April 22, 2024 • 30 mins
Join Joe Crisara, America's Service Sales Coach, and guest Ryan Lee, of Landscape Lighting Secrets, in a riveting episode of the Service MVP podcast. Drawing from their entrepreneurial journey and experiences, both share a wealth of insights aimed at boosting success in the service business landscape. Ryan dives deep into the world of landscape lighting and shares his journey to success, revealing how he incorporates landscape lighting into pre-existing businesses and creates a niche for transformation.
Increase your revenue, profit, and overall success by learning and implementing Ryan's three key tips in any service business. He starts the discussion by emphasizing the role of pricing in establishing business value and presents 'Offer Stack' as a solution for providing additional value to customers by integrating various complementary services. The episode also serves as a deep dive into landscape lighting and provides a springboard for applying critical business tips to drive growth and performance across different service industries.
Discover the importance of believing in your service or product, improving sales approaches, and prioritizing value in business models. The episode unravels the various facets of effective sales, focusing on immediate pricing and on-the-spot selling as powerful strategies for business growth. Ryan further explores the significance of leveraging customer emotions and dealing with client objections, providing listeners with an arsenal of techniques for effective business communication and improved sales results.
Through this engaging conversation, service providers can gain insights into project problem-solving, managing client expectations, targeting the right audience, and generating high-quality leads. Ryan also reveals his marketing and lead generation strategies, emphasizing the power of referral partnerships and commissions in maximizing business success.
This episode of the Service MVP podcast is an invaluable resource for understanding how to effectively communicate business value, increase customer satisfaction, and grow significantly in the service industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Service MVP podcast. My name is Joe Crisara, America's Service
Sales Coach, and we have an exciting guest with me.
His name is Ryan Lee from Landscape Lighting Secrets.
Ryan, welcome to the program. How are you doing today?
Thanks, man. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. Well, it wasn't about a year
ago, I think it was, when we first learned that you were kind of like a brother
(00:22):
from another mother and that we have a lot of beliefs that are similar, right? I know.
And I love that your nickname is Uncle Joe, because I'm like,
you really are my Uncle Joe.
Well, you know, I'm America's service uncle, I guess it would be.
Ryan, tell us a little bit about what you do. And Ryan has a specific niche
(00:44):
that he is involved with,
and he's trying to make America's front and backyards and sides of the house
beautiful in the evening with lighting solutions that make people live their
life in a way that they don't. a much more high quality way.
Ryan, why don't you tell us about how you got involved with this kind of a situation
here? Take a few minutes and give us a little background on you. Yeah, I love it.
So I actually got my start in entrepreneurship, probably like everyone else.
(01:08):
I was just shoveling walks and, you know, shovel driveways, things like that.
But that wasn't true entrepreneurship.
And so when I started my first business, we got into landscape lighting.
And a lot of people are like, what's landscape lighting? And that was my question.
I was like, I don't even know what this is.
But it's, you know, we beautify people's properties, not only their homes,
but their landscapings, their, their outdoor living areas.
We, um, really, uh, magnify what they've already got and, and help bring light to their life. Right.
(01:35):
And so I had a landscape lighting business in Dallas, Texas from 2007 to 2019.
And, um, through that time, it was tough, man. I thought it was going to be
so easy. I've got a marketing degree. I got an MBA.
I mean, I'm like the total package. And then you start your business and you're
like, Like, crap, I don't know anything.
And so I had the opportunity to fall on my face a lot, learned a lot throughout
(01:57):
that process. But I was fortunate enough to exit that business in 2019.
And since then, the last four or five years now, I've been coaching others on
how to bolt on landscape lighting to their existing business.
And it's been awesome. It's been really cool.
Well, let's talk about this. Ryan's got three tips to any kind of service business,
(02:18):
although it definitely applies to the landscape lighting business.
But I think when you're in that business, it's just like another service,
like anything else that's out there, whether you're shoveling snow or whether
you're doing Christmas lights or just outdoor landscape lights,
or even if you're doing heating and cooling or plumbing,
value is value, no matter what trade you're in.
And Ryan, let's go ahead and give us three secrets that you have to your success
(02:42):
when you're creating revenue and profit and making sure that you're successful.
You want to go ahead and give us your first tip? What's the number one thing
that you think is important for people to know, salespeople and service people
to know out there? Yeah, well, first off, let me say this.
When I launched this coaching business, Landscape Lighting Secrets,
I didn't know I could become a coach. I was like, who am I?
(03:04):
What do I know? You know, I was just one guy, one path.
There's people that are smarter than me, more successful than me,
richer than me, all this stuff.
And so one of the things I did was I hired a coach and I was like, teach me how to do this.
And one of the exercises they went, they had me go through, cause I was like,
what am I going to teach people? Like, I don't know how to do this. And it was so powerful.
(03:24):
They basically sent me through some exercises to help me extrapolate what it was.
What were the things that held me back? What were the things that helped me
in business? And now I was able to put together a really cool formula that makes
it simple for people to really increase and more than double their profits.
So the thing that most businesses don't have enough of is profits.
(03:47):
And that's why the majority of businesses fail, right? For one of the reasons.
And so a way for people to double their profits through my proven formula.
And the first thing is really just increasing your price.
That's kind of my first secret. And it's like, well, that's not a secret.
Here to raise your price, but we give people, and I'm happy to talk about them
today, some of the tools and things that you can use to be able to actually increase your price.
(04:11):
Yeah, I think a lot of times people, they price them out, price themselves out.
They try to be a little less money than their current competitors, as opposed to saying,
you know, I need to charge enough money to not just for this job,
but also to be in business for the future and take care of all the expense that
takes place for marketing and advertising and all this stuff.
It's all got to be built into the price, right?
(04:32):
And I think the price being higher does challenge you to be better to create value too.
I think it does kind of puts into action plan like, wow, with prices this high,
I got to to learn how to explain it better.
Go ahead and tell us a little bit about the pricing and the exercise you take
somebody through to increase that price. It's not just randomly, right?
Do you have a methodology for that? Tell us about that. For sure.
(04:52):
I mean, I think it's really hard to raise your price if you don't increase value,
right? And by the way, I used to be the guy.
Like when we started, it was my brother and I, and I was like,
wait, those people charge that? Like, we don't need to charge that much.
We don't have the overhead that they have.
We barely have have car insurance you know and so we put
together numbers and you're like cool like that i look
(05:12):
back it's so funny because i'm like that was my pitch like that
was my that was my approach and what's sad is
it actually worked to an extent right but what i found out and you met you hit
you hit on it is like i never could afford to grow i know i always wanted to
be this future self of this there was a future version of myself in our company
(05:32):
but all of a sudden i found that i I couldn't afford to hire another salesperson.
I couldn't afford to hire another technician, someone else in the office.
And it's like, well, duh, your value proposition is we're lower on price than
anyone else and we don't have their overhead.
Well, if you want to succeed in life, in business, you have to start acting like who you want to be.
And when I learned that, it changed everything.
(05:55):
I started pricing like who I wanted to be. And suddenly I could afford an office
manager. manager, I could afford having more salespeople and an actual team.
And what was cool about that is as we did that, a team is much more valuable than an individual.
As good as I am at sales or designing or installing lights or whatever the thing
is, I can't be everywhere at once, right?
(06:17):
And so as we grew, we became more valuable to the marketplace and in return,
you can keep charging more money for that.
That's awesome. What's the second tip you've got for us after raising?
So once we raise the price, now we know, okay, now we've got a much more robust
pricing that is going to be able to help us grow in the future.
What's the second tip you got, Ryan?
(06:37):
Well, if it's okay, let me hit on the first thing real quick.
Oh, sure. Go ahead. Yeah. I talked about increasing value.
There's two ways to increase value. One, you can lower the price.
Don't do it. I tried it. It works temporarily. It might get you out of a bind
or help you pay your next payroll or mortgage or whatever, but definitely not good long-term.
(06:59):
So the other way to do it is increase your offer.
And a lot of people are so afraid of this because their competition's not doing it.
And I can't price that. I know what our competition is charging.
And my question is, well, are you, do you really trust your competition that
much? Like, what did they know that you don't know?
Like, are they more qualified? Are they a pricing expert?
(07:20):
Because what, in reality, what's happening is you're pricing your product and
your service off of your competition's pricing.
And you know how they came up with their price?
They, they got the quote from you, right? And so, right.
It's kind of a vicious circle, vicious circle, vicious, vicious, right? right?
And it's like, when they think you know what you're doing and you think they
(07:40):
know what they're doing, in reality, no one knows what they're doing.
So you've got to be the market leader and you've got to increase value.
There's lots of different ways to do this.
One of the things I like to do is call it an offer stack. And so instead of
just saying like, okay, here's your landscape lighting, Joe, it's $10,000.
That works by the way, I've actually done that. And the problem with success
(08:02):
is that it prevents us from excelling and becoming better because we think we
know what we're doing, right?
So because that worked for a while, I didn't try to innovate.
But then after a while, I started to think, I wonder if I could get better.
And an offer stack is something like this instead of telling
you joe your lighting's ten thousand dollars i'd be like joe the
normal pricing for this uh landscape lighting
(08:23):
system is around 14 grand right for you today only we're going to do it for
10 grand and in it in addition to just doing your lighting we're also going
to give you a year's worth of annual maintenance which is a 750 value we're
going to give you a 20-year warranty on the lights which is a 1500 value you
get that absolutely free.
We're going to give you a lifetime warrant down the transformer,
(08:45):
which is $500 value, absolutely free.
And we've partnered with other local service providers.
So I noticed you have a pool. We have a pool company that will give you a free
three months worth of maintenance, which is a $300 value, a free irrigation checkup, $300 value.
And you're basically showing them this huge offer stack that's worth $25,000.
(09:08):
When they move forward today they're getting it for just ten thousand
dollars nice nice that makes sense so i'll
make sure that the value exceeds the price as
a second tip remember one raise the price then add enough
stuff to the value stack uh to do
that i know we do that with like warranty services and just
other and i like what you're doing with complementary services with
(09:29):
partners that would be happy to do a free full instance
to get people to have a trial in a way of
it uh maybe the irrigation guy guy who does all this
stuff and what's cool about things that are needed things that are needed for
the yard you're going to be you're going to be out there uh with the
yard doing landscape lighting watch look at the irrigation everything else is
going on right 100 that's something they're going to use anyway and it doesn't
(09:50):
cost you anything you know if it costs you money then it's like well that's
kind of like lowering your price so um the other nice thing about that is when
you reach out to people and let's say in the landscape lighting world you really
want to partner with pool Schoolbuilders, landscape architects,
home builders, realtors, everybody who's dealing with high-end people,
if you could list them in every single proposal that you do,
(10:11):
that's offering value to their business.
They're going to want to return that favor. You get them to also include an
offering of yours in all of their offers as well.
It's a great way to just really get momentum in your business. this.
Nice. I guess if you were in the carpet cleaning business, you could add Scotchgard
protection or extra, you could do other things.
(10:33):
There's so many additional things you could do that in every business,
whether it's a maid service, whether it's a landscape lighting service or a
heating and air conditioning, if you're going to sell the air quality,
hey, how about the bulbs and the pads and the filter go with it?
We'll include that as well with you. We can ship that with you as well.
So think about things that are complimentary, it sounds like you're really spending there.
(10:55):
And the thing that I didn't realize that I still think a lot of people struggle
with is people want value. Our clients, our homeowners, they want value.
Just because they're asking for a lower price doesn't mean that they're cheap.
It doesn't mean that they need a lower price.
You just haven't done a good enough job communicating value. value.
And personally, I think you're doing a disservice by not charging a premium
(11:16):
price because then you're going to be tempted to be like, man,
this customer's calling me again.
Or when you do close the deal at a cheaper price, maybe I'll use cheaper wire.
Maybe I'll use cheaper fixtures. Maybe I'll use cheaper connections.
I need to make my money. After all, I'm a business owner. I've sacrificed.
I got to feed my family. And so then we actually do a disservice to the community
by installing inferior product or not giving that red carpet,
(11:38):
white glove experience so for me it's easy to come in and raise a price and
charge whatever i need to charge to not only hire better talent but provide
better products and service and then over deliver with that red carpet white glove experience.
I think people get a sense. I think the service provider has a sense of quality
themselves, and they feel they believe in it more, right?
(11:59):
If you find a more premium solution, like more premium lighting systems or transformers
and things like that that are
more heavy duty, then you, the service provider, start to believe in it.
And when you believe in something, what impact does that have,
Ryan, when the service provider themselves actually believes that the solution
is worth the price? Well, honestly, that actually ties us in perfectly to the second tip.
Because belief, man, if you don't have belief, you're probably not going to
(12:23):
last very long in this game, right?
But once you have belief, as you know, Joe, that's everything, man.
If you don't believe in yourself, how do you expect others to? to.
But once you do, and you have that confidence, there's no overcoming objections.
People buy from people that they like and trust. And so if you like and trust
(12:43):
yourself, they automatically are going to be drawn to that.
And it's hard to come up with objections when you believe in yourself that much.
So the second tip that I have is after you've increased your price,
and by the way, these are all levers that are really easy to pull.
So many people are like, well, how do I get more leads or how
do i do this or how do i do that it's like just do this if you
go in this order and raise your price then you can afford
(13:05):
to recruit better talent right you
can afford to work on your business you can do these other things but raise
your price the second one is close deals on the spot okay and a lot of people
struggle with this especially in my world because the average ticket for landscape
lighting is around eight to ten thousand dollars some of these deals are over
six figures and they really struggle they're like well i don't know what if
(13:26):
i'm wrong here i gotta to go back and I,
and, and I, and can I give someone a price that quick?
Cause when I learned sales, you got to build value and all this stuff.
And so they're really afraid to do it, but.
What do you think, Joe, is the number one thing people want to know when they
call someone for a quote?
Like, it doesn't matter what home service we're talking about.
What's the number one thing people want to know when they call someone for a quote?
(13:47):
What's the price? That's exactly what they're looking for. It's crazy, right?
And I've seen a lot of people in that space, really every space,
who are reluctant to give the price because they're afraid they're going to
get blowback and they're afraid they're going to get – if they give them the
actual price, especially if it's higher, they don't really believe in the price themselves.
So they kind of, they even default to email.
(14:07):
I guarantee if I called a landscape lighting specialist that wasn't trained
by Ryan Lee, that most likely I would be getting an email with the price and
I wouldn't get an explanation of it at all.
And I'd be getting a different day. I wouldn't get the same day at all.
And I would say this, uh, there's a certain level of competency that shows people
that you've already done this job and that you're a master of this trade.
(14:27):
If you can get the price to them right now, that makes sense, right? Brian?
The competence level, like the perception of competence because of that?
Well, exactly. I mean, you're actually the one person that's giving them what
they want because everyone else is afraid to do it.
We know they want the price. So why not be different?
Why not be the one that's like, hey, in about 45 minutes after we walk your
(14:48):
property, I've got a bunch of questions for you.
Would it be okay if I was actually able to give you the pricing that you on the schedule for today?
That's what people want. So why not give them what they want and be be unique.
So you got to be able to close deals on the spot.
And there's so many things like you mentioned, most people will take notes,
take pictures, they'll email a proposal, people buy an emotion.
(15:08):
So how much emotion comes in an email? Zero.
It's just a number at that point. And then by the way, like,
what if there are questions?
What if there are concerns, which is normal, if someone's never gone,
they're going to have questions, which a lot of people think those are objections.
They're not, they're just questions or concerns. And we don't present not that
price. Hey, Joe, it's going to cost you this much, right?
It's 10,000, but remember it's $25,000 in value.
(15:30):
And you're like, well, I don't know. We got to think about it or we got to get other quotes.
It's easy to have a conversation at that point and say, no problem.
I totally understand that, right?
That's normal. You're human. You're married. You have to talk, right?
What is it that you guys need to talk about? And what's cool is when you do
that, you'll end up closing more sales than ever because you're willing to ask
one extra question that nobody else is willing to ask.
(15:54):
And you could have a conversation about what's in the presentation.
It's like, of course, we present premium mid-range economy choices to people.
So I could say, you know what, Joe? I understand. Dan, I'd like to think about,
let's just both admit that top option is too much. Let's get rid of that top one.
Look at the more economical one, the second one. And they go,
no, I like that top one. Really? What do you like about it?
I like the fact that it's got the whole package with the landscaping and everything,
(16:17):
irrigation and everything like that.
Well, that's a good choice. So what should we do? Back to that again.
The what should we do moment, right?
But truth, there it is. You got it right there in front of you.
The bottom line is this, though, guys.
The bottom line is that, you know, it's just the conversation you're having.
I would say it's like a car dealer in Las Vegas. You got to just deal the next card.
That card that you had that maybe didn't work, and now you got to just look
(16:40):
for another card and see what works.
Just keep trying to find the right combination of solutions that works for this
client. It rings the bell.
You know, and closing the deal on the spot is so much more effective, number one.
But the other thing that it does is it buys you back time in your life and in
your business. Because for landscape lighting, if I go and I meet with you for
(17:02):
an hour, maybe I stay an hour and a half, I'm able to collect a deposit check,
get you on the schedule. I mean, we're moving forward.
So I've helped myself, but I've also helped you because you're a busy guy.
You've probably owned several businesses.
You've got to do other quotes for your house.
I just checked off something off your list and now you don't have to go get
three other quotes. You don't have to think about anything.
(17:22):
I've really done a service for you by helping you make a solid choice. voice.
And then from my selfish standpoint, I also don't have to go back and prepare
these lavish emails and proposals and then you're not going to respond.
And then I got to follow up and I got to leave you all these voicemails and
texts. And instead of doing that, I'm calling on new referral partners and I'm
getting relationships with the high end realtors, the interior designers,
(17:45):
and I'm building relationships.
I'm building my business instead of doing this crappy follow up stuff that doesn't even work.
Do you spend your time getting the job done or spend your time following up?
Definitely, I see that difference. But I will tell you, Ryan,
especially in that kind of a business, the landscape lighting business,
I would say that unless they had Ryan Lee training them in some kind of way,
(18:07):
if they've seen your podcast even, like this podcast will be great if they see it.
Because I would say there's a 0% chance that somebody would actually make the
prices and present them on the same call on the very first call there.
This is why I think you're so needed. I think that's why Ryan Lee is needed
in this industry because everybody is so – I mean, seriously,
the service provider is reluctant.
(18:27):
And I even said, hey, if you just make the prices, I'm ready to move forward.
I told people that. And they go, ah, just not comfortable making the prices right now.
I'm like, you're not comfortable making the prices? I mean, what does it say
when a service provider tries to talk the customer out of moving forward?
Because that's really what happens. Literally what happens is the service provider
is reluctant to make the price looks. They're not sure if it's accurate.
(18:49):
They're not confident. in the prices. So they say, I got to go work on this.
And let me email it to you.
They're uncomfortable with the talking to the customer, uncomfortable with making the prices.
And that's just two gaps that they have right there. If they solve that gap,
they would get number two achieved, I think, sell on the spot if they did that.
What do you think of that? That's true.
So that's why I start with these easy things.
(19:12):
Because if someone will trust me, and they need to trust me,
if they will do this, I can't guarantee that their first first visit is going
to be a one call close, but I can guarantee they're going to do a lot better
than they did without me. Right.
And if people will try it a few times and not give up all, they love it.
They're like, Oh my gosh, you just saved me like so much time,
(19:33):
so much money and all this stuff.
So it's definitely the way, you know, that I know that. And we just need to
convince people to get out, get outside of their comfort zone.
I know it's not easy. I used to not do it too.
Um, but it gets easier over time and it's, you're, you're actually giving people
what they they want. So unless you hate people, give them what they want.
We don't hate people, but you know what? I would say this, the ability to create
(19:57):
a price that's customized and relevant and accurate for each client on the spot
is a demonstration of the competency of your mastery of your trade, whatever it is.
Because if you, you are like, here's the problems we got.
Well, here's what you're experiencing. You need to get this reason why you need this.
Number two, Two, I don't have a solution for you. It kind of shows me that a
(20:20):
person is hesitant to manage the solution part of the project.
How am I supposed to trust this guy that he's going to be able to actually get
the work done if he can't even manage the pricing? Does that make sense, sir? Yeah.
Well said. It's funny. I used to tell people, let's say, even though I'm like,
close on the spot, close on the spot.
I'm not perfect, guys. Sometimes I screw up and I'm like, wait,
what am I doing? I'm at my house. Why didn't I close that person?
(20:42):
Maybe I tried, but you're not going to be 100%. And so I'd have people I'd follow
up with, hey, yeah, we're just got one more quote coming in.
I'm like, okay, let me ask you something. We've been going back and forth for two weeks.
I gave you my price in person two weeks ago.
How long are you willing willing to wait on someone who's promised you something
who has not delivered and they don't have any of your money yet,
(21:03):
by the way, right. Do you have your money?
How long do you think it's going to take for them to answer one of your phone calls?
Yeah. And then we almost always go, you're right. Let's go.
Yeah. I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get, you're trying to give
them money and they're making you wait two weeks for the price.
What's going to happen when they're not getting money? And that's a good point there.
Let's go to number three. We're kind of running a little short of time here. Let's go to three.
(21:25):
Which is what's the third item you think would be towards
success for any service provider they could do so sell
it on the spot make sure you get the competency to make the prices
uh maybe raise the price number one number
two make sure you get the count now what's number three ryan third and final
is high quality leads uh you know these these first two can be very easy or
(21:47):
very difficult and uh it's very easy if you're in front of the right person
and so if you're just trying to run some like cheap Facebook ads or something
like that for landscape lighting,
at least, you know, other, other, every industry is different and you expect
to be able to go charge a premium price and close the deal on the spot.
And they just saw your Facebook ad and they have no idea what landscape lighting
(22:07):
is. And they're not even interested. They just saw a cool picture.
You're probably not going to be able to get that same effect.
And so if I can help you get high quality leads from people who already want
what you have, these other things become a no brainer.
So it's really the three that make that magic formula
and you're saying that you're saying
the fish in a pond where the fish are bigger not this
(22:29):
not not a pond with minnows that's right try to
get the pond with the bigger fish in the pond right well yeah and i've even
fished in streams and lakes that don't have any fish you know so that's super
frustrating so definitely find the lakes find the ponds find the streams where
you're going to pull out the monsters if that's where you're going for right
and uh in landscape lighting We don't have like a cheap,
(22:50):
you know, $500 option.
So why, why would we waste any time marketing to, or talking to those people?
Maybe they go into a, um, uh, an email sequence or something like that, where we build them up.
So when they are ready five years from now or something like that,
that's okay. But you really don't want to meet with someone in person until
(23:11):
they're pre-qualified.
And you know, that you've got
a high probability of closing that deal on the spot at a premium price.
Uh, any tips on that fishing in that right pond or getting the,
the right leads? Cause I think everybody would say that they agree with this.
Any pro tips you can give us that, uh, off the record that can help us to,
uh, find the right, those right customers. What do you think?
(23:32):
Absolutely. So, um, and we, we take people through all of these things.
So we, we give them all the tools, all the downloads, all the scripts and everything
for all three of these in our coaching program.
But the, the ideas is what we're talking about. So the way to get high quality
leads is through referral partners. It's all through relationships.
So even if you go on to Google, let's say you do a Google ad and you target
(23:54):
landscape lighting installer near me.
Okay, that's a good lead, but you don't know. Is that going to be a $5,000 job,
$100,000 job? You don't know any of that, right? right?
If someone is building a house and they're paying an integrator,
which is a home automation expert,
if they're paying $300,000 to put Lutron and smart controls and all this stuff
(24:16):
in their house, to me, that's a pretty qualified buyer, right?
And to me, it speaks to someone who values high quality products and services, right?
And so if I can get a lead from that person, i'm much
more likely to be able to close on the spot at
a premium price so we go after uh landscape architects
home builders pool builders realtors interior designers even though we're doing
(24:39):
exterior lighting yeah designers they but the first time i had this experience
i'm sitting there talking to the interior designer and the homeowner i'm looking
at the homeowner the client asking questions interior designers answering and
i pick up pretty quickly like hold on they hold They hold the wallet.
They hold the checkbook. And you don't even talk to the client at that point
because they've given them full reign. So it's all about relationships.
(25:02):
And those people are amazing because when you go meet with them,
they're like, they're not looking to get quotes.
You think they want more strangers in their house? No. They're going to move
forward with you because you were
referred by that person that's already well-respected and trusted. Yeah.
So the way you get this kind of a bolt-on kind of a service that you're offering
that fits well with another different service, like automation or landscaping.
(25:27):
I'm sure there's a lot of landscapers who don't want to do light lighting.
They just want to do the landscaping, and that's it.
If you find a partner who would like to add that to the portfolio,
and maybe you make a reward system for allowing that to happen, right?
Is that a factor where something happens good out of the type of a thing?
You can give a reward system for that?
Absolutely. So depending on where your business is at, if you're in growth mode
(25:48):
or if you're new or whatever, when I started my business, we were spending a
little over 15% of our revenue on advertising.
And so it was a no brainer for me to say, well, wait a minute,
this isn't just a, a, a, a marketing campaign that might bring me in leads.
When you're, when you get these types of deals, you're paying that referral
(26:08):
commission that I would pay 10% as a thank you.
It wasn't like, here's 10%. I hope this works out, which that's kind of what
other marketing is. This is a thank you.
And so we paid 10% of total contract value. value.
And again, if your, if your job is a hundred thousand dollar deal,
that, that referral partner is getting $10,000 simply for providing a text with
(26:29):
someone's name and phone number on there. It's crazy.
I mean, there's got, there's gotta be a marketing expense miles.
I mean, I call that guaranteed marketing, marketing, marketing,
you throw dollars at the wall and hope it sticks.
This is, you're getting, you're getting an actual lead from an actual lead,
not from throwing it at the money mailer and hoping somebody calls you,
which is the opposite of what you're talking about.
You're talking about a concentrated lead that's been booked with your company.
(26:52):
Why not pay the 10% of the revenue?
Because that's a guaranteed lead there, not something that we just throw at
the newspaper and see if people call us or whatever kind of a thing.
It's brilliant there, Ryan. Man, you've already given people here enough time
and information to make themselves successful already.
That's what you're in. You're in that landscape lighting secrets.
(27:14):
Thanks for your secret. Those are three greats. You probably gave us like five
or six secrets. You realize that?
Your value stack was pretty high on this podcast, Ryan.
You can't help yourself. You're always trying to create value.
Ryan, how do people learn about Ryan Lee and Landscape Lighting Secrets?
And you never know, you might be an electrical business who wants to do outdoor
(27:37):
lighting. You might be a landscaping business.
You might be just a home service business that can see the unique opportunity here.
When Ryan's throwing out numbers like 8,000 to 10,000, you know that if you're
a service business, that's profit that you can make there.
Ryan, how do people get a hold of you and what do they do to get involved with your service? us.
Sure thing. And by the way, thanks again for having me on here, Joe.
(27:58):
I truly look up to you. I got this gift in the mail, you guys.
It was so cool. This was two days ago.
I've been gone every single week and I got home. I think this was here for a
couple of weeks, but I opened this on Monday.
I have not read it yet, but I was shocked.
It felt so good. I was like, holy cow. So I'm looking forward to reading. What should we do?
(28:18):
Joe, you came and did a training for us in our coaching program. And I thank you for that.
Uh, my, my program, if you just go to landscape lighting secrets.com,
there's a lot of helpful information there.
We've got some obviously value that we give away for free, but if you want to
schedule an appointment with me or one of my team members, you can watch a free
case study, uh, watch that if that interests you and you're like,
heck yeah, this would, this might be a really cool bolt on for my business.
(28:41):
Schedule a call. We go over a strategy session and that strategy session is
designed to help you really get an understanding of where you're at, where you want to be.
And it sounds simple, but most people don't know those answers. Right.
And so we really give a lot of value on that call. But if you're interested,
we can tell you about the coaching program.
I also have my podcast, which Joe, you've been on a lighting for profits.
You can go to lighting for profits.com.
(29:03):
And, uh, it's awesome. I mean, if you're considering like, maybe I should, maybe I should do this.
And even if you're not, I mean, when you were on, we weren't,
well, we actually did talk about landscape lighting because you got lighting
at your house, but I'm a smart, I'm a consumer of your services for sure. Yeah, yeah.
And I'm always, I'm still, I'm having to redo it. I might need somebody right now, actually.
So you never know. We just tore all the old stuff out because it was garbage.
(29:28):
And we bought a house with it, and it was kind of garbage. So we might be in
the market for somebody, one of your professionals.
Let's see how good he does when he comes. I know. I wonder.
Dude, I'm going to be so intimidated to come meet with you. It's going to be awesome.
I should film it. Probably. But I'll help him. You don't realize I'll actually
help him provide a good solution. But Ryan, thanks so much for being here and
helping all the service providers out there.
(29:48):
No matter what trade, I think that Ryan Lee has something there with his enthusiasm
and simplicity of the MIF material.
He tries to make the complex into something simple. Ryan, thanks so much for
your service and mostly thanks for your friendship. I knew I was going to meet a colleague.
I didn't know I was going to meet a new friend when I first met you,
though. That's awesome, man. I appreciate that.
(30:09):
Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great one. We'll see everybody on the next podcast.
Welcome to the Service MVP podcast. My name is Joe Crisara, America's Service
Sales Coach, and we have an exciting guest with me.
His name is Ryan Lee from Landscape Lighting Secrets.
Ryan, welcome to the program. How are you doing today?
Thanks, man. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. Well, it wasn't about a year
ago, I think it was, when we first learned that you were kind of like a brother
(00:22):
from another mother and that we have a lot of beliefs that are similar, right? I know.
And I love that your nickname is Uncle Joe, because I'm like,
you really are my Uncle Joe.
Well, you know, I'm America's service uncle, I guess it would be.
Ryan, tell us a little bit about what you do. And Ryan has a specific niche
(00:44):
that he is involved with,
and he's trying to make America's front and backyards and sides of the house
beautiful in the evening with lighting solutions that make people live their
life in a way that they don't. a much more high quality way.
Ryan, why don't you tell us about how you got involved with this kind of a situation
here? Take a few minutes and give us a little background on you. Yeah, I love it.
So I actually got my start in entrepreneurship, probably like everyone else.
(01:08):
I was just shoveling walks and, you know, shovel driveways, things like that.
But that wasn't true entrepreneurship.
And so when I started my first business, we got into landscape lighting.
And a lot of people are like, what's landscape lighting? And that was my question.
I was like, I don't even know what this is.
But it's, you know, we beautify people's properties, not only their homes,
but their landscapings, their, their outdoor living areas.
We, um, really, uh, magnify what they've already got and, and help bring light to their life. Right.
(01:35):
And so I had a landscape lighting business in Dallas, Texas from 2007 to 2019.
And, um, through that time, it was tough, man. I thought it was going to be
so easy. I've got a marketing degree. I got an MBA.
I mean, I'm like the total package. And then you start your business and you're
like, Like, crap, I don't know anything.
And so I had the opportunity to fall on my face a lot, learned a lot throughout
(01:57):
that process. But I was fortunate enough to exit that business in 2019.
And since then, the last four or five years now, I've been coaching others on
how to bolt on landscape lighting to their existing business.
And it's been awesome. It's been really cool.
Well, let's talk about this. Ryan's got three tips to any kind of service business,
(02:18):
although it definitely applies to the landscape lighting business.
But I think when you're in that business, it's just like another service,
like anything else that's out there, whether you're shoveling snow or whether
you're doing Christmas lights or just outdoor landscape lights,
or even if you're doing heating and cooling or plumbing,
value is value, no matter what trade you're in.
And Ryan, let's go ahead and give us three secrets that you have to your success
(02:42):
when you're creating revenue and profit and making sure that you're successful.
You want to go ahead and give us your first tip? What's the number one thing
that you think is important for people to know, salespeople and service people
to know out there? Yeah, well, first off, let me say this.
When I launched this coaching business, Landscape Lighting Secrets,
I didn't know I could become a coach. I was like, who am I?
(03:04):
What do I know? You know, I was just one guy, one path.
There's people that are smarter than me, more successful than me,
richer than me, all this stuff.
And so one of the things I did was I hired a coach and I was like, teach me how to do this.
And one of the exercises they went, they had me go through, cause I was like,
what am I going to teach people? Like, I don't know how to do this. And it was so powerful.
(03:24):
They basically sent me through some exercises to help me extrapolate what it was.
What were the things that held me back? What were the things that helped me
in business? And now I was able to put together a really cool formula that makes
it simple for people to really increase and more than double their profits.
So the thing that most businesses don't have enough of is profits.
(03:47):
And that's why the majority of businesses fail, right? For one of the reasons.
And so a way for people to double their profits through my proven formula.
And the first thing is really just increasing your price.
That's kind of my first secret. And it's like, well, that's not a secret.
Here to raise your price, but we give people, and I'm happy to talk about them
today, some of the tools and things that you can use to be able to actually increase your price.
(04:11):
Yeah, I think a lot of times people, they price them out, price themselves out.
They try to be a little less money than their current competitors, as opposed to saying,
you know, I need to charge enough money to not just for this job,
but also to be in business for the future and take care of all the expense that
takes place for marketing and advertising and all this stuff.
It's all got to be built into the price, right?
(04:32):
And I think the price being higher does challenge you to be better to create value too.
I think it does kind of puts into action plan like, wow, with prices this high,
I got to to learn how to explain it better.
Go ahead and tell us a little bit about the pricing and the exercise you take
somebody through to increase that price. It's not just randomly, right?
Do you have a methodology for that? Tell us about that. For sure.
(04:52):
I mean, I think it's really hard to raise your price if you don't increase value,
right? And by the way, I used to be the guy.
Like when we started, it was my brother and I, and I was like,
wait, those people charge that? Like, we don't need to charge that much.
We don't have the overhead that they have.
We barely have have car insurance you know and so we put
together numbers and you're like cool like that i look
(05:12):
back it's so funny because i'm like that was my pitch like that
was my that was my approach and what's sad is
it actually worked to an extent right but what i found out and you met you hit
you hit on it is like i never could afford to grow i know i always wanted to
be this future self of this there was a future version of myself in our company
(05:32):
but all of a sudden i found that i I couldn't afford to hire another salesperson.
I couldn't afford to hire another technician, someone else in the office.
And it's like, well, duh, your value proposition is we're lower on price than
anyone else and we don't have their overhead.
Well, if you want to succeed in life, in business, you have to start acting like who you want to be.
And when I learned that, it changed everything.
(05:55):
I started pricing like who I wanted to be. And suddenly I could afford an office
manager. manager, I could afford having more salespeople and an actual team.
And what was cool about that is as we did that, a team is much more valuable than an individual.
As good as I am at sales or designing or installing lights or whatever the thing
is, I can't be everywhere at once, right?
(06:17):
And so as we grew, we became more valuable to the marketplace and in return,
you can keep charging more money for that.
That's awesome. What's the second tip you've got for us after raising?
So once we raise the price, now we know, okay, now we've got a much more robust
pricing that is going to be able to help us grow in the future.
What's the second tip you got, Ryan?
(06:37):
Well, if it's okay, let me hit on the first thing real quick.
Oh, sure. Go ahead. Yeah. I talked about increasing value.
There's two ways to increase value. One, you can lower the price.
Don't do it. I tried it. It works temporarily. It might get you out of a bind
or help you pay your next payroll or mortgage or whatever, but definitely not good long-term.
(06:59):
So the other way to do it is increase your offer.
And a lot of people are so afraid of this because their competition's not doing it.
And I can't price that. I know what our competition is charging.
And my question is, well, are you, do you really trust your competition that
much? Like, what did they know that you don't know?
Like, are they more qualified? Are they a pricing expert?
(07:20):
Because what, in reality, what's happening is you're pricing your product and
your service off of your competition's pricing.
And you know how they came up with their price?
They, they got the quote from you, right? And so, right.
It's kind of a vicious circle, vicious circle, vicious, vicious, right? right?
And it's like, when they think you know what you're doing and you think they
(07:40):
know what they're doing, in reality, no one knows what they're doing.
So you've got to be the market leader and you've got to increase value.
There's lots of different ways to do this.
One of the things I like to do is call it an offer stack. And so instead of
just saying like, okay, here's your landscape lighting, Joe, it's $10,000.
That works by the way, I've actually done that. And the problem with success
(08:02):
is that it prevents us from excelling and becoming better because we think we
know what we're doing, right?
So because that worked for a while, I didn't try to innovate.
But then after a while, I started to think, I wonder if I could get better.
And an offer stack is something like this instead of telling
you joe your lighting's ten thousand dollars i'd be like joe the
normal pricing for this uh landscape lighting
(08:23):
system is around 14 grand right for you today only we're going to do it for
10 grand and in it in addition to just doing your lighting we're also going
to give you a year's worth of annual maintenance which is a 750 value we're
going to give you a 20-year warranty on the lights which is a 1500 value you
get that absolutely free.
We're going to give you a lifetime warrant down the transformer,
(08:45):
which is $500 value, absolutely free.
And we've partnered with other local service providers.
So I noticed you have a pool. We have a pool company that will give you a free
three months worth of maintenance, which is a $300 value, a free irrigation checkup, $300 value.
And you're basically showing them this huge offer stack that's worth $25,000.
(09:08):
When they move forward today they're getting it for just ten thousand
dollars nice nice that makes sense so i'll
make sure that the value exceeds the price as
a second tip remember one raise the price then add enough
stuff to the value stack uh to do
that i know we do that with like warranty services and just
other and i like what you're doing with complementary services with
(09:29):
partners that would be happy to do a free full instance
to get people to have a trial in a way of
it uh maybe the irrigation guy guy who does all this
stuff and what's cool about things that are needed things that are needed for
the yard you're going to be you're going to be out there uh with the
yard doing landscape lighting watch look at the irrigation everything else is
going on right 100 that's something they're going to use anyway and it doesn't
(09:50):
cost you anything you know if it costs you money then it's like well that's
kind of like lowering your price so um the other nice thing about that is when
you reach out to people and let's say in the landscape lighting world you really
want to partner with pool Schoolbuilders, landscape architects,
home builders, realtors, everybody who's dealing with high-end people,
if you could list them in every single proposal that you do,
(10:11):
that's offering value to their business.
They're going to want to return that favor. You get them to also include an
offering of yours in all of their offers as well.
It's a great way to just really get momentum in your business. this.
Nice. I guess if you were in the carpet cleaning business, you could add Scotchgard
protection or extra, you could do other things.
(10:33):
There's so many additional things you could do that in every business,
whether it's a maid service, whether it's a landscape lighting service or a
heating and air conditioning, if you're going to sell the air quality,
hey, how about the bulbs and the pads and the filter go with it?
We'll include that as well with you. We can ship that with you as well.
So think about things that are complimentary, it sounds like you're really spending there.
(10:55):
And the thing that I didn't realize that I still think a lot of people struggle
with is people want value. Our clients, our homeowners, they want value.
Just because they're asking for a lower price doesn't mean that they're cheap.
It doesn't mean that they need a lower price.
You just haven't done a good enough job communicating value. value.
And personally, I think you're doing a disservice by not charging a premium
(11:16):
price because then you're going to be tempted to be like, man,
this customer's calling me again.
Or when you do close the deal at a cheaper price, maybe I'll use cheaper wire.
Maybe I'll use cheaper fixtures. Maybe I'll use cheaper connections.
I need to make my money. After all, I'm a business owner. I've sacrificed.
I got to feed my family. And so then we actually do a disservice to the community
by installing inferior product or not giving that red carpet,
(11:38):
white glove experience so for me it's easy to come in and raise a price and
charge whatever i need to charge to not only hire better talent but provide
better products and service and then over deliver with that red carpet white glove experience.
I think people get a sense. I think the service provider has a sense of quality
themselves, and they feel they believe in it more, right?
(11:59):
If you find a more premium solution, like more premium lighting systems or transformers
and things like that that are
more heavy duty, then you, the service provider, start to believe in it.
And when you believe in something, what impact does that have,
Ryan, when the service provider themselves actually believes that the solution
is worth the price? Well, honestly, that actually ties us in perfectly to the second tip.
Because belief, man, if you don't have belief, you're probably not going to
(12:23):
last very long in this game, right?
But once you have belief, as you know, Joe, that's everything, man.
If you don't believe in yourself, how do you expect others to? to.
But once you do, and you have that confidence, there's no overcoming objections.
People buy from people that they like and trust. And so if you like and trust
(12:43):
yourself, they automatically are going to be drawn to that.
And it's hard to come up with objections when you believe in yourself that much.
So the second tip that I have is after you've increased your price,
and by the way, these are all levers that are really easy to pull.
So many people are like, well, how do I get more leads or how
do i do this or how do i do that it's like just do this if you
go in this order and raise your price then you can afford
(13:05):
to recruit better talent right you
can afford to work on your business you can do these other things but raise
your price the second one is close deals on the spot okay and a lot of people
struggle with this especially in my world because the average ticket for landscape
lighting is around eight to ten thousand dollars some of these deals are over
six figures and they really struggle they're like well i don't know what if
(13:26):
i'm wrong here i gotta to go back and I,
and, and I, and can I give someone a price that quick?
Cause when I learned sales, you got to build value and all this stuff.
And so they're really afraid to do it, but.
What do you think, Joe, is the number one thing people want to know when they
call someone for a quote?
Like, it doesn't matter what home service we're talking about.
What's the number one thing people want to know when they call someone for a quote?
(13:47):
What's the price? That's exactly what they're looking for. It's crazy, right?
And I've seen a lot of people in that space, really every space,
who are reluctant to give the price because they're afraid they're going to
get blowback and they're afraid they're going to get – if they give them the
actual price, especially if it's higher, they don't really believe in the price themselves.
So they kind of, they even default to email.
(14:07):
I guarantee if I called a landscape lighting specialist that wasn't trained
by Ryan Lee, that most likely I would be getting an email with the price and
I wouldn't get an explanation of it at all.
And I'd be getting a different day. I wouldn't get the same day at all.
And I would say this, uh, there's a certain level of competency that shows people
that you've already done this job and that you're a master of this trade.
(14:27):
If you can get the price to them right now, that makes sense, right? Brian?
The competence level, like the perception of competence because of that?
Well, exactly. I mean, you're actually the one person that's giving them what
they want because everyone else is afraid to do it.
We know they want the price. So why not be different?
Why not be the one that's like, hey, in about 45 minutes after we walk your
(14:48):
property, I've got a bunch of questions for you.
Would it be okay if I was actually able to give you the pricing that you on the schedule for today?
That's what people want. So why not give them what they want and be be unique.
So you got to be able to close deals on the spot.
And there's so many things like you mentioned, most people will take notes,
take pictures, they'll email a proposal, people buy an emotion.
(15:08):
So how much emotion comes in an email? Zero.
It's just a number at that point. And then by the way, like,
what if there are questions?
What if there are concerns, which is normal, if someone's never gone,
they're going to have questions, which a lot of people think those are objections.
They're not, they're just questions or concerns. And we don't present not that
price. Hey, Joe, it's going to cost you this much, right?
It's 10,000, but remember it's $25,000 in value.
(15:30):
And you're like, well, I don't know. We got to think about it or we got to get other quotes.
It's easy to have a conversation at that point and say, no problem.
I totally understand that, right?
That's normal. You're human. You're married. You have to talk, right?
What is it that you guys need to talk about? And what's cool is when you do
that, you'll end up closing more sales than ever because you're willing to ask
one extra question that nobody else is willing to ask.
(15:54):
And you could have a conversation about what's in the presentation.
It's like, of course, we present premium mid-range economy choices to people.
So I could say, you know what, Joe? I understand. Dan, I'd like to think about,
let's just both admit that top option is too much. Let's get rid of that top one.
Look at the more economical one, the second one. And they go,
no, I like that top one. Really? What do you like about it?
I like the fact that it's got the whole package with the landscaping and everything,
(16:17):
irrigation and everything like that.
Well, that's a good choice. So what should we do? Back to that again.
The what should we do moment, right?
But truth, there it is. You got it right there in front of you.
The bottom line is this, though, guys.
The bottom line is that, you know, it's just the conversation you're having.
I would say it's like a car dealer in Las Vegas. You got to just deal the next card.
That card that you had that maybe didn't work, and now you got to just look
(16:40):
for another card and see what works.
Just keep trying to find the right combination of solutions that works for this
client. It rings the bell.
You know, and closing the deal on the spot is so much more effective, number one.
But the other thing that it does is it buys you back time in your life and in
your business. Because for landscape lighting, if I go and I meet with you for
(17:02):
an hour, maybe I stay an hour and a half, I'm able to collect a deposit check,
get you on the schedule. I mean, we're moving forward.
So I've helped myself, but I've also helped you because you're a busy guy.
You've probably owned several businesses.
You've got to do other quotes for your house.
I just checked off something off your list and now you don't have to go get
three other quotes. You don't have to think about anything.
(17:22):
I've really done a service for you by helping you make a solid choice. voice.
And then from my selfish standpoint, I also don't have to go back and prepare
these lavish emails and proposals and then you're not going to respond.
And then I got to follow up and I got to leave you all these voicemails and
texts. And instead of doing that, I'm calling on new referral partners and I'm
getting relationships with the high end realtors, the interior designers,
(17:45):
and I'm building relationships.
I'm building my business instead of doing this crappy follow up stuff that doesn't even work.
Do you spend your time getting the job done or spend your time following up?
Definitely, I see that difference. But I will tell you, Ryan,
especially in that kind of a business, the landscape lighting business,
I would say that unless they had Ryan Lee training them in some kind of way,
(18:07):
if they've seen your podcast even, like this podcast will be great if they see it.
Because I would say there's a 0% chance that somebody would actually make the
prices and present them on the same call on the very first call there.
This is why I think you're so needed. I think that's why Ryan Lee is needed
in this industry because everybody is so – I mean, seriously,
the service provider is reluctant.
(18:27):
And I even said, hey, if you just make the prices, I'm ready to move forward.
I told people that. And they go, ah, just not comfortable making the prices right now.
I'm like, you're not comfortable making the prices? I mean, what does it say
when a service provider tries to talk the customer out of moving forward?
Because that's really what happens. Literally what happens is the service provider
is reluctant to make the price looks. They're not sure if it's accurate.
(18:49):
They're not confident. in the prices. So they say, I got to go work on this.
And let me email it to you.
They're uncomfortable with the talking to the customer, uncomfortable with making the prices.
And that's just two gaps that they have right there. If they solve that gap,
they would get number two achieved, I think, sell on the spot if they did that.
What do you think of that? That's true.
So that's why I start with these easy things.
(19:12):
Because if someone will trust me, and they need to trust me,
if they will do this, I can't guarantee that their first first visit is going
to be a one call close, but I can guarantee they're going to do a lot better
than they did without me. Right.
And if people will try it a few times and not give up all, they love it.
They're like, Oh my gosh, you just saved me like so much time,
(19:33):
so much money and all this stuff.
So it's definitely the way, you know, that I know that. And we just need to
convince people to get out, get outside of their comfort zone.
I know it's not easy. I used to not do it too.
Um, but it gets easier over time and it's, you're, you're actually giving people
what they they want. So unless you hate people, give them what they want.
We don't hate people, but you know what? I would say this, the ability to create
(19:57):
a price that's customized and relevant and accurate for each client on the spot
is a demonstration of the competency of your mastery of your trade, whatever it is.
Because if you, you are like, here's the problems we got.
Well, here's what you're experiencing. You need to get this reason why you need this.
Number two, Two, I don't have a solution for you. It kind of shows me that a
(20:20):
person is hesitant to manage the solution part of the project.
How am I supposed to trust this guy that he's going to be able to actually get
the work done if he can't even manage the pricing? Does that make sense, sir? Yeah.
Well said. It's funny. I used to tell people, let's say, even though I'm like,
close on the spot, close on the spot.
I'm not perfect, guys. Sometimes I screw up and I'm like, wait,
what am I doing? I'm at my house. Why didn't I close that person?
(20:42):
Maybe I tried, but you're not going to be 100%. And so I'd have people I'd follow
up with, hey, yeah, we're just got one more quote coming in.
I'm like, okay, let me ask you something. We've been going back and forth for two weeks.
I gave you my price in person two weeks ago.
How long are you willing willing to wait on someone who's promised you something
who has not delivered and they don't have any of your money yet,
(21:03):
by the way, right. Do you have your money?
How long do you think it's going to take for them to answer one of your phone calls?
Yeah. And then we almost always go, you're right. Let's go.
Yeah. I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get, you're trying to give
them money and they're making you wait two weeks for the price.
What's going to happen when they're not getting money? And that's a good point there.
Let's go to number three. We're kind of running a little short of time here. Let's go to three.
(21:25):
Which is what's the third item you think would be towards
success for any service provider they could do so sell
it on the spot make sure you get the competency to make the prices
uh maybe raise the price number one number
two make sure you get the count now what's number three ryan third and final
is high quality leads uh you know these these first two can be very easy or
(21:47):
very difficult and uh it's very easy if you're in front of the right person
and so if you're just trying to run some like cheap Facebook ads or something
like that for landscape lighting,
at least, you know, other, other, every industry is different and you expect
to be able to go charge a premium price and close the deal on the spot.
And they just saw your Facebook ad and they have no idea what landscape lighting
(22:07):
is. And they're not even interested. They just saw a cool picture.
You're probably not going to be able to get that same effect.
And so if I can help you get high quality leads from people who already want
what you have, these other things become a no brainer.
So it's really the three that make that magic formula
and you're saying that you're saying
the fish in a pond where the fish are bigger not this
(22:29):
not not a pond with minnows that's right try to
get the pond with the bigger fish in the pond right well yeah and i've even
fished in streams and lakes that don't have any fish you know so that's super
frustrating so definitely find the lakes find the ponds find the streams where
you're going to pull out the monsters if that's where you're going for right
and uh in landscape lighting We don't have like a cheap,
(22:50):
you know, $500 option.
So why, why would we waste any time marketing to, or talking to those people?
Maybe they go into a, um, uh, an email sequence or something like that, where we build them up.
So when they are ready five years from now or something like that,
that's okay. But you really don't want to meet with someone in person until
(23:11):
they're pre-qualified.
And you know, that you've got
a high probability of closing that deal on the spot at a premium price.
Uh, any tips on that fishing in that right pond or getting the,
the right leads? Cause I think everybody would say that they agree with this.
Any pro tips you can give us that, uh, off the record that can help us to,
uh, find the right, those right customers. What do you think?
(23:32):
Absolutely. So, um, and we, we take people through all of these things.
So we, we give them all the tools, all the downloads, all the scripts and everything
for all three of these in our coaching program.
But the, the ideas is what we're talking about. So the way to get high quality
leads is through referral partners. It's all through relationships.
So even if you go on to Google, let's say you do a Google ad and you target
(23:54):
landscape lighting installer near me.
Okay, that's a good lead, but you don't know. Is that going to be a $5,000 job,
$100,000 job? You don't know any of that, right? right?
If someone is building a house and they're paying an integrator,
which is a home automation expert,
if they're paying $300,000 to put Lutron and smart controls and all this stuff
(24:16):
in their house, to me, that's a pretty qualified buyer, right?
And to me, it speaks to someone who values high quality products and services, right?
And so if I can get a lead from that person, i'm much
more likely to be able to close on the spot at
a premium price so we go after uh landscape architects
home builders pool builders realtors interior designers even though we're doing
(24:39):
exterior lighting yeah designers they but the first time i had this experience
i'm sitting there talking to the interior designer and the homeowner i'm looking
at the homeowner the client asking questions interior designers answering and
i pick up pretty quickly like hold on they hold They hold the wallet.
They hold the checkbook. And you don't even talk to the client at that point
because they've given them full reign. So it's all about relationships.
(25:02):
And those people are amazing because when you go meet with them,
they're like, they're not looking to get quotes.
You think they want more strangers in their house? No. They're going to move
forward with you because you were
referred by that person that's already well-respected and trusted. Yeah.
So the way you get this kind of a bolt-on kind of a service that you're offering
that fits well with another different service, like automation or landscaping.
(25:27):
I'm sure there's a lot of landscapers who don't want to do light lighting.
They just want to do the landscaping, and that's it.
If you find a partner who would like to add that to the portfolio,
and maybe you make a reward system for allowing that to happen, right?
Is that a factor where something happens good out of the type of a thing?
You can give a reward system for that?
Absolutely. So depending on where your business is at, if you're in growth mode
(25:48):
or if you're new or whatever, when I started my business, we were spending a
little over 15% of our revenue on advertising.
And so it was a no brainer for me to say, well, wait a minute,
this isn't just a, a, a, a marketing campaign that might bring me in leads.
When you're, when you get these types of deals, you're paying that referral
(26:08):
commission that I would pay 10% as a thank you.
It wasn't like, here's 10%. I hope this works out, which that's kind of what
other marketing is. This is a thank you.
And so we paid 10% of total contract value. value.
And again, if your, if your job is a hundred thousand dollar deal,
that, that referral partner is getting $10,000 simply for providing a text with
(26:29):
someone's name and phone number on there. It's crazy.
I mean, there's got, there's gotta be a marketing expense miles.
I mean, I call that guaranteed marketing, marketing, marketing,
you throw dollars at the wall and hope it sticks.
This is, you're getting, you're getting an actual lead from an actual lead,
not from throwing it at the money mailer and hoping somebody calls you,
which is the opposite of what you're talking about.
You're talking about a concentrated lead that's been booked with your company.
(26:52):
Why not pay the 10% of the revenue?
Because that's a guaranteed lead there, not something that we just throw at
the newspaper and see if people call us or whatever kind of a thing.
It's brilliant there, Ryan. Man, you've already given people here enough time
and information to make themselves successful already.
That's what you're in. You're in that landscape lighting secrets.
(27:14):
Thanks for your secret. Those are three greats. You probably gave us like five
or six secrets. You realize that?
Your value stack was pretty high on this podcast, Ryan.
You can't help yourself. You're always trying to create value.
Ryan, how do people learn about Ryan Lee and Landscape Lighting Secrets?
And you never know, you might be an electrical business who wants to do outdoor
(27:37):
lighting. You might be a landscaping business.
You might be just a home service business that can see the unique opportunity here.
When Ryan's throwing out numbers like 8,000 to 10,000, you know that if you're
a service business, that's profit that you can make there.
Ryan, how do people get a hold of you and what do they do to get involved with your service? us.
Sure thing. And by the way, thanks again for having me on here, Joe.
(27:58):
I truly look up to you. I got this gift in the mail, you guys.
It was so cool. This was two days ago.
I've been gone every single week and I got home. I think this was here for a
couple of weeks, but I opened this on Monday.
I have not read it yet, but I was shocked.
It felt so good. I was like, holy cow. So I'm looking forward to reading. What should we do?
(28:18):
Joe, you came and did a training for us in our coaching program. And I thank you for that.
Uh, my, my program, if you just go to landscape lighting secrets.com,
there's a lot of helpful information there.
We've got some obviously value that we give away for free, but if you want to
schedule an appointment with me or one of my team members, you can watch a free
case study, uh, watch that if that interests you and you're like,
heck yeah, this would, this might be a really cool bolt on for my business.
(28:41):
Schedule a call. We go over a strategy session and that strategy session is
designed to help you really get an understanding of where you're at, where you want to be.
And it sounds simple, but most people don't know those answers. Right.
And so we really give a lot of value on that call. But if you're interested,
we can tell you about the coaching program.
I also have my podcast, which Joe, you've been on a lighting for profits.
You can go to lighting for profits.com.
(29:03):
And, uh, it's awesome. I mean, if you're considering like, maybe I should, maybe I should do this.
And even if you're not, I mean, when you were on, we weren't,
well, we actually did talk about landscape lighting because you got lighting
at your house, but I'm a smart, I'm a consumer of your services for sure. Yeah, yeah.
And I'm always, I'm still, I'm having to redo it. I might need somebody right now, actually.
So you never know. We just tore all the old stuff out because it was garbage.
(29:28):
And we bought a house with it, and it was kind of garbage. So we might be in
the market for somebody, one of your professionals.
Let's see how good he does when he comes. I know. I wonder.
Dude, I'm going to be so intimidated to come meet with you. It's going to be awesome.
I should film it. Probably. But I'll help him. You don't realize I'll actually
help him provide a good solution. But Ryan, thanks so much for being here and
helping all the service providers out there.
(29:48):
No matter what trade, I think that Ryan Lee has something there with his enthusiasm
and simplicity of the MIF material.
He tries to make the complex into something simple. Ryan, thanks so much for
your service and mostly thanks for your friendship. I knew I was going to meet a colleague.
I didn't know I was going to meet a new friend when I first met you,
though. That's awesome, man. I appreciate that.
(30:09):
Thanks a lot, everybody. Have a great one. We'll see everybody on the next podcast.
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