Stay Lit! - Ep. 3: Christmas Lights and Woodworkers (w/ A.R. Woodworking)

What's up, dudes? It's the third episode of the second season of the Stay Lit! podcast, all about the professional Christmas Light Installation industry. Matt Billington of Big & Bright Inflatables, retail genius Russ Schaller, and I sit down with A.R. Woodworking from The Woodworking Group. Is Christmas light installation a good fit for woodworkers? Can they use this business to supplement their slow months? Can they design custom woodworking projects to coincide with Christmas light installs? Tune in to find out!

Let's Get Lit Supply

FB: The Woodworking Group

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Welcome back, all you Christmas light lovers. I'm very excited for today's show. I have some wonderful people with me here, as you can see, some new faces, some interestingly unique opportunities, I think, as well. But we have a lot to talk about. So I'm going to jump straight into today's topic. Normally I like to banter before, but not today. So most professions, woodworkers, and quite frankly, a lot of other folks, are looking for the same thing, right? They all want a little more freedom, a little more stability, and a way to spend more time doing the work they love. But what if the thing that helps you build a woodworking business in this case doesn't come from woodworking at all? What if a seasonal business could help you create year-round opportunity and let you do what you love without worrying about income? Today we're talking about a question that might sound a little crazy at first. Can Christmas lights help woodworkers build a more stable income? So we're having a conversation about business, about seasonality, about opportunity, and whether professional holiday lighting could be a realistic fit for woodworkers, builders, designers, contractors, small shop owners, and anyone. Now, this isn't about hype. This isn't not about get rich, quick schemes, and it definitely is not about telling woodworkers to stop woodworking. It's about asking honest questions, looking at real numbers, and exploring whether this business can help create more breathing room for the people building things with their hands. Now, as always, this episode is powered by Let's GetLitSupply.com, your national source for professional grade Christmas lighting products. I'm your host, Jerry D, and this is Stay Lit Mastering the Christmas Light Hustle, the podcast that teaches you to make money from magic. Now, today I'm joined by my exceptionally talented co-hosts. First is a businessman, entrepreneur, inflatables, innovator, and manufacturer, and a great friend from Big and Bright Inflatables. It's Christmas Light installer, Matt Billington. Matt, how's it going?

SPEAKER_05 2:07

It's going really well, Terry. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Well, you're always welcome. I mean, it's technically your podcast because you own the business, right? But so you're always welcome to join, but thanks uh again. Thanks for being here. Now, also joining me is a rock star in the retail world. He helped build TJX, introduced home goods stores, and practically ran half of Canada. He's also been in the Christmas light industry for about a decade. It's retail genius, Russ Schaller. Russ, how are you doing? Good, but nobody ever called me a genius.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

So thank you for having me too.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Well, you're also always welcome. Whatever I'm doing, you're always welcome to join me. And finally, we're here with a very special guest. You'll know him as AR Woodworking from the Woodworking Group. It's Adam. Adam, what's happening?

SPEAKER_07 2:54

Doing good, guys. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 2:56

You know, we're we're excited. We're we're ready to go and quite frankly, intrigued at the prospect. You know, we this partnership came up. I I joined this team in January, and Matt kind of presented this partnership to me. And I thought, that is insightful. Because as Christmas light installers and and Christmas light professionals, we're always looking to help others, especially seasonal workers, make money and provide for their families. And when I heard about this, I thought this is spot on. This is a great way to do that.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

This country, you gotta make the money first.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Now, today we're doing something a little different, right? So Adam's gonna take over hosting duties. Adam, I won't let you just run this thing. And you're gonna lead the conversation from the perspective of the woodworking group community. So Adam will be asking questions. Uh, his members would ask, the tough questions, the skeptical question, and the questions every business owner should ask before investing their time and money into something new. So, Adam, go ahead. The floor is yours.

SPEAKER_07 3:56

Excellent. Thank you guys. And Russ, yeah, I'm kind of like you. I've never been referred to as a genius, but I've been referred to as asking too many questions. So I guess this is a good opportunity for me to excel. So just to start off, I met Matt first on an unrelated topic, and and conversation evolved, and we got to this point. And the idea of Christmas lights came up. And I have to tell you, across TWG platforms, a question I get repeatedly, I see all the time, is people saying, I'm not selling as much as I want to, or can I really do woodworking full time? Is that feasible? And these conversations around those concepts keep coming up. And so I was really intrigued, and I'll admit, skeptical, when the concept of Christmas light installing came up. Because honestly, I didn't make the connection naturally. But the more we talked, Matt and I talked, I was like, okay, I think I'm starting to see the light. I guess that's a horrible pun. But with that, I guess before we talk about the questions I have, and I created far too many. Help woodworkers, help the audience. What is your company? Where did it come from? What do you do?

SPEAKER_05 5:09

So I guess I'll I'll start here since I own the company. So basically, what happens for me is similar to maybe what is going to happen to some of you guys. I was an inflatable rental company. And what happens with inflatable rental companies is throughout the summer, you're just busier than you know what to do. You're you're making good money. And so you start spending money. You bring in, in my case, lots of labor, managers, full-time employees, you buy a bunch of product, you do all of this sort of stuff, and you don't always plan fully for the future, right? And so then all of a sudden, inflatables stop renting come, you know, November. And you're like, well, how do I keep these employees around? How do I pay them? Did I save enough money? Will I make it till March hits? All of these sort of things. And so I started, so I had a company called I'm Super Creative. So I had big and bright party rentals, big and bright inflatables, and big and bright Christmas lights. So, you know, it's like a winner. But the name worked for all of them, honestly. So it worked out okay. But basically, I wanted to keep my labor for force working throughout the winter, and I needed to find a way to do it. Otherwise, I was gonna have to take more loans, I was gonna have to come out of pocket, or I was just going to lose revenue and income to keep them around. The alternative would be to say, hey, hope you're still there in the spring, but that's not that's not a good alternative. If they find another job, then you're starting all over. And so for me, it was really about keeping people. But for some people in our industry, and we're thinking some of the woodworking group, it's about making Christmas better for your family. It's about paying your bills, it's about keeping everything going until it picks back up in the spring. So that's really how I got into uh rent, uh into hanging lights. And then because I distribute inflatables, I thought, well, hey, let's distribute Christmas lights as well. We kind of built the company. And ever since we've been teaching people, primarily in the inflatable industry, but also in a bunch of other industries, and we're you know, stretching this year towards woodworking as well, of how to bridge the gap between the end of the season and the start of the next. So that's kind of how we started. I don't know if I answered the question fully. Maybe you have a little bit more about who we are. That's just kind of where we started.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

No, I mean, that really is where we are. So Russ and I have experience selling lights together. We basically did the same thing, but one-on-one with customers. So we we didn't host training classes. People would come in, we would measure their house, tell them how to cut the cord and how to basically install lights like a professional. We also worked with professional installers and we kind of would sometimes troubleshoot different items like that. So we have a lot of experience in that kind of uh in that kind of world. And so when Matt invited us over to to come work for him, we took all that experience and we we just try to make it on a grander scale. And really what we what we like doing is is I mean, I I can't speak for Russ, but for myself, I love Christmas. So I just want everyone to light up their house and just have a magical, you know, just that awe and that wonder that you'd get, you know, when you see the lights you're driving by and you see the lights on your home or the lights down the street. It's just it's so phenomenal. It's such a wonderful feeling, right? It's all warm and fuzzy, and it takes you back to when you're that little kid and your dad used to hang lights. And so if we can get everyone to do that, but also make some money and support their families at the same time, that's a win.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Everybody come out, quick, look at the lights!

SPEAKER_04 8:54

Absolutely. You've neglected neglected to tell them that you trained Matt.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

I did train that's really how he got started.

SPEAKER_07 9:01

Like you taught me everything I know about exterior illumination.

SPEAKER_05 9:05

That is how I got started. I uh I I knew I wanted to do it, and I walked into a store where these gentlemen worked and said, How do I do lights? And they gave me crack, he gave me a crash course, and then I ran out and I did it. So, and for me, that worked. And for some people in your group, they they'll they're gonna need 20-minute conversation and they can be off to the races. But the vast majority of people, I think, really need a game plan. And it's not just how to hang them and install them and all of that. It really is from start to finish how do you quote them, how do you measure them, how do you, you know, run the business, what kind of industry do you have? How do you advertise? How do you really make it profitable? And how do you not just end up hanging like your two neighbors? How do you go end up hanging full communities, you know?

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_07 9:57

I guess with that, I just I just want to I want to hop into it. I mean, that that's a good background. I mean, so I guess my first question on on behalf of of woodworkers is big picture, what are you looking for? So I I know that answer, but what are you hoping to find and and gain from woodworkers?

SPEAKER_05 10:18

Well, okay, so obviously we're we're a for-profit company. So that answer is a little bit loaded. We're looking for customers, right? But specifically, why when we started talking last year, did I think wood workers is? I think that somebody that works with their hands doing wood is has got common sense and probably has some significant problem solving ability. And I don't want to be, I'm older than I should be. I'm older than I feel like I am. Um, but as an old person, you know, we start to think that one thing that is lost in the world today is problem solving and common sense, right? And so I really liked the connection of I just felt like this group of people will have those skill sets to go be successful. And and we will, we will hold your hand, we will uh answer your questions. You can call us anytime. He just left Disney World. If he goes back, he'll answer wall at Disney World again. That will not be a problem. We will do video calls when you're on the roof and whatnot. But what I just truly, when I heard woodworkers, I thought to myself, these guys will get it. Like they will be able to go out and do this job with a little bit of guidance, one one day of training, what one and whatnot, they will they will have it. So maybe I'm giving you more credit than I should. I don't think so. But I that I remember our conversation, you know, not a whole year ago, but do you remember me just saying, like, I feel like your audience is the right type of a group? We've had great success with other groups like landscapers, roofers, firefighters, gutter guys, and other kinds of like tasks that you do with your hands. And I just feel like that's the same type of clientele that you guys would be. So that's what I don't know if that answered your question fully, but that's what appealed to me when we had the conversation. And I thought woodworkers. I thought of a buddy of mine who does it and has that builds these beautiful chests. And I said, man, like if you got a thousand of those guys in your group, that's the guys I need.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Yeah, there's also a certain, you know, depending on the level of woodworking, right? There's also a certain amount of aesthetics that goes into it and an eye for detail. And I think for some guys, you'll you can notice the difference between the professional who's had training, who knows how to do it, who will peak the top bulb, you know, make sure that there's a bulb on that peak, the person who will cut the cord and hide it behind downspouts and do all the little things because they have that level of detail and they know they want it to look good and well made and well done. You know, and I feel like also woodworkers in general have that more than some of the other professions that we're used to. I mean, landscapers, I love them. There are some that are fantastic and they have that same architectural kind of eye that where they can make something look amazing, they can hide it. But then you have the guys that just go out and mow lawns and God bless them. They earn their living, they're hardworking, they're guys you can trust, but they also sometimes miss some spots here and there because they don't have that level of detail. And I feel like if you're working with blades, if you're working with things that can cut you, you're gonna be paying close attention. So, you know, none of this, it's all low voltage, so it's it's really, really simple. So it's not like there's any kind of danger that way. Really, what I'm talking about is that level of detail of making sure that the corners are great, making sure that when you're gluing around the window that it looks fantastic, little things like that that I feel like the eye is drawn to that woodworkers could really just connect.

SPEAKER_05 14:08

Yeah, and to just add on to that, this is a very profitable business for anybody who does it. And if that's because you will, we will teach you, and you should, the market will bear a very nice price for your work. Okay. But if you're going to get that high dollar price, you really should also give that very professional work and do things there. So, you know, I think the woodworkers in general, all the things that I'm thinking, the craftsmen and stuff, like they want that attention to detail, like you said, the perfect finish. And I think they'll do the same on on people's houses, and people will feel very justified in what they're willing to fork out for that. Right.

SPEAKER_07 14:53

No, I think that's well said. The attention to detail, I mean, the idea of planning and execution, and as you're going through it, problem solving. If something doesn't quite align, you fix it. So, no, thank you. I think those are spot on. So, so let's dive into it. What is the thing? So, we're talking about we know what the business is, what you are, you do Christmas lights. We talked about woodworkers. What does that become? So, if someone says, What is this thing? What is it?

SPEAKER_03 15:21

So, well, we have, of course, we we offer the product to sell, but we also offer trainings. So, we got several coming up in September. And at the trainings, we teach you how to market yourself first and foremost as an actual member of the service industry. So it's not about talking about what bulb you're using, you know, things like that. It's not about selling particular amount of feet of lights. It's actually about you showing up saying, Look, I've been trained, I know how to measure your house, I know how to install the bulbs, I will maintain them, I will take them down, I will store them for you, and then I'll walk around to make sure that everything is taken care of and there's nothing out of place. You know, it's a full service that we show you how to do and how to present yourself as. And because of that, it's it it really it's a whole course with that included. So, yes, how to cut the lights, how to do everything that you need to do to install them, which is the easy part. You can learn that in about 20, 30 minutes tops, right? You know, yeah, an hour max. But how many hundreds of household homeowners have we taught? Exactly. In an hour, right, or less. You know, in November, we had uh droves coming into our our store, and we were literally just trying to get them out as quick as we could. So that's the easy part. But we teach you, okay, so here's how to start your, you know, are you gonna do a sole proprietorship? Are you gonna do an LLC? Are you gonna do an S Core or C core? Like, and then from there, like, okay, are you gonna be tax exempt? Do you have your resale certificate? We go step by step through all everything. Okay, now let's talk about marketing. So now your business is set up. Do you have your insurance? Let's talk about safety. Every single little step we go through in this course so that you can present yourself as the professional that you are, and that you can service the client to that degree that you would want to be serviced, right? I mean, you're not gonna hire the plumber that is like friends with your brother. You'd rather hire the guy that you know has been in the business for 25 plus years that has the nice polo, that looks professional, that has material that you can read over. And so we kind of talk you through all of those steps. And so what it is, it's this process of us teaching you how to sell yourself and sell lights, basically, and and run a run a full business.

SPEAKER_05 17:49

The one thing I guess I just want to specify because I think maybe this is where you're going. It's it is a it is not a few things, it is not multi-level marketing in any way whatsoever. We are not selling you a franchise. Nope. We are not, you are not obligated to buy from us just because you train with us. Now, we are hoping that we impress you in such a way that you will buy from us, but when you leave there, you have not bought a franchise. You do not have to go sell product for us in any way whatsoever, and you can buy anywhere that you want to. Now, we hope that you will buy from us. That would be ideal. Right. Um, but all we're teaching, all we're trying to do is teach somebody how they can run a business in the off season because it it really is a sprint. See, I do inflatables, you guys do woodworking, all the things, right? I would say woodworking, inflatables, they're marathons. You work year-round trying to perfect this business. You get tired, you have to run and run and run the extra mile. Okay, but Christmas lights is a sprint. You will start it somewhere between October 1st, probably, and probably not the first year. That's probably the second where you're when you're hanging houses that you sold in prior years through December 10th. It ends at December 10th. Everything shuts off at December 10th and actually slows down around December 1st. So you're really just running a 45-day-ish.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Well, it's like eight weeks, right? It's really just eight weeks compressed, the whole business in that small frame of time.

SPEAKER_05 19:29

And and listen, for a lot of uh the smaller rental companies in the inflatable industry that I'm familiar with, and and I'm I don't know y'all's business as well, but I assure you there are there are many people. Tell me if I'm wrong, there's many people in your industry that make less than $50,000 of revenue doing woodworking in a year. Is that correct? Yes. You can make that same or significantly more in your first year hanging Christmas lights in 45 days. Okay. A lot of people like to get on here and talk about revenue and say, hey, you can do $100,000 in your first year. And yes, 5% of people might be able to do that or do that or whatnot, especially if they're in a big market like I am in Dallas and all that sort of stuff. But revenue doesn't really matter. Profitability matters. Okay. And so even if your revenue is $20,000 or $30,000 in this, it's pretty easy to make 50% profit in your first year. It's pretty easy. If you don't make 50, you might make 40, but still 40 to 50% in profit in your first year. So even if you do 10, uh $20,000 in revenue, which is about the equivalent of 15 houses, more than likely. Yeah. Maybe 2010. Depends on your market, which is not hard to do. That would be one house every other day during the season, basically. If you were able to do that, you know, you could put an extra $10 or so thousand dollars. And this is this is on the low end in your actual bank account to use for Christmas or employment or to making it through the winter. So there is definitely some opportunity for the low for not, you know, not the huge cabinet chops, okay, but your average woodworker to double their profitability throughout the year by in a 45-day window. And that's low end. That's that's really quite low end. My first year, we did 43,000 and I didn't sell 15 of the 45 days because I had an inflatable convention. And we profited nearly $20,000 that first year to pay labor for that year. That went pretty far for me. And by by year four, that I sold the company, but by year four, they did $313,000 in revenue at something like 60% profitability and in it's it's extended to about 60 days for them because they've added in some homeowners associations, and those just take a long, long time. And so they they have to juggle the installs and whatnot. But still, that's the I don't know, that's the carrot, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Yeah, yeah. Let me put it in perspective. So Russ and I here in D here in DFW, there's this very famous red tree. It's a tree that's massive, that is wrapped as tight as they can with strands of lights. The guy that used to do it, he doesn't do it anymore, but he would spend one week wrapping this tree, him and his crew, and they would rent a lift and they would keep the lift on site just in case they needed to, you know, go out and fix something. But that's all they would do all year long. And that would that one job, that one tree job, because tree jobs are very fine, they're they're very, very profitable. That one job kept him and his crew like sustained throughout the rest of the year. So now is that typical? No. But sometimes the atypical shows us the heights that we can achieve. And so I like to besides the the typical, like most first years, they do what 60 houses their first year, and that's around about average, uh, between 40 and 60. But some guys go out and sell the massive projects that keep them fed for quite a long time. So, especially for people that love to work with their hands, or maybe that's the the woodworking is their sole source of income. Well, this is a way that they can extend that time just woodworking by just going out and spending, like Matt said, you know, a 45 days or eight weeks or however long you want to spend to really focus and just put in the work and make a lot of money. And then again, depending on the area, you can, you know, and we get into what to charge. That's one of the things that we talk about in our trainings, like how to charge. But some people, you know, some areas you're lower per foot and other areas you're higher per foot. But if you target some of those higher areas, you can make a lot more.

SPEAKER_05 24:05

And we keep talking about money, and I feel bad that we just keep getting it to that. Right, that really is, you know, what could sustain some of you guys. But beyond the money part, two things. One is it is you get this amazing feeling when you pass this off to the families and the kids, and you light it up for them, and they come out and they you just see the joy on their face and stuff like that. And you get a pretty good self-fulfillment feeling when you're snapping your pictures, or you fly, you go get a drone and you fly over it and you see the job. So there is Jerry talks about the Christmas magic. There, there is a lot to that. So it is rewarding beyond the cash, but it it is cash-rich too. So then every year there's both of those things.

SPEAKER_04 24:54

Every year, that same homeowner homeowner will add to what they've already been doing. So they'll add a couple of wreaths that you sell them, or they'll put some product out in their in their yard, or they'll line their driveway. It it gets contagious and infectious, and it just grows bigger and bigger every year. But I'd trade it all for a little more.

SPEAKER_05 25:15

And sometimes they get all anxious and they start calling you like a way before in the season and talking about it. And so I guess what I'm saying is there's more to it than just the money. There's there's satisfaction of a job well done, and especially the uh the the woodworkers that are more on the craft side, you really can get that same feeling or that sensation of like completion and artistic display uh in Christmas lights as well. You know, you you can get you get to go and design with the customer and then make that come true and then reveal it to them and see the look on their face.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

You know, Jerry and I work with just tons of installers and they work hard. You know, they start, like you said, to September, and by December 10th, they're done. But I can't tell you how many of them get on a plane and go on a vacation for Christmas. And that's part of their satisfaction of it. They paid for a luxury trip.

SPEAKER_07 26:16

Yeah. So just to back this all up a step, to make sure everyone understands this concept, this Christmas light thing is a woodworker, a person, a tradesperson, whoever it might be, says, Okay, I want to create my side hustle. Call that an official business, call it a hobby, whatever you want. But they say, Okay, this is a way I can bring in some income to support my family, to help me transition to full-time woodworking, whatever it might be. But they essentially, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you're saying they become an installer of essentially Christmas lights and call it accessories. I'm not sure wreaths, whatever, but that that's what this process is.

SPEAKER_05 27:00

Absolutely. That's that's what it is in a nutshell. It you most people will start it out as a side hustle, but it's it's going to be the way that we teach it, will be a full second business, but it is not going to consume your life beyond that 45, 60 day window, which the assumption is many of you will have available due to kind of the seasonality of your business.

SPEAKER_07 27:28

Yeah, I mean, geez, it's I'm not I'm not one of these guys you see on YouTube that have this massive warehouse that's temperature controlled. And when I when I do woodworking in the winter, I'm out there in the elements, and yeah, I don't uh I'm not out there as often as I'd like to be. But as you were talking, you start talking about like as you're decorating a house, and maybe someone would ask for an add-on. And I'm sitting here thinking, how many times I've had my neighbors or my wife ask me to say, Hey, can you take a sheet of plywood and cut out a reindeer that can go in the front yard? Like all those things.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

That's a point I hadn't even considered because the typical light installer, Christmas light installer, usually they they get their cord that you can cut to whatever length, you know, so you make it fit the house perfectly. They get their bulbs, their clips, everything. They add wreaths, they'll add stakes on the ground, you know, different things, but it's usually standard as woodworkers. I hadn't considered this. You actually are uniquely positioned to provide extra, you know, just essentials or things that the customers are looking for. So it reminds me of growing up, there was a house nearby and they had peanuts. They were wooden, you know, Charlie Brown figures. They were all painted on, but they were done out of wood. You know, you guys are uniquely positioned to create items specifically designed for homeowners as well, which, you know, that gives you the best of both worlds. That gives you the income from woodworking and the income from Christmas lights. Because, yes, we have been talking about uh profitability and things like that, but honestly, that's a fantastic way to actually incorporate your passion into this extra hustle.

SPEAKER_05 29:07

Both, both, both, both is good.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

I don't I can think of several homeowners. I know. I I I can think a lot of them come in and go to the store that I was in and bring the pictures of the woodworking projects that they have turned into Christmas ornaments. Yep. And they're proud, they're more proud of those than they are the lights on the house. It's not rockets science.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I removed the sconce, fired up my grandfather's torch, heated up the pieces in a cast iron bucket, liquefied the metal, poured into a mold, obviously keep it over a low flame to achieve a nice temper, cooled it in an anti-freeze, and just forged and shaped the rings. Whole thing only took me about 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

I don't even know why we didn't even think about it. Yeah. It's kind of it's kind of brilliant. It they that's another connection that we didn't even think about. I mean, you what you could potentially charge to just put giant Merry Christmas up in the yard, or maybe some of you guys could make nativity scenes or a reindeer, like you said, or or trees. Maybe you don't need to buy our wreaths, maybe you make your own wooden wreath in some sort of way. Yeah. I I don't know why I didn't think about that. I mean, if even honestly, if the right person had the right idea and was showing success, it might even be something they could make in some volume for us to sell on the website to tell the people. So I think that there are probably, I don't know, this just opens up a whole string of possibilities, to be to be honest. I mean, you guys can even make things and drill little holes and put the light through on the light it up to light up. You could make a tree that actually has holes that you buy the lights and screw through.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

You ladies will excuse me. There is a jack plane that needs my attention.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

We have so besides the basics, there are more advanced products that you can use later on. One of them is actually a strip of neon, like a neon light strip that you could even put around some woodworking projects. So there's literally, I mean, the possibilities are quite I mean, it's exciting. That that really is an exciting prospect.

SPEAKER_07 31:23

Uh yeah, I've uh I've spent uh a lot of time thinking about this getting ready for for this conversation. And like I said, I was reflecting on how many things can be done with a sheet of plywood, an eight by four sheet of plywood. And I mean, heck, you you take out your jigsaw and you can cut down to whatever shape you want. I mean, this is a laser machine right here to my side, it's a small one. But people with CNC machines, I mean, you can bust out. I mean, I know Christmas arches, I've seen people do arches over walkways. I've seen all kinds of things. And so I wanted to throw that out there. Is while you were explaining, you know, the light business, and we'll get into what that looks like for someone who may want to consider it. But I think the woodworking is a natural fit for, like you said, what someone can already do. They already have, I bet a lot of TW members already have these basic tools to cut out your, you know, whatever shape you want. Like you said, words, a snowman, a tree, a reindeer, a sleigh out of just normal plywood, spray paint it if you want, it doesn't matter, but then put the lights around it, and right there you're making custom decorations.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Exactly. So that's how you market cut.

SPEAKER_07 32:31

Yeah, so I throw it out there is I guess my question is because I don't want to, I know this can be overwhelming. What when this concept first came up, I'll admit, it was like this big idea. I I I when I woodwork, I'm by myself. Like I it it was kind of like a lot to take in. It's like, okay, what could this be scaled? Can I do just a cut out Christmas tree out of plywood, put some lights around it, sell it to 10 people and call it a day? Is that an option? Like, or what is is is what you offer the training, the support, the supplies. Do you offer scalability? Can someone do super small? Like, geez, I'll I'll just try to do maybe my house, my neighbor's house, and then next year I'll consider bigger. Like, do you do you offer those types of options?

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah, of course. So what we teach is the basics, you know, how to go through it, but we have experience not only in the field, but also one of our trainers that we trust to do that. You know, he also has what, like a 250,000, $350,000 company. And so we do teach you how to create systems, and then those systems are scalable. So, I mean, I've worked and seen and talked to installers that do over a million dollars during their season because they built those systems that are scalable, but they didn't start like that. Most of them started doing, you know, their first year 20 to 40 houses, some 60 houses, things like that. So we show you, we've taken all these bits of information plus our own experience, and we distilled it into a teachable course.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

But I I and he's talking about scaling, and you said scaling, so I think he was scaling up, but I heard a lot of the words about small in there. And so, yeah, absolutely. So you don't have to grow, you don't have to scale. That's totally up to you. But two things I would I would mention there is we highly suggest people start with a starter kit. Okay, it's about $1,700. It should be good for you to make about five to seven thousand dollars worth of installation in houses, and it's good for about five houses approximately. Okay. You you could put them all on one house because you sold a huge one, or you could do, you know, maybe six or seven houses because you sold a bunch of small ones, but on average it's about five houses. Okay, and if that's all you did for the whole year, yeah, that would work, right? That that's your first year. You put one on your house, you put one on your mother-in-law's house or your mother's house or whatnot, and you sell three jobs and you call it a season and and you you dip your toe in. So it could be small like that. The other thing is it takes now. I would suggest you start with somewhere between a thousand and two thousand dollars to start this business. But if you don't have a thousand or two thousand dollars, you can literally start with zero. So people expect that when you book their job that you will take a deposit. Yep. Okay. I have historically always taken 50% down. Most of them. Most do. Yeah. Some scale up, some scale down, but 50% is pretty acceptable. And you will get yes, and they will write the check or hand you the cash, and you will walk out a week or two before you need to install with that cash in hand. If you want to do it that way, you walk out with that cash in hand, you go then by yourself a ladder, you go buy yourself the Christmas lights that you need to hang, you go hang them, and then the second half of them is you know what you would use to pay your helpers or you know, or whatnot. But a lot of people do start with zero. I think you're better off if you start with somewhere between a thousand and two thousand dollars, because then you can buy signs to build advertising, you can get yourself some insurance, you can have those ladders ahead of time, you can, you know, go to a website, like get your who your website, take the domain name, maybe an LLC, all that sort of stuff. But it doesn't take five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars to start. It doesn't. You can start with zero, you can start with two thousand and and be off to the races. So first year I started with about ten thousand dollars, but again, I was trying to move this other business along, and I spent it on an LLC, on insurance, on signage, on ladders, and then I bought I think fifty five hundred dollars at y'all's kickoffs, and that was my 10 grand, and I was back buying more lights in like two weeks, so you know. So that's just kind of how that works. And and so you can start with next to nothing.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Yeah, you can start with nothing, but yeah, I know a guy that he started with his dad's truck and his dad's ladder, and he got his first deposit, came to the job, and then started booking more and more. And eventually he got his own truck and his own ladder, you know, ladders plural, and then he had to hire helpers because he was doing so many. So it's definitely something where the investment can come later on. You'll see the return on that investment, and you don't necessarily have to pile it all in at the beginning, which is great.

SPEAKER_05 37:48

And you know, when we're talking about woodworkers in general, and I I think I'm stereotyping, but most of your guys have a ladder. Like I just feel like they probably do. Yeah, you know, they probably have good ones, they probably have nice ladders, and if they don't, they could build the trunk ladder. That's true. It's so true, though, yeah. So it would be heavy, really heavy.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

Yeah, but they could do it. To your point, I actually have a woman who was I had a woman who was absolutely broke, who came in and and emptied her piggy bank on the counter, and we counted out enough money to buy two bags of balls, and now she does 300 houses. She was completely broke. She didn't have money for food. And she to your point, you know, she hung 50 lights, came back with that money, did a hundred, back the next day, buying 200, and it all snowballed.

SPEAKER_07 38:49

I want to be clear for for those listening and those watching. I didn't provide the questions in advance for this. And and I think so far we've provided some context, but I I have no hesitation saying I'm gonna be putting these three guys on the spot here with some questions going forward. I like I said, I want to be transparent. When I first, when Matt and I first talked, like I said, it was over a year ago when I first met Matt, I of course I was skeptical. I mean, anytime I mean I've been raised to, hey, you can make a lot of money by doing a little work, it's always like, nah, something, something's not right there. I mean, I I've I've I've been told that. And I, to be honest, I there's too many things in the world right now that are trying to take advantage of people. You hear that was the phrase, get get rich quick schemes. And so to there's a kind of a line of questions here. It's all I'll ask them kind of in sequence. So the first one is to show what does this look like. So so I'm Adam, I I I I go to one of your guys' classes, you teach me what the you know, the introduction. So I grow up prepared. So I have some confidence to know what I'm doing. I go out there, I book a job. What does that job look like? I mean, I know from my personal experience, hanging Christmas lights, like I have to clear my whole Saturday because it's gonna be my wife holding the ladder while I'm up there shaking at the top, trying to put them on. So, what is a typical job? Can can an individual actually do this?

SPEAKER_05 40:12

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so first off, you clear your whole schedule for a couple reasons. And the main one is because you're hanging horrible lights, they they are not made well, and you're using horrible clips, which is a a huge problem with the the lights that most people are doing. So the way that the job looks, like you've let's assume you've already gone and sold it, now you're showing up on that day. I would prefer you to have a helper, but you don't have to. The thing is, if you don't have a helper, you're gonna be getting up and down a whole bunch of times. But basically, lights come in a giant spool. So you'll have a spool of somewhere between 250 and a thousand feet of lights. They're not going to come with the bulbs in them. He's about to show you what blank cord looks like. Okay, now they're gonna be spaced out 12 inches apart. Okay, and so the first thing you're going to do is you're gonna look at the house real fast and you're gonna assess where's power? Where am I starting from? Where is my power going to be? Most of the time that's gonna be on the front porch. If you're in Texas, a lot of times we have plugs in the eaves. Not everybody has those, but you know, you're going to figure that out. It might be over by the air conditioner. Okay, I've had to run them out of the garage window before, but you're just gonna you're gonna assess where the power is. Okay, where are you gonna start? Then you're gonna kind of have a quick plan. You've already measured. If you've done this right, you've actually already got the lights kind of pre-ballbed. That's what we call it. But let's let's just say, you know, you didn't do all of that. I used to have my kids pre-ball by paying five cents a bulb. That was the best way to do it, but you know, do what you want. You show up and you start running some cord out, and you start putting a clip on and a ball. And the clips that we will recommend the 99% of times are going to be called a halo or a circle clip. Yeah, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

You can see it right there. Boom.

SPEAKER_05 42:14

So once they're on, put it on.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

And so Matt Matt mentioned pre-bulbing. Ideally, with this clip, you would pre-bulb and pre-clip. So all this would be done at home while you're watching TV, you know, or like Matt said, your kids are doing it. It's all done at home, better, ready to go.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

Yeah. So literally, you just show up and hang the lights. What I want to show you is like this clip isn't coming off. Okay. So what you're used to normally is these clips that just kind of alligator, like just kind of grab it. Like little crab claw. Little crab claw. And so you'll get half the lights off, and then you'll hear boom, and they all fell back down, and you're dealing with you're dealing with all of that again. Okay. You're not going to be doing that here. Now, then these just slide under the shingle, they're wedged, they hold. There are some things we'll teach you in trainings, but there'll be a few times that you need to add some extra support, but I don't want to get off into that right now because I could talk for forever on little minute details. But basically, you run some cord out, you bulb it up all in one color or a pattern or what whatever you've sold. Okay, you you do that. And then you start at one corner of the house and you just start sliding them under the shingle or popping them onto the gutter, whichever, whichever part of the house that you're on, and you just work your way across. It's very fast. If you are, it depends on the roof. Maybe you've got an A frame ladder that you're just kind of stepping on, doing, you know, six, eight feet, and then getting down and moving it. Maybe you've you've got it leaned up against the wall, again, doing six to eight feet, getting down, moving it. Maybe it's not like a ramp style around here. On a range style, flat roofs. I'm getting on the roof and I'm just sitting and working down. Those are the fastest. They'll fly like crazy because I don't have to keep moving a ladder. Right. We have safety products like one called a pitch hopper. So even if the roof is a little steep, it creates this like working surface. So some people are going to work down, some people are going to work up. It's totally what you're more comfortable with. Working down tends to be a little faster because you don't have to move a ladder, but it also tends to be a little scarier. So if you said you're you're nervous on you're nervous, then work from the ladder. It's a lot good. We do teach ladder safety as well. We teach the right types of ladders to buy, and then we teach how to use them. I don't think your group will have as much problem, but you will be shocked that a lot of people are scared on a ladder because of one of two reasons. They've bought a ladder that does not handle their weight. And so it's bowing and and and bending and all sorts of stuff, and they're not comfortable on it. Or they have not secured it to the ground properly. And so it feels like it can slide out from under. But if you have the right ladder and you do it on the ground, oh, and you use levelers, uh, so it's not going side to side, you can feel real safe. So you've rolled them out, you've bulged them, you've started attaching them, you clip, you just anytime you need to go in a different direction, you cut it, you put a male fitting on the end, right here, or a female fitting on the end, you create your own. You're not splicing. I know in our haul we took you said splicing. There's no stripping of wires at all. No stripping of wires. You just pop on a fitting like this, and we're simplifying it, but it literally takes this long. And now I've got a male plug there. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

There's a show. That's a show.

SPEAKER_05 45:55

There's a few other plugs. There's a female. The female can also be in line. So, like I could put a female right here, so I could go off in another direction. And that's pretty simple. So you're you're just up there, you put them all where they need to be. You go off in this direction, you go off in that direction. This is blank cord called jumper cord or zip cord. But basically, anywhere that you need electricity to go, it's like an extension cord. But way cheaper. Way cheaper than extension cords. Anywhere that you need to the exact length. And you cut it to the exact length. If you need seven feet, you get seven feet. And so that will go anywhere that you don't want lights, but you need lights like at the other end of that.

SPEAKER_03 46:41

Yeah, so like dormers, especially, you know, any kind of elevation change. Typically, you'll run that blank line, that lamp cord from one section to the other. And so it's just whatever you don't want lit, that's when you use that.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

And as you're going, you're just kind of making sure you're hiding the cords a little bit and making them just right. You keep attaching them. And when you get to the far side of the house or the end of the job, you go, you add a timer and you plug it in and you turn it on, and then you go test all the lights, and then hopefully it's evening and you can show it to your customers. Otherwise, they experience it later that evening when it gets dark. But it's it's truly that simple. And you know, and then you you collect the second paint and uh yeah, you walk away happy because you made them happy, and because you made some some decent money. Honestly, I'm not oversimplifying that. No, but it's that is literally how simple it is. The only things you have to be careful about, there's just two things to be careful about. One is is height safety. And the reason we're able to make as much money is because we are taking a bit of a risk. So you you are paid for you're paid for two reasons. You're paid for your risk that the homeowner is not having to take by being on the house. But if you use the right safety, it's not really that risky. And you're also paying for the fact that this is not a business that you can run for the entire year. So your time is very valuable because everybody will get booked. And as you get closer to Thanksgiving, they start getting, they start calling people. Hey, can you come out and give me an estimate? No, I'm sorry, we don't have any more room this year. And so you are paying people pay a high premium for the risk and for the fact that they are taking your time in the middle of like the peakest of peak seasons, if that makes sense. And so it's it's it truly is that simple. You just you hang them. But if you're used to hanging lights at from you know, wallet box store box store, you're used to tangles, you're used to a light going out and making the whole thing not work. You get them. You can't cut them, you can't you're trying to hide them because you want it to look better. Do I double back? Do I what? Do I go get a real extension cord and run it across my house? Like all these different things that are time consuming, don't look that good and frustrating. They really have kind of designed or engineered all of those out of professional Christmas lights.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

And because they're all LED, like this bulb right here uses 0.65 watts. So you can run about 300 to 350 bulbs in a single straight line. And if you branch off, like if you tee off, you can add about another 100 to 150 bulbs. So off of one plug, you can run about 500 bulbs. So it's not like the old days, especially where you know, after 75 bulbs, you're you're like blowing fuses. Right. You know, and it's also either we have two different brands, either polystyrene or polycarbonate. So they're highly, highly durable as well. So I've seen these things fall from two stories and be completely fine. Not like, again, the older glass bulbs or even some of the cheaper made LED bulbs that fall and I mean you're done.

SPEAKER_05 50:15

Oh, they fall from two stories all the time when I'm installing it. Not because I have, not because I'm a butterfinger, but like literally, I'm like, I don't need them. I throw them on the ground because I know they're perfectly fine. Just throw them down. Now I try not to throw them on the driveway. They would work, but I throw them from the you know, the grass. And he's right. I think the rule is of thumb is about 500 per plug. I ran 1400 feet on my house on one time.

SPEAKER_03 50:40

I've seen I've seen that done. We we never endorse that fully, but I have seen the uh limits pushed. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 50:47

Yes, yeah. So I think that was about 1150 bulbs or something on the phone. Yeah, yeah. So okay. So that question we get every time is how many plugs am I gonna need? How many can I put on one? And the answer is really almost as many as you'll ever gonna need. Like it's not a question that you really need an answer to, but I do think the official answer is stung around 550. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 51:12

That's what we've always taught. So another question, and this is me putting on my skeptical hat, because I think before I I mean, money is tight for a lot of people. That's just uh back to life. But something that I I've learned, and especially since I started the woodworking group, is is time. There's no substitute for time, and time's important to use well. So before I invest money or my time, I mean, I drive around my neighborhood around Christmas time and I I see the occasional sign on the corner there at the four-way stop that says, you know, light installs, call this number. I wouldn't I know I I live in a pretty big area. I mean, I I guess if it's my skeptical question is if this is such a good idea, why isn't everyone doing it?

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Oh, that's a that's a well, a lot of people are afraid of heights. Yeah, also a lot of people don't know about like the cut-to-fit cord. I mean, this stuff's been around for most people years, but I had no idea till I got into the Christmas light business. I used the same, you know, Walmart, Lowe's, Home Depot style lights. I had no idea. So that's I mean, right there, those are two factors why people aren't doing it. The other thing is that people don't realize that it can be turned into a business. So people, you know, they they're if their neighbor needs lights, they're like, oh, I'll put it up for Joe, but they don't think to charge because it's their neighbor. But there's a lot of people like that, you know, people that are perhaps aging that don't want their husbands up on the ladders anymore because of the Oh, we'll give it to them at us.

SPEAKER_05 52:44

Yeah, but my husband wants to do it, I'm not letting it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

But people don't realize those situations. So, I mean, that's one of the biggest reasons right there is that they just haven't thought about it. Just like we didn't think when you talked about making custom woodwork, you know, art for Christmas display. We didn't think about it. Same thing. People don't think about just putting charging people to put lights on houses.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

Also, it's regional, okay. You you would not have you would not have that same comment if you lived in Texas. If you lived in Dallas or Houston, you would say, like, what's wrong with those four houses that don't have professional Christmas lights on them? It's it's literally probably greater than 50% in most neighborhoods. That's maybe a stretch, but it it's a lot. Like it is a lot. And you say you might see a sign on a corner or two. If we don't have four signs on every corner, somebody's not doing their job. So it's true. It it is a regional thing. Now we have the perfect weather for it. That's one thing, you know, different weather climates are are are different for sure.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

But that also is not an obstacle because some of the biggest names in Christmas light installations that do over a million dollars every season and more are up north in Michigan and Minnesota and Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_05 54:08

So Yeah, because their job is harder than ours. So they get a higher dollar per foot, they get higher, you know, return on their investment because they are dealing with with like and stuff. And look, you know, I failed to mention this earlier. So let me run this one thing back. You you brought up this time thing. Like, what about my time? So the average job is between a thousand and twelve hundred dollars. At least that's what my average has been.

SPEAKER_03 54:39

It depends because, like, for example, one of the trainers is going to be presenting on you know in our training in September, his average job is $2,500. Yes. $2,500.

SPEAKER_05 54:51

So it does, it's it's it's your clientele, it's regional, it's all sorts of things. But what I wanted to use the $1,200 range for to say, because that's that's a pretty decent average in in certain parts of the community, is that's about a four-hour job. That's about a four-hour job the first year. Okay. So you can do two to two and a half of those in a day if you're really wanting to, maybe three. And then what you have to understand is second year is about 35 to 40 percent time-wise of first year. Because you've already cut everything, right? You've already bulbed everything, you've already done everything. You've at the end of the first year, we teach this how to map it out, how to mark it. So the next year you go back, you know, hey, there's the center peak ball, boom, work it straight down, work it straight down. I personally use letters at the end of my like I I write on the plugs. Everybody has their own thing. Yeah, I write on the plugs. So, like I know I know B goes right on this part of the house and it connects to the other cord that says B, boom. So, second year, second year, first off, second year is way more profitable because in the first year you take about four hours to hang it. In the second year, you're looking at about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 because it's so much faster. Both of those are two-man crews, okay, in both cases. And then second year, you don't pay for the bulbs either. So, I mean, you know, you don't have the bulbs the second year, and you cut your labor in half. Profitability skyrockets. And so, really, this is a snowball type business. That lady he was talking about, you know, she went from change to 300 houses, not in a year, no, but she went from a couple, and then the next year she's doing all of these reinstalls with way more profit, which allowed her to continue to expand. And so it's it's a thing. You will have a small drop-off every year. 10 to maybe 20 percent of the houses won't be able to do it the following year because they move, because somebody lost their job, or you know, who knows? One year they have family coming over, so they want to spend. The next year they don't have family coming over, they're going to they're going somewhere, so they don't want to. But but in general, you you'll retain, I don't know, but I I retained about 80, 80 to 85 percent, and then that snowballed year over year over year.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

Okay, you had a balance of 93 cents. All right, and at an average of two and a quarter percent interest over a period of 1,000 years, that comes to 4.3 billion dollars.

SPEAKER_07 57:38

Okay, so I mean, it's kind of cool the way you describe it. I mean, in the woodworking world, we make something once, and it's almost always like you see all the flaws, like, oh, geez, I'll do that better. So we make things called jigs. It's essentially little templates that help us repeat something over and over and over again. So, again, I think that's a natural connection between what you're describing and at least the mentality I believe a lot of woodworkers have naturally is how can I repeat something and make it as efficient as possible so I don't have to re-measure every single time. So that makes sense. I like that. My next question is and and I and I I I like I said I asked this with my skeptical hat on. I I in no way intend to be rude, but I I can assume that out of everyone you've worked with, out of anyone that said, yep, I'm gonna give this a shot, I'll I'll try this as my side hustle, my side gig, or a full-time business, whatever it is, not everyone has been successful. I'm not I don't want names, I don't need any of that information, but like if you're to tell me or tell the audience out of people that go into this, how many are not successful, and and if and and why is I mean, I'm sure anyone can be successful if you're gonna afford an effort, but like how many things don't work out and why is that?

SPEAKER_05 58:55

I'll let you go start and then I'll uh yeah. So I you know it's a scale, okay? If you let's say we have 30 people at a class, okay, five to ten of them will well just go back and life will get busy and and they're not gonna do anything, okay? But it's not because they were incapable or anything like that. Something changed, they got busy. Maybe the biggest thing that we fell in this class is is confidence. But there are some people I can't like I can't even give confidence to. Okay. So if they fail, it's because they just they did nothing, they did nothing with it. And then so that leaves us with 20 people. Another 10 of those people, another third of the class will probably go hang five to 10 houses that first year. And then half of those people will get the bug and go hard the following year. Half of those people will go, I I only sold five houses, I didn't make enough money and they disappear. And then about a third of the room will just shoot out the gate and take off, you know? And two, probably two of those 30 will just be absolute rock stars. And if I'm off with those numbers, I'm not extremely off with those numbers. No, that's pretty close. So and and if they fail, it's because they did not put effort into it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

That's the that's usually it, that's the biggest one. And a lot of that is because of fear. So, especially, you know, people they they have a lot of fear of whether or not they can actually sell. And and that's what I found with some of the ones that didn't succeed. They were just like, oh man, I I can never sell the job. Well, they didn't know how. And because we only we didn't get to teach that to them. We only basically, Russ and I, while we talked with them, taught them how to actually install the lights, right? You know, as opposed to what what Matt and his crew have done, we we didn't really get to teach them and train them how to actually do the selling part, because that's almost as important as the actual hanging of the light part. Are you confident enough to go out and sell the job? Now, later on in November, if you stick with it, if you get through October, that's right, if you stick with it in November, you don't even have to sell. Most of the time, people are desperate to call to get their lights on. They've usually been rejected by one or two people at that point, or they can't even get them on the phone. So if you pick up the phone, most of the time, in my experience with dealing with installers over the last what eight something years, most of the time you will get that job just because you answered the phone. Yep. Now, it again, there's other factors like how much you charge and things, but just because you answered, people are willing to pay because you're getting closer and closer to Christmas.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:45

I mean, closer and closer to Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:47

Closer and closer to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is that that's usually the demarcation, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:54

Such and such told me they can do it, but he can't do it till December 3rd. Oh, I can squeeze you in on Tuesday, the day before Thanksgiving, you know, two days before Thanksgiving. Oh, let's go. So, two things, another failure point is that often we teach this class. The first one is September 16th. Okay. You go back September 16th, and you go, you put all your signs up and you go start bidding, and you know what? No one has urgency to buy lights in October. They don't care. Like they might call, oh, give me a quote, whatever, you know, but they they they're like, let me let me quote five other people. And so, and and and if you give up before you hit like, say, November 10th time frame, because well, they told me I could sell all these jobs, but I'm missing them. Well, you're gonna you're not gonna close a lot. You they're your closing percentage will be pretty low in October. Yep. And then by November 1st, it increases significantly. By November 10th, and then the 15th, and then the 20th, it just goes up. By November 20th, you're gonna be so busy that you don't have time to talk to people. I act my signs actually say call or text, but call is in lowercase and text is in like capital letters. Okay, sublimably, I'm telling them to text me. And then I say, Well, what's your address? What are you looking to do? All via text, sometimes not on the roof, whatever, sometimes on the roof, and and I'll draw it up. I can't even tell you how many things I fully closed via text message. I had never spoken to that person, not one word, and got the deposits, and it was no big deal whatsoever. But that doesn't happen in October. In October, you go out there, full dog and pony show, you draw it up, wearing your Santa hat, you're doing all the things, and and you still may not close it. So if people don't wait long enough to hit the the right season, that's an that's another that's another reason. But the season expands year over year because the following year, the following year, you say, Hey, I'll give you a 5% discount if you let me hang your lights in October before Halloween. Before Halloween, you don't have to turn them on until November or whenever you want. The time over will be right there on the porch, and you turn it on. Those are for reinstalls, right? And so you you you close all those reinstalls, you do all you keep yourself busy in October, leaving November open for all the new jobs. That's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

The only other thing that I've ever seen people fail is or at least stay really small, is mostly because of substance abuse. So Russ and I have seen some of these uh small time. We have seen it, a lot of them that they had so much potential, but they got caught up in you know, for whatever lifestyle, and so as long as you know, just say no to drugs, and I mean you'll be all right. Oh man, yeah, we won't talk about those guys. I got nervous every time they walked in.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:16

I uh I appreciate the honesty. I mean, like I said, it's it's easy to have someone say, Oh, I've got this great business idea. If you invest, you'll be able to turn 10 times what you put into it. But I I think like I said, it's good to be aware of the realities of if you straight up give up or you're not willing to put in the work, it won't be successful. And I mean, I I I can speak from experience. There that's that's applicable across any trader field. I mean, in woodworking, I've done stuff and it didn't turn out great by the end. If I would have given up, I'd never get better, and it just would have ended there. So, I mean, and I I like I like what you're saying. The reality is you provide the training. We're gonna go into the course here in a second, you'll help explain what that is, but like. You're gonna arm people with as much as you can. And then, but it's it's still you have to be self-motivated. I mean, it sounds like the opportunities are there. Woodworkers have they have the ability, they have the mindset, they likely have a lot of the tools and stuff that would even assist them in doing it anyway. And a lot of us don't want to be woodworking outside in the cold. So, and it's I can tell you, I've never done a project where my hourly wage is making nearly as much as Christmas lights. So, yeah, I mean the concept of of the income per time, I've definitely never experienced something to the scale of what you're explaining.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:37

I I mean, I was a district manager for a Fortune 500 company and I made more per hour hanging in Christmas lights. So that's that's just that's the truth of the matter. But it's you know, you can only make that amount of money for that short window, right? And so, unless you're running a lot of crews, which obviously do does bring your your amount down a little bit, you know, it it's it's you can only make so much, right? But it you can, some people do run. Uh Nick runs three crews. If you're doing three crews and you're doing two to five thousand dollars per crew per day on on depending on the houses, I mean that adds up very, very, very fast.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:18

And I like the concept of of this can this is seasonal. I think when I when when Matt when you and I first talked, like I said, it was it was an overwhelming concept, and that's the only way I can think of it. It was just overwhelming. Like I'm busy with my normal job, doing hobbies, family, now a business, a side business. Like, I there's no way, like I'm not capable. But when when you kind of walk me through of like, but it but it's it's that sprint concept, it's a short amount of time that is so based on the season itself, it's never gonna consume your August because that would be nonsense. So I I think, and this is me talking to the woodworkers out there, I know what it's like to feel overwhelmed when you have so much going on, and now it's another thing. It's another thing. Like I get that. What I think appealed to me so much, and why I really wanted to bring this to the community was I think this can be a a relatively in the span of a year, a short amount of time with the ability to provide funds and support that maybe your woodworking isn't doing by itself. I think this is a a possibility. And there, there's there's more than one business out there that can do this. Like, I'm not that's obvious. But when I when I when I was talking to Matt and he brought this up, it literally was a light bulb for me of like, what a natural connection. And I and I love the concept of saying a small amount of time can yield an income that can do something that you don't have being done already. I just think that's a huge win. And so I wanted I want to transition to the classes because you've brought that up from the very beginning. You explained classes, we teach you, we show you. Well, you you've explained what the company is, you've explained, you know, you become an installer, you go out, you you quote, you install, you create schedules. Like I kind of can like a picture it now. I think the audience can too. But what is this class thing you keep talking about?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:11

Yeah. So excuse me, we're gonna have four in-person class trainings from nine to five at in several different locations throughout the US. And then we're also gonna have a virtual training. But essentially, you you come to the class, we teach you from the start, you know, like how to set up your business all the way through hanging lights, all the way through marketing. We teach you uh some sales techniques, we teach you tips and tricks, how to make your installs look great. There's a bunch of other things as well. The entire holiday, you know, lighting workflow from consultation to pre-production to you know the actual install to post-production, you know, how to trans and then you know, maybe value stacking things as well from there. So we will cover everything that you need to know to be successful because we want you to be successful. And a part of it, I'm not gonna lie, is a little bit selfish because the better you guys do, the better we do as well. So we want to make sure that you are fully equipped to have install business that not only will make you a lot of money, but will provide you the opportunities to not have to worry in January and February when things are still really slow, especially in the northern US where it's a lot of snow and ice. And I mean, I know Russ is from that area, and so he can attest to lights not coming down sometimes till March or April. You know, we're not used to that here in Texas. You know, it's usually like first couple of weeks of January, and we're ripping down, we're ripping down lights, you know. But it gets hard to do the things that you want to do in those months because what if your business is seasonal, like you're in the inflatables industry or you're in the lawn industry, it's hard to it's hard to mow lawns when the grass isn't growing because it's winter, right? Yeah, so you need that income to supplement yourself and to get you through those January, February, maybe even early March. And so I'm not saying Christmas lights is gonna be everything for you. No, it possibly could. I know it has for several kids that I know several installers that went all in. They just dedicated their time, made a ton of money and kept themselves busy through that time and then coasted January and February. So it is very possible, but it does depend on how much you put into it. So at this class, we take all of that, we distill it down to look what an eight-hour, seven-hour, whatever it is, seven and a half, eight hours training where we try to make it so that we try to make it foolproof, essentially, so that if you try, you will earn at least some kind of money.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:41

So a couple things I want to follow up there. Yeah, you brought up a couple things that that just want to clarify for the audience. You said the better you do, the better we do. Now, the I'll admit, having anyone pitch that to you, the first thing to think is pyramid scheme, commissions. So just to clarify, what just because I know what you meant, but just to clarify, when you say they do better, we do better. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:04

You sell jobs, you need product, we have product, so you buy the product from us. So yeah, if you sell a thousand-foot job, bike, please buy a thousand feet from us, you know. But uh you don't have to. So if you find you know someone else local that you want to, we'd rather you didn't, we'd rather you buy from us. But yeah, but yeah, we want to make sure that you are fully committed. And the other aspect is that we engage as well. So before we started, I told you the story about how I was at Disney World a couple of weeks ago with my family, and I was getting calls from installers on some of our permanent lighting projects, which we can transition y'all into later. That's a whole other topic. But on those, I was answering calls. You know, my family sat down to meet Goofy and Donald, and and I literally was standing by the men's room just taking this call, trying to help this uh client close this job. So, you know, we want to make sure that you guys are successful so that you hopefully trust us because our hearts are in the right place, and then you buy from us.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:02

Yeah. So let me just kind of go just a small step further than that. What he meant obviously by that is if we train you well, if we spend the time, if we make ourselves available to you when you have questions, and then therefore you're successful, you know, then then we have the opportunity to sell lights, we have the opportunity to be successful too. So your job is to go out and and wow your customer. Our job is the same. We're supposed to wow our customer, that's you. And so we do that. If you're successful wowing your customer, then we can be successful wowing you, and and and therefore. So let's just get to the bread and butter of this one thing. We don't make any money whatsoever on the trainings. Now we do charge, but it we charge $149 for the first person in your company. If you bring a second person, that's an extra $100. So it'd be $250 for you and your spouse, you and your your right-hand man, what it, whatever you want. Now, for that $250, we're gonna fly three people probably to Nashville, Tennessee from Dallas. We're going to rent a hotel room, we're gonna provide lunch, we're gonna provide training materials, notepads, pencils, all the all the things we will more than likely lose money by the end of the training. More than likely. If the room were to get full enough, we might break even and and we might make $20. I mean, you know, like not a lot, okay. That's not what it's about. And if you don't even want to spend $150, if you know you're gonna jump in, buy a starter kit. For that starter kit, you're allowed to have two admissions, so a one person and a second person with a starter kit. And then we didn't make money on your training, we made money on the fact that you bought weights from us, which you know it works out for us. Or and if you don't want a starter pack, you can buy a gift card. But I don't know why you would buy a gift card if you know you're in, because you might as well buy the starter pack. But if you wanted a gift card, that's fine too. So it's it's not a pyramid scheme. We're not trying to get rich off of these trainings. But if we don't do our job in the training and you leave feeling like you don't know what you're doing, then we failed you and you won't be successful. And in the same breath, we won't be successful because you won't be buying lights from us or Joe down the street, either one.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:38

So no, thank you for clarifying. Like I said, it's and I I knew the answer. I just want to make sure it was clear for everyone. There's no I want to speak to the the the TWG audience and just anyone who's listening who who might be just considering this. I personally did as much background research as I could on Matt, this company. I found nothing even remotely raised any eyebrows, nothing whatsoever. And so, just to be clear, they make money because you can buy the lights from them. There is no commission. It's not like if you build, if you do five houses, they get three percent of those houses you did. There's zero, there's no connection. You buy the lights and you can put them on your own house for all they care. It's it they are simply the light provider. I just want to really hammer that. There is no back end cost, or we get a little here or there, nothing. In the training, I can speak just from experience. I think a lot of people listening will understand this. For a lot of things like this, call it even shows, plays, events. If you don't charge, if you just go, oh, if you tell us if you're gonna come out, people RSVP, and then they won't show. And so now you've got Matt and his crew flying out there to people who flake out. And like I said, you can't have that, not when they're gonna fly and give their time to put on this training. And that, like I said, the the training isn't they're not making money off the training, it's just to say, hey, you can buy from us, but also we want you to be good at what you do. So ideally, you're successful, so then you want to buy more lights, which makes sense, but but I I really want to emphasize when I when I first heard that you charge for the class, I was I was almost like, why not more? Like, because you're not gonna make anything off of this.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:28

Like, I I get it, but I was like, We discussed it the other day. We have strategically played around with it, and I will tell you that our our main trainer, his name is Nick Glassett, prior to being on this side of the business, he taught lights for profit, okay? And he he did that because he wasn't gonna make any money off of it, he was literally teaching people how to get into the business, okay? And he ran 30 to 40 of them a year and he charged $800 person and he filled the class. When we brought him on as our our main trainer, we decided that's not the method that we're going to go. If we were to fill a class with 30 people at the 800 bucks, like he did, we we would make money. We would make money. That would be a profitable flight to Nashville. And if you never bought anything, well, oh, well, we make money. But we we we've settled at the 149 because it may or may not cover our costs. It it it sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But that's not the goal. But you nailed it on the head. If we give it away for free, if we take all the risk, all the investment, we will have a full class roster and we will have an empty classroom. Three people.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:51

And that's why I think it's so interesting when when I like I said, my my skeptic, my skeptical hat is off. And I I ask these questions because a lot of call it pyramid schemes or commission-based things. Everything is free because they know they're gonna make money off of you in less than popular or ethical ways. So they can offer free classes. Everything's free, everything's free, just show up, it's all free. This is a this is a serious business. This is a professional company that's offering training to help people get into something that they really might enjoy and could provide income that they're looking for. And so I just really and I'm sorry that I'm hammering it so hard, but like the I I'm glad there's a cost associated because it's not like the the free miracle things that just show up and it's too good to be true. There, you have to show that you're at least interested and willing to learn.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:47

I got an answer for you. This is an interesting thing. This is how you know it's not a pyramid scheme. I will not be asking you for a list of your friends or contacts to go harass. In fact, I don't recommend you calling your friends or your your neighbors because I will tell you, my friends and my contacts, I'm gonna want to go help them. I never charge them what I should. I always either just do it for free or do it at cost or or whatnot. I want to teach you how to sell to people that you don't know. Okay. So, in no way whatsoever will I be trying to make you make Thanksgiving awkward or Christmas awkward or anything like that, or you know, calling your your aunt and grandma and that sort of stuff. Don't do that. Don't do that. Go and and find people that don't know you, convince them that you know what you're talking about because you will, and then hang hang their lights. So it's far from that. Like, well, you better have a list of 45 people and start calling them. No, don't do that. In fact, people always ask us because we're in the inflatable business. Uh, I know I keep saying that, but they always come to me and they go, man, I've got 2,000 emails in my system. Man, I'm gonna crush this. And I go, nope, different customers. Sorry. A couple of them well by, but you can't you can't just send that email out and it'd be done. It's not gonna work. Right. You know, and so it doesn't work that way. You know, some people do, like you were saying, you know, a guy who had an inn at a casino and he got the casino his first year. Sure, yeah, sometimes like things like that happen. But if you if you are like, hey, I did cabinets for 40 people this year, some of them might be your customer because if you did cabinets, maybe maybe that house was built this year. That's actually first year builds are really good clients. Yes, they are, but some of those customers won't, and some of them may not understand what I thought you did cabinets. Why are you doing Christmas? You know what I mean? Like there may not be a correlation there. So it really is a thing where we're gonna teach you how to find brand new people that are doing it. The other thing is, this is not a high pressure sale, okay? You're not going to sell somebody who doesn't want Christmas lights, professional, expensive Christmas lights. They are going to come to you because you've thrown a device out there, advertising some sort of sign, Facebook ads, Facebook ads, whatever. You've thrown something out. They've identified this is something I want. Let me see how much this person is going to charge for it. We're also going to teach you one thing that we didn't discuss is we are going to teach you how to vet your leads.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:56

Oh, pre-qualify.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:57

Pre-qualify your leads, okay? Because everybody who sees shining lights isn't willing to buy shining lights. So you you know what I mean? And and some people have the idea that it should cost what it would cost them to go buy them at Walmart. It does not. Okay. And so you do want to pre-qualify and not go, you know, running after everybody who rings your your phone and that sort of thing. So it's definitely not anything like, you know, multi-level marketing. And again, we're not getting paid for anything other than if you buy from us.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:33

And that's great. I mean, so we've covered, and we have a few minutes left here, that we've covered what the business is, who you guys are. You've been very transparent about what you get out of it. People buy the lights from you. That's how you make your money off this. And you offer these classes where, geez, I mean, what's kind of cool is I'm listening to describe what you teach at the class. I'm sitting here as a woodworker, and I've seen this in the TWG forums, people saying things like, How do I cost things out? How do I have those conversations? And you're talking about like how to pre-screen inquiries, like these are skills that Christmas lights are not. I think you're offering things that are transferable across trades in general. So, so just to be clear, and as we transition to kind of wrapping this up, I mean, you have some classes, and we're gonna talk about the first one here. It's not a sales pitch, it's a training. Because here's the sales pitch. You can buy lights there, it's done. The sales pitch is over. So the rest of it is just it's it's the it's the education. And I think that's what people really need to understand is these are not your your timeshare things where you show up and they're gonna talk to you about beautiful beaches for three hours and say, hey, you should buy the condo. No, here's the sales pitch. Buy lights there. So the rest of it is is is arming you. And I can tell you, as someone who's just a self-taught woodworker, I've never had anyone sit me down and talk about the business side of how to woodwork, and that would have been that would have been extremely valuable.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:06

And so you know, I didn't think about it until you just said that, but we feel like we have to to for somebody to be successful, teach them the basics of business. I think a lot of woodworkers in your group, because I glance through and they're like everybody's like showing off their their thing, which is amazing, and then people are giving them you know praise and stuff like that, which is awesome. Same, same sort of things. We have Christmas light groups, you post your pictures, and people say, Oh, that looks amazing. Looks clean, looks clean, you know. Like we have we have we have our own little groups that do the same thing. But I think that there's a lot of the people that I probably saw in there that they don't really run a business, they're they're just making crafts and stuff and then and then posting it and showing it. And maybe somebody buys it, but there you if you sat through this, and you might do the Christmas lights, but then again, maybe you just go learn how to sell your own woodworking stuff and set up an LLC and do the things that you need to do. And some of the same marketing or advertising could definitely move from Christmas lights into woodworking in some sort of way, because it's just basic business concepts. That's that's what that will be.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:17

And I mean, what's cool is in your guys' introductions. I mean, you all come from a business background. I don't, and I know, like I said, like you said, Matt, I mean, a lot of the woodworkers were hobbyists. We do this, maybe we go to a craft fair here and there, we see if we can sell something. But I think the concepts, and and like I said, you've you've all been a part of successful businesses. It's not like you've all gone bankrupt, and now this is business number seven in the list. Like, no, like you've all had success. And I I don't know, it's I still just see so many connections, and that's why I was so excited about this conversation. Is I'm not I'm not here to say, yeah, stop woodworking, just do Christmas flights, man, your life will be set. No, what I'm saying is I've seen so many questions and people asking the genuine question of, I I wish I was making more woodworking, how can I do it? Or is the way that I can transition to doing more woodworking versus other things I'm trying to do? This can be a side hustle, this can be a side job, this can be a main job that you focus on for the two, the eight weeks, you know, the two and a half months. I think it can take whatever shape you need it to be. And I think that's the value behind it. It's not like if you go in on this and you buy some lights, everyone has to do the same thing. You customize it for your needs, your schedule, and what your goals are. So that's huge. So as we wrap up here, tell me about this. And I and I should say, and I haven't discussed this anyone, so I'll just throw this out now, and you guys are here for the first time. Uh, TWG is gonna do a special giveaway for Christmas, and it's going to involve light setups, especially for those who are part of this. So, for anyone who does buy lights from let's get let's Supply and does a house, does a decoration with it. We're doing a pretty large giveaway coming up.

unknown 1:28:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:09

Because I I think it's it'd be it would seem very disingenuous if I do a podcast. Like this is so great. And then I just walk away from it. But there's two things. One, I'm gonna do that. And second, we have a class coming up in September. Tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:23

September 16th, Nashville. It'll be oh, but yeah, so nine to five. You can order online, you can call us and order that way. Again, 149.99 for the first person, and then what is it 99.99 for the second person. So yeah, companion. So anyone that's going to I don't think we need to give the address.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:43

Give the different dates in the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:45

Oh, I gotcha, I gotcha. Okay. So sorry, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:50

So I promise you, we'll give you the address.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:53

Yeah. No, no, we're just forget it. He's gonna forget it. So yeah, um, September 16th is the one in Nashville. We're gonna have one in San Diego on September 20th, right now, is when it's scheduled. And then we're gonna have another class here in Midlothian, one in Houston. Those are probably they haven't been officially set yet, but I'm looking at the 24th and 25th in September, and then we'll have a virtual class as well, probably on the 29th.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:22

And if you can't make any of those places, I do recommend the virtual. But if you can make them, I do not recommend the virtual. It is not as good of a training. You will not leave knowing as much. It's not because we won't teach it to you. We will, but there's something about being in the class, there's something about making conversations with the peers. There's also something about being able to ask the question and get an answer in real time. If you type it into the chat, we might see it eventually and get back to it, but it's not going to be as interactive, it's not going to be as hands-on. You can be successful. We had lots of people be successful from the online, but every person that has done both, or you know, there's a whole lot more satisfaction in the in-person. So come, please come, please come. But if for some reason you just cannot, then then go ahead and do the virtual. Now, if you come to the actual training and participate, we will record the virtual and we can send that to you. So you can have that to refer to, but I d please, they are they are not equals. They are not equals.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:38

I mean, yeah, I can woodworkers. I can tell you my my membership, my audience, my community gets that. The community I'm a part of. I mean, YouTube videos on how to build things is great when you're in your house trying to do it in the moment. There's no substitute for getting the professional next to you and you're building something together. I mean, in person, Trump's virtual in most scenarios, 99% of the time. So I I completely agree. And and as we discussed earlier, I'm gonna be at the at the first class. I'm I'm gonna be, I live in Virginia, I'm gonna fly out to Nashville and and I'm gonna be there. So I'm and and just to be clear for the audience and those listening and the TW members, there is zero financial incentive for me in any way for doing this. I'm not there's no kickback. So say you come up and you buy lights from them. I don't, there's no penny for me, nothing. I'm there's no kickback for you signing up for classes, for going, nothing. The only reason that I'm I'm endorsing this and I'm trying to support it the best way that I know how is because of the number of people, the number of TWG members I've seen ask the question how can I make more money doing woodworking? And to be honest, the answer isn't always build more, build more, sell more. That that's not always feasible, that doesn't always work. This isn't all this is something that can supplement. I'm not even saying it's an alternative because that wouldn't be the right word. You can keep woodworking, do more of it, and this may allow you to even do so, but I think this can supplement a lot of the things that we're trying to do because I can speak from experience. I'm not selling enough stuff where I could suddenly just walk away from my job just from woodworking. It's not happening. So I think this is something that I really think could help a lot of people. So these guys, they're not making a ton of money. If they make any off the class, I'd be shocked. They only make money if you buy lights. I make nothing at all in any way, shape, or form. I just want to help woodworkers and honestly, anyone, tradespeople, those who are out there who are just like, gosh, I'd love to have that supplemental income. I think this is something that could do it. And so I'm gonna put my mouth where it belongs. I'm gonna put my butt in one of those seats and I'm gonna be there. I don't know how much more I could support it besides that.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:00

For your group, I just wanna say, I want to shout out Adam because I will I will tell you that when we started the conversations, I did think that it would need to be a pay-to-play type of situation on my end. And I did propose a structure of of payment, and he said, No. He said, I don't want that, I don't want to be paid for that. I want to to teach this because I think my people need it. And so we also got into a long conversation about our just kind of the way we l live life, and we are both uh givers and we want to give back, we want to leave a legacy. We had a long conversation about that. So while he refused any compensation for getting people to classes or for lights that you had, I did tell him that we want that that I would like to do something in the form of if this works out, that we would do some donations. And so I think you said maybe we could donate to some woodworking schools or woodworking programs. So also, you know, so we're we're trying this thing out, but if it does succeed, if if you your people win and we win and everybody wins, I I think me and you have a good time writing some checks to well, I guess I'll write them. You can give them, I will write some checks and you give them to some schools, and maybe we can teach them woodworkers some skills, you know.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:27

So yeah, I just I like I said I'll I'll turn it over to you guys to close, but just thank you. I mean, I like I said, I know you you said it quite plainly that you're taking on the risk. And it's it's not me. It's it's you guys as a company. And I mean, so I I appreciate it. I I try my best to to represent in whatever capacity I get to the woodworkers in the community that I'm lucky to be a part of. You know, I'm I'm lucky that I I I get to be in a spot where I can have these these conversations and try to share these opportunities. So thank you. And and I I really hope people consider, and if it's not this, consider something else. Just don't settle. And I think that'd be my biggest takeaway before I turnover is just don't settle. I mean, I know the woodworking trade, the cost of wood is going up, the economy is tough right now. I get it. So this is just an option, but there's lots of them out there, so just don't settle. There's always ways to keep moving forward. When I came across this, I I just I had to get it in front of the TWG audience because I I think it's I think it's doable, I think it's scalable, it's accessible, it's real. This isn't some made-up fantasy thing. This is a tangible thing that I really believe can help people. So thank you for your time. I turn it over to you, and I'm just grateful for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:45

Thank you so much, Adam. Here comes the fun part.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:48

And well, if there's one thing I hope you take away from today's conversation, it's this that Christmas sliding, it's not a magic fix, it's not easy money, and it's not a business for everyone, honestly, but it is a real business, a business that has helped a lot of people create additional income that we've seen with our own eyes. You know, it helps them get through the slower seasons and in some cases just build the financial freedom, you know, to spend more time doing what they truly love. Now, if you're a woodworker or just someone who's trying to build a better future for yourself and your family, don't dismiss an opportunity just because it looks different than what you're used to. You know, ask questions, do your homework, look at the numbers, and decide if it's a fit for your goals. And if you'd like to learn more about the classes we discussed today, visit let's getletsupply.com. If you're interested in the upcoming Nashville training on September 16th, you'll have the opportunity to meet Adam, like you said, and connect with members of the woodworking group community as well. Huge thank you again, Adam. Thanks to Matt, thanks to Russ here, and to all of you for spending part of your day with us. Until next time, keep building, keep growing, go make it magical and make it profitable. As always, stay lit, guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:59

Stay lit.