Lighting for Profits - Episode 157

This week on the show we welcome Ryan Williams, born with striking blue eyes and reliant on light, he earned a graduate degree in product development from Brigham Young University before joining FX Luminaire. Over 12 years he has developed innovative lighting solutions for residential and commercial projects. Starting at Hunter Industries in 2010, he advanced from manufacturing engineer to roles in product management, marketing, and business development across FX Luminaire, Holm, and Lumascape. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Ryan now lives in San Diego with his wife Michelle and their four children.

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

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 bully kicking. I think the key factor here is trust.

Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

We're the number one landscape lighting show in San Diego

All, light. All light. All light. What is up? What is up? Gosh, I'm so excited to do today's show, you guys. It's going to be a good one. We got lighting for profits. Did you know this? We're the number one landscape lighting show in San Diego. I can't believe it, but it's true. If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. We are here to educate, motivate, to help you dominate. And, today's show is gonna be amazing. We got Ryan williams with fx luminaire and be a great show. I've gotten to know him a little bit over the last couple years and, have used their products as well. So it's gonna be just a good show. We're gonna dive, into their company. We're gonna dive into some products, some new things that they've got going. We're gonna talk about the economy a little bit and everything else, so make sure you stick around.

In a few minutes, I'm going to help you identify your bottlenecks

We got Ryan williams with fx luminaire coming on in just a couple minutes, before we have him on, and by the way, guys, I'm excited because in a few minutes, I'm actually going to help you guys identify. I'm going to save you. Literally. Consultants charge sometimes tens of thousands of dollars for what I'm about to tell you, okay? And that's not just a tease. Like, it's a simple way to identify, like, your two or three main bottlenecks in your business, right? And I'm not kidding. Like, businesses pay tens of thousands of dollars to figure out, like, what is holding us back? What do we do? And I'm going to tell you guys how I did this in my business, in my lighting business, and how I just did it in my landscape lighting coaching business, landscape lighting secrets.

Tom Garber: Could you give Emory Allen a five star review

So, before that, though, I want to. I want to ask. I want to ask a favor. Could you give me a five star review? I just shared the other day a little video. We're up to 61 reviews on Apple. and then we've got like 30 something and Spotify. But a friend of mine, a client of mine, a good friend, Chris Applestott, challenged me and he said race to 100. And he's right about the same. I think he's at 60 reviews as well. And so, you know, let's, you know, maybe we give him a review, too. But I'm asking, I'm pleading, I'm begging for a review. I love those reviews. I appreciate you guys that have done it so far. Give me that five star review. Write something nice. If you've gotten value from the show, I would really, really appreciate it. And a couple of announcements coming up. this week, actually, tomorrow, I'm leaving to Chicago, going to speak at the HBL event. It's holiday bright lights, and, it's their big, annual roadshow. And so it's not too late to get tickets. you can actually just get a ticket there. And by the way, if you mention my name, and if you need to message me for details and location, all that, feel free to do so. But you can go on their website as well. But, you can get a ticket there and, mention my name, you get dollar 100 off your ticket. So that's pretty cool thing they put together. So, going to be hanging out in Chicago the next few days, talking about sales and, how to dominate the sales world. So really excited about that. What's up, Tom Garber. Thanks for being here. And, also, guys, coming up really, soon now, September 9 and 10th, here in park city, utah, we've got our secrets summit event. It's our members only event for landscape lighting. Secret members only. So if you're, like, on the fence and you're like, I kind of want to be in the program, but I'm not sure now's the time, because you don't want to miss out on this annual event. It's in person. It's a couple days. we've got guest speakers, we got mastermind roundtables, ten, thousand dollars ideas, like, so many cool things coming to it. So I want to see you there. if you want more information or you're considering joining our program, just go to landscapelightingsecrets. com and, schedule a call with me, and we can, get you all the info you need. All right, thank you. Emery Allen. So, what sets Emory Allen apart. Well, bulbs aside, they believe customer satisfaction should be the top priority. Always, Emery Allen goes out of their way to ensure lighting professionals have access to the best light sources built with the highest quality components suited specifically for the landscape lighting industry. 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 got to do is email tomgryallen. com, and he will connect you. He will get you the. Your account set up. They'll get you that discounted contractor pricing just mentioned. You heard about them. M here on lighting for profits. It's Tom Gallen. com dot. And again, just mention you heard about him here on lighting for profits, and he'll get you hooked up. So thank you so much for, your support to, Tom. The whole Emory Allen team appreciate you guys.

I want to help you identify your biggest problems in your business

All right, guys, so I told you I was going to tell you a tip that might save you tens of thousands of dollars because that's what consultants charge sometimes to go in and just identify these problems. Well, I want to talk about a way for you to identify your biggest bottleneck. I want to help you identify your biggest problems in your business. And, the best way that I found to do this. And it's actually kind of fun until. It's not fun. I just did this. You test your business. Okay. And the best way to do this that I've found is to leave your business. Leave your business for a day or two or a week or a month. Right? maybe even surprise yourself if you've got, like, two team members, just, like, don't answer your phone for a day and see what happens. All right. What would happen. What would happen if you didn't answer your phone for the next couple of days and you didn't tell anyone? Right.

Mike Brown went on vacation to test his business, and it was awesome

Well, I just got back from an epic vacation. It's, something we've been planning for a long time. We've never done anything like this. And, to be honest, I was a little bit nervous because we got four kids, and, you know, I'm like, man, the longest we've ever, like, done a trip together before. It's like five or six days. And this was about almost three weeks. Okay. And, I gotta tell you, this was the best vacation I've ever been on. I'm so grateful for my kids. I don't know how they were so good, because, like, they made the trip, you know, if they were, like, arguing and fighting and complaining like we would have been home weeks ago. So it was. It was super cool. We got to go see New York and Rome. Four different cities in Portugal. we were on planes and trains and taxis, ubers, a van that I rented in Europe. It was probably the biggest van you could ever drive in Europe. So driving down these small streets was crazy. Scraping the mirrors and stuff. We were on boats, we were on beaches. We saw castles. We ate gelato, amazing food. we saw naked statues. I mean, we saw it all. Okay. it was a great trip, but. And, you know, I didn't. I didn't go on this. This trip to test my business. You know, I went to, bring back some memories, and, spend some time with my family. But it did remind me of when I was in the grind of my lighting business. And, I remember there was times when, at the beginning, I couldn't leave. I was like, I can't. I can't take a day off. Which was ironic, because the whole reason I started my business was because I was sick of working for someone else, right? I didn't. I didn't want to have to be stuck to the, five day work week and the daily grind, right? And I was like, I'll do my own business. That way, I can have my own schedule. And then my own schedule was, like, working crazy hours, right? And so, like I said, even though I went to spend time with my family, it did act as a filter, as a test for my business. Now, luckily for me, I'm at a stage in my life and in my career and my business. I have an amazing team, and I came back to, like, a business that was kind of almost running without me, right? And the reason I say almost is because I did identify some problems. I did identify some areas of bottleneck where, you know what? Like, the business does need me. I can't just leave and. And not answer my phone ever again. Now, I was able to do that for a long period of time, but, like, I got to come back. Like, we got. We got things that are relying on me that I have to do. And, I am still the bottleneck in my business in a few different areas. And you likely are the bottleneck in your business as well. we're probably two hires away from me not being the bottleneck, which is super exciting. And, you know, while many of the regular day to day, activities. Ah. they all got done seamlessly without me. Right? the one thing we didn't do is we didn't bring on any new clients. And so that's three weeks, which is not normal for us to not bring on new clients. Right. And so it's currently my job to meet with people that reach out for information, do, calls with them, do assessments, we do strategy sessions. And when I'm not available, then no one else can really do it. Know? And so that means we don't grow. And without growth, like, you know, if you're not growing, you're dying type things. So I'm currently in the process of fixing that. And, actually, I did a post while I was gone because I was thinking about this. I'm like, man, I don't like this feeling that. That, this main thing relies on me. And I did a post, and, we got 16 applicants, 16 people to apply for our sales position, which I'm super excited about. We've interviewed some, we're still interviewing others.

The key here is to intentionally leave your business on a regular basis

And, so I want to ask you, like, when's the last time you tested your business? When's the last time you left for a period of time? how long was it? How did things go? Like, what. What went good? You know, what things can you celebrate and be. And, be happy about what broke? You know, what. What problems surfaced that you, weren't aware of or maybe you thought were the issues, but didn't realize they were as extreme problems. Right. And so the key here, truly, is to, be intentional. Like, intentionally leave your business on a regular basis, come back and see what broke and fix what broke. I mean, it kind of sounds simple, but it's the truth, you know? And, even better, like, don't just fix it. But now identify these areas and these systems. Maybe it's a system you can build. Maybe it's better, training for existing team members. Maybe, it's a process that you need to install, into your company. Maybe you need to hire someone to prevent the break from happening next time. Right. and it's not always a full time person. Maybe it's someone who's there on standby or can fill in. And, this is one of those reasons why I. I'm such a proponent of growing your business, because you'll see there's different levels, okay, when you first start your business and you don't have a lot of overhead, it's kind of fun because you don't have to feed the beast yet. And, like, all the money comes to you, right? Then when you, like, make your first couple hires and you realize that, like, you do need help because you want to provide better customer service. When you get those jobs and you want to get them done faster, then all of a sudden it gets a little bit more difficult because you don't get to keep all that money, right? And, it's a little bit harder. And so I'm a big fan of getting to that level of your business where you have redundancy built in, man. Here's what I mean by that is, like, instead of just having one installer get two, instead of having one install team get two install teams instead of having one lighting designer get two, instead of having one person in the office get two. And I'm, telling you guys, it's just easier when you get to that phase because when you're not there. And I would say that happens at about over a million dollars a year in revenue. When you, when you're not there, guess what? When you're, when you're, when your office manager needs to take a vacation or gets sick or quits, like, you're, you're back to being office manager, right? When your installer has to take a vacation or get sick or quits, you're back to installer, right? And so it becomes very, very difficult because you think you're free from these things, but you're just one person away from being back in that role. So I'm a big proponent of growing to that point of redundancy so that you're not having to be the fill in person if something like that happens. And in most cases, it's not a matter of if, it's when. And so, you know, you look at these larger organizations, they have a lot of redundancy, and, they seem to have things, run more seamlessly. Right. And so maybe today you can only leave for an hour. I remember there was times like that for me. but you can work up to when you can leave for a day, and then next time you can leave for two days, and then soon you can leave for a week, right? And once you have all these problems solved, you've repaired all the cracks, you'll find yourself with a smooth running business that can actually run without you. And that is the definition of freedom. Right. I feel like that's the common denominator that brings entrepreneurs together is like we're all searching for something, and sometimes we think it's money. It's not money. It's really freedom that we're looking for. And, that's, that's what, that's why we started our businesses. And it's hard to have freedom when everything relies on you and you, end up finding yourself trapped in prison rather than freedom. So if you don't have freedom, implement the strategy. Start working on your business. Don't get complacent. Don't get stuck. there's no reason to get stuck. The only reason is you, right? It's up to you and what you want to do. So fire yourself from your current situation, level up to the person you know you need to be. And listen. If you need help, reach out. We've got the free Facebook group landscape lighting secrets. I do free strategy sessions with people@landscapewidingsecrets. com. you know, whatever you do, I just want to make sure you guys keep moving forward. But, that's my. That's my, rant for the day. had a blast hanging out with my family, and, in the process, tested my business, identified some points of weakness, and now we're fixing it. So, you guys can hold me accountable next time you see me, ask me if I've fixed the cracks, if I filled those cracks, and, we'll see how we do. So, in encourage you guys to test your own business.

Ryan Lee is the number one name in the landscape lighting industry

All right, it's time. I think it's time. If you guys are ready, let me know. Let's get the music going, and let's get our guests coming. I think I'm ready. I ready. I'm ready. Welcome. Welcome to the show, Mister M Ryan Williams.

Hey, thanks. mister Ryan Lee.

You got a great name. You got the number one name in the landscape lighting industry.

I like it. I'll keep it.

I love it, man. Thanks for coming on here. I'm excited to have you on. I, guess I'm. I'm always like, I'm terrible at introducing people, so I'll just have you introduce yourself. But before I do that, I'll tell people, like, if you guys don't know Ryan, connect with him on social media. connect with him at events. He's a wealth of knowledge. I'm pretty sure you're the closest thing I know to a walking encyclopedia of the landscape lighting industry. So connect with Ryan. A huge resource in the industry. And then now I can let you actually do your own introduction.

There you go. All right, that's fine. Well, thanks. thanks for that introduction so far.

Your first job was at fx luminaire as a manufacturing engineer

yeah, so, born and raised in Dallas, Texas. you know, lived, I'd say lived the classic Texas life without. Without a horse more than anything else. But you know, went off to school in Utah and, and there I really, I kind of met my wife and ended up doing quite a bit of school. I was in school for about seven years and, by the end of school, my wife kind of dragged me down to where she is from, which is San Diego. And we've kind of really been here ever since.

Nice, man. So what'd you get your degree in at BYU?

Ah, so my undergrad was in manufacturing engineering and then I stayed on for, a grad program that they called the product development program. So I got my master's in engineering as well as my MBA together, in three years for that piece. So all in all, I was in school for seven and a half years or so. So, I think it's, it goes without saying that I was, I was ready to be done by the end of it.

So you were like, okay, get me out of here. I'll take anything. But your first job, your first career, piece was at fx luminaire?

Yeah, it was, it was, kind of a little bit of, I would say, fate for sure. My, my wife grew up next door to a couple who, both worked for Hunter. And, for decades they worked for Hunter. and so they would even bring my wife to bring her kid to work day. and so there was kind of like a long history between my wife and hunter industries. And we really didn't know it or make the connections, until I started, finished, school and finished school in December, which was kind of an, off season for hiring and recruiters and other things. So in doing that, we went down to her place for Christmas. And at a Christmas party was this, old set of neighbors. And they said, yeah, well, we're always hiring manufacturing engineers. And I know we've got this new little acquisition that we just purchased, called FX Luminaire. One thing led to another and I jumped on board with FX luminaire as a manufacturing engineer. and that was a great opportunity for me because I got to learn everything from the product side of FX, from the bare bones, every nut and screw and wire and, component, how everything was made, where it was made, why it was made that way, and spent my time trying to help, kind of, in a sense, hunter eyes, the FX luminaire from a manufacturing and operations standpoint.

That's cool.

In 2011, were you still manufacturing halogen or is it all led

So what year was that?

What was that? That was, the beginning of 2011. February is when I was officially, was my official date.

So were they were they still manufactured or were you still manufacturing halogen or is it all led by then?

No, that, well, that's a funny story because it was, it was primarily halogen still. Okay. And I remember when I was going through the interview process, the operations manager at the time, he was walking me around the factory and we came up to this, two Costco six foot tables and said, okay, do you see this little area right here? This is our led section. and we think this is going to start growing really fast, really soon. It was literally like two Costco tables where they put together the Led products. and it was probably anywhere from six to eight weeks later, that my boss came to me and said, okay, remember that led section? Well, we need to go from making 200 fixtures to 2000 fixtures a day, by next week. So ready, set, go.

Demand. Just switch that quick.

And it just switched just like that.

Interesting.

Product manager acts as liaison between various functional groups within a company

So you started out manufacturing and then what have been some of your roles along the way with the company?

Yeah, so started in the manufacturing side, jumped into product management, and that's kind of jumped around on that product management and marketing side and have really been there ever since. so I definitely spend my time talking, product help, working with engineers, working with sales, marketing, manufacturing. All the different functional groups, I would say within Hunter, because a physical product, let's say like a lighting fixture, within a company, you have all those different functional groups from marketing to sales, finance, accounting, hr, all the different engineering types from software, electrical, mechanical, And in the world of product management, a product manager kind of sits right in the middle of all those different functional groups and acts as the liaison between all the different functional groups and has some ownership over that particular product or product line. And so, that's kind of what I've made my career out of here at Hunter and Fx, is being that liaison and being able to what, I say kind of talk, a lot of different languages. The language of finance, the language of sales, the language of marketing. So that's, that's kind of what I've done at least the roles that I've held for the last almost what, 14 or 15 years.

Yeah. That's awesome.

You gave me a tour of your campus a couple months ago

Well, I had the opportunity, you gave me that tour, I guess it was a couple months ago now and that was killer. I got to see all the campus and everything and it was like, it just blew my mind because I had, I had toured FX right before or it was actually right around the time they were, they were, they'd gotten bought out, but it hadn't been like fully transitioned into the hunter brand. And it was much smaller, and kind of intimate. And then you see what you guys have now. It's crazy. Like the showroom and the. Just all the different departments and like you're talking about and you bringing them together and stuff. So it's, it's a, it's a crazy place. How is that available? Like, if people want to get a campus tour and how do they, how do they, how do they get involved with the train? Like the training room you've got behind you and just some of those resources.

Yeah. So I'd say hunter, does the whole fly in and on campus experience really well. And, so we end up doing these, what we call fly in experiences, probably. there's a group coming in almost on average about every day or every other day throughout the entire year. Obviously, the summer season is kind of the slow season because it's, it's busy season out in the field, but, in the fall, winter, springtimes, those are, tend to be more active on the, on that flying standpoint. So, we've definitely welcome, you know, all kinds of guests, but definitely I would not recommend walking up and knocking on the door. So work with your local hunter or fx rep or sales manager and, tell them you want a tour.

Awesome.

Let's talk products for a little bit. What do you enjoy most about designing products for contractors

Let's talk products for a little bit. are there any specific products, initiatives that come to your mind that you've been involved with that, you've been excited to release?

Well, I mean, if we're talking historically, I've spent a lot of time developing quite a bit of the products that FX has over the last 15 years. When we think about the world of, controls, I remember, my first product, at least launch was the Wi Fi side of things for Luxor smartphone app and everything to go with that. In addition to that, all the bells and whistles that we've added to that Luxor platform over the years has been a lot of fun. But lately, what I've enjoyed is building and designing products that are really easy to install. Okay. And that, and that use really common things off the, off the shelf for anybody. Right. So, an example of that would be, you know, I know for any distributor that might be on the, on the call here, it's it's not uncommon to get a call that says hey from a contractor saying, hey, my, the mason is actually going to show up tomorrow to, do all the pouring. I need those back boxes for the wall light or I need some, the sleeves or install kits for the ingrates. Can I get those tomorrow? And the answer is often no without a lot of hoops to jump through. And so things like designing fixtures that fit in standard conduit or that fit in standard cordial sizes or use standard junction boxes that are just off the shelf, that's probably what I enjoy the most, is just designing things that, that are easy to install. And having done this for the last, like I said, 1415 years, I've got a pretty good idea of what contractors are looking for when we do launch a new product. Like, okay, does it have drive over ratings, does it have IP ratings, IK ratings, adjustability, aiming, rotational features, all those types of things? I think I've gotten a good handle on a lot of those things over the years for sure.

Is that mainly because of price point or quality per dollar spent

Very cool. You guys have, I can't remember how many, how many skus you have, but what's like some of your most popular products?

Oh, popular products. I you know, it's, it's, it's different depending on who you are, where, what geographic location. We're talking about what country, and price point, right? So if we talk about just quantity, those, those classic Mr. 16 fixtures like your rs or mu and the new Cora, what we call ca 51. those are, those are definitely the most popular and will probably stay the most popular from a, from a volume standpoint. But then is that mainly m because of price point? Say that one more time.

Is that mainly because of price point?

I think it's not just price point because effects were not always the cheapest necessarily. but it is more so the value in terms of we'll say features, or quality per dollar spent. I think we tend to try to err on the high side of that, meaning we offer more features, more value, better, better materials, more robust materials, for the price that you're paying.

Got it.

Some people love drop in, some people love integrated. What's your opinion on those

And I guess let's talk a little bit about like drop in integrated. Some people love drop in, some people love integrated. What's, what's your opinion on those?

That's a loaded question because I mean, over the years when we, when we first started jumping into the world of leds, I think it was really common for people to say okay, you know, integrated is going to take over, and those lamps are going to go away. And then at a certain point lamps started building up quite a bit and then others were starting to say, oh, you know what? Integrated is going to go away and it's just going to be lamps. and honestly I see a little bit of a turn back to the other way, meaning I'm starting to see more and more integrated. but the world and that battle between lamps and integrated leds I don't think is ever necessarily going to go away. And I think we've really found a good solid balance point between the various platforms. What I always tell people is that from an integrated LEd standpoint, ah, there's a number of different benefits on why to use integrated. One would be from a contractor standpoint, if you want to own the project, if you want to have a maintenance contract, if you want homeowners to stay out of your fixtures, integrated is probably a better way to go for that because you can't just jump on Amazon and buy another lamp and pop it in, and be on your way. So, if a contractor cares about keeping the homeowner out of the fixtures, then integrated is a great way to start. I always say too, from any fixture that is not a classic conical accent light, right? So your classic will call it directional up lights or directional downlights. any fixture that's not one of those. I do feel strongly that you're better off using integrated leds. And the reason I say that is because the fixtures are designed for, oftentimes for a specific, set of photometrics. Okay. And so, an example is if you take a classic path light and you've got a g four lamp, there are a lot of different g four lamps from a style standpoint on the market, right. You can say, ah, some, you know, just a solid, we'll call it an led on the top, you've got corn on the cob styles, you've got more flat wafer options, you've got silicone encapsulated, you have just a lot of different styles. And if you were to take any one of those lamps and put it into a specific fixture, let's just say like a recessed wall light, the photometry is going to look different depending on which lamp you put in there. And because of that, from a product design standpoint, you will get the most optimal photometry design, uniformity and other things, with integrated, because that's the way the fixture was designed, was for specific photometry. so that's ah, a lot of your classic wall lights, that's sconces, that's just a number of different fixtures where I do believe integrated is better just because the fixture was designed around that. but when it comes to, when it comes to your classic, some say accent, some say bullet, those, it really depends on what you're looking for. because you've got your classic conical shape of light and you can choose your different beam angles, color, temperatures, and cri and all the other points that we might care about from a lighting designer standpoint. And you've got some more flexibility when you have either lamps or integrated, depending on if you want integrated controls, if you want just the features from interchangeability. There's a lot of reasons why you would do both in the world of, of those, of those bullet lights. So there's, there's not one I can say yes or no. It's, it's more or less, What are you trying to do?

Yeah, what, what percentage of sales do you guys do drop in versus integrated?

Oh, I couldn't tell you. I mean, I can tell you that from a, from those lamps, fixtures. Right. From a quantity standpoint, I do believe we sell more. but from a dollar standpoint, it's going to be on the integrated side. So for sure, it just kind of depends on how you're looking at it.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it seems like, if newer people in the industry really like drop ins, because then they're like, oh, if I, if it's too bright or the wrong beam spread, I can just go there and change it at night so it's a little bit easier. But then I like what you mentioned is like, the homeowner control is like, I've, I've actually had homeowners, you know, they'll, you go there and they're like, yeah, we can't figure what's going on. And then they got like a 50 watt halogen in there or something that they got a, from before threw that in there. But I've even seen homeowners try to take apart integrated lights and they're like, they'll send a photo, they'll text. How do you, where do you find this replacement? And you don't. You just broke the fixture with a hammer. So. Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. I think there's definitely applications for drop ins. There's definitely applications for the integrated as well. And, you know, for me, it was, it was trying to find what was different than whoever I was mainly competing against, you know, and so I wasn't afraid to necessarily pay more because everyone else was trying to pay less and then they were all selling the same stuff, you know? And so, for me, I think differentiation was big. And I was like, I have a business to run and I want to, I want to maximize sales. So what product is going to be different than others? Right?

Luxor is a great place to start testing out lighting automation

So, tell us about, I guess, I don't know, like, do you sell more of like, those, I don't know, more, more affordable fixtures, the drop ins or are you selling a lot of the luxor integrated with the. I mean, those, those systems are pretty robust. They do a ton of things. The dollar amounts probably higher, but the, the volumes, not as much as I'm assuming. But, who, like, who are the people using the, the higher end luxor systems?

I see a variety of different people using it, for one, for those who are new to the industry and testing out lighting, if you have the right market to work with, Luxor is a great place to start out. The reason I say that is because you have a lot of flexibility from dimming fixtures up and down and playing and fine tuning what you're trying to create. And so, if you really want to play around with, the concept of color temperature, if you want to play around with the intensity, right. Because you don't know if you need a four watt lamp, a five watt lamp, a six watt lamp. In all those cases, you can do a lot of learning when it comes to a tool like Luxor. So I definitely see, people starting out with Luxor just because it allows them to, allows them really to just learn as they go. More than anything else, when it comes to the, more higher end projects, that luxor control is a great place to go. And for those who are on the call here, Luxor is, our two wire communication system for landscape lighting. The classic pitch is, you know, if one of the questions that I always ask homeowners when I'm with contractors is, okay, well, how, how do you want to control your project? Do you want all the lights to come on at once and, or, you know, at 09:00 at somebody's bedtime, do you want some lights to turn off? And they often say, well, yeah, I want some lights to turn off. Okay, great. do you want some lights to, at midnight or so, do you want some lights to turn off as well, but keep some lights on as a, from a security standpoint, just to make sure that some of the pathways are lit and other safety concerns are taken care of. And they'll often say, yeah, I want that too. And really, from that perspective now you've got three transformers that you're paying for. You've got three sets of wires running, all over the property. and so rather than have all of that wasted money, in a sense, you could put that into a single system where you can, have addressable fixtures. You can control different fixtures or groups of fixtures independently. You can dim them independently of whatever's going on on the different lines, as well as, adding some color too, at the same time, if you choose. So m that's the world of luxor. And you find contractors, who really want to do something different and give a lot of control and put a lot of control in the hands of either the homeowner or just the system in the property in general. Then, then the luxor is a great place to go.

Yeah, it's pretty robust. It seems like as you start to enter into these, larger projects and you get in front of a more qualified client who's living in a bigger home, home automation is huge in those neighborhoods. I recently found out how well you guys integrate with a lot of those systems because I was like, well, yeah, because, you know, you have your home automation app, but then you have to go to your luxor app, and that's just, that's just not true anymore with what you guys do.

One of the things that I always recommend is finding a good solid integrator

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Oh, sure. So, from a home automation standpoint, we jumped into that one pretty early. And, we actually had some help from control four, too, because, because they had a lot of customers who are asking for integration for the Luxor. And so, control, four was a big part in helping us get started, as well as jumping in with Lutron. Now, you don't have to necessarily have, two different apps to work with. And let's be honest, homeowners who have those types of systems don't want two apps either. They want a single place where they can control absolutely everything. By doing that, we've built in a lot of integration for all your classic smart home systems from your lutrons, control fours, crestrons, savant, Elon. And the list kind of goes on from there for all the smart home system integrations that we built in, for sure.

That's pretty sweet. I think a lot of people underlook that industry. And the way I view it is if someone can afford, to hire an integrator to do home automation, they can afford landscape lighting. and it's not necessarily true if someone's building a pool. You know, I know several somewhat poor people that just financed a pool, right. But that home automation is like they, they can afford it. And so those guys are starting to do more lighting. And I'm just like, you know, if you're not reaching out to those local companies and partnering with them, you're missing out on huge opportunity right now.

Yeah. You know, like I feel like every job, you know, or I won't say every, but, but more and more jobs every day are having and adding, you know, some element or some degree of smart control, more than anything else for all those contractors out there, one of the things that I always recommend is finding a good solid integrator in your area and taking them out to lunch. Find someone who understands the world of Wi fi, understands what all that stuff means, how to fix it, because you are going to run into problems at some point. And so find a friend who can bail you out, who can help you build on a project, who can help give you projects as well, because those are great customers to have. And in reality, it's very nice to be able to have somebody in that industry to work with. For sure.

Yeah. Big time.

Let's talk about the market size, the industry, kind of the potential

Let's talk about maybe the market size, the industry, kind of the potential. you and I have kind of had some discussions about this historically. the, I mean most of your distribution is through the green industry, irrigation supply houses, is that right?

Yeah, the majority is. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, I look at the industry and now, now there's more and more. There's not a lot though. There's just more and more of like dedicated, specific lighting only companies where they specialize in landscape lighting, but they're still minimal, compared to the number of businesses, companies that offer landscape lighting. How do we measure this? How do we know how big the landscape lighting industry is?

Oh that's, I mean that's, and that's hard too because you have so much of just a classic DIy mix, into that market. Right. when it comes to big box retail, like in North America, we've got our home depots and Lowe's, you've got that portion and then you've got just classic DIY e commerce as well. Like if you're going to buy something off of Amazon, but then from a professional installation standpoint, you've got quite a few different distribution, locations, right. And industries, whether it's landscape or electrical or audio visual or whoever might be, you'll always find some element of, lighting, showrooms as well. So there's a lot of places to buy exterior, landscape or residential lighting. And it's hard to kind of put all those numbers together for sure. but I would imagine, I think many people would. I think in terms of a market size standpoint, I do know I remember a number being thrown out a decade ago or so about, big box retail doing somewhere around $300 million a year. And that was a decade ago. And so, if you think about the changes that have happened now, and you see the, I guess all those little classic solar lights that are just stuck everywhere in the turf, all over your neighbors homes, there's a lot of lights. And it's a booming industry because the funny thing is, even bad light looks better than no light at all, right, to most people. And so I definitely see our market continuing to grow because more and more, because lighting is just becoming more and more prominent. And, I think it'll continue to do so for a long time.

I remember when I was starting my business, my wife was like, well, what happens when everyone has it? Like, like there was just this like finite number of people and like, and then it was just going to end. Like we were going to do everyone on the street. And then it's over. Even now when you drive down, even like, the nice neighborhoods, I mean, it's, it's less than 5% of people that have, let's call it professionally designed and installed lighting.

Oh, yeah, I would say it's less than that. Right. It's the, the majority is still, like, whatever was installed on the house when the house was built.

Yeah.

and, and we all as an industry, have a lot of work to do to, to beautify our landscapes and our properties at night, for sure.

People see even bad lighting as better than nothing, right?

I think it was you that mentioned this to me, because we were talking about this, this idea. And it's like people have actually proven that they value lighting because, I mean, the hundreds of millions, if not a billion dollars worth of DIY and solar and all this stuff. Right? So they, they do value lighting, but we as an industry have to prove to and provide the value of hiring a professional, for sure.

And that's the tricky part, right? Because like I said, people see even bad lighting as better than nothing. and whether that's, a very warm or very cool color temperature, whether the intensity is way too bright, homeowners don't often see the difference, because they don't understand, but they could definitely see it if you show them a picture and say, do you like this house or your house better? Right. Well, and then from a direct comparison, they can, they always can tell you which one they like better. And so I think in general, yeah, we have a, we have a lot of work to do to show the classic homeowner that there's a better way to light your property.

Yeah. Any tips or tricks? Cause I've had. I've had jobs where we had dialogue, conversation, showed portfolio. We did the job, and they're like, yeah, it's just not bright enough. And I'm like, what do you mean? Right? And they're pointing across the street. See, see how good that looks? And they're. They're so used to seeing these very intense bright lights that theirs, because there's isn't as bright means it's less quality and not as good. And, like, they've, they've been fed this just organically. And I, you know, I can't remember how I overcame it. Probably put in brighter lights. But, you know, like, if they stay, like you said, like, bad lighting is better than no lighting. So they've, they've been, like, manipulated by the, the evils of the lighting world to think that bad lighting looks good.

Well, you know, I think, Yeah. And let's see. One fun thing that I always like to see on when selling a project, right. Is the fact that, you know, when you set up your demo or even do the project, the addition of light automatically makes people feel better. Right. Even if it's, whether it's too dim or too bright, it automatically makes people feel better. Right. And so the moment you do that, you've created a dark spot somewhere, and that dark spot somewhere is going to make them say, oh, you know, I feel unsafe over there. That's. That that area doesn't look like the rest of the area. And so, let's add some more lights over there. and I think from a homeowner's standpoint, being able to see the value of a professionally installed property. I know since I'm in southern California, we have a lot of track homes everywhere, and I've seen a lot of contractors become really successful in terms of just classic neighborhoods, because if you do a couple of houses of the different styles within a neighborhood, then they almost build marketing, collateral, whether it's printed material or digital, and send it around the neighborhoods and say, hey, your house could look like this one. and really, if you've done a home or two, the rest of the neighbors can actually see exactly what it's going to look like. And, I've seen them be very successful with that concept, just especially for those who are starting out.

Yeah. When you guys do your forecasting, or maybe just you personally, where do you see the lighting industry going evolving over the next handful of years?

from those classic, economic indicators, we definitely follow the housing market in terms of watching what's happening there. expendable income, all those classic, economic indicators that the government uses. We do see some correlation in that as well. So we can usually follow and see what those trends look like to see really what's happening in the marketplace and what's maybe not happening at the same time. So, we definitely still see growth, and we'll continue to see growth, I think, for, for a long time. I think now that the COVID boom has kind of ended, we're kind of getting back into, I would say the normal life, although I continue to see and do expect it to continue to grow.

How do you go about coming up with new, new products to release

Very cool. And I guess I did want to ask you about, like, innovations and products and stuff like that. How do you go about coming up with new, new products to release?

good question. I mean, there's so many things that we can do with lights, whether it's a different color, like the physical fixture of a different style, trim or faceplate. So there's an endless opportunity to make lights. And so we always have this massive list of a backlog that says, hey, these are the things I want to do. but from a manufacturing standpoint, we have to pick the ones that are going to mean the most to our customers, whether it's financially, in terms of, new products, or if it's just maybe just cleaning up some of the existing ones or even killing some of the existing ones. so those ideas come, from us being out in the field with sales comments, that we hear from, from others, and we kind of put it on the list. And every so often, we'll update that list based on what we have available and some open resources and engineering to help us work, on that next big project. But sometimes lately we've been building, and designing products around this concept called collections, where you have a whole bunch of fixtures that kind of have this same look and feel, similar price points, similar materials, similar capabilities, and that kind of helps us build, those markets and those little groups of those collections. A collection might be great for, coastal cities. Another collection might be great for entry level. Another collection might be great for, that premium homeowner that has no budget. And so, we've definitely been kind of doing a lot to build on that concept of collections and making sure that, we have everything that we can, that we can create that makes sense, for our customers. Really.

Very cool.

One issue that tends to, tends to come up is just making sure

I feel like you've spent your fair share of time with contractors out in the field, and providing support and getting feedback and all that stuff. Are there some common trends, some things that you've seen them struggle with? things that may be obvious to you because you've been doing it a while or like, hey, how come you don't know this? You know, the common sense stuff to you that's maybe not to them that.

You could discuss, oh, common sense to.

Work or just, you know, struggles. Struggles, obstacles that they've, they've had. It could have been be around design or pricing or installation or, you know.

Yeah, so I'd say so one issue that tends to, tends to come up is just making sure that you're not doing things in the darkest pun was not intended, but I'll take it. but I think in general, making sure that you have help, and that could be, from a sales manager of the brand, making sure if you're using a distributor, from your distributor. Resources, I would always recommend keeping people, on your team to kind of help you out and to make things easier on yourself. Don't try to just teach yourself everything. There's lots and lots of resources to help to keep you, so you're not doing this stuff alone. So that would probably be my first one, is don't do things in the dark. I would say second, ah, is also just to make sure that I think you mentioned this earlier too, is having a, a decent amount of help, right. From, ah, your own team. So you can't build your business, you can't focus on selling the next project if you're always doing the install yourself. So I think it's building your business to a point where at least you have some help. I think in past years, I've heard, I think I've heard you say, what did you call it? A solopreneur, right? Where you're just, you are the guy, right? And that's, that's kind of a hard place to be. And that makes everything stressful. that makes every, puts a lot of pressure on you and doesn't allow you to have the time that you need to do everything else. And so a lot of it just comes from getting help, whether it's your, your partners or whether it's your own team.

It's so hard for people to do that because most of the time, if you think about it, like, when you start your own business, you're not good at starting your own business because it's the first time you've done it. And so you're also not good at hiring and training and building culture and do all this other stuff. So the first time you hire someone, it usually doesn't work out. It's usually more complicated. It usually costs more money and time and effort. And so they just retreat and they're like, dude, that sucked. Why did I listen to that guy and hire people? Why did I hire a team? Just easier to do it myself. So I understand, like, why people think like that. But on my, like, from my side, I'm like, dude, if you just push through that pain, like, you just learned what not to do and now you gave up. So that was just a headache. Like that was just a waste. Now it could have been an investment on what to do next time. So I totally get why people retreat, but then it's like, no, no, push through the pain, do hard things, learn from your mistakes this time, hire a better person, train them better, spend more time with them. Right?

Well, I think also just training yourself too. There's tons and tons of resources. I know at FX we have lots and lots of videos, training courses, webinars, and even in person activities and events as well, just to help get you started and to really jumpstart your, your, your progress in the market. Right? So whether it's, our lessons and classes, whether it's from a, ah, local distributor, those are all, those are all areas in which you can help, you know, reduce the number of learning lessons, lessons that you have to learn, shall we say.

Well, and I'll speak on that because I know when I was getting started, I had the support of both the distributor and a Fx rep, right? And John George would come out and bring an FX Luxor demo kit. So I didn't even have to buy the demo kit. And I didn't know how to set the thing up. I didn't how to turn it on and program it and stuff, but he did, right? So that was cool. And I was leveraging those resources and selling jobs that, I mean, there's no way I could have done that because I didn't understand certain things about the product yet, you know. So I tell everyone, like, take advantage of those resources. They're there for you. Why not? and then kind of full circle later on when now, I don't use those resources. Like, I learned those things. I can do those on my own. I can do those things now. I went one of my distributors, the same guy who, like, helped me get started. I also come across him. He's helping someone else, like, sell a job and, like, competing with me, and I'm, like, ready to put him in a headlock, you know? but that's just part of. I mean, I. We're friends and that I admire that they're willing to do that support, you know what I mean? because I received that support at some point. So it just helped me level up. Like, okay, I. Now I know I'm not just competing against this new guy who doesn't know anything, but I'm competing against his team of resources. So what can I do to be a better competitor?

You mentioned a couple of your online resources. Maybe talk through some of those

let's talk about the hunter. You mentioned a couple of your online resources. Maybe talk through just a few of those, things that they can find on the FXL, website, hunter University and some of those other resources.

Yeah, so, we do have a very solid training platform, that will allow you to register, for various classes or just general courses, and then get certificates, and you can see your grades and your transcripts and everything else to go with that. And really, that's helpful for you, as a business owner. but it's also great for installers as well. you can assign classes for your teams to take and even build promotion and raises around their ability to get trained. you know, that's a, that's a fantastic concept to. To make sure that your team knows what you want them to know. Right. and so, you know, we've got, you know, lighting, we call them a lighting designer training, program. Right. There's probably a dozen or so videos to watch about things like hardscapes and lighting, pathways and lighting, trees and lighting, kind of everything else to kind of go with that. So, we've got those classes. We've got tons and tons of just videos on particular products or features. so usually when we launch a new product, there's always a video to go with it to some extent, to help with training. But in addition to that, Hunter University, we also have something called the vault, too. So this is a cool thing for everybody, really. if you want to just generally help your knowledge base on FX products, we usually have a question of the week, and you answer the question of the week on your app and you get different, we call them coins and that will help you save up for to buy swag or to do all kinds of things with those coins. But really it just keeps the fx knowledge base fresh in your mind and make sure you're aware of all the new stuff that comes out. You never miss anything if you're on the vault, and that's available to anybody and everybody. So whether it's you, whether it's your team, they all have access to that for sure.

Taylor: We have a tool called my design that helps you design homes easily

Cool. And then lastly, if you want to maybe talk about your design app and the design resources that people can use from you guys as well.

Oh yeah. So, we've got this tool called my design. And it's extremely easy tool where you can just take your phone or your iPad or something and start snapping pictures around the property because that's what you naturally do when you go onto a new project anyway, you just kind of upload those images to the cloud and then we have a great system that allows you to just kind of literally just drag and drop fixtures, all over the property to kind of start your design. And by doing that, when we did design it, we designed it around, actually around Photoshop. and so the concepts that you have within Photoshop is what we built in there to make it easy, simple and fast to do a design. Now this isn't for your legit, professional designs in terms of doing autocad and other things. This is for your, your quick and easy, design more than anything else. But even though it's quick and easy, it's also very, effective at the same time for not only you or your install team or the homeowner. And so in addition to that, you can easily just, take the, take that my design. And actually we have a night mode concept where you can convert each of the images to dark, and show the effects of the light and how that's going to look. And so you can easily kind of get a pretty good idea, to the homeowner in terms of what the project's going to look like in the end. So it's designed to be fast, it's absolutely free, and it's a very seamless process to go from m on site to a finished design. Now, if you want something more, like I said, like the autocad side things with different layouts and various plans that you're going to need, in that case, we do have our design services at the same time where you just send us all the information and the layouts and the images and the drawings and we'll help lay out a more professional design at the same time. but what's great about that, my design tool is really the fact that you have your as built already laid out. In a sense. If you're doing all your designs in that system, which is just a web based platform, you can have access to it on your phone or your computer. you can easily just go back to all your different designs and say, oh, this is the Taylor home. What fixture was that? Oh, it was this one right here. Perfect. And so you save your spot, save yourself a trip in terms of any type of maintenance or anything to go with that.

That's great.

It's a, it's a sweet system and like I said, it's free. And more than anything else, we focused on making it easy. Easy and fast.

Yeah, very cool. I mean, I think both are great resources. Like you said, the one that's quick and, and easier, still robust. But then if someone's overwhelmed with like oh man, this is a big project. I don't know, I don't even know how I'm going to put this together for this landscape architect or whatever. Just take advantage of those design resources that you have. So very, very cool, man.

Is there anything that you want to bring up before we wrap up this interview

I feel like we covered a lot. Is there anything that that we didn't cover, that you want to bring up before we wrap it up?

Oh, hard to say. I mean, you know, I know we're not trying to make this a, ah, marketing pitch, at least, as much as it, as, not as much as it is. But in general, I think from a lighting industry, I think this is ah, a fantastic industry to be in. You know, everybody will, they will always need light to see. And the fact that controls have, have grown over the last decade or so significantly. Capabilities, options, configurations have all grown. And so this is definitely a great time to be in the world of lighting just because we have so much at our fingertips. And this is really just the beginning in terms of all the things that we will be doing in the next ten years. So it's a, if you're here, if you're, you're learning more, it's, this is a great place to be. So keep it up.

Well said. Well said. All right. Well that gets me fired up. I agree with you, man. This industry is going to be amazing. it's already amazing now, but I'm excited for the next 1015 years myself. So thanks for coming on the show, man. Really appreciate you taking the time out of your day.

Hey, thanks. Appreciate being here. Here.

All right, guys, have an awesome one. Keep moving forward. We'll see you on the next one.