Plugged in

Holiday lighting has grown into more than just a way to keep landscapers busy in the winter — it’s now a service that can bolster a company’s bottom line.

“What was so attractive about it was that it was a way to build work into the offseason,” says Brandon Stephens, president at The Décor Group. “A lot of people just got into it to stay busy throughout the year, but it’s really evolved into a specialty service offering. It’s still a great fit seasonally… but what contractors are starting to realize is that the benefits go beyond keeping trucks out on the round.”

The holiday lighting segment of the industry isn’t just evolving into a great boon for landscaper’s pocketbooks — it has also become a year-round exercise, incorporating holidays like Halloween, Diwali, St. Patrick’s Day or the Fourth of July into a service still dominated by Christmas.

“Christmas is far and away the biggest holiday,” says Bryan Beaudry, a sales manager with Holiday Bright Lights, “but I think guys are starting to look outside the box.”

The new approach to holiday lighting includes remote-controlled and app-controlled lighting, plus extra pieces like inflatables or cutouts to help a design pop.

RGB lighting

Scott Heese, the president and CEO at Holidynamics, believes RGB lighting is the way forward for most contractors. It allows for designs to be customizable across a longer stretch of time — installing the lights means clients and their families can often choose the color scheme and flashing patterns on their landscapes.

Heese adds that this is an added benefit to landscapers, too, as the labor shortage has meant adding holiday lighting could be a strain on their tapped out crews. In this case, one installation can save crews the time from going back out several times to adjust the lighting.

“(Landscapers) will say, ‘Hey, we only have the bandwidth to get so many homes decorated in the month of November,’” Heese says, adding that their primary product is remote controlled with preset options that help the end user easily adapt their lights. “You can make some quick, easy functions on the remote so the consumer can make quick adjustments,” he adds.

This could mean anything from a Halloween button, which turns the lights purple with a twinkle with one press and a gold, harvest color with another press of the button. Heese says the creativity can also include more options by pressing a button, like purple colors appearing for a few seconds on a hold then fading into gold, or a chase-through feature that gives the lights some combination of purple, green or gold.

And that’s just Halloween — Heese adds that he’s seen lots of clients, especially commercial buildings, do red, white and blue designs for Independence Day, Labor Day or Memorial Day.

Meanwhile, Stephens says he’s seen most installations now go up in October and takedown doesn’t need to happen until January or later through the RGB products. In some cases, crews could even do one pass-through by just putting up some lights on the roof line in September, then adding more garland and wrapping around trees and shrubs by Christmastime. The color-changing products means some low-voltage, permanent lighting setups can turn green for St. Patrick’s Day or the colors of the local high school football team on game day.

“We’ve used that (flexibility) as a platform or as an incentive to keep someone plugged in throughout the year,” Stephens says.

Of course, upselling clients into something more long-term or even permanent means they’re buying a product that’s more expensive.

“There’s definitely a greater price point on the RGB, and that’s what we’re seeing,” Beaudry says, adding that the remote control lighting systems are a bit less expensive than the app-driven ones. App-driven lights tend to have even more flexibility rather than the presets on physical remotes. “I don’t know that they necessarily sell against each other— I think they each have their place among the different types of clients.

“Price points go away when you properly explain the way to expand your season or cover multiple seasons,” Beaudry adds. “The price point melts away for clients at that point.”

Adding on

Stephens has seen lots of creativity from landscapers who have helped their clients have the best house on the block. This is especially true around Christmas, where there are the most product offerings to help a client stand out.

“For the last four or five years, we’re incorporating a lot more large-scale displays,” Stephens says. “If I go out and wrap a tree with lights, that’s fairly labor intensive. A lot of our contractors are instead doing low-labor add-ons.”

These add-ons can be anything from giant toy soldiers guarding the front door or a six-foot-tall snowflake out in the front yard. Maybe it’s Santa Claus climbing down a chimney on the roof or it’s a rotating deer that twinkles with lights. These products can be bought from suppliers or, in some cases, even rented and leased.

“Everyone has lights on the roof, windows, trees in an affluent neighborhood,” Stephens says. “But what if I had a scene with an igloo and two polar bears? There’s some items that adds an element of creativity to the industry.”

Beaudry says it’s often the simple stuff that stands out. Snowflakes on wire frames that twinkle at different intervals can add a great dimension to your design, for example.

“Sometimes it’s not an earth-shattering change or idea,” he says. “It’s not anything that’s going to set the world on its ear, but you see it out there, and you say, ‘it’s different, it’s kind of neat.’”

Know your stuff

Especially considering most landscapers are jumping into holiday lighting as an add-on service, all three suppliers recommend undergoing proper training avenues to ensure the crews are prepared to do it all the right way.

Stephens says that most suppliers offer training modules of their own, and Beaudry adds that some information can even be found on YouTube for free. For more intensive training, Heese encourages landscapers to budget out for some classes that he’s seen run as expensive as $2,000 or so. These classes range from how to install to how to properly price out your products for clients.

The addition of LED lights has made jumping into this industry so much easier than it was 15 years ago when lights were predominantly incandescent, Beaudry says. Some of those requirements with power have gone away, which was the biggest hurdle to entering the market. But now the challenge comes with the proper training and selecting the right product.

Plus, contractors need to provide the best service possible because it’s a high-income add-on. Communicating frequently with clients and fixing things fast is essential.

Beaudry says contractors should look for products that are UL Listed, or in other words, have been rigorously tested by the Underwriters Laboratories. Check that the products are waterproof and that they offer a multiyear warranty.

Beyond that, he adds that he’s seen contractors who were afraid to jump in because they didn’t understand the market. Beaudry says he’s often seen them enter the market anyway a few years after they should’ve because they were too nervous to jump in.

“I think it’s an industry that has grown by leaps and bounds,” Beaudry says. “Guys that are looking to get into it but are hesitant to get into it, but there’s lot of trainings to ease or transition into it.”

And for contractors who are skeptical but run a snow side of the business?

There’s no guarantee with snow,” Beaudry says. “But Christmas comes every 25th of December each year, whether you want it to or not.”

The good news is that most contractors already know how to build a business, let alone an add-on service. Stephens says high-end residential or commercial clients are willing to buy into this white-glove service, which has grown into a profitable model for contractors. One of Stephens’s clients is knocking on $6 million in added annual revenue through holiday lighting.

“I openly tell people — there are a lot of landscape contractors who are self-made people. They’re pretty good at figuring things out,” Stephens says. “Odds are that with some time and a calculator, they could figure out ways to make money. Where we fit is we help contractors maximize that.”

The author is associate editor with Lawn & Landscape.