Stay Lit! - Ep. 2: Holiday Lighting Workflow pt 1

What's up, dudes? It's the second episode of the second season of the Stay Lit! podcast, all about the professional Christmas Light Installation industry. Nick Glassett of The Jump Off and Let's Get Lit and I break down the first half of the production cycle: pre-qualifying and making the deal with the client. There are quite a few items on a checklist to go over when first contact with the potential client is made. Don’t know them? Even if you do, check out this dive into the initial steps of a Christmas light installation business sale process.

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Check us out on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram,  Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com!  Later, dudes!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome back. Welcome back to Stay Lit, Mastering the Christmas Light Hustle. I'm really excited. You know, most installers think this business is about hanging lights. The real pros know it's about the system behind the lights. From the very first phone call to the moment you're service stacking, every step matters, right? And if you don't have a workflow, you don't have a business. You have chaos. Now, today we're walking you through the beginning of a typical August, September, or perhaps permanent lighting workflow. We're going to start how to qualify leads, close more jobs, and you know, deliver professional install and turn one customer into a lifelong client. As always, this episode is powered by let's getlet supply.com, your national source of professional grade Christmas lighting products. Again, I'm your host, Jerry D, and this is Staylit, Mastering the Christmas Light Hustle, the podcast that teaches you to make money from magic. Now, today I'm joined once again by my exceptionally talented co-host. He's a businessman, entrepreneur, Christmas light genius, bounce house rock star, and just all around good dude. From the jump off, it's Christmas Light Superstar Nick Glassett. Nick, how's it going?

SPEAKER_02 1:20

What's up, everybody? What's up, Jerry? How are you doing, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Man, I am wonderful. It's been, it's I'm ready for the weekend, but it's so far it's been a pretty good week. I can't, I can't lie. A little bit gray. It's kind of rainy. I don't know how it is over there, but here it's it's a little gray. So I have to like make myself feel better, you know? So a lot of MMs.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

No, we are we are in we're in like full spring. Like it's I mean, it was nasty on Sunday and gloomy and kind of chilly and windy, but I mean it is. I'm I'm probably sweating. I was out rolling water slides that were cleaning out back with the guys right before I jumped on. So probably sweaty, my shirt's dirty, but it's awesome. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

No worries, man. No worries. That just means that you're in the swing of things and you're getting ready to make a ton of money. So show me the money. I gotta say, you know, you've been doing this now for a few years. You've done Christmas lights, you've done bounce houses, you've done just about everything, but there's always like a sales process, right? So before we like dive into everything for sure, like what's your overall process for it? Like, what do you typically think of? Like, do you think of it in stages or is it just like one thing to the next? Does it flow easily? Do you have to think about it? Like, how do you work when you're selling a job?

SPEAKER_02 2:31

So for Christmas Lights specifically for the installation business, it at first when I first started, like I didn't think it could get very big, right? And then it it did, it it popped and it's huge now. So it was chaos there for a while, just you know, because it's basically a one-month event, more or less, right? And then your leads is like, I mean, if you get 14 days worth of the most lead, your peak season of leads, that's like a long season. And so it almost takes like year over year, or at least I should say that differently, took me year over year over year to kind of refine it. Then I think this last year is where we got it, where we got it the closest or the best. And so basically what we have is I kind of actually took over sales this last year. So I answered the phone as often as I could. If I couldn't get to it, it rings both me and Cassie at the same time. So Cassie would answer it. But I handled sales where I it's like I wanted to be the one that that they got on the phone so I could get in my truck and drive over to their house and sell them, right? Then there's also on the website, you've got, you know, we use Jobber. So on the website, you've got the Jobber form, right? That I've fully customized about 50,000 different ways and and times of exactly what I want, all the questions I want to ask them for for when they come through as a lead. And it basically you get a push notification right on your phone. And then again, it's kind of the same thing where it's like for for us this year, it was speed to lead. So the second that jobber notification went off, one of us was getting on the phone immediately. Pre-season, I had my lead, probably like what who I would consider like my lead lead installer, Trevor. Uh, he's the highest paid, he does the hardest jobs, et cetera. He was actually selling commission based before November. Once we got it in November, obviously he was out installing. But right, so so those early seasons, those September, October ones, you know, it was within five minutes, one of us is calling. And so, like basically five minutes to go by, I'm like, Did you call? If I didn't get a repo on him, I just called him anyway. Um, and then and then that that but you know, that was the basic bones of of kind of how we handled the sales process from there. Once you know, I talked to them, generally speaking, I would handle them, try and close them, you know, all that good stuff. And then once they're closed, cool, they go on the books for as soon as possible to go get installed.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Right on, yeah. Yeah, I feel like it's it's kind of a whole different animal in November, right? Because in November, people are just calling and it's just like, okay, it's gonna be about this much. Here's here it is. Do you want it? Yes or no? And you go do it. You know, it's like super quick. Whereas, and you know, I used to work at a Christmas store, so I actually had people coming in, but they were coming in in August and September asking for like, hey, look, I need lights up, I can't do it myself. I'm getting older, I need someone to do it. So we would refer them to the controller, and they'd start calling right away to get on the book. But we would give them like three or four different cards to say, look, I don't know which one's best for you, you find working out for yourself. And so they kind of went through their whole sales process individually. So it was separate from what I did. What I did when people came in, I would measure their house, tell them how many feet of lights they need, and then say, Okay, here's your lights. Talk to the caller, he'll go, he'll take care of everything for you, you know. So my outside sales journey was different from my inside sales journey. So outside sales was when I was holding insurance. And so we were chasing down leads, find a set appointments, kind of doing what you were doing. Like they called, we're calling back right away. Gotta get out there because I gotta make that money because it was like a hundred percent commission, you know. So it was very much like, all right, I'm I'm catching this. And it's very different from inside, where it was like, well, you know, call this guy or just do this, whatever, it's fine. So I'm I had to ask a lot of other like professional installers, okay, what is your process? And so I kind of compiled this little, I don't know, I guess sales workflow, we'll call it. And we can work through it, talk about how applicable it is. Maybe it's not in November. I know it's definitely not, but when you're trying to sell throughout the year, especially the early months, like September, October, like you're talking about, I think it has some merit. And we can talk about what works in your area versus what works in other areas and what you can change and modify. But the biggest thing that I want to talk about today, especially, is pre-qualification, because if you don't pre-qualify, you can waste a lot of time. And I discovered that selling insurance a lot of time.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So yeah, I the I mean, I remember being a rookie, you know, brand new, drove almost an hour and then gave them the price, and they were like, Hope it was hope. I live close to you, buddy. We ain't doing that. And I'm like, it was an hour.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, yeah. And that's just one way, right? So, like another hour back, like that's that's insane. Like, that's just so much wasted time that you don't think of when you're just starting out, right? You're like, I'm gonna get every single job, right? I'm gonna do everything I can, and that's good, but also if you don't pre-qualify, you're gonna be missing some other jobs that would have bought from you because you're wasting your time on these, right? So I kind of want to take a look through some of these slides that I made up here. I like to call the the pre-design consultation or the the pre-qualification period. That's like our first step, right? Now, what is it? Well, it's everything you do before you actually meet with the customer and give the quote. And you kind of gave us already a nice good head start on it. You gotta answer the phone, right? It's the first impression your customer has of you. Are you gonna be available? Are you gonna take their call? Are you gonna do everything you can to help support them? And basically, it sets the tone for the whole sale. Have you found that to be true?

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Oh my god, I have I literally made it, it was it was probably two two years ago, year and a half ago, I tried making vlogs. So I started vlogging, like daily vlogging, and it was a lot of fun, it was a lot of work. But there was literally one of the episodes where I'm driving, I was getting tattooed, and I was leaving the tattoo shop and I'm driving in my truck. And I don't remember the it was too long. I don't remember all the, but I literally went on like a rant where it was like answer the effing phone. And like the the episode that that long episode was called Answer the Effing Phone because the the number of people, and I'm gonna I'm gonna speak a little bit more, you know, from the incitable industry here because that's kind of it's it's a longer, it's a longer tenured business, right? Or more throughout the year. So I I generally have like 10,000 times more conversations with with those entrepreneurs than I do with Christmas lights. But the number of people that don't answer the phone, they're like, oh, I got to auto text. They just text back, like no big deal. I'm like, dude, I mean, is there a hotter lead possible than they dialed your phone number and you're gonna treat them like eh? My auto text would it's outrageous to me. Like, I mean, I'll be tripping over the dog and pushing my seven-year-old out of, you know, pushing them out of the way with their face. Get out of the way, the phone's ringing. Like, you know, in in in late October, early November, it's like, I mean, that every single like our average job was is around $2,500, is is our average install. So it's like every time the phone rings, that's $2,500 in revenue for a Christmas light installation. That's $2,500 in revenue. It's like insane. That's why I took it back over. I'm like, nobody's touching my F and phones. I'm the I'm chief sales officer here.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

And there's people that don't even make that in a month, and this is like just from one call, it's from maybe 30 minutes to an hour of work, you know, maybe a little bit more, depending on the job. But like, that's insane. The people literally just don't answer the phone. That's number one easiest thing you can possibly do. I understand though.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

I and I hear, yeah, yeah. So I hear from from Christmas light installers, I hear, I'm just so busy, you know, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm on a ladder, I'm on a roof, I'm I'm in the truck. I did you know, it's kind of like I I understand all of that, but but part of my language, what the hell did you think this was going to be when you turn it? You know, the the I I'll have I'll have kind of calls, whether I do a podcast or whether I you know talk to somebody on the side or or meet somebody at one of our trainings or whatever. Like, I'm gonna do 200,000 this year. I'm like, who's answering the phone? Oh, I'll I'll just answer them. I'm like, okay, well, who's installing the lights? Well, well, me and my son. I'm like, you think you can do both at the same time and do a good job? Like, you have to set up kind of like a hierarchy of of who's in charge of sales, who's in charge of installs, and they have to be two different people. Now, we could we could go on an AI tangent here, of course. Shall we play a game? I'm not a fan of having AI talk to my customers that are worth $2,500 apiece on average, but you know what?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

I agree. I I've lately I've been pulling my daughter's been craving taco bells. So I've been putting up pulling up to these taco bells, and immediately they start, you know, hello, what what would you like to order? So I start ordering only to be interrupted by like an actual person, and I realize that, oh, I was talking to just this automated AI, you know, that they had nothing to do with my order, and I just wasted my breath for like you know 30 seconds, and it's so infuriating, right? As just a customer, it's infuriating. Like, and I'm only paying like 11 bucks tops for Taco Bell. Like, imagine if I was paying like thousands of dollars here. Like, I don't think so. I would be mad calling the next guy. Yeah, for sure. I'll call in the next guy.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

That's what I mean. Yeah, we I mean, I I answer the phone in in November. I answer the phone for better or worse, no matter what time it rings. Because do I want to take a phone call at 8 45 at night when I'm tucking in my daughter or or or you know, messing around playing with my son? You know, no, but at the same time, absolutely, because this is what I know that that's what this business is, and there's no way around that other than ignore the money. Like you either ignore the money or you don't, and so it's kind of like, no, I we answer the I'll answer at six in the morning, like whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

For sure. Now, there's one thing that I did learn selling insurance. So we had our days where we would just be in the office. So every Monday we were, it was an office day, so we never go out to the field unless it was after office hours. But from eight to four, we were in there just making phone calls, answering phones, just doing everything. And I found out really quickly that how you answered the phone really can determine whether or not you're gonna get that sale. Something as simple as smiling when you're talking on the phone, even if you're in like the worst, like you could just be pissed off, you could be just mad at the world or so upset, whatever. But if you smile while you're talking on the phone, even if it's fake, I've for some reason I found it works. And so I would tell like my because I was a district manager, I would tell my my the guys under me to do it, my agents, and they didn't believe me, but sure enough, it worked. They were booking more jobs, they sounded more friendly, they hated it because I was forcing them to smile, but it seemed to work, you know. So, you know, you gotta be focused on the call itself. You can't just say whatever, you can't just be watching the game while you're talking. You gotta focus on the call, take care of your customer, and build that initial rapport because when you do that, I've found, at least when I sold insurance and then later on in the inside sales, I found that it helped out a lot as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah, yeah, I fully agree. What one thing I'll do right so in November, I mean, I'm usually here like, I don't know, I usually get here like 6:30 or 7. And then I'm not, I don't leave till 7 or 8 p.m. But if I do get a call while I'm around the family, whether I'm in the car with them or or at home or whatever, the I I will I go out of my way to tell the client or or the person on the other end of the call, right? The would-be client, I'm not at the office right now. Like, kind of like Yeah, we're that badass that I answered the phone. That's why you hear my dog barking, because I'm not at the office right now. They're like, well, of course you're not at the office right now. It's 8 p.m. Like, well, sometimes I am at the office at 8 p.m.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

But and then but it does a whole other story, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Kind of right, but it but it kind of it kind of almost humanizes the phone call really quickly when they're yeah, you know, they're like, wow, well, thank you for answering.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Right. And it makes them feel so important, right? All of a sudden they're like, wow, this guy is even taking care of me, and he doesn't have to, like, it's after work hours. I he's with his family. Why am I, you know, I'm the one bothering him. And so even if they're not like like thinking that specifically, it's subconsciously going through their brain, and they're more likely to trust you and trust that you're gonna take care of you uh take care of them, which again is huge in this industry, in the service industry. If you provide the best service, you're gonna win, hands down, right? I mean, that's like 100% what's gonna happen. So, but yes, you gotta answer the phone, you gotta be fast about it. If you answer the phone, I believe within the first three rings, it already puts you ahead of statistically 50% of your competitors. Like already you've beaten half of them. You just answer that phone. Yeah, isn't that crazy? Like just literally just pressing a button and saying hello, already you've you've out managed to outbid 50% of your competitors already.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

That's so easy, too.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

It's like not even hard for some people, it's hard, I guess. I don't know, man. But uh, you know, and I get it, if you're on the ladder, yeah. It's maybe have an assistant that can take those phone calls, or even if it's like your wife starting off, if it's your mom, you know, who's retired and needs something to do, have her answer the phone. Just whatever you can do to get that initial that that initial contact there.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Are you gonna answer that? Quit better jobs than this. Ghostbusters, what do you want?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

And of course, as you build momentum, you'll get more book more consultations and then you'll go from there. Now, the goal of this first phone call is pre-qualification. So we've talked a little bit about it already, but how important is it, in your opinion, to pre-qualify the league?

SPEAKER_02 16:54

I I once I started doing it aggressively, uh assertively, friendly, of course, like good customer service, but but making it like right up front, right again, not like in your face, like offensive, but kind of like before we start this conversation, I'm going to tell you how much it costs. It has cut out so much, I will say basically more like frustration, right? Because you go on five minutes and then you're like, oh yeah, by the way, you know, our average home is 2500, our minimum is 900, but we don't have an upper end, you know, our biggest job this year was 20 grand or 50 grand or whatever. And they go, wait, excuse me? Minimum is 900. All I wanted was blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, so that's not your customer basically right up front. Yeah. So when I answer the phone, I the first question I always ask them is what city they're in. Because I have good SEO. So marketing ninja does my SEO, and I have good SEO. So I I'm in Covington, Louisiana, but I get calls from Covington, Georgia. I get calls from Madisonville, Texas, because I have a I live in Madisonville. Like, and so I ask them what city they're in, right? The other reason I do that is because, again, kind of good advertising and good SEO both, but we'll get phone calls hour, hour and a half away when we go do those jobs because I'm in a rural spot in Louisiana, but I'm not going to do a $900 job 90 minutes away. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right. So, first question is what city you're in. And then they say, Oh, I'm in Covington. You're like, okay, awesome, fantastic. Next question is, have you had Christmas, uh professional Christmas lights installed before? Because if they say yes, I mean, you just compressed all the things you need to say, like they know how it works. Most of the time they say no, then I go straight to money. Then I go straight to awesome. Let me tell you kind of how it works. Custom cut, our minimum's 900, our average is 2500, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And but so, like, I mean, you're like 60 seconds into this conversation, talking too much, but like, yeah, let's pre-qualify so we can make sure that we're on the same page, so we're not wasting each other's time.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Right, right, for sure. Because if they're expecting, you know, like 300 bucks to hang some lights on the roof, I mean they're that's not happening. Come on. I mean, you know, go go ask, and I can say this because I'm Hispanic, but like, go ask Jose down the street, you know, he'll he'll do it for you, you know. But like a professional with insurance, with employees that that does everything correctly, that has like the LLC that's that wants to take care of you and will service you the way you expect like your air conditioner repair guy to service, you know, there it's gonna be more than 300 bucks. And and I think they need to learn that as well. So, yeah, it sets expectations and it helps you realize I don't know if I need to be working with you, which is is as an installer.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Right, yeah. My yeah, my favorite is well, last year I had a guy that did it for 300 bucks. And I go, Oh, fantastic, call him. Like, well, he's out of business. Oh, I wonder why.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

You know, it's insane. There's guys here that that still install for three dollars a foot, and I don't know how they're making any money at all. I don't know how they're making money, and they're still coming back and doing it. And I remember this one guy in particular, he only charged him three dollars a foot. Well, he needed magnet cord, it was metal roof, and he didn't take that into consideration because he just did a flat three dollars a foot. Well, with the magnet cord is ridiculously expensive, or if you're using regular cord, magnet clips are expensive as well. So, either way, like all of a sudden he lost money on that job just because he was gonna be the lowest. And I felt so bad for him, but I was like, Hey, I'll sell it to you, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Yeah, I mean, even if you use parapet clips, right? Because then you've got a shingle tab and a parapet clip, so your cost is your cost is cost is uh higher again, right? Right, and I don't feel I mean you were you were selling to him, right? So so if he was in my DMs, though, I'd be like, Good job, bud, good job. You're the problem here. Like, you know, I mean, oh, you're I just told him like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, that's right. That's right. But I mean, I straight up told him, like, dude, you should not be at three dollars. And he's like, Well, I want to undercut everybody. He's like, Yeah, but you're also undercutting like your lifestyle, like you're you're just doing too many jobs for no money, like it's not worth it. It's what do you're risking your life? Like, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 21:34

That's like that's like that's like Louis Vuitton suddenly selling their handbags for a hundred dollars. Why why they charge three thousand? Why would they all of a sudden want to undercut people to a hundred? Why? Why when you can get I mean, we were eight fifty a foot, I'm in rural Louisiana. I'm getting eight fifty a foot. Why would I want to go to three?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

What it tells me is that he's just not Good salesman is what it tells me.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

And that's a bottom of the thing. But a lot of those guys, too. I've seen them in the Facebook groups over the years, right? I've been installing since 2019, so seven years basically. And so they they do all the work themselves, like right. Maybe they have a helper that you know is their son, they pay 10 bucks their son, usually, yeah. Yeah. And then they don't have any overhead at all because they have their own truck, not you know, there's no insurance, there's no they don't have a building like this that they store things in because the customer keeps the lights at their house. And so, like, right, they cut all these corners to where and and then they think they're like some badass. They're like, I profited twenty thousand dollars last month. I think you guys are ripping everybody off. I'm like, well, I profit a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. How am I the dumb one? Like nobody, nobody was mad at me. They gave me their money.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

It's just like, what are you doing? I am too smart, I am too smart, I am too smart, SMRT. I mean SMART.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

No, what they're doing is just giving themselves ulcers, is what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah, and there's just and there's no the other thing that I that I try to preach about it, whether it's one of our training classes that we do, or if it's in my Facebook group or whatever, I'm like, there's no scalability to it. Okay, you undercut everybody to three dollars so you can land more jobs. You're gonna go do a volume play without running a proper business with no insurance. Okay, I get all of it, right? But then you can't get any bigger, like you get to size X, which is however many jobs you can do individually, and that's it. That's the end. And then so it's like you don't have a business, you have a job. No, you don't have a dickhead boss, you are your own dickhead boss, but right you there's no scalability to you don't have a business, and then you flip and twist an ankle. Nope, there it goes. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And I actually I I actually know an installer that that happened to. He was he was also pretty low, he was like at 425, something 450 around there. He had some sort of severe medical issue, lost an entire season, so his customers had to go somewhere else. And when he came back the next year, you know, he was telling me about all the things that went wrong and and everything, and he had no support system, he didn't have a lead guy that could like go do it for him, he didn't have like someone in sales that could continue to sell. And so, literally, when he came back that next year, he was starting all over, hoping to get some of his old clients back, and now just hoping to get some new ones. And I thought, man, this is the wrong way to do business, like just completely the wrong way to do business.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Yeah, and like I said, I mean it as simple as like you missed the wrong, and then boom, the whole business is down the drain.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I know uh another guy, he he slipped and fell off a roof and like punctured along, broke some ribs, tore his rotator cuff. Now, luckily, he actually had a business where he had you know a lead installer, he had some other employees that could take over and you know run with it. And so he didn't lose any income on that except for what he had to pay in his medical bills, you know. But like that's the smart guy. That's where you want to be. Now, of course, you don't want anything to happen to you, but if it does, you want to make sure you have that safety net there. And so you need to be able to expand, and you can't do that unless you have systems like we're talking about. So we kind of talked about this already here, why pre-qualifying matters avoids wasting your time, protects your schedule and your profitability, and of course your sales become more efficient. So, what exactly is a qualified lead in your opinion? Like, who's your perfect customer? You know, you've talked to them and they said, Yeah, okay, that's fine. Now what?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I I love when they say they've already had Christmas lights installed before professionally. That's that's my favorite one because, like I said, it it trims off so much work. And then basically, so so if they say that, you know, and then I can whatever, I've got to finish selling them. But then once I finish selling them, the the the goal is to get to their house as soon as possible. Now, if they say no, you've got to go through kind of the the little, you know, I I shouldn't say script because it's in my head, but like it's kind of a script in my head, right? Of talk through this, talk through that, talk through this, talk through that. But again, get to their house. So, like a qualified lead is where they like they say yeah, I go, I can be there in 30 minutes, and they go, they say yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Awesome, awesome. Now, do you find like there's a particular demographic that is typical? Like, is it 50-year-olds, 40-year-olds, you know, like is there someone like really your perfect customer? Or is it just anyone you see all over the place?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, so it it's they do kind of fall into like a certain profile for sure, but it but as far as demographics of of age go, like now it's very all over the board, they end up being lawyers, doctors, or or business owners. Like that's almost everybody's a lawyer, a doctor, or a business owner, right? A successful entrepreneur, business owner. Um because you have to have the the the income to pay for it, right? And so I'll say this too. The the other thing that I that I explain kind of softly to some of the leads, but if they're shocked at how expensive it is, I I kind of go back and like explain to them I run a business the whole year. I gotta do different other things in this business. Now, granted, in the summer I'm not like super busy, right, getting ready to to do Christmas light installs or something, but I am getting I am prepping the business. Like I run a whole effing business that has like 10 days of leads. Now, of course, it's 60 days of leads, but I mean 90% of it's in 10 days. You know, and so I tell them like I can't afford to not charge a premium price. One, it's super hard, two, it's super technical, three, it's dangerous to some degree, right? And and then four, it's like my whole business gets to operate for this long. So it's like I have to charge high prices in order for this service to exist. And so, and and and I've overcome objection with that, and then I've also calmed down people that weren't gonna say yes, anyways. Um but but you know, that the that right there really does help them understand, like, right, because they hear $2,500 for Christmas lights and they want to flip you the bird, and then you know, I go back and ex re-explain it that way, like how it uh actually happens from our standpoint. And they're like, I'm like, yeah, super hard, and I got 10 days to land jobs to run a whole entire business. Like, yeah, that's it. Like our Christmas is November, like, and then, but then there's no leads anytime ever. And so it helps it helps qualify the leads a lot.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I gotcha, yeah. And so when I sold insurance, we would get a lot of those, you know, okay, the price for this amount is gonna be this. And I sold whole life insurance, so it was always more expensive, you know. And so I was like, and these were people in like their 70s and 80s trying to get insurance for the first time. Oh, well, like it's gonna be like 150 to 250 a month. Like, are you okay with that? And of course, a lot of them were on fixed incomes, but they knew they needed insurance, so a lot of times they were, but there were times they were just like, that's outrageous. I can, I can, I can get this insurance for you know, like ten dollars a month for like a hundred thousand, but it's like, well, that's a different kind of thing. And so we'd have to explain it as well. So I know where you're coming from, where like people think they know, but people don't know. They don't they don't know what they want, they really don't know anything about the industry that you're an expert in. So it's the same thing with Christmas lights. You're the expert. You know how dangerous it is to be on like a 14, you know, a 1412 roof, right? I mean, you know how dangerous it is to be on like this thing that's unreachable unless you actually rent a lift. I mean, or you're up in this ridiculously tall tree, you're the one that knows how much the lights cost, you're the one that knows what's gonna look good. You have to position yourself as the expert, and it helps you overcome some of those objections, but also you're able to kind of temper their expectations with it, is what I found.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Right. Yeah, yeah, that's a good. I mean, I have a I have a the bill for my workers' comp sitting right here, and uh we we don't even have lights on any bill other than permanent lights that we don't we just service, we don't touch them, but it's like, yeah, I mean, I gotta pay this bill for and I don't have any revenue coming in.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Right, exactly. So it's like, so what do you do? Well, we need to charge a little bit more so that we can take care of our employees just like your boss takes care of you, you know. Do you find that once you're you know, you've got the lead, do you do any prep work before like you get out there? Like, do you pull up their house real quick and kind of sketch something out, or do you just go out there immediately and then do it with them?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

I try so I really I so I revamped my entire sales process this year. And so the further into the season we got, the better it got. So what I'll say is once we get into November, I am very comfortable going with nothing, right? The only thing I do is I have a nice tape measure that I clip on my belt that I never use. It's just it's just there for show, right? And then and then I carry around my notebook and a pencil, you know, just in case they have a lot of requests. A lot of it I just do in my head. But yeah, and I just basically like, cool, what's your what's your budget range? So and and we know it when if they come through on job or if they call, I have to ask it, right? But and then get it out on site, and I'm like, yeah, cool, we can do this, we can do that. Now, I I do like to be able to pull up their house on Google Earth just so I can like boom, kind of visualize it, maybe a couple moments, jot it down real fast. So I kind of have a a for instance, but again, I've been doing it so long, I can usually just look at a section of house and be like, yeah, it'll be this much. And so, so bait and and and what I'll say on this too, because I used to be the opposite of this, but I used to be very exacting in how I wanted to make sure that my pricing was correct to the foot, right? On measurements and everything. Right, right. And then I I realized I'm like, it's an arbitrary number, right? Now, my arbitrary number is eight dollars and fifty cents a foot, but it's like it's the number I made up. And so, like, if you if I can go on site, you know, drive 10-15 minutes away, go on site, land the job, get a deposit check in my hand, get back to the office, actually measure it, and it's $7.92 a foot. It's like, who cares? We landed that job without without a whole bunch of moving parts, uh, right? To capture that, that lead gen on that was easy, especially if they call. Because I'm not even probably even pay for a freaking Google click.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Well, and and that's the other part of it, right? When people are are getting in there, they're doing their leads, people don't even know like how much they're actually paying per lead, things like that. Uh, but that's a whole other uh episode that we can get to later on. I know what you mean though. So, and the funny thing is on some of those jobs, if you had done it at $850 a foot, you might not have sold them, you know, but that $792 is what got them sold, you know. So sometimes it's it really is very fluid, and you don't have to be so like, well, it's gonna be this exact amount right here.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Yeah, because you're because you're on the other thing, too, is you're on site, right? And I just look at it, go, roofs to be $1,500, garden bed, I'll do for $250. Driveway, you know, $400 a drive outline the driveway, those six bushes, $1,200. They say yes, and you come in accidentally, you come in lower than you wanted to, a little bit, but like you were there so fast. We were there, so I get that all the time. Where they're like, holy, like I'll call them like shit, I just hit submit. You're already calling me. Like, yeah, I get home, I'll be there. I can be there in 10 minutes. I already I Google Maps, I'll be there in 10 minutes. They're like, Yeah, I'm home. Come on. You get over there, and I got my little let's get lit, polo, my tape measure, right? And zip it all through. Cool, shit. I came in at seven dollars a foot, whatever. But like all the impression that we gave, there are customers forever, right? Forever, they're never gonna go anywhere else. So it's like the LTV is way, way, way more valuable than whatever the the customer acquisition cost may have been in this business when you do a good job. So it's like I have a lot of leeway to kind of like play with, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yeah, and so in insurance, we used to call that persistency. Like it's a high persistence persistency if they stay with you for years and years and years. And that customer that you get right away, that you take care of, they're gonna have a way higher persistency than someone looking to just replace their old installer because he went out of business.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Right, exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

The other one is uh referrals, they also have a really, really high persistency rate, is what I've found. Yeah, so you know, I like to when I sold insurance, uh not insurance, when I sold uh Christmas lights, I used to just really quickly pull up their house, measure it out with uh roof snap. But there's some other ones out there that you can use. Google Earth does a pretty good job too. Now you can even use uh AI, we'll do it for you. But I used to measure it out real quick, and then I would always add in about um 10% just for error, like in case I didn't get the pitch exactly right, whatever. I would just kind of throw in 10%. And people usually didn't mind, they they didn't know any better. They're just like, oh, okay, it's gonna be it's gonna be 217 feet instead of 175. Okay, whatever. I mean, right you're you're putting it up. What do I know? You know, you're the expert. So, you know, I found that that sometimes playing with numbers actually helps in your benefit as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

The other thing that I found uh in in my experience, both with inside and outside sales, was what we used to call one-legged presentations. It's when only one of the homeowners was there, like either just the wife or just the husband. Do you ever have any trouble with that? We would always were were told, like, stay away from one-legged presentations. If they if only one person's there, reschedule and make sure both are there. But I don't know if that really applies with Christmas lights. How does that work, like in your experience?

SPEAKER_02 36:43

So the the the same principle definitely applies, right? Where if you get there and it's just the wife, I'm gonna run it by my husband, or you get there and it's just the husband, I'm gonna run it by my wife. Like, totally.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Uh, the the the thing is, like the the season is so pressure packed and the schedule is so compact, you just don't have the ability. Like, you gotta go when you can go, whether who whoever's there no matter what, right? Right. And so the way that I do try to kind of compensate for this or overcome it is I tell them, I try to get a conversation going of the kind of like the size and scope of the business, right? We run four install crews, I'm the second largest in in St. Tammany Parish, the those kind of things to kind of drive urgency, right? And they're like, Oh, where can you get us installed? I'm like, tomorrow. Like, you can get me installed tomorrow. I'm like, I can get you installed today if you like say yes soon. Like, wait, really? I'm like, yeah, like the the schedule's already full. It doesn't matter where I put you, so I'll just put you at the front. And they're like, Oh, like, yeah, just write me the check. And like, do you want to call your husband? Put him on speakerphone. You know what I mean? Like, jovial, right? But it's kind of like overcome it with kind of that level of urgency where it's like the schedule is pretty much already full, you know, or or I do say it a little bit, I say December 2nd, or right, some some date that's scary for Christmas light installation because obviously they're gonna spend two, three, four grand. They want them asap. So I'm like, right, yeah, they're like, well, we don't we don't want them up yet. Okay, cool. I can next Wednesday. Like, well, what we would do next Wednesday. I'm like, fantastic. I can get you. I got an empty slot. I got an empty spot on one crew next Wednesday. Yeah, and then you know, drive that earthly. Let me well let me call my husband. Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah, and I mean, I think so. I remember it, it was they used to tell us to do that insurance. I always felt real slimy doing it, so I kind of I never really did it, but it's different in Christmas lights because it's true, like literally, your schedule is so compact, so tight that it's it really is like I just don't have time unless you do it now or unless you wait way back, you know, way off in the distance.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

It really is true. So don't feel bad about using that, guys, out there, because it it's true. You're just you're telling the truth. Like your schedule will fill up, especially in November. November is the easy time, that's when you can even charge more. I know some installers that go up like a couple of dollars in November just because it's so you know, it's it's it's so tight. We talked a little bit about this already, but you have to be upfront with the price, they have to know the range, and they have to know the minimums because if they don't, they will say no or they will try to weasel their way out of it. And I know because I've done that with some plumbers sometimes. So uh customers, as a customer, it's like no, okay, I'm sorry, I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Yeah, I think it's yeah, if they start asking price, I I have found because I have tried it both ways where you're like, Well, you know, I don't know yet because I haven't measured, and yeah, they're very much like not into it. If you just start spouting numbers, yeah, you get to the either the yes or you get to the yeah, I'm home, you can come over and and we can do the consultation, or the no instantly, and you you just rip the band-aid off.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yeah. So I do have a question. So do you send some people call it a welcome package? Do you send once they're in Java any kind of like, hey, someone's coming to your house at this time, or is it just from the phone call? I know there's a few guys that I know that once their job, once their entry is listed and they're they're gonna have the appointment, they'll actually send like an email out or shoot a text saying someone so-and-so is on the way. You know, do you do you end up doing that, or is do you find it's just kind of useless?

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Yeah, we so we I kind of tested it a little bit where I put together like, you know, I don't know what the heck it's called anymore, but like you remember photo pick collage or whatever? Like oh yeah, yeah. Put some goofy thing together in Canva of like, you know, uh basically like a one, it might have been two pages, I don't remember, thing of like some jobs that we did. And so that way I could send it to them when I was gonna drive over there or when Trevor was gonna drive over there. I I it's not my style, like I'm not I'm not very like operational like that. I'm very uh I'm very fluid, I'm very uh personable. So so for me, for Nick, it doesn't really work good now. I I do love the idea for other people, it just wasn't my thing, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

I gotcha, yeah. Yeah, because I always found there's some of the bigger guys that used to buy from us, you know, the guys that would spend like ridiculous amounts of money just on minis, you know, they typically would send pictures of like their previous work and things like that. But you gotta do what works for you, and that's why all of this is there's the framework is the same, but all the specifics are variable.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

But yeah, so when you're there, what do you do? You sell the excitement, right? You sell the magic, you sell the wonder, you don't sell like how many lights you're putting up, you don't sell like it's this much per foot. You don't sell the bulb or the material, you sell that emotional investment, and that's how you win the jobs ultimately. Whether you're talking to them on the phone or whether you're in front of them, you're gonna win the jobs by showing them that that picture, you know, you're painting that canvas with like, oh, and right here it's gonna be um this tree is gonna be completely wrapped head to toe, and we're gonna go up your ridgeline right over here, and it's gonna be so magical. And if you do that, I've found even just an inside sales with the lights, I've found that it sells a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Yeah, I I so I did a really good job of this early-ish November. Like once you get to November, like 20th, 15th, it's kind of like I was just showing up and going, dude, we'll do this, we'll do this. It's gonna be fantastic, right? But but earlier in the season, before before the leads are like really hot and heavy, I would I had my iPad, I would mock it up on my iPad with Chat GPT real quick, you know, and just kind of and it would goof some stuff up, but it's kind of like whatever. You just want to be able to show them a picture of like of like the house that's right here on the slide, right? And they're like, Oh, wow. Oh you know, once you once it got super busy, it was just kind of like, yeah, buddy, we can be here. Do you want us or no?

SPEAKER_00 43:08

For sure. Yeah, these are all like September kind of uh workflows here. Yeah, yeah. November is just like, I got this time of my schedule. Do you want it? Yes or no? You know, and if they say yes, usually that's it. And you put them in the schedule and you just get it done. But uh, but yeah, yeah, you you tend to cut a lot of corners that way, but you have to because there's no other way to do it without sacrificing something else.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

So you're this whole pre-qualification, pre-design, I've a little checklist here. You qualify the lead, make sure you do that. If you're gonna send the welcome package, now's the time to do it. Or if you have like uh some people like to have their little look books or whatever they're called, make sure you have that. And then just make sure you confirm when you're going over. So in your instance, it's like I'm gonna be there in 30 minutes or whatever. For some people, it's like, I can you come by tomorrow afternoon? I have tomorrow. Off, you know, whatever it is, confirm that. And don't just say it. I've found in insurance, I've found you got to confirm it at least two or three times. You know, you say it. It's it's like when you're listening to a commercial on the radio, and most people don't listen to radio anymore, but like they say the same thing like three or four times in a row in just slightly different ways to make sure you remember it. And that's so you know, all right. So, well, I'll be there tomorrow at uh 4 p.m. You know, uh, make sure you have someone there, and again, tomorrow that's 4 p.m. You know, you just gotta say it over and over so that they remember and they don't forget you because it sucks when you're out there and they forget you.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

It's it sucks when you forget too. I exactly at the end of the call, be like, All right, I will see you tomorrow at 4 p.m. Like putting it in my brain, like so I can make sure I make sure it gets to my calendar, make sure it gets to wherever I'm organizing myself that day.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

For sure, yeah. You got to say it over and over, it just helps you remember, yeah. But that's like the whole pre-qualification, pre-design, like pre-meeting, pre-sales process there. So next week or or whatever, next month, whenever it is we meet again, we will go over the actual sales process with the customer about talking through it. And again, this is early. We're not talking November designs here, we're talking like August, September, even early October designs. So we want to make sure you guys are ready to go out there making your sales and being able to do everything that you want to do for your business.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

And I'll just say this. Yeah, I'll I'll jump in and just say this. The the reason this is so valuable to learn is because you're gonna be busy in November no matter what, right? The better sales process you have in November, the better you're gonna do. But it's like we've been kind of saying over and over here, it's not going to be as robust and sexy right around Thanksgiving as it is before it, right? Especially though, if you're starting new, this is your first season. You're gonna invest a bunch of money into hopefully our training, right? Come to see me and Jerry do a training. You're gonna invest the money to travel to it, you know, to pay for the tickets. Then you're gonna buy a starter pack or $5,000, $10,000 worth of lights to kind of get started this year, kind of depending on your situation. You're then gonna start to get these leads that trickle in in August, September a little more, you know, October a little more. You need to be able to kind of have the blueprint, so to speak, so you can have the practice reps, hopefully land a couple, take a deposit so you have some money that came in. So you don't feel like you're gonna panic and yeah, go bankrupt. So that way when you do get to November, you know, first through the fifth, and then and then it kind of ramps up again, sixth through the 10th. And then the closer you get to Thanksgiving, the more it's just kind of like speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, texting, like you know, it it changes a lot, but it's like it sets you up to be able to have a successful season when you can do these kind of early season quirky things right.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

So right, and they're repeatable, which is great, and they're scalable as well. Every system that you can build, you can scale. If there's no system, you can't scale. So do what you need to do now so that you can build for your future.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

And on that note, I'll end it with well, first let me thank you again for joining us. And I'll end it with if there's one thing to take away from today, this business isn't about hanging lights, right? It's about building a system, system that brings in the right customers, closes them efficiently, which we'll get into next time, especially, and delivers an incredible experience and turns them into repeat clients and even clients that might use your other businesses as well. And if you want to build that system the right way, start with the right materials. We'll talk about uh those that you can get from Let's Get Let's Supply. Professional grade products built for installers who take this seriously. Now, if this episode has helped you, share it with another installer who needs structure in their business and you know, let us know what part of your workflow needs the most improvement. And till next time, go make it magical and make it profitable.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Love it.