not saying that's not a piece of the puzzle, but if you're not doing the other ends, which is the long term relationships, then, you know, you're. You're relying on spitting out a lot of money on a consistent level to see that turnover. And I really like the system of being able to work with these guys and have those leads and it not cost me a massive amount of money on the ROI.

Yep.

Awesome.

well, yeah, I love referral partners. You know, you're great.

They make it so easy.

Yeah. Higher, higher quality client, higher total contract value. I mean, it's just, they're just so much, so much nicer.

Yeah.

About 15% of what we do on a yearly revenue point is from outdoor audio

All right. I think it makes sense for us to kind of wrap up talking about outdoor audio. You, coming from Music City, being there in Nashville, it's kind of interesting because when I. When I had my lighting business right at the end, the last couple of years, we did some audio, but there wasn't as many, there wasn't as much talk about it. now I feel like there's more training, there's more resources. how has that been for you, adding on outdoor audio to your business?

Fantastic. I mean, not only if you can dial into it appropriately and you know, what you're doing, the installation process is really not that bad. Spend, a little bit of time training to do that. Maybe, that's another conversation to be had. you know, I definitely would be able to feed knowledge into that world. I have a lot of it. but it's made a big difference in the overhead of what we can offer for upselling options, because the backyard entertaining world is becoming bigger and bigger as time goes on. Pools are becoming more and more popular. Just people having outdoor entertaining spaces in general, it's a very, very popular thing. So, don't shy away from it, is what I would say. Because it's been significantly helpful for turnover for us. I would say probably 20, maybe. Well, maybe not 20. Maybe like 15% of what we do on a yearly revenue point is from outdoor audio, not the end of it. So it's a lot more than you would think. And the numbers on that is really, really, it's just a really, really good number on the turnover. So, we do, we do a lot of systems. and the biggest thing I can tell you is if you can dial into some products. Like you said at the beginning of this, focus on the products, you know, understand them and then learn your basics. Understand the difference of, ah, how to calculate for ohms and, you know, and pay attention to the voltage drop that you need to deal with for wire sizing for that system. Because a lot of people just don't know the basics, and they're not as complicated as what most people would assume. It's really, really not that. It's, it's not any more complicated than doing outdoor lighting if you get down to the basics of it.

Yeah, that's been my experiences. There's a lot of similarities with the voltage drop with, you know, you have beam spread and then you're, you have different speakers that spread out differently and sound waves and stuff like that, so.

Yep.

you know, you obviously, like, if you have lighting, you don't want, if four lights are overlapping too much in one area, that area is going to be bright. If you want it bright, great. But if you don't, that's, that's going to be a potential problem. Same thing with audio. You know, you can space it out accordingly. Know that if you're going to overlap, there's going to be louder here and not as loud here and everything else. So it's such a cool experience. I, I installed it here at my house for the first time, when we moved into the house. Whatever. That was three, four years ago. Four years ago. And I love it, dude. My kids love it. My neighbors, some of them love it. but usually they're like, turn it up. You know, they'll, like, they'll have requests. And I'm like, heck yeah, we use.

We use ours constantly. I mean, like, my, my wife and my son are in our pool in the backyard, and I have a system that wraps around our patio space. And, you know, it's, it's got an in ground subwoofer, it's got five, ah, or six speakers. I don't remember how many it is, but I mean, it's, it's great. It sounds awesome. It's just a lot of fun. And it brings, it brings a whole other level to the environment that you can, you know, that you can work with out there. Plus, I can showcase it to customers, you know, and bring them here and have, you know, have them take a look at it as well.

So, yeah, yeah, if I, you know, if I was to sell it now, I'd get a little demo kit and I'd take it with me, even just on installs because your guys get to listen to music and then your customers gonna be like, what the heck is that? Yeah, yeah.

And you can spend, I mean, you can spend a few grand and take care of that. And, you know, it's a worthwhile investment because you'll make that money back pretty quickly when they ask what it is. And then you can tell them and you can, you can upsell them right there on it and, you know, you can add another ticket to that job that you get to come back and install that just by having it available.

Love it, man.

Eric Holmgren says he would like to continue expanding his lighting business

Well, this has been fun. I really appreciate you coming on here. So many good things, man. You've bought a business, you've reversed engineered the referral partner program. You've, done really well with the referral partner program. Just so many good things. Got, to see you perform on Broadway, that was killer. it'll be cool to see what happens for you because I know your plan was lighting, as it means to an end, build this business to work without you, get into the, to support your, your music lifestyle. I know you've fallen in love with this, too. So, it'll be cool to see what the, what the future Eric Holmgren does.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a bug. I think the long term approach is I would, you know, I would love to continue, like, I just got finishing, finished reading, who, not how. So I would love to continue putting all the pieces together of the people that can be in the company so that I can dial myself more to an owner as opposed to owner operator, and then get to, you know, get to where I just need to cover, you know, some networking applications and team meetings in that format and take it from there. but I say that, you know, I'm sure I'll probably still be more involved because it's just happening.

That's the hardest part, is replacing ourselves and letting, letting people run with it. So.

All right, man. I appreciate you coming on here. I learned a lot. Thanks, uh, for your support within landscape, lighting,

All right, man. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on here. appreciate your friendship as well. Thanks, for your support within landscape, lighting, secrets, just all of it. I'm just, I'm grateful to know you, appreciate you showing us how to, how to entertain on that stage that night. I learned a lot. So.

Well, I mean, I appreciate you. And, I mean, if I can't say it enough like this, being in this program has literally transformed my mind, my whole family's life and just what, you know, our day to days are, you know, the comforter, how comfortable we are, everything it is it is because of this system, because it taught me how to do things properly.

That's awesome, man. That's. That's very kind of you. I appreciate you saying that.

All right, guys, uh, take notes. Learn from Eric. And I hope everyone has an awesome week

All right, guys, take notes. Listen to this one again. Learn from Eric. Appreciate you guys. And I hope everyone has an awesome week. Can you hear that? Yeah. Send us off Eric.

Engine just for me long summer nights and summer sundress got the hazel eyes you won't soon forget country boy just live in the tree.