← The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
You Can Make $1K/Hour With This Seasonal Side Hustle⏐Ep. #236
00:28:25
Loading summary
Transcript357 lines
- [00:00]
A
Do you think it's possible if someone were to go all in on this, everything, Go all out. This could be a million dollar business.
- [00:05]
B
Yeah, very easily. One of the grounds guys that we were speaking with, he does a million and a quarter. Wow.
- [00:09]
A
Justin Christmas.
- [00:09]
B
Justin Christmas lights.
- [00:10]
A
If you could, like wave a magic wand, would you prefer to go all in on Christmas lights or lawns Christmas lights? What would you charge for a house like this?
- [00:18]
B
An average home of this size is $1,500 to $2,000.
- [00:21]
A
A commercial customer can be worth 100 times more than a home like this.
- [00:24]
B
Yeah.
- [00:24]
A
What's not to love about the Christmas light business? Make $1,000 in an hour. Never quit your full time job. Do it yourself or hire a part. Today we're diving deep on everything Christmas lights business. How to find customers, how to make money, how to install the lights, how to price it. Let's get going. All right, well, nice to meet you.
- [00:45]
B
You too.
- [00:45]
A
Tell us who you are and what you do.
- [00:47]
B
My name is Wesley Parkin. We do landscaping and holiday lighting in the fall. Lots of, like, maintenance type of work and then a lot of install type of work for all the landscaping.
- [00:55]
A
Okay. And how long you been in business?
- [00:57]
B
Three. Little over three years.
- [00:59]
A
Three years. What got you into this business?
- [01:01]
B
I was in construction management for. And I kind of looked at the ladder up and I didn't like how it looked.
- [01:06]
A
Yeah.
- [01:06]
B
So we started searching businesses to buy. Looked into a different. Couple different things. Look. Then we looked into a bunch of franchises. And so after we looked into franchise and kind of what neighborly stood for, that's why we chose a neighborly brand and we chose this one, Browns guys, because it had a lot of verticals that we can do. We can do landscape lighting, holiday lighting, do irrigation, landscape installs. So we chose one that had multiple vertical verticals that we could.
- [01:25]
A
Yeah.
- [01:26]
B
Add to the business as we grow.
- [01:27]
A
Yeah, I like it. It's funny, I talk to a lot of people that they kind of look at their boss and their boss's boss and they realize I don't like that. I don't want that. That's my future.
- [01:35]
B
Right. They made a lot of money, but their time didn't look that great.
- [01:38]
A
Yeah. Okay. So you picked this as a franchise. You like the seasonality of it. You don't have to go all in on just cutting lawns. You can do other things. How did that first year go?
- [01:46]
B
It's tough.
- [01:47]
A
Yeah.
- [01:48]
B
Landscaping, there's a lot of landscapers, there's a lot of. I mean, you can you don't have any license at all to start a landscaping company. You don't even. A lot of people don't have insurance. So competing with a lot of the smaller companies takes a little while to get enough, you know, recurring revenue, enough customers to actually get through that first year. So the first year was just a lot of work, a lot of grind. The second year, a lot of putting in extra time. I was on the truck myself for a while for the first year. And then after the first year I was able to get off the truck and do a lot more of the business portion of it as opposed to the work, you know, the actual landscape work.
- [02:14]
A
Now what would you charge for a lawn like this compared to most of your competitors?
- [02:18]
B
We're slightly above most of our competitors because they can do it for super cheap.
- [02:21]
A
Yeah.
- [02:22]
B
So a lawn like this, including his backyard, you know, this is average, probably 50 bucks a mow. And then we typically do about 36 mows a year and we, we separate it to where we have our customers pay monthly. So they exact same every month, even though we visit them less in December versus August, just taking that full amount and then split up over 12 months.
- [02:36]
A
And then what would your competitor charge for something like this?
- [02:38]
B
Competitor might charge 40 bucks a month, 35 bucks a month.
- [02:41]
A
How do you get around that? Objection to customers. If they say, well this guy can do it for what do you, what do you tell them?
- [02:47]
B
A lot of times one of the big things is when they call us, they get to talk to somebody on the phone. Yeah. And then if a screw up happens, we fix those screw ups. So you know Jeremy here, he's my production manager. Anytime someone calls, they're calling him. They have complaints. If they have issue questions, call him and he's going to answer. And same thing. If something happens, we're going to come back and fix it.
- [03:02]
A
Okay.
- [03:02]
B
So we've had instances where we've damaged something or you know, broken the window in the case. We replaced the window.
- [03:07]
A
Yeah. All right, so year one, what percentage of your business was lawns versus Christmas lights? And are there any other services that you do?
- [03:13]
B
Yeah, the first year is probably 95%. Mowing lawns, you know, basic maintenance, pruning, edging, all that type of stuff. We did some holiday lights the first year, maybe five, six homes. So by percentage basis around 5% of the total revenue was both lighting. And then that continues to do more commercial. Now we're trying to do more commercial. So our split between resx commercial has been growing over the last three Years and then holiday lighting, we've increased not dramatically each year, but probably 5 to 10% each year.
- [03:39]
A
Yeah.
- [03:40]
B
As far as the amount of revenue we get from holiday lighting.
- [03:42]
A
And how do you find customers for. For both sides of the business?
- [03:45]
B
For landscaping, we use a lot of LSAs. We have PPC that we use. Word of mouth helps a lot. Whenever we do good with the customer, they refer us to a lot of referrals that didn't start happening until this year, probably where we got a lot more referrals. The first year referrals don't come that quick. And then for, for holiday lighting, we use a lot of Facebook as Facebook is a place where you kind of see it as, you know, can envision your own home.
- [04:02]
A
Yeah.
- [04:02]
B
So we, you know, we have pictures, things like that that'll, that will post in those ads. So when people see that, they're a lot more inclined to on that and it's more visual.
- [04:10]
A
When you say Facebook, do you mean like paid Facebook ads?
- [04:13]
B
Right.
- [04:13]
A
Okay.
- [04:14]
B
We do also Facebook posting, but obviously those, those just bring in less because they're not being pushed out to.
- [04:18]
A
Yeah.
- [04:19]
B
You know, the customers through Facebook's ad platform.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah. Now does the franchisor handle the marketing and the lead gen for you?
- [04:26]
B
No, that's all done locally by us. The only thing they do is national, you know, brand awareness.
- [04:30]
A
Yeah.
- [04:30]
B
So we, we pay a small fee of all of our monthly revenue.
- [04:33]
A
Yep.
- [04:33]
B
That goes to national marketing. But it's more brand awareness. It's not really lead generation. So all lead generation is done locally by us. We have, you know, someone that does our, our PPC and LSA stuff as well as our Facebook. And then, you know, we do all the posting ourselves as far as just posting before and after things like that. But all that, we hire someone to do the marketing portion of it or you know, marketing agency.
- [04:51]
A
Yeah. And for those watching PPC is pay per click, just Google Ads. You appear at the top of the search results. And then LSA is local service ads where you can set up your profile, get the like the green check mark by Google and then they will send you leads and say, hey, Mary needs Christmas lights. They charge you for that lead. And so now the onus is on you to close it as fast as possible before someone else does.
- [05:11]
C
Right.
- [05:11]
B
In the past we've used some lead generators as well, like thumbtack or Angie's leads. We use those a lot more early on because we just needed anything. Yep.
- [05:19]
A
So five star reviews, testimonials.
- [05:21]
B
Right now it's not, we don't use those so much because the, the quality of the lead was lower. And so typically we want to improve those quality, those leads.
- [05:28]
A
Yeah. Okay. And if you could, like, wave a magic wand, would you prefer to. To go all in on Christmas lights or, or lawns?
- [05:36]
B
Christmas lights, really? Margins are significantly greater.
- [05:38]
A
Okay, let's talk about that. What, what are the margins on a MoW like this?
- [05:42]
B
Margins for mowing is 10 to 15%. Particularly commercial, it's lower because the competition is much higher. As opposed to holiday lights, it's a significant risk, climbing 20, 30ft in the air.
- [05:52]
A
That's what you're charging for the liability.
- [05:55]
B
And then also, not only that, but like if you have a bulb go out, you don't want to go pull up a ladder to replace that one bulb. So we come and do, you know, as part of the services, we come in and replace those. So the margins on holiday lighting, it increases each year because the first year you have to pay for the material. So it'll be much lower. 20%, 25%. And then if you have the same customer year over year, you can be increasing that margin up to 50 or 60%.
- [06:14]
A
And I would think that people don't start shopping around for a different, different provider every October. They're just going to call you, right?
- [06:19]
B
Yeah. As long as we did a good job. As long as anytime they called, we came in, service them if there was issues and then, you know, we take them down. We just have to schedule with the customer for install and takedown. We give them a week time span as far as install, same thing as takedown. Because we'll route our areas so that we can take down multiple, you know, multiple homes in the same area. So as long as you did a good job and you know, I think communication is probably the biggest thing. Whenever they call you, they get a hold of you, then there's really no reasons to reshop it.
- [06:43]
A
Yeah.
- [06:43]
B
Because next year, you know, they might end up paying a little bit less, too. We give a discount, you know, two years, three years in.
- [06:47]
A
Yep.
- [06:48]
B
But even with those discounts, we still have the margin still increased because you don't have to pay for material you got them cut. The time is less to install in the second, third year.
- [06:54]
A
Okay.
- [06:55]
B
Because you're not recutting and you've already got them set to the house.
- [06:57]
A
Yeah.
- [06:57]
B
So the install time is less.
- [06:58]
A
So this is your third season of Christmas lights. Right. So five or six customers the first season. How many?
- [07:03]
B
The second season, second season was probably 10 to 15 okay, so you doubled year over year. Yeah, it's a slow growth with it as you kind of figure it out. And same thing with our landscaping. We double year over year revenues. Kind of this kind of match suit with the holiday lighting.
- [07:17]
A
Did you lose any customers the second year from the first?
- [07:20]
B
Yeah, there's people that move. There's people that realize they can get it cheaper.
- [07:23]
A
Yeah.
- [07:24]
B
Typically what happens when they get it cheaper? They just don't get that same service as far as coming out and getting, you know, doing the repairs or doing any maintenance on it. So they can. They can easily find someone cheaper because there's a lot of guys that'll do it part time. Yeah. Have a full time job and then come fall time they'll do some holiday lighting installs on the side. So they do it much cheaper because again, they don't carry insurance. They probably don't have a business. Yeah, just do it on the side. So we'll. And we'll lose. So we'll lose a handful a year. The ones that we would do year over year, they just tell us put the same thing up and sometimes we'll add stuff. So we've done holiday, you know, wreaths, things like that. Louis added to customers. Or we'll add landscape or lighting in the landscape. You can line the driveways or, or beds, things like that.
- [07:58]
A
Yeah. How many do you think you'll have this year? I know it's early in the season. You probably haven't really. Have you started your marketing efforts yet?
- [08:03]
B
We have a little bit and we also. We've. We've kind of combined efforts with the grounds guys at Grapevine. So they had a couple customers that were taking over for them and so they have a big commercial customer around 40, 50,000. That will worth the revenue that we'll put in for that customer as well as.
- [08:16]
A
That's amazing.
- [08:17]
B
We have a handful of. We have quite a few leads that we're marketing to our own internal CRM system.
- [08:20]
A
Yeah.
- [08:21]
B
So we do a bunch of that this year for that.
- [08:23]
A
So commercial customer can be worth 100 times more than a home like this.
- [08:26]
B
Yeah.
- [08:26]
A
Yeah.
- [08:26]
B
But it can be also a lot more complicated. You might have to, you know, get lifts. So we haven't done any of these that large commercial yet. This will be our first one. But we'll like I said, we're partnering with them because they've done it.
- [08:34]
A
Yeah.
- [08:35]
B
Hospital that they do in Grapevine.
- [08:36]
A
Okay.
- [08:37]
B
So the cost of actually installing is a lot more. Plus you have more material.
- [08:41]
A
Let's talk about the two different models you have so. Of installing lights. So on, on one hand you cut them to size and they use them every year. And then what was the other model? Or is that the only.
- [08:49]
B
That's, that's really the only professionally installed way to do it. Yeah, but we lease the lights versus the customer can own the lights.
- [08:55]
A
Okay.
- [08:55]
B
So a lot of companies, other, you know, competitors will do it where they'll sell the lights to the customer. We'll cut them to fit their home. And if for some reason the customer says, I don't want you back next year, they get to keep the lights, but that are already fit to their home.
- [09:04]
A
Okay.
- [09:04]
B
We cut the lights and we keep the lights and we're essentially leasing them to them. Where we fit in the home, we store them.
- [09:10]
A
Okay.
- [09:10]
B
So they don't have to deal with pulling them out, you know, in and out of the attic every year.
- [09:13]
A
Yep.
- [09:14]
B
We'll bring them to the customer job site. Whenever it's time to install, we install them. And then same thing. When it's time to take down, we pull them all down and we haul them off.
- [09:20]
A
Okay.
- [09:20]
B
They don't have to worry about how install them to store them properly. We keep them indoors. That way they're not dealing with, you know, getting hot and cold or.
- [09:26]
A
Yeah.
- [09:26]
B
Under the wet, in the weather or whatnot. But yeah, those are kind of the two main ones is either lease or let the customer own them.
- [09:31]
A
Okay.
- [09:31]
B
Just a difference in pricing on how you do that.
- [09:32]
A
So for a house like this, this is like a three to four thousand square foot house, I imagine two story, three car garage. What would you charge for a house like this?
- [09:40]
B
An average home of this size is 1500-2000 for an install. And it's by the linear foot. So most of the time what we'll do when we meet with customers, we'll just, we'll come, we measure everything from the grounds. We'll measure all the roof lines, mostly roof lines, what customers want. Oftentimes they'll do other stuff, but roof line is kind of the number one service.
- [09:54]
A
And how are you measuring those?
- [09:56]
B
We use a measuring wheel. So we'll just basically walk it off from here. As far as pitches, you know, you just have to walk the distance from the side to the center. And then, you know, there's a little bit of math involved doing the pitches, but that difficult. Measure everything from the ground, we get a total linear footage and then we have a linear foot price.
- [10:09]
A
Okay.
- [10:09]
B
The customer for roof line install.
- [10:11]
A
So 1500 to 2000 for the first year.
- [10:13]
B
Yeah.
- [10:13]
C
Okay.
- [10:14]
A
And then what would it be next year?
- [10:15]
B
We'll discount 10% each year until the third year, and then it just stays the same.
- [10:18]
A
Okay.
- [10:18]
B
So the discount the second first year or the second year is 10%. Third year is 10%. And then it stays the same. If they were with us for 10 years, you know.
- [10:24]
A
Okay. And then you store the lights on your property.
- [10:26]
B
Yep.
- [10:27]
A
Okay, cool.
- [10:27]
B
And that's the thing too, is if customers with us for five years, they don't have to repay for material. We might be repaying material. You know, year five or six, when the product starts breaking down, they're burning out, but we're the one replacing it.
- [10:37]
A
Yeah.
- [10:37]
B
So they don't have to worry about that price really changing because it stays the same. 3 as. As long as they're with us. Really?
- [10:42]
A
Yeah. Which model do you prefer?
- [10:44]
B
We like the leasing.
- [10:45]
A
Yeah.
- [10:45]
B
Because we can essentially reuse material if someone doesn't want us to come back. So we have the material already, and that way we're kind of keeps cost down on material.
- [10:52]
A
So for a job like this, let's say it's 1500, what would be your profit margin on year one versus year three?
- [10:57]
B
Year one will probably be in the 20% range because for that material for the first year, and then year three will be around 50 to 60%.
- [11:03]
A
Okay. Wow, that's awesome. And then that's with you installing it yourself or your employees installing.
- [11:08]
B
Employees installing. Okay.
- [11:09]
A
So if you were to do it yourself, the margins even higher.
- [11:12]
B
Yeah. If you're doing it all yourself. Again, depending on if you have a full time business doing it and you're paying for insurance and all that, which I wouldn't recommend a customer ever really hire someone to get on their roof without insurance, but all the time.
- [11:21]
A
Yeah. So what does your insurance costs run with?
- [11:24]
B
All of our insurance, which includes auto insurance, everything. We're paying about $12,000 a year. Okay. Vehicles for general liability workers.
- [11:30]
A
Not as bad as I thought. Honestly. Thousand bucks a month. I wonder what it would be if you didn't do Christmas lights at all.
- [11:34]
B
It would drop.
- [11:35]
A
Yeah.
- [11:35]
B
Because they. They rate this as a higher risk activity. So we pay for that. Same thing with we. We do ice melt, which is technically snow plowing is where they categorize it.
- [11:43]
A
Yeah.
- [11:43]
B
Which. There's no snow plowing here in our. In our market. But we do ice melt and they charge us for that as well because it's a higher risk activity.
- [11:49]
A
Okay, cool. Do you guys do anything with regards to marketing and like yard signs? Or knocking doors or like talking to the neighbors. How does that go?
- [11:57]
B
We do door hangers. We've done a lot of yard signs. However, this year or Texas passed something where yard signs are now technically illegal. So really 500 every sign for the first offense. I think it's a thousand dollars.
- [12:08]
A
That's the whole state.
- [12:09]
B
Yeah, I need to make that. That started in September 1st. But we do door hangers and again, Facebook posts. Or Facebook. We'll do our own posts, you know, before and afters, as well as the Facebook marketing. That's kind of the main lead generation for our holiday lighting.
- [12:22]
A
And those work pretty well. Like the non digital methods.
- [12:26]
B
Yeah, yard signs. I mean, I had a. Another neighborly brand. I kind of was following him, what he was doing. He. He would put out 80 yard signs a month. Sometimes he gets calls and people complain about it. But yeah, still brought in the. Generated. Generated the lead. So it was worth, you know, worth the risk, I guess at that point.
- [12:38]
A
When you're putting out door hangers, who does it? Do you hire a company to do it? Do you do it?
- [12:42]
B
It'll be our crews. So a lot of times when we do one home like this, we'll. We call it box nine. So we'll do the two homes on each side, two homes on that side, and the five homes opposite side of the street. That way all the, you know, when we're here installing, if customers or neighbors see us. Yeah, we'll go put a door hanger on. That's, you know, two touch points. One, they see awesome. Two, they got a touchpoint from the door hanger.
- [12:58]
A
Do you have any bearing on, like, how many door hangers to convert a customer? Do you keep track of that at all?
- [13:02]
B
I wouldn't. I don't know if I know the door hanger one or any of them. Typically we get more door hanger calls from the landscaping because we're in a lot more. We're, you know, we're in a lot more homes or a lot more properties. So every property, we're putting those out. Yep. The. Just the numbers are higher and then it also kind of depends on the year or the time of year.
- [13:18]
A
Yeah.
- [13:18]
B
So obviously the beginning of the year for landscaping. A lot more people follow us because that's what they're starting to think about. So given another month, they'll start thinking about holiday lighting. Or as soon as Halloween's over, everyone starts thinking about holiday lighting.
- [13:27]
A
Yeah.
- [13:27]
B
It's like a switch in their mind.
- [13:28]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [13:29]
B
That I'm not really thinking about that's why when you're doing stuff early on the year. So July, Christmas in July is the thing trying to get people to think about Christmas lights to get, you know, on the schedule earlier. But typically Halloween's over. That's when people's mind switches and then. So that's a really good time to be putting stuff out for people seeing the vehicles or the yard signs, if we could put them out still.
- [13:44]
A
So that's like when customers start to think in that direction. But strategically, when do you first start marketing for Christmas lights and or installing for Christmas lights?
- [13:53]
B
That would be July. So you do a Christmas in July campaign to say, okay, you know, we do install lights, get on the schedule early. Essentially you can offer discounts for getting on earlier, especially when the ralph when you're fills up a lot. So the earlier you get on, you get discounts because if you're more profitable, everyone's stacking into November. Then you just don't have time to install for everyone. So July, Christmas, July. Christmas in July is kind of the time frame.
- [14:11]
A
Okay.
- [14:11]
B
When to start it? And then again you'll start again end of September, early October for the actual marketing of this time of year.
- [14:17]
A
Okay. And then when do you start taking down? 27th, 26th.
- [14:21]
B
We'll start after new year. So it'll be the week after because typically a lot of people are out of town still up on vacation. So we wait a full week into January and then the first. So basically the second week of January will start taking down.
- [14:31]
A
Do you do any permanent lighting?
- [14:32]
B
We don't. Okay, we are going to. We're planning to get into it. We just haven't got to that point yet.
- [14:36]
A
I have a friend that has a Christmas light business in Pennsylvania and he says he hates permanent lighting because it's one time.
- [14:42]
B
Yeah.
- [14:42]
A
He says he only does it when people insist on it because at least he gets something out of that customer. Yeah, but he would much prefer to come back every year.
- [14:49]
B
Yeah.
- [14:50]
C
Right.
- [14:50]
B
I mean for the install, it's two to three times the amount.
- [14:53]
A
Yeah.
- [14:53]
B
So if you're getting permanent lighting, you'll expect to pay three times the amount you would for. This isn't permanent lighting, but it permanent on there for the season.
- [14:59]
A
Yeah.
- [14:59]
B
But two to three times more if you're installing permanent lighting.
- [15:02]
A
All right, so you get to a job site. What's the first thing you do?
- [15:05]
B
Well, we've already got the measurements, we have all that. We'll have pre bulbed wire. So in the shop that we're not doing on the customer's property. We'll build, you know, 500ft or however many whatever length we need to in the shop. There's less of that here. We'll have that all reeled up on the spool and then we'll have one person that climbs the ladder that's kind of fitting everything. Person on the ground that's holding ladders, giving material, things like that. But that school will just be on the ground and you'll basically pull. You'll have a hanging in the air as you go up and you know you have it. You'll have it pre clipped as well so that we can make it faster. Yeah, we want to be on the job side the least amount of time. Do all the easy stuff from the ground and in the shop. So we'll have that big spool here and we'll just start pulling up the ladder. We'll have someone down on the bottom that feed material and then as you go, you just fit it up.
- [15:41]
C
Okay.
- [15:41]
B
As each clip goes on, then you'll cut it at the exact length once you get it to where you need it.
- [15:44]
A
So for a fifteen hundred dollar house like this, how much in wire are you spending?
- [15:48]
B
Let's see. Well, we buy all the material early on in the year and then they ship it around September time frame. This is coming out of Utah. You can buy them from the local, local stores. There's local stores here and pick it up. They're just different bulbs. But for the cost of material. I'm not actually sure on the, on that because there's cost per bulb, there's cost per linear foot of wire. But for fifteen hundred dollars it might be two hundred worth of material. Most of it's going to be the labor that first year.
- [16:07]
A
Yeah.
- [16:07]
B
A lot of time spent cutting fitting. So a lot of it goes to labor. That's why the significant cost is in the labor. You know, the time you do the second year is significantly lower.
- [16:15]
A
Yeah.
- [16:15]
B
Because you're not cutting the fit. All you know is hanging and plugging in.
- [16:18]
A
Well, I also think like one of your biggest competitors is the fact that people move, right? Yeah, they, they leave you because they move. But if you already have everything custom fit, you knock on the door of the new homeowner and say hey, you're probably going to get Christmas lights. I already have your lights. They're fit just to you. So I can give you a good deal or whatever.
- [16:32]
B
Yeah, you could. We haven't tried that yet. We do have a customer like and he had a pretty significant amount of lights. So we have an entire bin full of them for the customer. But we could go knock on the door and say, hey, he moved. Do you still want lights?
- [16:41]
A
Yeah. It's a pretty compelling offer.
- [16:43]
C
Right.
- [16:44]
B
And you could even, you could discount on that more than you would a first year normally because you've already paid for that material.
- [16:48]
A
Yeah.
- [16:49]
B
For the last, you know, the previous customer, previous homeowner.
- [16:51]
A
Yeah.
- [16:51]
B
What type of material you can do? You can get all different types of colors and they, you know, in this particular case we have something called light stream where you can change the color yourself if you want. Oh, okay.
- [16:57]
A
Yeah.
- [16:58]
B
So that's an offering. You can ask, you can offer to the customer. If they, if they don't know what they want, you tell them, you know, here's the colors we have and then let's say you put it up that first year and they're like, it was great, but I wish I would have chose a different color. You can change out the colors.
- [17:09]
A
Yeah.
- [17:09]
B
And easily. Yeah. So before, you know, when we pre bulb the lights, before we come back to your house again the next year, we're going to pull those lights out and if you want to change color, we'll change all the colors from warm white to green and red or whatever it might be.
- [17:20]
A
Is there a price difference that you charged?
- [17:23]
B
We don't.
- [17:23]
A
Yeah.
- [17:23]
B
Just because we already have material anyways. The only added time is deep, you know, unbolting the building or whatever and then rebuilding all the wire again. Yeah, but we don't charge it. But you could. It would very easily be something they would probably willing to pay for.
- [17:35]
A
Yeah.
- [17:35]
B
For safety equipment, we use a handful of things. We have these boots called Cougar Paws. They have a felt mat on the bottom so you have a better grip. On the roof we have a pitch wedge which is a very similar thing. Just has a felt mat that you can stand on. It makes a level platform.
- [17:47]
A
Do you have any minimums on a job? Like what's the least amount you charge on a small house?
- [17:51]
B
Yes, we do. Are typically about $800 minimum. And those generally are for single level homes where it might be 150 to 200 linear feet worth of wire. The other thing you're trying to do with, with bulbing is you want to end on corners, you want to, you know, end on peaks. So I wouldn't want to end back here. It just looks better when you're able to end.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah. You know, do these have to be two man jobs or can you do them by yourself?
- [18:13]
B
You could, but the most difficult part is getting the ladders up that high. So trying to move this type of ladder by yourself is fairly difficult.
- [18:19]
A
Yeah.
- [18:20]
B
And it gives risk of, you know, damaging customers property.
- [18:22]
A
If it's a single story property, will you send one guy?
- [18:25]
B
We don't usually just because there's always kind of someone on the ground that can provide material. So two would be the minimum. You could have three on a bigger house.
- [18:31]
A
Yeah.
- [18:31]
B
Because you could have someone, you know, two people starting on the house. And you can have one guy installing around beds, around driveways. Because we do, you know, lots of stakes. So you can do all that type of stuff from the ground with one person.
- [18:39]
A
Okay.
- [18:39]
B
Or trees. You can do trees by yourself.
- [18:41]
A
Do you do a lot of trees?
- [18:43]
B
Trees are fairly expensive, so not a lot of people want them.
- [18:46]
A
Yeah. Because the labor kind of tedious.
- [18:48]
B
Yeah, the labor involved is just as much installing versus as taking down. So if you're doing trees, they're a pretty significant cost and it takes a lot of light. So we have many lights that will wrap around trees, but we do them just not as many. Most people want the roof line because that's the most bang for your buck.
- [19:00]
A
Yeah. So what are your go to tools in your tool belt here?
- [19:03]
B
Really all you need is just a set of wire clippers. In colder climates it's a little harder because it's much colder. So here it's not so bad really, where your hands aren't so cold and hard to do fine work with them because you're trying to peel wires and stuff them in the little fittings. But really this is all you need.
- [19:16]
A
Okay.
- [19:17]
B
As far as that. And then zip ties are another one. Sometimes we'll zip tie certain areas, but when you use zip ties, when you're installing the lights you're trying to install to where it's as easy as possible. Tear down.
- [19:26]
A
Yeah.
- [19:26]
B
So typically when we're tearing down lights, we're not even bringing lighters. We don't need them.
- [19:29]
A
Wow. You just.
- [19:30]
B
We're using a, you know, a painter's pole. And so in this, you know, in this case, we'll reach up and pull that. And that painter's pole can get most sense. You don't want to. You want to install it in such a way that you can tear it down easy. Yeah. Because your time tearing down is significantly lower. Five to ten minutes.
- [19:44]
A
Well, every minute you spend on this thing, your risk increases risk of death.
- [19:48]
B
And then, you know, Putting up a 30 foot ladder takes two people.
- [19:50]
A
Yeah.
- [19:51]
B
So there's risk of Breaking windows, things like that. If you're not. If you're not paying attention, being careful.
- [19:55]
A
Yeah.
- [19:56]
B
So we're always in our minds, and when we're installing, we're trying to figure out how do we make this easy to tear down.
- [20:01]
A
Yeah.
- [20:01]
B
And then same thing when you tear down. We're trying to keep as many of the strands together as possible. We'll label the strands. So strand one goes to this peak, strand two goes that peak type of thing.
- [20:09]
A
Yeah.
- [20:09]
B
Same thing there is. We're pulling them down, trying to keep them together as much as possible to where when we reinstall the following year. Makes it easiest.
- [20:16]
A
Yeah.
- [20:16]
B
Least amount of labor to do that.
- [20:18]
A
Assuming you have everything prepped beforehand, as you should, how many minutes will you spend on a job like this to set up and take down?
- [20:25]
B
There'll be a little bit of setup time in the. In the shop. So maybe half an hour to an hour of setup time. Especially if you're changing bulbs and you're. Again, you're checking all the bulbs every year. So once we pull this down for a year, this year, pull all these out in the shop, check every bulb, make sure all the bulbs are lit, because it's much easier to change that than it is to put a ladder up and change that one bulb that burnt out. So half an hour maybe in the shop, and then the install for a house about this size, an hour to an hour and a half.
- [20:46]
A
And then take down.
- [20:47]
B
Takedown will be 10 minutes.
- [20:48]
A
Wow.
- [20:48]
B
Because all you're doing is you're reaching up there, pulling it, and then you're. You're labeling the wires. Labeling. Or the strands you put down. And then we have a drawing, which you don't have to be. You don't have to be all that sophisticated as long as you read.
- [21:00]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [21:01]
B
Sketch. I mean, that's all I really do.
- [21:03]
A
Okay. Interesting. It just goes to show, I mean, 10 minutes to take down, 30 to 60 minutes to set up, 30 minutes in the shop goes to show how important your route density is.
- [21:11]
B
Right.
- [21:11]
A
Because you could easily spend more time driving than you spend on the entire job site. Right, Right.
- [21:16]
B
Absolutely.
- [21:16]
A
So if you route density is good, your margins are a lot higher.
- [21:19]
B
Yeah.
- [21:19]
A
Or you're able to charge less.
- [21:20]
B
And then the more you make sure you're doing on the ground, less callbacks or less service calls.
- [21:25]
A
Yeah.
- [21:25]
B
So service calls, if you have to come out and replaceable, you have to put up this ladder for one bulb. So ideally, you're trying to minimize the amount of service calls. That's why? You want to make sure everything's good on the ground first? Yeah, stuff happens. We've had squirrels chew the wire. Nothing we can do about that. We go and repair it. Yeah, but sometimes we'll just burn out or sometimes heavy winds might pull some clips off. So we'll go replace those.
- [21:43]
A
Okay. And do you set them up with timers?
- [21:45]
B
Yep. So we have a timer. Thanks.
- [21:47]
A
In the bucket, and that's included in the price?
- [21:49]
B
Yes.
- [21:50]
A
Yeah. All right, Jeremy, tell us who you are and what you do.
- [21:53]
C
Jeremy. I'm the production manager at grounds guys for Wesley.
- [21:55]
A
And what does a production manager do?
- [21:57]
C
All right, so I get to manage all the crews and the. The schedule. The main thing is communication with the customer. That's what they like the most, and that's what we offer that most don't. I'm available to them any time of the day.
- [22:07]
A
What do you love the most about this job?
- [22:09]
C
Honestly, I. I really like the outdoors.
- [22:11]
A
Yeah.
- [22:11]
C
That's kind of why I took the job in the first place. I enjoyed being outdoors. All this is kind of just fun to me, almost. You know, I actually enjoy being out here working, so.
- [22:19]
B
Yep.
- [22:19]
A
Do you have any horror stories from being on the job doing Christmas lights specifically?
- [22:23]
C
I wouldn't say horror, but kind of. Yeah. Because, you know, if you have any kind of fear of heights, which I'm not terrible, but, like, I. You get. You get me up high enough, you know, but there's some of them that are so slanted. And even with the safety equipment, like the boots and the, you know, the triangle, and then we have a bar that goes over the peak, you can kind of hold on. Even with that stuff, you still kind of slide, you know, and so it's kind of. It's kind of spooky, but I guess after a while, you kind of get used to it. But you also get that mindset of, we got to get this done, you know, so you just get brave.
- [22:51]
A
If someone's watching this and they're thinking about starting a Christmas light business, what advice would you give them?
- [22:56]
C
It's not difficult to figure out as far as the wiring and all that stuff. I would say watch videos on safety, because that's the number one thing. I mean, one, you don't want to get in trouble, but two, you don't want to get hurt. You know, it could be a serious injury, you know, falling off of one of these roofs. Even a one story if you land wrong. Yeah. So I would say safety. You know, just focus on that at first. You'll get your own groove after a while.
- [23:16]
A
And what about how to talk to customers or communication? Do you have any tips for people about that?
- [23:21]
C
Just be open. Be willing to talk to them. Sometimes customers just want more than just the information you're giving them. They want almost a friend.
- [23:29]
A
Yeah.
- [23:30]
C
So you just. You just talk to them as if you're a friend, you know, and then they will be more open to you. Because that way, if you. Because sometimes customers, if they have a complaint, they almost don't want to tell you because they feel like you're just going to ignore them anyway.
- [23:40]
A
Yeah.
- [23:40]
C
But if you start off as a friend, you know, they feel like they can tell you about it and you'll. You'll take care of it.
- [23:44]
A
Yeah. And they'll be more likely to buy stuff from you.
- [23:45]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can't stress communication enough. That's what. That'll. That's what will build any business on.
- [23:50]
A
I used to tell my employees that communication covers a multitude of sins.
- [23:54]
C
It does, right?
- [23:54]
A
If you screw something up and you get ahead of it, like proactively.
- [23:58]
C
Yes.
- [23:59]
A
A lot of times you can. You can turn that into a good experience where they buy more stuff.
- [24:03]
C
You can, you know, because like, even when the crews, like, let's say they run into a mailbox, if they'll call and tell me the moment they do it, I can call that customer and head them off, you know, and like, hey, we hit your mailbox today. I will take it care of this.
- [24:13]
B
Yeah.
- [24:13]
C
And then they don't call me mad because they don't have time to fester about it.
- [24:16]
A
Yeah.
- [24:17]
C
So it does help with communication.
- [24:19]
A
So if someone were watching this and wanting to start a Christmas lights business, what advice would you give them?
- [24:24]
B
Hire someone. Soft down the roof.
- [24:25]
A
Okay.
- [24:26]
B
Because I've hired a few people that they said they would. And then come, you know, push comes shell. They don't want to be up there.
- [24:30]
A
Okay.
- [24:31]
B
You know, we don't always get on the roof. We try to use ladder as much as possible, but that's like the first.
- [24:34]
A
Question you ask because it's really not Emotional landscapers.
- [24:37]
B
I'm asking them that. Like, I'm hiring them to mow.
- [24:40]
A
Yeah.
- [24:40]
B
Telling them that in the fall, we're going to be doing quality lights and dot com on the roof because you.
- [24:43]
A
Just can't work around that.
- [24:44]
B
Right.
- [24:45]
A
Okay.
- [24:45]
B
The other thing is, I guess I would probably recommend using Facebook as a. As a means of getting leads.
- [24:49]
A
What about safety?
- [24:50]
B
There's a few pieces of equipment I'd recommend you get you don't have to get everything. And you can generally try and use the ladders as much as possible. And you might even start on some of the easier roof. There's single story houses that you can do that are much easier to do, easy to get your feet wet. Safety equipment, I would get these boots. They're cougar paws. Pitch wedge is another big one. Sits on the roof and helps you sit on a level platform as you're standing on the roof. Then 30 foot ladder. We're going to have to have one of those. Really.
- [25:10]
A
Okay.
- [25:10]
B
And then I guess what I recommend is just try it. The worst you could do is have a ladder that you get to keep for your house now.
- [25:14]
A
Yeah.
- [25:15]
B
And then you can, you know, start on your own home, put the lights on your own house. You'll get a feel for how it goes and it's much simpler than you might think as far as how to fit them together.
- [25:22]
A
Yeah.
- [25:22]
B
You know, do it, do it that way.
- [25:23]
A
Can someone go to Home Depot and buy lights or would you not recommend that?
- [25:27]
B
You can get some of that, but typically there's. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Home Depot because they're not really made to fit to your house. Yeah, you can get 100 foot lengths or 50 foot length or 5 foot lengths, but pretty much anywhere you live, there's probably going to be some sort of supply store.
- [25:38]
A
Okay.
- [25:38]
B
So you know, where I live here, there's somewhere I can go that's one mile away to get those supplies.
- [25:42]
A
Okay.
- [25:42]
B
But wherever you live, there's going to be a supply store that's selling holiday light.
- [25:44]
A
All right. What are the startup costs for this business?
- [25:47]
B
Best to buy the stuff you can in bulk because, you know, the more you can get in bulk, the cheaper is going to be per foot, essentially. So really it's just the materials. That's the materials. If you've already got a vehicle that can kind of haul the stuff you need and the materials, you can buy them in bulk. But it's, you know, maybe two, $3,000 the first year. We spent about 4,500, $5,000 on all the material that we were kind of expecting to do. About 15 homes.
- [26:05]
A
Yeah.
- [26:05]
B
So we bought that much material kind of time. You don't have to buy that much. You could just buy, you know, one reel of this, a couple boxes of the lights fittings, all that. So you might only, if you were just trying to get started, you might only be 4 or $500 as far as material and then a couple pieces of equipment. Safety Equipment, ladders.
- [26:18]
A
Do you think it's possible if someone were to go all in on this focus, do paid ads, everything go all out. This could be a million dollar business. Yeah, very easily with good profit margins.
- [26:26]
B
I was just on a call with, with grounds guys, you know, talking to other, other grounds guys, owners throughout the nation. One of the grounds guys that we were speaking with, he does a million and a quarter. Wow.
- [26:35]
A
Just in Christmas.
- [26:35]
B
Just in Christmas lights. The rest of your doing the landscape lighting.
- [26:38]
A
How much landscaping, commercial?
- [26:39]
B
He didn't say. He didn't have that breakdown. But a large portion is going to be commercial and then. Yeah, you know, as far as, as residential customers, you know, you might have 200 to 3, 400 commercial customers. If you're doing a million plus.
- [26:50]
A
Okay.
- [26:50]
B
Then the rest of that would be the commercial customers.
- [26:53]
A
Any horror stories from this business?
- [26:55]
B
No real horror stories yet. I guess the worst that we've had, if you want to call it, it's not a horror story, but we just had some squirrels that did some work on a customer's property. So they said all the lights weren't working, you know, within maybe a month they were up. So we go out there and investigate it and find that the squirrels had chewed through four or five locations of it. So we went and just snipped it and patched it.
- [27:13]
A
That happened once out of 20, 30 times.
- [27:15]
B
Right.
- [27:15]
A
Okay, let's see. I think that was it. And what are your goals for this? Yeah. And what are your goals for this business?
- [27:24]
B
Our goals are like we really want to increase this line as well as landscape lighting. So two, two lighting areas that we want to increase in for holiday lighting. We'd like to do half a million to a million a year the next two or three years. So we're, like I said, we're three years in. So if we continue to double down on all the holiday lighting and landscape lighting, you know, between those two, we'd like to be doing over a million a year in. In just the lighting.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah. All right, well, Wesley, thank you for your time today.
- [27:44]
B
Yeah, appreciate it.
- [27:45]
A
If someone wants to check out your business, where are you and how can they find you?
- [27:48]
B
We're grounds guys of Keller, so we're in the DFW area in Texas. And then you can go to groundsguys.com you get to any wherever location you're in the country, you can just type in your zip code and it'll take you to the local spot where you're at. But ours is groundsguys.com/calrtx if you want a specific location. Okay.
- [28:02]
A
For anything landscaping and. Or Christmas lights.
- [28:04]
B
Christmas lights, landscape lighting, irrigation. If you're doing installations or maintenance. As far as landscaping and then holiday lighting this time of year, obviously. Okay.
- [28:11]
A
Grounds guys.
- [28:12]
B
Keller.
- [28:12]
A
I've never really said this out loud before, but my mission with this channel is to inspire 1 million entrepreneurs to start or grow their business. So if you've been inspired by this, please just say thanks by hitting subscribe and it would mean the world to me.