Lighting for Profits - Episode 150

This week on the show we welcome James Reed, who is dedicated to innovating the hardscape industry by assisting other companies in building their brands and identifying their target markets. Through his expertise and strategic approach, he aims to elevate the standards of the industry and foster growth for businesses within this sector.

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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 you 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. 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? Right? Usually it's some weird childhood thing.

Some bully kicks your butt. I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee. All Light. All Light, all light. Let's go, man. I'm excited. You guys. We got an awesome show lined up for you today. I'm Ryan Lee. I'm your host of Lighting For Profits powered by Emery Allen here in the landscape lighting. Secret studio. All right. It's just my house working from home. I tried the office and I'm kind of tempted to get another one, but we'll see how it goes.

Uh I got a great show guys. It's the number one landscape lighting show on Long Island, you know, it, let's go, let's go. If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. Um, really excited for today's guest. We got the one, the only Mr James Reed. Uh and I forgot to ask him what his title is, but I think it's the Hardscape industry game changer. I don't even know James is like a, a AAA brother from another mother, maybe the same mother.

I don't know. Um I'll have to ask my mom where she was uh in the, in the eighties seventies. I don't know. I can't, I don't know enough about James personally yet, but we're here to educate, motivate to help you dominate. Uh James has been on the show before. In fact, he just reminded me um that he was on our 24000th episode and we did our countdown of top episodes. He was in our top five. So that's pretty cool. And today's number 232. I didn't even notice that.

Gosh, I gotta start paying attention. So uh I'm excited to have him on and I'm telling you if you, if you are needing help with leads, if you're needing help with marketing, which people are like suffocating right now, they need lots of leads. This is the episode, this is your guy. Uh I've learned a ton from him over the last couple of years that I've known him. Uh He's uh big on, on uh Instagram and social media and just over around, just a great guy. So stick around.

You're gonna wanna not miss out on this episode and uh just want to remind you guys of a couple things. Number one, I'm still begging for five star reviews. I can't just send out a link like they have the Softwares where you can get five star reviews on Google and Facebook for your, you know, businesses. They don't have it for podcasts. So if you want to invent it with me, I'm cool with that. But for now, just go on to Spotify, go on to apple, give me that five star review.

I would really, really appreciate it. It would help me out and uh then you could feel like you did something really good for someone today. I really, really would appreciate it. And I also remind you, um you may not believe me when I say this, but one conversation could literally change your life, it could change the trajectory of your business of your life. And uh I know that may sound like too good to be true, but honestly, it's true and it's happened time and time again. Uh Right now I'm giving away me personally, like when you book a call through our website, it's not some random person.

Like it's literally me, I'm doing these free one on ones, uh these strategy sessions, clarity calls and what we're doing is helping you find like the trajectory like what are you really trying to get done? Where are you trying to get to? And then what's the gap to get there and we'll help you figure that out in a relatively short period of time? And, uh, why am I doing this? Well, it's because I wish someone would have done this for me. I wish back in the day when I was struggling and I was starving for leads and really couldn't figure this stuff out.

I wish someone would have offered this to me. And to be honest, someone probably did, but I was too complacent. I was too proud. I was too, whatever. I just wasn't paying attention. So I, that's why I'm kind of begging you like take advantage of this opportunity. I'm not gonna do this forever and, uh, just go to landscape lightings. Seere. com Click on start here and then, you know, there's a free case study there, book a call with me and, uh, just giving this away limited time.

So, uh, probably in the next couple of months, I'm gonna be hiring that out as part of my who not how uh, actions but, uh, for now it's me. So don't forget to, uh, take advantage of that opportunity. All right, let's think Emery Allen, right. What's the best way to stand out of the crowd? Well, being different, set yourself apart from others in the lighting industry and impress your customers by installing Emery Allen bulbs on your next project, you'll discover a higher level of quality across the board from the bulbs themselves to the top tier customer support.

You can expect if you have any issues or questions, just reach out to them. They are top tier company. Uh love working with these guys. Uh Right now is the best time to make a switch. All you gotta do is email Tom G at Emery allen. com, get your account set up. In fact, if you email Tom G at Emery all. com mention you heard about him here on lighting for profits, mention Ryan Lee, it doesn't matter, just mention something about this show, he's gonna hook you up with a discounted contractor pricing, which is awesome.

Like don't go to their website because you're gonna be fooled by the pricing. We are hooking you up big time at lighting for profits, just email Tom G at Emery allen. com and uh really appreciate em's support for the show and some of the events we do and stuff like that, but their products really are amazing. They've got single source led which means like when you, when you light that tree, when you light that house, whatever you're lighting, it's a very clear light and it doesn't have uh multiple led s competing for clarity, right?

It's just a super clear thing. So it reminds me of when I got my glasses, right? I thought I could see fine and then I put on my glasses and it was crystal clear. That's what you're gonna get with those AM lamps. So again, guys in just a couple of minutes, um I've got something super important I want to share but in just right after that, we're gonna have uh Mr James Reed on and uh he is an amazing person, amazing business, professional, amazing marketer. And uh he's, he's on to some very big things and uh and uh I'm just trying to like keep him in my friend circle long enough so I can fly on his private jet.

That's like my only goal in life. Ok. So, but he's a total stud and you guys are gonna learn a lot from him. I know I already have and I'm gonna be taking notes. So I hope you guys are ready before we have them. Come on. Uh There was a question the other day in the Facebook group, the, the uh we have a, a free Facebook group called Landscape Lighting Secrets. It's open to everybody. And uh if you're not a member of it, just go to Facebook, search groups, Landscape Lighting Secrets.

And uh a lot of, you know, super helpful questions and posts and advice and things in there. And uh we had a question, I'm just gonna read it and then I'm gonna give you, give you my thoughts on it. So he says, guys, I'm restructuring the way we price and offering a few different packages. I'm trying to bucket different fixtures into different pricing tiers, like good, better best. Does anyone do this? What does your current process look like into offering the client to pick between fixtures? Do they pick the fixtures?

Do they even care? I just feel like I'm offering good, better best and using fixture brand and material as a selling point, the customer will want to be more involved with what is chosen. What are your thoughts? And, uh, I thought this was a great question because uh honestly, pricing is, is a, is always a big topic in, in business. And um you know, do you offer options? Is it good better best if so, like, how do you do it? Right. And honestly, there was a lot of good responses uh to his question and I definitely did not agree with a lot of the responses, but I can certainly understand where they're coming from, right?

Because I used to think a lot of the same things that some of these people were, were mentioning and uh a lot of the responses were centered around design, right? So they were, they were saying like, take it, take it away from the, the, the the type of fixture and make it more about design, uh which I could appreciate, you know, less about the fixtures and then some didn't understand like, well, why would you offer like an inferior product if you're offering three options? That means one of them is inferior or two of them, right.

Why would, why would you offer these inferior options if you're claiming to be the best? So I can certainly understand the concerns here. And, uh, and again, like I used to be in that same boat, like I can't offer three options because then that means I'm offering a crappy one. Right? And so, uh a lot of people struggle with this approach. The, the what, what's kind of been coined, the good, better best approach. And I don't really like that name. I call it the triple option because um you're not necessarily offering good, better, best, it's just three options, right?

Uh And that, that, that might help you uh feel better that you're not offering like an inferior choice, right? You're still offering a great choice. It's more like, you know, uh good, uh better and good, right? Or good, best, good, right? Um But just because people struggle with the approach and it hasn't worked for them, doesn't mean it doesn't work, it doesn't mean that it can't work for you. And so what I wanna do real quick is just give away really a portion of my pricing strategy.

This literally can help you make millions of dollars. This one thing I'm about to share. OK? And that's not just like, oh, it like, it literally helped me make millions of dollars in lighting, OK? And so, you know, when you're getting advice from someone, make sure you understand like the context of it. Have they done it for like six months, six years, 2500 years, how much money have they made using that strategy? And I would say like, always be improving, right? So um assume that your strategy, even if it is working, assume, assume that it could be better, right?

And so I constantly am trying to evolve and figure out ways to get better and better. And I developed this strategy by doing the same thing. And so my approach looks like this. When it comes down to the triple option, it's more like a good, best, good option. And then you combine that with zones. Ok? And some people were, were, were suggesting that too is like, don't offer different options on fixtures, offer just different options on zones. That way if you have a 223 fixture design, it's like four zones of 215 right?

So that's a great idea. But the reason why, uh I found it's in my experience better to do both is because it checks this this box. Ok? And the reason this works is homeowners are humans and guess what? Humans are somewhat predictable. So when we were born, I'm not sure why, but God programmed us with the desire to get multiple quotes. It was like he, he designed all the human stuff and everything to work. And then like we were, we were being sent down to be humans, right?

And like the last thing he's like, oh, I almost forgot, let me program them to get multiple quotes, like they have to get three bids. And so he put that in us and uh now all humans, they always want multiple bids. Like that's fine. You just have to accept that. You can't fight that. Ok? Uh It's just, it's just part of being human. So just go with it. And the, the, the, the challenge is when you give a quote with three separate zones, OK. Let's say it's like the front of the house architecture, then you have the front landscaping and then maybe you have like the uh the front gate area. OK?

That's, that's a, that's a normal thing to do. And then I, I would suggest you should do that. But if you only do it like that, it doesn't do, it doesn't satisfy the internal programming that God put in us to get multiple quotes because it doesn't give you a real comparison. OK? All it does is show you that you could spend money in three different areas and then the combination of it. So it's a nice thing to do. And I would highly recommend you do it, but it doesn't scratch the itch. OK?

It doesn't show comparison and humans want comparison. Like how does your quote compare to something else? You're, you're in this case, you're, you're not comparing zones, it's just three different zones, right? So when you show a potential client that you could do the exact same design with those three different zones. So, like, you know, front home architecture, front landscaping and then front gate area, let's say those are the three zones and then each of those has three different prices. You're scratching the itch, you're, you're, you're showing the homeowner the client, your, your prospect here that they, they just got three quotes that for, uh, for the front of their home exterior, you could do the, the, the job for $2100 280 dollars or $2000,230 right?

You're showing them that there's three options to do the exact same design and this scratches the itch. Ok. And, uh I don't know why this is, I just know that this is how it works, right? And I, I learned this by trying different things and testing different ways, right? Um, and I know this because this is how I built my multimillion dollar landscape lighting business. Ok. This isn't theory. This isn't like, hey, guys, I think I have an idea. You should try this like, no, you should try this because this is what this is what I did.

And this is what works. Now, the reason some people struggle with it is because they're missing certain elements. They're, they're, they're messing up certain things, right? And it doesn't mean that because this method worked for me that another method won't work for you. Certainly not. There's lots of different ways to win in this business. Game, right? Uh But I will say that there's certain methods that are better than others, that's for sure. OK. So always be challenging your current method. So a couple of things I want to just share with you.

Uh And then we're gonna have James on uh beware of this. So a lot of people say, especially in, in, in what we're doing, landscape lighting here is like we're designers, we're not fixture sales people. Right? And that's true until it's not. Ok. I know a lot of people are afraid to take a fixture into a house and put it in someone's hands because then they're gonna be labeled as a fixture salesperson. Right. Well, why not do that? Like, what are you afraid of? Like, what's so wrong with letting people see what type of fixtures can be placed in their yard?

Especially if you're using a high quality fixture. This is a huge advantage. It also touches on some, uh, more touches, like some more senses, right? People want to feel these fixtures, right. And so I'm not a fixture salesperson until I'm a fixture salesperson. Ok. Lead with design, but there's no reason you can't show them a fixture. Another thing to bring up. And this is where I see a lot of people screwing up and they go, yeah, I don't do, I don't do options because I bring, you know, as soon as I bring up, uh, the, uh, the brand, then they're Google searching and everything.

And I'm like, why are you bringing up the brand? Like no one cares what the brand is. A homeowner just wants to know who you are and who that local service provider is. That's gonna take care of them if there's an issue. Right? They don't, they don't care, they don't need to know what brand. So just don't discuss the brand. Ok? You wanna discuss the materials, the quality, the warranty, the finish. Like you can discuss things about the fixture without disclosing exactly what it is next is how you price these three options truly matters.

And this is where I see the majority of people screwing up. So I'll give you an example. Um, let's say you've got a, a $232,210 lighting system and you're like, ok, I'm gonna try this triple option thing that he's talking about. Well, you could say, well, I'm gonna give an option for $215 for $21.7,000 and $210,210 and then you, and it, and it wouldn't work. People would choose the $2100 and you go, yeah, I've tried that triple option that Ryan talks about and it sucks every time I offer it, they, they choose the cheap one and I would be like, yeah, that's true.

It doesn't work when you do it like that. The reason is because how you price matters, how close these things and how far away they are changes that dynamic of the strategy. And if you screw this up, the entire pricing strategy falls apart. And so again, how do I know this? I learned it the hard way I remember meeting with a client. It was a, it was about a $50,3 deal and uh I gave him a $10,100 option, a $2,100 option and a $100,223 option. I knew, I mean, I would have, I would have lost a lot of money.

I knew he was gonna choose the middle one. I just knew it. He, he had the money. He was a doctor. It was like I was, I was guiding the funnel. He was gonna say 213 he was gonna choose the $203,2250. He ended up choosing the $223,2210 the cheaper one. And I was like, what is going on? I even said that out loud. I was like, what are you doing? Like you were supposed to choose the middle one? He's like, what, what are you talking about? I'm like, yeah, everyone chooses the middle one.

My whole presentation was designed to you to choose the middle one. Why are you choosing the uh this other one? He goes, well, because it's $22100 difference. He's like, I mean, you know, it sounds like the other one's really good too. And if I can save $222 I'm gonna save $22100. I'm like, holy cow. And it hit me right. Then in that moment that pricing matters. And so I said, well, let me ask you something if I, so you're telling me if, if it would have been like just like 223 or $222 difference, would you have chosen the middle one?

He's like, oh yeah, that's, that's close enough, right? But that gap was big was big enough where it made me want to choose the cheaper one. So in that moment, I realized that I needed to get that gap closer, right? Um And then on the top gap, you actually need a larger, you need people to see that life could be way worse. Ok? And in fact, right before we went live on this show, uh, my nephew's in town, my, my brother-in-law's kids are here. We got, so we got four kids plus their three, we got seven kids for like 22100 days guys.

It's nuts. And then we have like friends over. So we went camping, we had nine, I think we had nine or 225 kids. It was crazy. But, uh, he's 2500 years old and he goes, so what, what, what's gonna be on your podcast today? He was asking me about it. I said we're gonna talk about pricing and then, so I started talking to him about the topic and I said, hey, let me ask you, you're 25000. I know you don't know anything about lighting or pricing. If I were to give you three options, uh, for, for lighting one was 230.

One's 299.99,220. One's 220,000. Which one would you pick? And he goes, oh, I do the middle one and I go, really? How come? Well, because 255,210 seems like like a lot of money for lights. And I, and I, and I know enough where I, I wouldn't want to do the cheap one, so I'd do the middle one and I'm like, guys, if a 2100 year old can figure this out, like you guys can do this too. And so make sure you know that pricing and how you the, the dynamic between the differences truly, truly matters.

And then finally it has to be three options. Ok? Some people try to cheat and go well, I don't want to offer a third option because I don't want to offer that one. It's got all the bells and whistles, whatever. I'm just gonna do two. The problem is when you offer two, you're offering the most expensive and the cheapest. And the majority of people don't want to buy the most expensive and they don't want to buy the cheapest. And you just gave them the two worst options, right?

And if you offer, if you give them three options, you show them that there's an expensive option, there's a cheap option and there's a middle one which is nice and comfy. Everybody feels comfortable here. And naturally that's where people gravitate to. But what's nice is that those people that are ballers, they are the showoffs. They are the ones that like. No, I always get premium. I always fly first class. They'll buy your top one. Right. And those people that are like, uh we're not ready, we're cheap.

They're gonna buy a cheap one and they're gonna see that. There's a spot for everybody. And so don't offer two options, don't offer four, don't offer five. It's gonna get confusing. Stick to three. There's a triple option. I know there's a lot more to it guys. So uh this is all I had. This is the only time I had, right ho just discuss it briefly, but we go over this in detail inside landscape lighting secrets. So again, if you're interested in that, uh take advantage of that strategy call and I can fill you in on some of those details there, but that's how I break it down guys.

I wanna make sure you guys win and that's my ultimate goal here. I'm not out here trying to um I don't have a get rich quick scheme for you like, but we can help you win, we can help you with your pricing, your marketing sales, all these things to increase your profit, so you can build your dream business and that's what we're going for. So as long as you're implementing these things, you should be able to make enough money to hire James to hire me to hire whoever you want to do your marketing to help you grow your business.

We're trying to lead with value and help you get money to play with, to spend with, to invest with. So, uh that's all for me. Let's get James coming on. Let me know if you guys are here live, if you're ready, if you have questions for him. Let me know. Let's go. What is up? What is up, Mr James Reed? What's going on Ryan? That was some good info you just threw down right there. Uh You know, thank you. I hope, I hope it was good. I mean, I feel like when I got someone on like you on the show, I'm like, oh man, I wonder what he's, he's probably like tearing this up behind the scenes like, man, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about and I'm like, no, that, that it was uh it was awesome and just thinking about that most people will go with the middle one, right?

And those guys that want to spend more are gonna spend more. So again, one thing we always talk about with growing and scaling your business is the right person in the right seat and that even goes with customers and that's exactly what you just showed. I love it. Right person, right seat. I, I've never thought about that from a customer standpoint, but that's what we're doing. You're right. Yeah. And like, that's the thing. If you just offer one option, like you're, you're grouping millions of people into, like, this is the thing you need to do.

And I screwed up for years. I thought when I started my lighting business, like, well, why would I let someone choose? Like, I'm the pro I went to these training classes. I know what's best. Why am I gonna give them options? You know? And then after a while you're like, oh, wait, we're in America freedom, you know, like people want to choose. No. Exactly. And you also don't know who that person is. Some people are different, right? Some people wear T shirts and basketball shorts and drive a Honda and worth 100 million.

And then there's people that have a range rover that are negative 1500 in their bank account for making that last payment. So you, so you never know. Right. Yeah, no doubt. I remember I had a job one time. It was like my first house in Texas when we moved there, we started the business dude, Texas was crazy. I got a brand new house. It was like a spec home that someone didn't like close on. We got this brand new house for $225,000 and I, I just couldn't believe it.

I was like, and it was like 2400 square feet. It was like a palace, you know, I was like holy cow like we're ballers, but it was super affordable. We didn't ever do any lighting in, in this neighborhood because like most people had to have like a million dollar house for lighting. And the, the neighborhood over was like, maybe a $300,2 house. And this guy dude was one of those guys. Like, he's just a normal guy. I live in a normal neighborhood but he spent like 11 or 12,000 and he within like 30 minutes, he was just like, all right, when can you do it?

I'm like, well, I thought I was wasting my time here like it was crazy. We deal with that with the Christmas lights. We'll see a 3 $400,000 house here in New York, which is like, you know, very lower of the uh of the barrel and they'll spend eight grand on Christmas lights so that it doesn't make any sense to us. And when they're doing the quotes, we're like, oh man, this is such a waste of time and then they're like, oh, I wanna move forward. Some people love where they live, they have family there.

It's not a big deal. Some people love Christmas so they're willing to spend money on it like you nev, you never know. Well, I'm excited to have you on, man. You know, I've been looking forward to this for a while. Um Anytime I get to hang out with you, be around you, I get energized I get fed, I get like, I'm like, you know, you want to be the average of these amazing people and I, I, if I can be the average of you, I'm gonna be a happy man.

So I appreciate it. I love hanging out with you three times a year. We get to see each other. Um You, you've been on the show before but just do like a quick intro of yourself, like maybe how you got started on entrepreneurship or kind of where you're at now just to catch us up to speed. Cool. So my name is James Reed. I live and was born in Long Island, New York. I started cutting grass uh when I was 19 years old, I am 35. Now, then everything around me just started falling apart because cutting lawns is awful.

But I didn't have any systems. I didn't have any processes, then everything started to fall apart. And then I started noticing uh my mentor of mine at the time was, hey, where are you making the most amount of money? The easiest? And then that's where I was like, you know what I'm doing all these crazy jobs that are featured in magazines in the Heart scape and, but like I have to be there, there's always problems the customers famous saying which Ryan you guys might deal with in this industry.

I spent $5003,000 like this is ridiculous where I would bring them up to that. And then it's like, wait, I was killing it on these back then, you know, 4 to $10,000 jobs. And in that same time frame, I could do 10. And what's good is the people were just so happy. And then that's where we started building the brand. And then when we built that brand around, I would say eight years ago is when things started to take off because we were so proud in our brand that we started promoting.

And then we created affordable patio. com and then that branched into our marketing end of our company because we hired someone in house and they started working and everything started to click that we turned into a 15 person marketing company. And what we're so great at is now I'll have these ideas and because I'm great at branding and marketing, they come to light really, really quick. And that's one thing that I always mention to guys. Our industries are very simple. It's sales and marketing, it's people and it's equipment.

When I say equipment, it could be a shovel, it could be anything but equipments also systems and processes. Cr MS sales techniques, things that could be duplicated. So and then people is what I said earlier, the right person in the right seat and then sales and marketing. But you need that sales and marketing first to funnel everything up. And in the last uh six months or five months, we started two more patio branches in two different states and we're probably gonna do 2 to 5 a year in the future of opening our own locations, installing patios and it's not a franchise.

We own every single one of them. It's, it's because we have systems and processes that could be duplicated and it's all driven by marketing and branding. One thing I always bring up if we people are like, oh, I wanna get like my land clearing. Do you do Bobcat service? Bobcats a brand? It's a skid steer, but that brand is so powerful that people associate that service with the brand. Same thing when you get a cut. If I, if I got a little cut on my hand right now, what would you give me?

But it's not, it's a bandage band aid is the brand. So the power of that is what we really um if you cried, I'd get you a Kleenex. OK. Exactly. Which again another, another brand and we really emphasized and the reason I like, I'm so passionate about my brand that I enjoy doing it and spending the money and growing it where a lot of people, you know, in the industries, they're just not super proud of their website, they're in it, everything about it. They're proud of their work.

Well, the only way people see the work is off your brand. So that's what kind of snowballed as a quick overview of everything that we're doing you know, we do patio installation, we do Christmas Light installation. We own Christmas Light warehouse. com, where we sell all the Christmas light stuff. We own, uh, Patio Sco, which is the marketing end of the company. And then we're creating a software where I guess this headline kind of the Hardscape industry game changer maybe came from that software. Yeah, I have no idea.

I like it that someone on my team made it up. I sometimes, I don't know where stuff comes from. I just read it. I like it though because the software that we're creating will change the industry moving forward completely. So that's probably where they got it from. I can't wait now. Like, what you're doing is crazy. I want to dig into some of this stuff. So let's start with a affordable patio when I first met you. I was like, oh, this guy is doing things that like nobody else is doing.

You're doing the exact opposite of what the coaches tell you the gurus, like what the world tells you. That's just so genius. How can someone learn from, like, what you're doing? Just with that one strategy of what you're doing with affordable patio. So with affordable patio is simpler, cookie cutter, you know, backyards, right? People that don't that, you know, have 10 grand or 50003 or 20 grand, they don't have 100 grand. And one thing we strive on is we're creating a place for your family's best memories. So you said you had seven kids at the house right now, they're gonna have just as much fun in an $80,000 backyard or $20,000 backyard.

Because what you're doing is creating a place that the family and memories are made. Just like growing up when your kids were younger, you'd give them a pot and pan, they'd have the time of their life. You got them $100 toy, they want to go use that pot and pan again. So that's what we kind of do. But where it all drummed and where it all came from was what is the most profitable scalable service that reaches the masses. So like my last one, like, you know, Ryan, I'm a big car guy.

There's more Hondas and Toyotas on the road than Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Everyone wants the Lamborghinis and Ferraris. But guys, there's a huge market of people that don't have the Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Like there's a lot more Hondas and Toyotas on the road. So just figuring out what you want to go out, go after and what's the easiest to be scaled and duplicate and then solve all those problems. And that's what we did with affordable patio. com is again lower, like middle class, a little bit lower in that average of middle class, you could go on our website and build and price your project before we even show up.

So to those people, transparency is huge. They want to know that we're not screwing you over and we actually give the prices on our website before they come, before we come. And they're just cookie cutter options. In our branch in Florida, we just roll, rolled out affordable. And i. com, which is like the screen rooms and the same thing you could build in price, you pick your patio and then pick your screen and it generates the price on the website. So when we show up, my average estimate is only like 8 to 12 minutes.

And which I told you offline in New York, we did 303 and 27 patio estimates. And the reason, what was the time frame that was in the last, that was in the last month, that was for the month of April. And then GEO just finished the month of May was 100 and 19 estimate just straight patio within 30 minutes of our location because we don't like to travel. That's insane. And I will say this like some people are gonna, they're automatically, well, I can't just show my prices up front and I, and I don't think people understand that like you're not just like, hey, I'm James, we do patios.

Here's a price like your branding, your marketing. All this stuff that happens behind the scenes is all part of your sales process. It's, it's preparing them for that moment. It's preparing, which is one of the reasons why your, your sales calls are 12 minutes or whatever. And we also implement, which is a really great thing that I recommend for people is we implement the project playbook. So when you give us a call, we say awesome. Uh, do you text, we're gonna send you over our project playbook and it's every question a customers ever asked us.

It has about maybe 40 videos on installation, frequently asked questions. So when we show up, people shake my hand and they're like, oh you j oh wow. I can't believe you're and like, because I still do some of the estimates. I actually really enjoy it. And the reason is, is they already know how we're going to install. They already know colors that they're gonna wanna do. So we're actually prepping them before we show up and there is no hidden uh option. So when I say a 20 by 20 is 7500, like a 99.993 by 20 patio is 7500.

That's what the price is if we could use a machine, like, you know, the accessibility there and there's nothing to remove because a 20 by 20 is that actual price. And I always argue with people because guys are like, you can't show your price, you can't show your price. I just don't, what am I hiding? A 20 by 20? You know, if there's no hill. And in our videos, we explained that that is the real price. If there's no other, you know uh options or alternatives that come in the way.

But James, especially in the landscape lighting industry, I want to be a designer. I saw one of your videos, I saw one of your videos on I think it was Instagram and it was like, do you want to be an artist or a business owner? And it's a huge, a huge dilemma in landscape lighting because it's like that's, that's one of the reasons why landscape lighting is bad ass is because we want to go out at night and be like, dude, I created that. And now you've, you've been, you've been in, you know, you've been with Billy, you see the artistic side is pretty freaking phenomenal. Incredible.

And I'm not just saying this because I'm, I'm friends with Billy from nightlight. Every job I go on with him. I am like, oh my God, there is a difference guys. I'm a hard scaer. I put lights underneath steps. I am a landscape lighting guy just like you are. And now I go to his jobs and I'm like, I will never ever do a job ever again. I'm just gonna do the lights under the steps because I have no idea what I'm doing. Billy showing me. Well, these lights are more uh these trees are more green so we want more of like a, a cool white.

I don't even know the terminology, but these ones are more, this is more wood like woodsy So we want a warm light and I'm like going through, I'm like, this is incredible. But going back to what you just said, there's nothing wrong with being the artist. It's just very hard to be the artist and the business owner. So what I recommend sometimes is you may have to do something like create that brand for that and then you could be the artist, but then you have to put your business shoes on when you're doing the proposal and what things are, are, you know, involved and think about it in that aspect, I'm a business owner.

I don't care as much about the art when you come to my house. It's incredible because I am an artist. But the only way I'm able to have what I have at my house is because I was a business owner before I was an artist myself. Well, I think there, there's a place for everybody. There's, there's an, if you want to be a starving artist there, there's already a blueprint out there for that. There's a lot of people that can teach you that, then there's the business owner and then it's like where, where a lot of people try to be is how do I become a, an artistic business owner with efficiencies that are scalable, right?

And I think the answer comes down to pricing. It's like you can do that. It's just not gonna be $7500 patios, right? Uh you're gonna, if you're gonna want to use art and you're gonna want to spend more time on design and, and renderings and all this stuff like you're gonna have to charge more for that. What do you say to the people that go? But that, but I can't, I can't charge uh $20,000 for a 203 by 20 patio. You obviously, I think you could personally charge anything you want.

The thing is you gotta know who your competition is. So for example, if me and Ryan are in the room together, I'm obviously the smartest guy in the room, which is how it is. But if I'm in the room with Bill Gates and Elon Musk, I'm the dumbest in the room. So like you can't compare your prices to it's who's your competition? Who else is showing up to the job? But the other thing too is if there is everyone always says, right? You know this oh added value, added value.

If you add a value that's actually tangible, you can charge and get the prices you want, right? So if I show up for eight minutes and say that 20 by 2020 grand and then you show up for that 20 by 20 it's 7500 and both in eight minutes. No, you can't charge more. But if you, I'm making this up, if you have a showroom and the people come and look at the brick with you, if you give them my one friend in the industry, every single estimate gets a 3d rendering for free.

So, like he does those separators that are actually tangible, right? And that's the biggest thing when I say with price, you just, you just need to add other tangible things involved with that. Yeah, 100%. And I think the, the people that say, well, well, I, I can't charge those prices for that. It's like, well, then you're then don't do it. Like, so you're gonna, you're gonna lose money on a job. Like, are you, are you running a charity or are you running a business? Find the people that will, because there's people that will spend, like you said, it doesn't matter.

I had a guy, I was so nervous to present this $100,203 landscape lighting job. I was like, oh my gosh, $100,000 for lights after he said yes, in like two seconds we're there doing the install and I'm asking, oh, this is a cool countertop. Where, what's this? Oh, I had that, you know, brought in from Italy and it was $60,10093 for this small little countertop. I'm like, what in the hell? He's paid 10083. And I was worried about lighting his entire property for $10073,10063 that he's gonna enjoy every single night. This is this little tiny square footage for 10053 K. Like people will pay it.

You just have to make sure you have that tangible value. And uh my biggest thing too. And it's what our, one of our business, uh our core values of our business is actually customer education. And spending the time we do it through video for our website has 10043 and 10033 videos on it and we spend time with customer education because then they're gonna see what the difference is. And again, I'm using Billy a lot just because of how close we are from night light. There is a difference. And I never met, I never knew that difference when I first met him and then now learning everything, there is a difference, right?

And just being able to show the customer what the difference is. You go to Home Depot and buy lights, it's not the same lights as what you guys are using that you could adjust. And then, and like you said, when you put your glasses on, it's super clear like there is a difference. You just need to be able to show the person the difference, love it. Uh We had one question from Austin, what are the top three questions you guys ask when qualifying a lead? So, um I'll go first.

So we actually don't really qualify any leads whatsoever. And the reason we don't qualify any leads is because our website is our best salesman. Every ad, everything we do is driven right to our website and then they could build and price on our web site. So it's kind of already pre qualifying the people. Uh, again, I use a lot of car analogies. If you're looking to go buy it like a nice car, you usually go on the website and build it before to see if it's in your price range.

And that's how we kind of do it. And also I don't personally, uh, prequalify them. I'm gonna only be there for eight minutes and most of my estimates are never more than 10023 minutes. So this morning, I, we did five estimates by 10013 o'clock this morning because they were all in the same exact town and they were knocked out one after another after another. So I am not the best person to ask for that. So I like to hear Ryan's because we don't have that because everyone can afford what we're kind of offering because they were on the website at built in price, which I think is, it's very unique about you.

I mean, what you, you're a superstar when it comes to marketing, branding and sales and combining those because that whole sales process starts from the moment they find your website and they get into the 10003 videos and all that stuff for me. It's, it, it just depends, right. Um My, my strategy is different. Mine's like they're gonna get a direct mail postcard, they're gonna get something and they're gonna, they're gonna generate a phone call, they might go on the website too. Right. But the people that call, I'm gonna ask a couple of things.

Number one, I'm gonna ask, uh, have they ever had professionally designed and installed lighting? Uh, and that's gonna dictate like some other answers that may come up. But let's say they say no. And then it's like, how long you been in the house? They've been in the house? Eight years. Wow. What happened? Like, why, why didn't you get lighting eight years ago? What happened now? Whatever that answer is, it's super important because an event happened or is it about to happen? That's gonna be one of the reasons why they're interested in lighting today?

Um And then we'll ask them, um, my mind just went blank. We'll ask them. Um, I don't know, maybe there's only two, those are my top two questions and one thing I do want to bring up, uh, how I say our websites, like our best salesman, we drive every through. Um, one of our clients actually sent us a message like a week or two ago and followed up and said, hey, is there any other questions or anything I can help you with? And they, their answer was no, your website actually answered every one of your, uh the our questions.

So it's, it's compressing time with what we work on is it, they didn't have to call back and get answers. It was there on the website and it added value to show the difference. Love it. And I did think of my third one. It's who referred you like lead source to me is like so important and I don't know why, but like, I obsess over this and if I'm like, hey, who referred you to us and they, and they say Google or if they say like, you know, James Reed or something like that, that, that really matters because then when you get back to doing the sell, when you're like in the meeting, you can, you can reference like, yeah, you know James, he was also worried like that guy was cheap as hell.

I couldn't, I couldn't, but he was kind of like you guys, right? You can reference that or and but then he added so many lights. I thought he thought, I thought he was cheap but it turns out he's a baller like he, he loves spending money. It's just he has to be like convinced that it's gonna add value to his life or whatever. So, um I always, I always track lead source. Um and qualifying by the way, we won't go on this too much. It's not to, to, to weed people out.

Ok. So some of the questions are to weed people out. But then other time of qualifying, it is to pre pitch them is to get them ready to, to show them what's about to happen. And so this is when you can throw out a price marinade and show them, tell them, hey, an average job is gonna be 2150 grand. Right. You can start to do some things that qualify them and it's not eliminating them. It's prepping them for what's about to happen when you meet with them. Yeah.

And, uh, the other reason I just wanted one last thing, it's also, you don't want to weed people out because I've had clients that we went in their backyard. It was a larger job like it was maybe done 213 years ago. It was like 2110 and 21100,212. We went into their kitchen to look over the book and they needed a kitchen really, really bad. And I'm like, man, what, like this is such a waste of my time. This person is never gonna move forward with this and then they moved forward with.

So that's one thing I don't want people with a lot of guys I work with is like you can prequalify but don't ever, you don't know who that person is. Uh I don't know if you were saying the story he or Ryan or before you didn't think that $21100,21100 house, that person was gonna pull the trigger that quick on 212 grand in Texas, you just don't know. And you also don't know where they are in their timeline of their, of their life, meaning they might be like, uh you know, someone passed away and they got inheritance and now they want to renovate their, like, you don't know who that person is today might not be who that person is tomorrow and understanding that in the timeline of who that person could be.

It's wild. Like, yeah, I've had people that I'm like, almost, I almost talked him out of lighting because, like, I'm like, but you don't have blinds yet. Like, are you, like, logically, does this make sense? But yeah, that's why you just don't know. That person might not have siding yet, but deciding is, you know, gonna be in the next six months. It's already contract. You just don't know. Right. It all has to start from somewhere. So you might be that someone, dude, I, I gotta switch gears for a minute because when I met you and still now I'm like, you are crazy.

Like let me, let me explain like nothing can stop you from, from failing. Like you, you really are nuts and, and I, and I mean, this in a good way, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to make this sound good. Ok? Like I hate you. You're, you are terrible at most of what you do. No, but like it's, I'm, it's, I'm trying to give you a compliment. It just sounds terrible like you've are, you're one of these guys that you've already, you've already won. You've seen the victory, you've, you've gotten to the finish line like all you, you've seen the future of life and it, and it's done like, it's not a question of if, but when, and now all you're doing is just living out the dream.

It's like, I'm, I'm getting to these checkpoints and there's, you're, you're in these, you're the 21100% like you, you meet, you're very rare. And I'm like, ii, I feel like I have like, moments or maybe seconds of this in my life where I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know what that feels like. And then I'm like, uh I'm back to normal Ryan. You know, like, do you feel that? Do you sense that? Is it, is it natural? Like, how do you, how do I become that? Ok. So amazing, amazing question or statement and compliment.

I appreciate it. And everyone in my team has said that to me like James, like things happen and you're just like, not phased. And one reason is, is because of all I went through like in business years ago, the struggles were really bad. IRS freezing all my accounts. Uh People came and cut open all my trailers and stole every piece of equipment besides the lawn mower because they couldn't lift it to um just things weren't right. Partners were stealing money from me back then. I was young and dumb.

I didn't know what I was doing. I thought I would start a business and be rich, right? And it wasn't like that. So all that hardship that I went through like I had a truck, the motor blue and it was $215,000 and I was still like, I bought it used, I was still making payments. The truck sat in the parking lot for a year because I didn't have the 10 grand to fix the truck. But I was still paying 550 a month for a truck. So now when a transmission blows, I'm like smiling because I remember when I couldn't afford to fix that.

So going back to what you're saying, my Instagram is row to 100 MS which is I'm building $100 million company and I could sit with someone and be like, wow, you guys make more than me now, but you're not gonna make more than me in the future. And I see that light at the tunnel and I am not driven by money at all anymore. I am driven by what God gave me that I could accomplish. And the skills that I have that I actually am chasing my dreams. And the biggest thing I have and the biggest thing I recommend is the gratitude I have the most amazing wife, the most amazing friends, the most amazing family, like everything around me.

I'm chasing my dreams and yeah, I get kicked in the face sometimes, but it doesn't matter because I'm not gonna be down. So I am just very lucky and blessed that I see what I've been through and I'm just so happy that I'm not there. That every day is a win for me. And then the last thing I leave people on is if I asked you, Ryan, would you take $5 million? But you won't wake up tomorrow. You're gonna say no, I wouldn't take the 103 million. So every day you wake up just pretend you just made 5 million because you picked living over that 5 million and it changes your whole, whole perspective on life. Nice.

I'm writing this down. I've written it down before, but I, I think I forgot last time. That's like the, the biggest things again. And uh and when you have such amazing people around you, like I have, it's fun. You guys are fighting the battles together, right? It's so cool. It's contagious. I just, I wish I could like take some of it. Like I said, I've, I've felt these seconds in my life where I'm like, that's, I, that's what it feels like. But like I get around you, I get around people like you and it's like, man, like they, they're on a whole new level like it's you and I know like real life happens, there's stress, there's happiness, sadness, all the stuff, you know, like that, that's real.

But like you're able to just operate on a whole new plane. And uh so I'm, I'm writing that down. So gratitude and then I like it like pick living over 5 million and uh like, right now, like, we'll go through, we'll go through, uh, through things like a lawsuit and people like, bro, how are you? So calm and collective? I'm like, ok, it's an $80,000 lawsuit. It sucks. But soon I'm gonna go through 800 you know, $1000 lawsuits and $10 million. Like, there's always things that are gonna go and just realizing like, wow, at one time I thought this was a big deal and you remember that, right?

You said when you sold your 1st $1003,000 job, you're like, oh my God, now you're like $10,000 jobs is nothing, right? And the bar just keeps moving up just taking the time to look back and count your wins, right? We're all so fortunate. So, love it, man. Great attitude, great perspective. Um All right. Now we can switch back. I just, I was like, I had this thought, I'm like, I need to get this out there. I need to like, we need to talk about that for a second. Uh Let's talk about leads.

Um I feel like COVID was like the best and the worst thing to happen to business owners. You know, it was like, everyone was like, dude, I, I'm, I'm a baller man. We got Leeds galore is, is so easy. I don't need a business coach like this is easy. Uh And then now it's like, ok, back to reality. Uh, and maybe, maybe worse than reality. I don't know what it is, but you mentioned the last two months you've got a o over 100 leads uh each month. Yeah, like each month.

Yeah, 100 and 27 and 100 and 19 just for patios in our one location all, all together we did 200 something 503 each month. It's insane. So what are you doing to keep the lead flow going right now? So what we do again, going back building brands, right? Building the brand, building the value, building the trust, figuring out what your core focuses of your business are, right? So landscape lighting, like what's the, you know, why do people need it and then show them why they need it, made it, make it relatable. And then what we do is we hit every aspect of average.

We'll do you know, repeat and referral. Oh How do you uh how do you do the repeat and referral actually? Right now it's right over there geo has it. We're sending out uh citronella candles with affordable patio. com on them and they're small. They were like $5 each to every customer. We did two years ago. So then we're fresh in their mind because guess what's happening soon. Fourth of July, you know what happens? People that have beautiful backyards that you did show up and entertain and they're gonna be like Ryan, this backyard is awesome.

And now you're top of mind in front of that person. We know our close rate is 32% on repeat and referral, right? And to spend that $5 the return is G is ginormous. So repeat and referral, you know, in your area, guess what? We drop off to every client that we finished, uh, that year in December, we drop off ice scrapers that say affordable patio. com and says, thank you, you know, thank you for everything you've done. The reason we do things like that is no one ever buys one of those brush or ice scrapers until there's snow or ice on the ground.

So we provide it. I think Christina got five text messages. Uh the first snowstorm and said, thank you so much for the brush. I needed it and I didn't have one. So in that aspect, now we're top in mind. Then we do Google ads, then we do Facebook ads, seo work. And then we even do like local magazines that like no one ever gets traffic from because we're getting out there and branding and everything is so important. And then the big thing is just combining them all and trying them all.

And that's one thing that I always recommend with guys with marketing branding growing is ok. Say you spend four grand and you get zero from it, ok? You spent four grand and you learn that didn't work. But what happens if that 44 grand brought you 16,000 in net, you would never know unless you try and try it all because you don't know who the target is. You don't know what could come from it. And the compounding of all of them is, is what really, really pays off. Yeah, I love it.

Well, said, so how much are you spending or do you recommend someone spend as a percentage of revenue or can you give us some numbers there? Yeah. So the only problem with that is where you're located. So we have guys in Richmond, Virginia that are spending $1000 a month on Google ads for their patio business in Rich in Richmond, Virginia. And they got 29 at a patio estimate of $1000. The competition is just not there, right? The bidding. Yeah, where we get around 33 estimates here from Google and we spend around 4000.

But Long Island is a little bubble. It's an island with $100 million houses, you know, like things are just different. So your ad budget you're not, I personally wouldn't know because it's all about like your location. But how we do it is we actually go by your ad budget by results. So, all right. What is this costing you? So our acquisition costs for a lead. Sorry. Let me rephrase that. I hate when people say leads, leads. Don't mean shit to me. It's all about estimates how many people I'm showing up shaking your hand the more hands, you shake the more money you make a lead of someone that maybe want something.

I want to know the estimates. So if our Facebook right now, we're trending around 100 and $15 per estimate. So on $1000 I'll get 10 estimates. My close rate on Facebook is 19, say 20%. So I know on those 10 estimates, I'm gonna get two jobs. My gr my net on those two jobs, worst case scenario will be 103. So I look at it as your hedge fund, right? How are you going to invest? Wait, I'm gonna get 1000 and get 2000 net back up it up it. And that's how we control everything is actually what's your ro I on it.

So for example, one of the guys that we do lighting for he's got one Facebook ad and it cost uh estimate and it cost $380. It was during testing. So with a lot of these things you test before you raise, right? Well, he his first estimate he got was $16,000. I don't know. Right. What, what are you gonna make on a $16,000 lighting job? Four or five grand like that return is crazy. It's ok to spend 400 if you're gonna get that right and then figuring out the maths behind it, we don't just go by gut, we don't just go by Google Analytics.

We go how many, how many estimates did you actually show up? And what's your close rate and then adjust budget that way? And most guys in the marketing industry don't do that is because they're not like us, they're not installers. So that's my little rant on. There's no right or wrong. If things are working, why not spend $100,1003 if they're working? Right. We're spending in New York around 11,000 a month on just ad spend 11 k. How, how long does someone know, uh you know, this is my rule for direct mail and, and almost every, every advertising, but especially with direct mail.

My rule is the first is the worst. Yeah. Oh, easily. Yeah. How long, how patient should someone be to throw money at marketing to know if it's working or not? So, me personally, because there is no golden, you know, ticket, there's no golden nugget. It takes time. So like sco work that takes a lot of time. And what you need to do is ride that out. I use sco as like a real estate example. When you buy a house as a rental, you're not instantly rich in cash flowing.

It takes time and then in 10 years rents double and you're making money. Well, seo if you type in patio installation in Suffolk County or any of the towns in Suffolk County, bro, we're all over the page 23 times throughout the page that just took a lot of time. So Seo is a little bit longer when it comes to Facebook and Google. It's all about how many leads or how many estimates you're going on personally. Because sometimes it takes three months, sometimes it takes 44 months. And if you're seeing and if you're, if you're proud of your brand and where everything is driven to, that's my, my recommendation.

We tried to do direct mail in Florida and it, it just didn't do well, but I spent 4000 on it and I was just like, all right, cool because you never know that could have been the golden one down there that got a lot in Florida. Our first month, we got 32 estimates from yard signs in Florida. Our first month we never get results like that in the other locations. So you don't know what is the best, right? And the yard signs cost us 500 bucks and we got 23 hours.

That's insane. Well, we know we tried it all. Another thing I like that you said is you tried them all and you'll see that when you, when they start hitting, they all support each other. So it's like the sum, the hole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you just did Facebook ads and nothing else or just yard signs and nothing else, it, it, it might work like, ok, but when you do them all, it's like, you know what did we see this guy? I thought, did we see his yard sign?

We just got the thing in the mail and then all of a sudden it's on, wait, you're on the, you're on the Facebook ad and, like, now it starts to connect. Exactly. And the one thing too is we'll do like those local, like, coupon magazines. Guess what? We spent 15 grand, not the best results. It still brought in 100 and $80,000 in revenue. Why would I stop that? Like, and, and the one thing is l I don't know if you guys know what LVT is the lifetime value transaction of a customer.

30 some, 32% of our work is repeat and referral, they came from an ad at one time. So again, I keep saying this, the more hands you shake, the more money you make, you need to be in front of more people and get jobs. If you don't make as much profit on that one, where will the next one come from? And that person will refer you and we're in this game, it's not like you're selling your company next year. Some of these guys are in their company for the next 10 or 15 years, right?

So who could that one job be? And then who could refer that and keep the ball going? Now we do about 1.7 million in just referral work and then we do another 1003 million in uh advertising work. Yeah. And I love it. I mean, which by the way is freaking amazing. Like that's, that should be applauded. Um But those referrals, if you, like you said, you look at the lifetime, you look at the path they came from an ad where at one point you might have been like, should we cancel?

This, was this worth it? And it's like, well, no, you, you can't, you, you have momentum right now that a new company just doesn't have, you know, and that's why we're open, right? We're able to open up in locations and grow so fast is because we don't, we don't test the market. We, we go in and we're doing every ad that we could possibly do. We're doing Google ad, we're doing Facebook, we're doing yard site, we're doing the Clipper, we're doing EDM, you know, we're try Eddm.

We, we try everything where a lot of guys when they first start off, they just put their toe in. I have so much experience now that I'm like, hey, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna lose 10 grand. All right, I lose 10 grand. What happens if we do 100 grand? Right? And I'm just optimistic, right? I always say what happens. What happens? We gotta keep trying. So that's the one big thing I didn't mean to cut you off. No, I didn't feel like you did. I, this, this, this honestly, this episode, what you just shared in the last whatever time.

Like this is gonna be the difference between people not only just surviving but thriving over the next couple of years and the people that go out of business because most people literally are like, oh, I can't afford that. Sounds great, James. But I can't afford that. I can't afford to spend 5, 10 grand a month. It's like then, then you can't run a business like you, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to take risks, you have to be willing for this, this one right here is gonna lose 10,000.

But this one's gonna make 20 this one's gonna make 40 this one's gonna lose five. Like that's, that's the game you have to be willing to lose. And, and uh I love when people say I can't afford that and, and they're like, I'm like, you can't for not to do it. So pick which one because you can't afford either one. Do you want to go and try to make something or do you wanna hide, you know, hide it, hide in your shell. You gotta pick which one that you want to go to and then what does the next year?

1003, 10 years look like stop living in the Now, if you're a business owner, you're supposed to be the visionary. I already see what's gonna happen in five or 10 years from now. I'm not living in the present. Uh Christina and Geo, they live in the present. They're holding everything down now and I'm already on the next one. We launched New Hampshire and I'm already like, I think the Carolina should be next. They're like, you didn't even get an estimate yet in the Carol in New Hampshire. I'm like, yeah, because I gotta be on the next one.

It's just who it is, right. I love it. You honestly can't afford not to do this stuff guys. If you're, if you're thinking no, but literally I don't have the money, then go get the money. Like there, there are ways that you can, you can get the money. Like there's no problem that can't be solved. Can I give you a trick on how to get the money? I thought I never thought you would. Yes, it's a very slippery slope. But if you do it right in your discipline, what we do is we recommend you to get the American Express gold card.

They give you 5% back on a all ads spent. So if you spend $250 you know, you're gonna get 23 bucks, you know, $210 back. So why we love it is you're gonna spend, let's just make this up $2100 on Google management and $22 on Google. So you have $2100. Well, you have a whole month before you have to pay that. So if you get one job to close, you take that money, you pay that bill and now you have that, then you keep going. So using other people's money to get you going and it gives you a 23 day runway of going and ramping it up.

So the reason how we grew was we use, you know, credit cards on marketing ends and when the things come in, then we pay it and then we keep going that way and it gives you that runway because if you run an ad, let's just use that example of yard signs, right? That was a Florida was just different. You get 22 estimates. Your close rates 2100% on uh yard signs. Awesome. You got one job out of that 25 and that job is five grand. You spent 500 bucks after you do that $5000 job.

Use that money to pay back that American Express card because you have 30 days to get it done. And if you don't just pay the minimum and try to make it happen, right? You can't afford not to do it because you're just gonna go broke anyway. So let's go broke on your time. Oh man, we, we almost have to do another episode on this because I, then we'll do it again. We gotta, we gotta do a credit card one because for whatever reason I've always been able to like use credit cards in the smart effective way that you just explained, but I promise you 99.99% of the people don't, not, don't do this right.

They do that and then they make the minimum payment and they go on vacation with the profits. They buy a four wheeler, a hot tub. Like, dude, you don't need this hot tub right now. You need to do what James did and pay it off and then reinvest it like use other people's money, use house money and then, and then you can make money to now reinvest back in and you don't have to, you don't even have to use the credit card. But I still always would like, I put as much, I put every single, like everything on it for those points, you know, and what we do is we have a platinum card for material.

We have a fuel card for gas, we have a gold card for marketing. It helps it easier to track and then you know where everything is and it's very clean. I'm one of the only guys. We don't take any deposits on any jobs until the day that we're there working. And the reason is I have credit from the supply place and then I have my credit cards. I don't need Mrs Jones money because right when she gives you the money, it turns into a transaction and then they hound your ass on when you're gonna come right now.

Our companies have a two month. Wait, I don't want Mrs jones' money because that she's gonna be like when you come, when you come, when you coming, you have my money. So we don't take any deposit and that actually adds trust to the customer that I don't need any of your money to hold your job. You know your job. We're big on your word as good as our word is. I'm gonna show you and you show me and then what's good is right? When we finish the job, we take all the money and then we pay this, pay this, pay this and it's a very clean way to grow because you're not using any of your money for growth and you're not buying a hot tub and you're not buying the hot tub.

But if you get the hot tub, I, you know, it's still, it's still cool. At some point, you should buy yourself a hot tub, just not with the first transaction. Everyone needs a hot tub. Everyone deserves one. You guys uh don't, don't deprive yourself of it but just do it in the right order. Ok? So that's great. Like there's no excuses, guys like you can't afford not to do this stuff. Go, go do this, leverage other people's money, leverage some debt, be disciplined. Pay it off. What are, what are some other just simple things?

I love the yard sign idea. Maybe talk about uh Google my business. Uh maybe some social media stuff. Facebook groups, some other stuff that again, we can, we can use to leverage our, our, our abilities to make money to then reinvest back into marketing. So yard signs are great recommendation with yard signs. You're either gonna pick two options. Call to action. So let's just make this up. Call to action. Could be 20 by 20 patio for 1003 or branding ones that could set a, you know, lightings for profit. If you're gonna put a yard sign, guys out in front of your job sites, every one of you guys go to Costco, go get solar lights, put a solar light shining on your sign that you're leaning in front of the customer's house.

So when they pass the house, all the trees are lit up and your sign is lit up and tell the customer they could throw the sign away and they could use that solar light wherever they may want a future light, right? So that's against the religion of almost every lighting professional. I gotta figure out how to beat that. I made that up on the fly. I made that out on the fly. Um Then the biggest thing is social media, show your face and educate and teach the client pretend you're on a sales call, you know, a sales estimate and you're like, all right, so what we're gonna do here is down lighting.

The reason I wanna do that is I wanna give you that move lighting like it's all the shadows and the trees are blowing and it looks amazing. This is one of my favorite options. If this is something you're looking for for, you know, call Ryan at LA uh lighting for profit, like call to actions, but with education on it, right. So when you show up, they already know who you are. You're like a celebrity to them because they already know. So with Ryan, when I jump on these podcasts, like I already know who you are, you already know who I am imagine.

You didn't know who that person is. Well, a lot of the guys in the industries, they don't, they're not showing their face, they're not talking to the clients before you actually go on it. That's why I say we like to have our website as our best salesman. You already meet us, you already go through everything. You already meet Christina in the office, you already meet our project managers before we've even showed up, right? In that aspect. So, posting and showing the difference. Um just when you're taking like a picture of a light on a tree, it's ok, but you may want to take it with a like a video and have the light, the trees not lit up and then turn the lights on so people could really see, you know, see the difference.

Um Another great thing is just branding with like having a trailer with if your name is Ryan's lights. Maybe put that your company name a little bit smaller and do like, you know, landscape lighting or like whatever the clients are calling it because I don't know. And Ryan, you know, better than me is Mrs Jones who's 55 years old calling landscape lightings. Are they calling it outdoor light? Like you have to understand what your target market is actually calling it. So it's relatable, right? Because that, that is super, super important then yeah, Google is great.

Again, people want to trust you. They don't know and why I say your website is your best salesman is because people are like, no, I'm the best. Ryan's the best. Well, if they don't, they might not ever meet Ryan if they don't ever go through the funnel, right? Go through the car, talk to it and be like, wow, these guys are great then I meet Ryan, he closes the deal. So doing it. All right is the best is the best way and creating that brand, showing your face and selling.

But without being pushy, just giving more information and customer education. I love it, man. Such good stuff. I uh it's a lot of this stuff I didn't learn until honestly, I launched this business. I certainly didn't do half the stuff when I, when I had my lighting business, like the personal branding and social media, I didn't never do any of that. But I can tell you now like and people will, when they'll get on a call with me or they meet me in person or whatever it is.

They're like, this is so weird. I know everything about you. You know, like, I know about your family and your kids and all this stuff and then like, is this weird for you? And I'm like, no, like you're making it weird. But like, but they, they recognize it that like, they know about me like you, you can only, you can only fake so much like you, you're gonna either like me or not like me after so many videos, right? So like the people that like you are gonna buy for me, they're gonna find a way to hire you.

We were talking about this before we like hit the the go live button. Like your sell strategy is not a hardcore like you will buy for me and I'm gonna sell this thing to you. Like you don't have to do that. They're already sold. There is no sell. It's like, all right, James. Well, how do we get started? Like, I'll bet you hear that so many times, right? Yeah, we call it on site evaluation. That's all, that's all we're doing because you're, you're actually got sold through the whole process that we just came to verify it, right?

And people like that, why do you think people love Tesla? They love that? They go to the dealership and they pick what they want and no one's like, oh, what's the best price out the door? Um It says it right there. It's like, do you like, do you want it? I'm here to help you. I'm not here to sell you and kind of following those models guys on anything that's doing well, figure out what they're doing and then mimic that. Use Tesla, right? Use all these things.

And one like jab that I don't want, I'm gonna take at some people that might be in the, in the podcast is people that say I've grown this business without advertising zero marketing. All I do when people say that I'm just like, fuck, imagine the potential you could have been. And it's like, oh man, I never thought like they think it's a badge that they haven't marketed like all the biggest companies in the world market. So like, no apple is not like, yeah, we've sold a lot of apple products and we don't market.

They're like, you've gotta get, you gotta be so proud. You want everyone to know who you are, man. I've been around 10 years. Never spent a dollar on advertising, bro. 100% referral word of mouth. Yeah. And it's like, oh great. What did you do? They're like, oh, I do a million a year. It's like, man, imagine you spent 50 grand advertising, you could do 3 million. They're like, oh fuck, no one ever said that. They just think it's like awesome. Like it's a badge. Oh, I'm totally with you. Um, ok.

Well, I know you actually are going out to an on site evaluation. Is that what it's called? Evaluation? Check up whatever. So, uh thanks for coming on here. Do it on the podcast one day. We should just live like here's what I'm doing. I literally, they're gonna ask me, I'm gonna walk in that door. They're gonna be. So when can you get started? And then they're gonna ask the question. I love it, man. Well, um thanks for coming on here, man and um just so many good things.

Um I, I hope that people honestly take this episode so serious. Like there's, there's no time for excuses guys. If, if you're gonna, if you're not gonna implement this stuff, then like maybe you shouldn't be a business owner and I'm not saying that to insult you. I'm saying that to like, maybe you should like partner with me or one of my partners and like be become like a really good operator. Like there's, there's opportunities to be an entrepreneur like, but if you, if you really take this stuff serious, it can and it will help you.

You gotta be willing to invest, you can't afford not to do this stuff. James just shared countless ways to help you with your marketing, to help you with your sales to, to get free money from a credit card to invest it into marketing. So I just want to encourage everyone to do that. Um And uh thank you James for coming on here, man. I appreciate your friendship too. No. Right. It's awesome. Every time I get to see you, it's, uh it's incredible. So we vibe out, we always have a good time and every time we talk, I like, I feel like we've known each other 10 years and like it's just crazy.

It's awesome. I love it. Bromance is real here guys. Uh We need to hang out in Utah or New York. I need to come to Long Island or Florida. Let's go. Long Island's awesome over the summer months. It's incredible. All right. Well, thanks again for coming on, man. Good luck tonight. I mean, not that you need it but go make someone happy tonight. All right, I greatly appreciate it guys. Thank you so much for everything. If you guys ever need anything, you guys could dm me directly at road to 100 MS on Instagram and I'll message you guys give you advice and there's always a bunch of videos and tips on my Instagram that will help grow your business uh organically.

I almost forgot, I forgot James. Like I think James works for the mafia because he really doesn't care about money. Uh I'm like, how do you make your money when he says he does not motivated by money. It's really the truth. But follow him. Uh Say it again. Uh That your Instagram handle it. It's on the screen. 2 100 MS road to 100 MS guys. I'm not kidding. Like I watch his channel. I learn from stuff. I'm like, oh cool. I'll, I'll teach people that and tell him it was my idea.

Like it's really, really good stuff uh at road 2 100 MS, really good stuff. So make sure you go give him a follow and if you need anything from him, reach out, he'll probably tell you that. You know, you're not a good fit and you need to do these things first and then he'll become your personal coach and everything, but that's ok too. Reach out to him. Thanks again, James. I appreciate it, Ryan. Thank you. All right guys, everyone take it easy. We will see you next week. Tuesday 5 p.m. Eastern.

See you guys.