PRODUCT FOCUS - LIGHTING: See the Light

Ninety percent of the time Rick Brauneis hooks the client.
 
Brauneis’ bait is professional landscape lighting, and not the big-box, do-it-yourself kind many residential clients are all too familiar with. Once a client sees how a few well-placed fixtures equipped with some wisely chosen bulbs can add a new dimension to a home once shroud in darkness, they almost immediately buy into Brauneis’ vision.
 
Landscape lighting’s main objective, say contractors offering the service, is to create a certain effect for the client – an electrical ‘Wow’ factor. Accomplishing this successfully involves an artistic eye, an understanding of how lighting systems work together in concert and the skill to translate a mental picture into reality.
 
Clients easily become “enlightened” by the potential they discover in landscape lighting, which makes it a particularly attractive add-on service for landscape contractors, especially those catering to high-end clients.
 
“The trend is more people in the middle- to upper-income levels are looking to do a landscape lighting project,” says Maria Burk, marketing manager for lighting systems at Kichler in Independence, Ohio. Landscape lighting is the natural progression in the evolution of clients desire to create and enhance outdoor living environments, she says.
 
Low-cost and low-tech to adopt, landscape lighting has a short learning curve for contractors. Because of these attractive features, landscape professionals are beginning to see the service in a positive light. According to recent Lawn & Landscape research, 35 percent of contractors offering landscape construction services engage in lighting installation. In addition, nearly 35 percent of contractors plan to purchase landscape lighting materials in the coming year, according to the research.
 
Likewise, the service not only sells itself, but it also serves as the catalyst for future referral business.
 
“As long as I don’t make the client’s home look like an airport landing strip it generates a lot of referral business,” Brauneis says. “The lights come out and the neighbors start to ‘Ooh’ and ‘Ah’ and they want to know who did the lighting work for them.”

FLICKING THE SWITCH. Landscape lighting is a logical addition for contractors already offering design/build services. And it’s the logical next-step decision for clients investing in exterior living spaces, such as backyard patios and outdoor kitchens.
 
For example, Patrick Devereux, the owner of Stone Oaks Landscapes in Milwaukee, Wis., already owned the necessary equipment and machinery for his landscape construction projects. Unlike other green industry services, landscape lighting does not require a steep financial investment into specialized and expensive tools. Contractors will need some basic electrical tools, such as a pair of quality wire cutters, as well as meters that measure voltage and amperage. In all, a basic landscape lighting tool kit can be assembled with high-quality equipment for less than $1,000.
 
With a basic mechanical background and understanding of electricity, landscape lighting is not a difficult service to get a handle on, says Andy White, president of Wayside Landscape Services in Asheville, N.C.
 
“Sometimes, I’ve found that electricity can be a lot easier to understand than how plants grow,” he says. “The laws of physics are very predictable, unlike the laws of nature.”
 
In addition, many states do not require contractors to have an electrician’s license to install low-voltage lighting, Burk says.
 
Another attractive bonus, Devereux says, is there are a number of educational venues available to contractors to learn about proper wiring and to get up to speed on current landscape lighting techniques and design/layout trends.
 
“I was able to attend a number of seminars and training sessions put on by our wholesale provider to learn how to design lighting,” Devereux says, adding many are offered either for free or for a nominal cost.
 
One supplier provided Devereux with an on-site representative to assist in the design and installation of his first few landscape lighting jobs.
 
“The hands-on training they were able to provide was very helpful and appreciated,” Devereux says. “My crew was able to learn to do an install the right way and on-site with the help of the rep.”
 
“The best source for knowledge on getting started with landscape lighting is from manufacturer- and supplier-driven workshops and education opportunities that are available to the contractor, often for free,” White adds. “I’ve attended dozens of these types of events over the years and they’re the places I can go to get my questions answered or have a professional troubleshoot my problems.”
 
It may take a dozen or more lighting projects before a contractor begins to get a good feel for how systems work and different lighting interacts with each other, White says.
 
“You can make some good guesses, but until you put that combination of fixtures out there you won’t really know for sure,” White says. “Eventually, you’ll get good enough where you can create the effect you want the first time out, but it takes a number of jobs to get to that point.”
 
And whether a contractor forms a dedicated lighting crew is a matter of personal preference and depends upon the size of his operations and the magnitude of lighting installations he or she expects to perform throughout the year.
 
Devereux, for example, has a three-man crew that specializes in large-scale (more than 20 fixtures) lighting projects. This crew, in turn, trains other workers on proper installation techniques to handle smaller-sized jobs.
 
Many contractors, though, indicate the crew that performs the landscape install or constructs the design/build project also takes care of the lighting.
SELLING AND PRICING. The worst time to sell landscape lighting, as the common joke told by landscape contractors goes, is during the day.
 
The truth, though, is clients often have a difficult time envisioning the potential improvement factor that professionally-installed landscape lighting can have on their properties. People who haven’t experienced professional lighting firsthand tend to not want it because many correlate it with the big security spotlights attached to the sides of garages and sheds.
 
In fact, the greatest challenge  landscape contractors offering lighting services say they face when selling a project is countering the Do-It-Yourself mind set. It’s not uncommon for a potential client to respond to a contractor’s lighting proposal with, “Can’t I just go to my local big-box retailer, buy my own kit and do it myself?”
 
Professionally installed landscape lighting is a relatively new industry, says Steve Parrott, media and marketing director at CAST Lighting in Hawthorne, N.J., and has seen growth rates of about 30 percent every year for the last 15 to 20 years.
 
“People are starting to see more professionally lit homes and that’s building a lot of momentum for the service,” Parrott says.
 
However, even the most brilliant plans for landscape lighting might not look that great on paper. In selling landscape lighting, contractors say seeing is believing.
 
Demonstration – or “demo” – kits are a great selling tool for contractors pitching landscaping lighting plans to a client. The average kit consists of a transformer and a sampling of about two-dozen different fixtures equipped with quick-connect wiring. Most manufacturers and suppliers sell demo kits, or a contractor can develop his or her own custom-built kit for a few hundred dollars.
 
The demo kits are worthwhile investments for landscape lighting contractors. Installation takes, on average, about 30 minutes, and the kit gives the client a preview and appreciation for what a full-array can look like.
 
“Demo kits are a great way for contractors to market their landscape lighting services,” Burk says. “Once people see this beautiful example of what landscape lighting can do for their homes, they want it.”
 
Indeed, the demo kit, set up and left with the client for a week or two, often does all of the sales work for the contractor.
 
“It’s a good idea to leave the demo kit in place for the client for one to two weeks,” Parrott says. “Installers report nearly 100 percent sales at the homes where they have used a demo kit.”
 
The ideal time to sell the service, according to White, is while a contractor is developing and/or selling a landscape or design/build project.
 
“During the install and construction phases you can incorporate all of your physical systems into the plant material and you won’t have to come back and risk cutting into a drip irrigation tube,” White says.
 
But this isn’t always the case and clients are more apt to consider landscape lighting during the second or third phases of a design/build project. Even if the client is not ready to commit to lighting right away, incorporating the guts – laying the wiring – for a system alleviates a lot of headaches down the road. 
 
Offer the service on a case-by-case basis, Parrott says.
 
“Contractors will begin to recognize clients who will want to do a landscape lighting project,” he says. “But it may be too much to ask if the bill for the hardscape project is high.”
 
It costs next to nothing to lay cable and install the dedicated circuitry during the construction phase of a landscape or hardscape project, contractors say. Often, the few dollars spent is a worthwhile and time-saving investment.
 
“Offer to put the wire in the ground for free and then approach the client the next year with a proposal for adding landscape lighting,” Parrott says. “Don’t push the client into doing landscape lighting that they’re not comfortable with during a design/build project. Tell them you understand if it’s too much to pay for landscape lighting now, but you’ll throw in a demo kit for free. It’ll give the client a good idea for what lighting could look like.”
 
A solid sales tactic, many contractors advise, is not to push a landscape lighting scheme on a client, but rather suggest it.
 
“When people see a really good landscape lighting system they will want it,” White says. “But remember, this is a discretionary purchase for the typical homeowner and they can be easily talked out of making a commitment, too.”
 
Initially, contractors are unsure of how much to charge clients for landscape lighting services. Devereux suggests fine tuning price around a combination of how long the install will take (Will a transformer need to be installed or an excessive amount of cable laid?) and the going market rate for the service. For example, Devereux charges between $200 and $250 a fixture for an average lighting job, which is between 15 and 20 fixtures. He adjusts this figure accordingly for large-scale (more than 20 fixtures) and small-scale jobs (less than 5 fixtures).
 
“While it’s not an exact formula, it’s good to approach each job on a case-by-case basis,” Devereux says. “When you’re installing more than 20 fixtures you’re making a pretty nice profit. Landscape lighting tends to be more profitable than other landscape work. I shoot for about 35 percent gross profit.”
 
When pricing jobs, some contractors boil a project estimate down to labor and materials. For larger jobs, though, many work backward by establishing a price-per-watt.
 
“Once you do a few jobs and establish a price you’re comfortable with you can divide that into the wattage you’ve sold for a bigger job,” White says. “And then you can adjust that figure according to a particular job’s difficulty level.”

ELECTRIFYING RELATIONSHIPS. A common misperception among homeowners is that their landscape lighting project is final once the install is completed.
 
This is not the case. Contractors should educate clients that their lighting arrangement will need to be tweaked in a year or two to maintain its optimal effect. This provides an additional profit center for the contractor, as well.
 
“Every few years the lighting needs to be re-evaluated,” White says. “As plants grow, the lighting needs to change. Some of the lamps and fixtures will not continue to do their jobs because after a few years they’ll either become buried or blocked by the surrounding landscape.”