← Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast
Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast
Episode 527: Get A Grip On Lighting Final Episode - Side 1 - Stay Dangerous
00:31:17
This is it. The final episode (side 1) of The Get a Grip on Lighting Podcast. Michael and Greg re...
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the final episode of Get a Grip on Lighting. I'm joined with Greg Eric. It's Michael Colligan here and we want you to know that this episode of the podcast is brought to you by the original sponsors of this show, Keystone technologies. Go to K E Y S T O N E T-E-H.com Greg Eric, hey,
- [00:19]
B
a special company to us personally for all the help and support they gave us over the years, but also from a business standpoint, man, they make a ton of sense for every lighting distributor. They listen to you, they adapt. And because of that, they've grown like no other company has in the last 15 years, 10 years in the lighting industry. You know, when we first started talking to Josh and the crew, there's maybe 10, maybe 20 people that worked at Keystone. We're not joking. I think it was something like that. You know, it was a. It was a few people and they sold ballast. And then the LED revolution came along and they started listening to us like, yes, everybody wants a type B. Sorry, three big dogs. Nobody's going to listen to you. They're all going to go type B at some point. And sure enough, they did. Keystone did it right from the beginning. They listened to what the people want, what the end user wants, what the distributor wants. And that's what they've done better than anybody. And that's why they've taken a leadership position is listening. So Keystone, thank you for all that you've done. Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for listening to the industry and helping us grow it and supporting
- [01:21]
A
conversations on get a grip on lighting. So go to keystone tech.com that's K E Y S T O N E t e c h.com the Big Easy. I always call them the Big Easy because they're light made Easy. So check them out. And of course they're members and Craig and I are members of the national association of Innovative Lighting Distributors. They weren't on from day one, but we convinced them around episode six to let us be the official podcast to the national association of Innovative Lighting Distributors. And the rest is history. Greg.
- [01:48]
B
That's right. Great organization. That's how we met, you know, is is that's how this whole show came about was from Nailed. So we appreciate all the support in the organization over the years and the growth we've had with them as well.
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A
Yeah, it's been an interesting run. We ended up managing Nailed. We'll talk a little bit about that on the show. Go to naild.org if you have Light bulbs in a warehouse. That's right. If you have light bulbs in a warehouse, naild is your organization. Organization. Hey Greg, how's it going?
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B
Good, Mike, how are you?
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A
Are you nervous?
- [02:22]
B
Nervous for what exactly?
- [02:24]
A
I, you know, people, you know, some people have asked me if I'm nervous about this and I said no, I'm not that nervous. It's, you know, it's time for new things and that. And so what I wanted to start off by asking you was when did this actually start? Like before we even pushed record. I don't think it started all the way back in 2008. It was sometime in between 2008 when we met and going to China. Somewhere between. When did it start for you that you realized you need to elevate your voice?
- [02:56]
B
I don't know if I ever realized that. I feel like we just did, you know, it just kind of came naturally over time because it was needed. But you know, I think it was, you know, we met in 2008 roughly. I think maybe seven or seven. We think it's eight. Yeah, something like, we know we went to China in 2014 when LED started coming around hot to kind of see how it was all done. Visited a number of factories and all that. But you know, before that we started doing nailed conventions and then I think we hit a light fair or two together and you know, maybe something, maybe another couple shows that were around then, LED show or you know, light show west or. I don't remember what all the names were, but I think we hit a. Just hit a number of shows together, started traveling together, started talking to people together and we're like, yeah, we're all, you know, different but we're all like minded and what we want for the industry and, and what we want for lighting. And I think that's what we've, you know, found over the years. Like if you take you and I outside of lighting, I don't know that, you know, we don't have. We're pretty different people. Yeah, I think the show saw that. But lighting brought us together and you know, we've really grown to be good friends over the years because of it. But yeah, it's. I would say so to answer your question, when did it come about? I mean it, I don't think you can pinpoint it just gradually came to what it is started in eight and here we are in 2000 and almost 26.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah, you know, I would say that there was a watershed moment at the Conrad Hotel in Hong Kong. Just for me personally. Okay. I Don't know if you remember that when we were. No, we were staying at the Conrad, but we went over to the Shangri La. The two hotels were attached.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Remember that? And we walked over to the Shangri La hotel and we went to. Up the floors to this lounge and we were eating the Seafood Tower. And the abalone sushi was so good. And there was this lounge singer and she was singing. It was so amazing. And we're looking out on the Hong Kong harbor and. And we had just visited a whole bunch of LED lighting factories in China and we. I really felt like an industry insider at that point in my life. Like when after I'd been through those factories, I was like, nobody's seen this in Canada or United States.
- [05:13]
B
You're right. Yeah. I mean, there's a few people that are manufacturers, but from our side, you know. No, nobody was really looking at that and seeing it. And. And for the record, the Seafood Tower was huge. And it was on the bar top.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
Set at the bar. Yes. That moment was. It was pretty unique, I give you that. Just that whole trip, we were there for 14 days or something like that. Yeah.
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A
I almost died.
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B
Yeah, you almost died. But we had a good time.
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A
Yeah. I didn't fall off a cliff like Matt Hanson, but no, I got too into the. The Chinese food and it didn't sit well with me and something went there. So, yeah, kind of like at that point I realized that, you know, that, you know, perhaps for me I should speak out, like I should talk more about lighting. I just felt like at that point I knew the questions to ask. I knew how this stuff was made. I saw it made. I saw people in flip flops beside molten aluminum. Right.
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B
Yes.
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A
Remember that?
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B
Living at the fact. Yeah. Living at the factory. They're houses here. Their work is here. Yeah. And we saw the range. We saw people in full clean suits, you know, everything to people in flip flops. For real, like Bolton stuff right there. Yeah. Crazy.
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A
It was absolutely crazy. And I think at the time there was five. They didn't know how many LED lighting factories were in Shenzhen. No one could actually answer the question.
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B
It was everywhere.
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A
Everywhere you went, people were making LEDs. You could just turn into an industrial park and park in and they were making LED tubes there. It was.
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B
It was.
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A
Yeah, it was crazy.
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B
And then we saw that mall that was in. Was it in Shen.
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A
Shenzhen? Yeah.
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B
Yeah. And it was like, I don't know how many floors high and how big, but it was huge. And it was every lighting component you could Imagine and, like, set up into different shops so you could go, here's my end cap. Here's my board. Here's my driver. Here's all this. I'm going to smush it together and make a light bulb. That's basically.
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And, like, I'm talking. We're talking like, a building that's the size of Yankee Stadium.
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B
Huge.
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And, like, Americans don't understand the scale of. They think. Everybody in America thinks America is the biggest in terms of size. You can't compare to China. It's not even comparable. The things are so much bigger.
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B
Just go to Shanghai and everything changes. Like, yeah, that place was nuts. Like, it had, you know, there's. I got downtown Minneapolis, where I live, and there's about, I don't know, 70 downtown Minneapolis and Shanghai. Yeah. Just everywhere.
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A
Yeah. And the scale of it is so huge. And like, you go to a factory in the middle of nowhere, and like you said, like, 6,000 people live there. They live on the factory. They were rice farmers, and they moved to this factory where they now assemble screws 37 to 41. You know what I mean? Or whatever. And they sit down all day long like that.
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B
Shoulder to shoulder. Not down the line.
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Shoulder to shoulder, all the way down the line. It was crazy to see that. And we walked through it. Mrs. Wang walked us through the factory.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. And I think. I think that's what, you know, we've always had is that kind of curiosity to. And why the podcast came about is because we've. We've always questioned things like, well, why. Why is this going on? Or how is this done? And then. Then you do some research to it, too. You don't just question it and walk away. That's what the podcast is, is research, in a way. We bring on experts, we talk to them. You know, we've become experts over the years. And it's from learning from others and actually doing things and experiencing it and seeing, you know, like, real world experience. Like, we're selling lighting every day, so we know what's out there. We know what people want, we know what they're doing, and we're seeing it. And then. And then we're seeing how it's built, and we're seeing how it's sold, and kind of got to see the whole gamut over the last.
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A
I'll never forget when we were in that. So we showed up at a factory with 6,000 people that lived at it, and they weren't ready for us. I don't think they knew we were actually coming or it was communicated correctly. And so we walked into this industrial park where there's how it looks like a military base, more like a military basin. And then a factory. And you walk in and all these Chinese people start going crazy. Nobody speaks English. And then we're ushered into the boardroom upstairs and an interpreter and the factory manager come in the boardroom like half an hour later. Remember that?
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B
Yes.
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And on the wall of the, of the, of the boardroom is the packaging of all major US retailer lighting brands.
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B
You see them all right down the line.
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A
They're all there. Okay.
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B
Yep.
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A
And it's got this, the Home Depot, the Walmart, this, that, it's all up on the wall. And we say to the lady, you know, people tell us that the light bulbs are made differently, that one brand can be made to a better quality than this brand. Is that true? And then the Chinese guy interprets to the factory manager and they talk and dah dah. And all of a sudden they start laughing and then they talk a little bit more. And the interpreter says, my boss say all light bulb made the same. Impossible to make light bulb different. All light bulb of same type made same way.
- [10:14]
B
Yeah, because that always one of my questions as long as I've been in lighting and some, some technology makes sense is what's commercial grade versus residential grade? What actually goes into it? You know, show me. And I get it, you know, like an incandescent, sure, you got extra supports or whatever, you know, or extra filaments or, you know, that makes it stronger. But what's in an LED that makes it stronger? The chip, the driver, the combination, that's the answer. But it's also in heat sink and all that is the answer. But it's, it's like when you go to it and you see it and they tell you that there is no difference and it's like, well, who's right here? What's happening?
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A
I think they're right at the factory.
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B
I would say so. Yeah.
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A
The, the, you know, when we were, so when we were at our peak, we were taking a huge chunk of the lighting industry's ad revenue. When you consider lighting controls podcast nailed and Get a grip on Lighting and the lighting industry news brief, that was a big, you know, chunk. No wonder there was some resentment towards get a grip on lighting. No.
- [11:23]
B
Yeah, I mean I'm guessing for some people we kind of just came out of nowhere and it's not, not our full time job, you know, this is, we're out selling lighting every day and, and we're squeezing this in for however long we've been doing it as often as we are, you know, it takes a lot of time. But yeah, I could see that happening because it's like, who are these guys to. To say, you know, and, and it's. And I, I don't know if it's ever. I've never really felt like it's. It's all me or it's all you. It's all us. Like, we just talk to people. We talk to the industry. We get experts on. We get other people. Other people unnailed could do this show, you know, maybe not as good as you, but better than I can, you know, and, and, and these are the discussions that we've had throughout the years. And, and so that's just how I feel is that, you know, we've been able to talk about the right stuff to make sense for advertisers to sponsor it.
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A
Yeah. And then. And you never once had an advertiser say, you can't say this or you can't say that. We said whatever we wanted.
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B
You're right. You're right.
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A
And I think that, I think that the fact that it was a side hustle so like all like, I made good money on Get a Grip on Lighting, Neil was a pain in the butt. It was a lot of work for not a lot of money, but got a Grip on lighting was fun. And I used that money. We used that money, buddy. To fly around the world first class and stay in the best hotels in the world, dude.
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B
We did. We had a lot of good trips together. And you know, and, and we learned every time we did those and that that was. That that's really where a lot of your and I stuff started was because we like to hang out and see things and experience it. And this helped, helped us get into a lot of places.
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A
We ate at some of the best restaurants in Europe and America all week. This money that we made from Get a Grip on Lighting was pure funny money, dude. We did whatever we wanted, like, you know, you know what I'm saying? We. It was like, oh, you something. You want to go on a crazy trip into southern Bavaria and Germany into, you know, what was that, that town we went to? Breyers Brahn, Buyers Braun, Beyers Braun, outside of Freiburg. And we went to German. We went to German Disneyland for adults
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B
toward the, the Black Forest or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah.
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A
And these. Everyone's wearing dirndls and lederhosen and there's like people hunting with weird old rifles. You could See them walking down the street and we ordered that trout, that smoked trout. And I asked the lady where it came from and she said it comes from the river at the back,
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B
right behind.
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A
Yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy.
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B
So here we are dressed like this. I mean, you're wearing a suit and I'm wearing a T shirt, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah.
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A
But you know what it was, there was something about the side hustle nature of it that was very liberating. You know, if, if this was your full time gig and that was the money you earned to pay for everything, if you didn't have a lighting distribution business, that was your primary source of income, not that this was bad money, but the, the, if that was your primary source of income, you're for sure going to be compromised. Easily compromised, Greg.
- [14:25]
B
Oh yeah, yeah, you have to be. And you'd be stressed the whole time. And for us it was just a, you know, a natural thing that made sense. Like, yeah, we talk about this stuff anyways, we might as well get it out there and get other people to talk about it too. And, and you know, that's what I've always liked about it for sure.
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A
And Keystone has supported us all the way along from, from as soon as we, they bought the first ad we sold. I, I still had, I had the check stub on my bulletin board forever. That first check.
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B
Did you?
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A
Yeah, I had it on my bulletin board forever. But then like after that we, you know, if we lost a sponsor, we picked up another sponsor, someone else wanted to sponsor it.
- [15:03]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's just real talk in the industry and you know, we had a lot of listeners and, and we appreciate that, you know, but it was just about the whole goal of all this is to make lighting better. And I hope we've done that over time. And I think we have, you know, we've contributed to that for sure. But yeah, it's interesting to think back on how it all came about too. And you know, even the name Get a Grip, you remember where that came from?
- [15:32]
A
Well, I used to say Get a Grip to people a lot until I named my show Get a Grip on Lighting. Yeah, I used to say, and then I was going to call, I think we were going to call it. I think if you go back to episode one and you listen, I call it the Lighting specialist podcast after LS1.
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B
Yep.
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A
But then you're like, nah, man, you got to call Get a Grip on Lighting. Yeah, that's exactly what we got to call it.
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B
Yeah, you would at nailed conventions. You'd get, you know, you get in heated arguments at times and you'd be like, you have to get a grip, get a grip. And you got get a grip. I think from Isn't that a biggie song? Notorious B.I.G.
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A
get a grip at Mother Effer. You know that right at the beginning. Yeah, like, but it's so many people, you know, so many people out there. And I, you know, like there's, you know, we talked about on our show the deep state of lighting. But what's interesting that I've noticed as I explored all the deep state topics and you remember we're very intimate on lighting. I know how the lighting industry works from how it's manufactured in China all the way to how it's recycled. Like, I don't think there's anyone in the world that has knows more about the life cycle of a light bulb than Michael Calligan. I'm going to say that right here on the show. Okay? I know. I've seen the factories where they're made and I've seen the factories where they're dismantled and they're destroyed. And I'm a subject matter expert in the field of light bulb recycling. Okay. But I've also seen how they're made. So there really isn't anyone, I don't know anyone that has that breadth of experience, but so many people out there could just open their eyes and look around a little bit more. What the hell is going on around you? Get a grip, man. Like, that's what you know. All the great sages and wisdom things that I've read in my life, the lesson I take from it is that it's very difficult for people to acknowledge reality. Like reality acknowledgment is the key to wisdom. I don't know if it's the key to success. Greg. I think maybe if you, if you get like me, you start getting consequences for that wisdom sometimes. Right? But if that's what you're after, you have to acknowledge reality. And what Greg and I did is we, we did our best to like really acknowledge sort the signal from the noise in lighting. There was so much noise in the lighting industry about LEDs. And I'll tell you, Greg, Eric and Michael Colgan did not believe the lifetime claims of LEDs day one. Greg, did you believe it from day one?
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B
Never. Nope. We couldn't. They were impossible. Like, how could they claim what they claimed without even having operated for that long? You know, sure, there's advanced fast tests and all that, but let's get through a hundred thousand Hours before you say it's a hundred thousand hours.
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A
Yeah, that's like 13 years or something.
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B
Yeah. Around now.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You can tell us. Yeah. That one in 2014 lasted a hundred thousand hours, I would say.
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A
An LED, any LED, whether it's a fixture or a bulb, lasts two premium fluorescent tube lifes.
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B
That's a fair number. Yeah.
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A
You know, so something like 50 or 60,000 hours at the most.
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B
Yep.
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A
And then you have to change the fixture out or something. Ballast or something. Something's wrong. That's super complicated. You know what I mean?
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B
Right.
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A
And I challenge anyone to argue with me on that. You know what I mean about that?
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B
Yeah. No, I think that's what our show has proven over and over and over and over. You know, talking to everybody. That's where it's at. You're right.
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A
I wonder if we accomplished anything. So do you.
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B
I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, you try to think of something. Whenever I think of an accomplishment, I try to think tangible. Like, what specifically was it? What was the item? Or what is the number? What is the thing? I don't think you can put anything on that with what we've done, but yeah, I mean, I think we've accomplished something. I think we've brought the lighting industry together to some degree. You know, like, I'm not saying we're all that great, but, like, we've. We've also, like, been open to talking to all parties that are involved and there's a lot of other parties that are like, we're only going to talk to these people because that's all that we care about. The lighting industry is huge, and there's all sorts of different avenues and people involved in it and just being open to it and then having the discussion and understanding different perspectives. That's what I feel like we've hopefully been able to accomplish is bringing out different opinions so that everybody can formulate their own. That's. At the end of the day, what you want when you have discussion is not to tell somebody, this is for sure it. Or this is what you have to think. We're going to tell you what we think. And you think and he thinks and she thinks and you decide.
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A
I would say, yeah, just open your eyes and look around and do some reality. Acknowledgement.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, what. What actually is happening here, you know, what's going on in this industry or wherever you are. Because a lot of people, it's not usually that people have, like, understandably bad intentions. You know, like, if something goes wrong in an industry or Whatever. And, you know, the industry is not working together properly, which is. I would say this. The state of the lighting industry right now is that people are kind of working against one another as opposed to having a cooperation at the top that sets a set of standards and rules that everyone can abide by and that works for all stakeholders in the channel down to the end user. Right. That's what the lighting industry was. When I came into it. When I came into the lighting industry in 1999, there was a set of rules that was. I don't know where. I don't even know if it came from Ansi or NIMA or whoever. They set these rules. And everybody abided by the rules. And everybody made money. Money. Everybody did. Well, there was lots of big companies. And now what we have is Johnny come lately in the lighting marauders took over the industry. And now there's no rules, there's no standardization. There's nothing guiding the industry right now. And I feel like we were the jesters on the outside of the court, laughing and pointing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
- [21:46]
B
Sure. Yeah. And hopefully it gets people that have the ability to make decisions some knowledge and thought that they have to put into it now and say, well, let's. Why? Why are we doing this? Why is it this way?
- [22:00]
A
Yeah.
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B
And get it back to where it belongs. Yeah.
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A
Word from the street. Word on the street is this right? Word on the street is that this is crazy. All the top guys that sell lighting are saying, hey, you know, this is a problem, or whatever. So, you know, that's what I think. We are also pointing that out in a way to the industry that at times cause some people to feel awkward about us, Greg.
- [22:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, I know. I think that's fair. I mean, and to me is like, why, you know, if. If this is really what people feel and really what they talk about, you can't get mad about it. You know, it's just like. It's like anything. It's like, that's how they feel. That's how it is. So that's what they think. Let them think that, you know, and. And don't get mad about it. Just like politics and all the other shit out there. Everybody has their own opinion. Let it happen.
- [22:57]
A
The reason why people didn't come on this show is not because Greg and Michael were impolite or rude to anybody. We always gave editorial control to every guest. They didn't want to release the podcast, we didn't release it. And what is there half a dozen of Those or maybe 15, 10 or 15 or something like that.
- [23:15]
B
Yeah, there's a few for sure.
- [23:16]
A
Yeah. Where people were like, I don't want that released because you got embarrassed because you can't justify. Your business model doesn't withstand scrutiny.
- [23:24]
B
Right, right.
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A
Like what you're saying. Yeah.
- [23:28]
B
If it's legit, then prove it. You know, and, and, and we're just questioning because we don't understand it. And when you can't, when you can't prove it, when, when we can't understand it, then I get it, you know, like, we're not going to put that out there because I sound bad. Well, then don't. Maybe rethink how you're doing it before you go out there and tell everybody this, you know. Yeah, yeah.
- [23:51]
A
You actually talk to guys that know the lighting industry, bud. You're going to talk to people that sell lighting every day and you're going to come in here and tell me about 7% productivity improvements with your new lights that you came up with six months ago.
- [24:05]
B
Right?
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A
Yeah. That's not going to fly around here on. Get a grip on lighting. I don't believe you.
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B
Unless you can. Unless you can prove it. Prove it. Yeah.
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A
You don't have any.
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B
You have no studies. You have nothing. It's just your thought.
- [24:18]
A
That's marketing. You came on my. On the show to talk about your marketing department, what they came up with in the best case scenario possible we can imagine or dream of. Like, so, yeah, people like that didn't make it through. They didn't go on the, on the Internet, but they didn't make it through the filters.
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B
Right, right, right.
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A
But, you know, it was never because people, anyone that didn't come on. Get a grip on lighting. Didn't come on because we sabotaged them or we were unwilling to give them editorial control or whatever. They didn't come on because they knew they couldn't. Their, their business model or what they're saying would not withstand the scrutiny.
- [24:54]
B
Yeah. That's fair. So hopefully they should question what they're doing. Yeah.
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A
Like your business model does not withstand the scrutiny of the industry you serve. And that's someone else's problem. That's a personal vendetta against you.
- [25:10]
B
Right. I don't know.
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A
That doesn't make any sense because we had a whole vote of the entire convened members of nailed.
- [25:18]
B
Yeah.
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A
And they voted that this information should go out. Right. So the, all this idea that somehow we were unwelcoming or we were, you know, rude to people or we, you know, were bad Actors, we welcomed anyone and anyone, anytime, any day, any place. Buddy, you want to talk about lighting?
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B
Let's go. We're ready.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah. And you know what? I'll say it was a powerful combination, you and I. I don't think that these kinds of partnerships come along often in life.
- [25:51]
B
I would agree. Yeah, no, it's something that we definitely have different personalities and thoughts and feelings on things, but we're both open at the end of the day, we're both open, willing to hear others and, you know, learn from it. I think that's the thing that, you know, people need to understand. These discussions are needed, they're necessary, and it's okay to disagree, but learn from it, move on, get better.
- [26:15]
A
And like, I'm ready to say that, you know, for me, and I don't know how you feel, but, like, I'm not saying I'm never going to do a podcast again. I'm not going to make any pronouncements like that. But I'll tell you this. To those people who think that Greg, Eric and Michael Colligan like this or like, want attention or anything like that, I can't wait to go dark. I don't know about you.
- [26:39]
B
It'll be a nice little break. I mean, we, you know, doing this, these recordings of the number we've had, you really have to adjust your schedule and move around, you know, and then things get canceled and that screws up your day and, you know, we've done it for years and yeah, I agree. I don't know that maybe there'll be a comeback someday. Maybe something else will happen. But, yeah, right now it's good to just settle in for a bit, focus on other things.
- [27:05]
A
Yeah, it's, you know, even though, you know, the. It was unexpected the way everything kind of closed out. That's a good way to put it. It was unexpected, sure.
- [27:19]
B
Yeah.
- [27:19]
A
Right.
- [27:20]
B
Unexpected. But I don't know if you can expect closure of anything, really, can you? You know, like, things just are what they are.
- [27:29]
A
Everything has to come to an end at some point. And, you know, I'm. I feel, you know, comfortable moving forward. You know, I don't want to be at events, I don't want to talk to people about lighting anymore. I don't want to be controversial or non controversial. I'm going to stay dangerous. But the. But like, I just. If people think that. I would say we did it for the money mostly.
- [28:01]
B
No, I would say we. I would say we did it for the experience.
- [28:05]
A
Yeah.
- [28:06]
B
But we did it because we had
- [28:08]
A
to like, if people weren't willing to pay enough to make it worthwhile as a side hustle, I would say if you can't pay for it, if something, if you don't charge for something, it has no value. And so we charged a really premium price for get a grip on lighting. And it allowed us to do a lot of fun, Have a lot of fun, fun and cool experiences and do fun things and create amazing stuff and launch other people into the podcast world. And you know what I'm saying, it was, it was fun to do, but I, I, I'm glad it's over.
- [28:38]
B
Yeah, I think we're, we're in the same boat. Like, we've, we had a good ride, a long ride, and I wouldn't have changed anything. So I loved it.
- [28:46]
A
Yeah. And so the, yeah, so I guess that's a good time to say, Greg, stay dangerous. I want to give my thanks to Keystone Technologies. K E Y S T O N e t e c-h.com that's keystonetech.com the Big Easy. Greg Eric.
- [29:03]
B
Yeah. Always forever thankful for Keystone. I mean, you know, again, from my business standpoint, I use them on a lot of things because they make sense. I don't just talk about it on this show because they pay us something. We talk about it because they're a great company, they have great product, they have great people. They have everything you need in a lighting manufacturer, and that's why they become a leader. Going back to what we said at the beginning, they listen to you, they listen to the end user. And most importantly, they adapt after they hear this. So again, what we talked about on this show, we've had all these experts, all these people on. If something, if you're not doing something right, if your business model doesn't make sense, listen to people and change it, make it make sense, and it'll be better for you in the long run, I promise.
- [29:44]
A
Reality, acknowledgement, Greg Eric, is very, very important. And when you try to tune out your critics, when you try to tune out people that are putting their necks out there and saying, hey, what about this? When you try to tune those people out, you're going in the wrong direction. They're not going in the wrong direction. All of the sponsors of Get a Grip on Lighting, I would say all the major ones, I can't remember all I'm talking about the people that did yearly subscriptions with us, Greg, for over the years. I'm not going to say every person that sponsored the show, but all of our major sponsors. I truly believed in those companies. When I recommended those companies, in my heart of hearts, I felt like I was giving a good recommendation out to lighting distributors. You know, Sack is another good company. I like them. They hate each other. You know, I get it.
- [30:30]
B
Not a lot of hate, but yeah,
- [30:32]
A
it's the wrong way.
- [30:33]
B
To friendly competitors. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [30:35]
A
Like that. Obviously those two, you know, they're emerging into the, into the slot, the vacuum of leadership in the industry at the same time. So they're competing with each other. They're getting sucked into a leadership position and. Yeah, but there were lots of, you know, good people, good guests over the years, so. But this one's brought to you by k e y s t o n E-T-E dash dot com and of course the national association of Innovative lighting distributors. That's nail.org if you have light bulbs in a warehouse, this is your association.