Offer Holiday Lighting Services

As a child, Dave Bruce loved decorating for the holiday season. So when the landscaper from Flint, Mich., saw an advertisement in a trade magazine for a holiday decoration supplier, he decided to turn a favorite childhood activity into a moneymaking enterprise.

“The biggest thing for me at holiday time growing up was putting up Christmas lights,” says Bruce, owner of H2O Landscaping. “I started offering holiday lighting services mostly because I enjoyed doing it. But it was also something to continue the season and make some extra dollars.”

Many landscapers are turning to holiday lighting to extend their busy seasons and their cash flow. Some consider it more reliable than snowplowing because it’s not contingent on the weather. “We have a lot of downtime around the holiday season because the ground starts to freeze and plowing doesn’t start until after January,” says Chris Locke, president of Locke & Textor Landscape in Davison, Mich.

Additionally, the market for holiday lighting is viable in any region in the United States, even in working-class communities such as Flint. “In my area there were only a few companies doing it, so there was a demand,” Bruce says. “My market is lower-middle class so people aren’t spending thousands of dollars doing lighting, but it has been profitable.”

A Bright Outlook
For Locke, the new endeavor has been extremely successful. As he enters his third season, he’s making 5 to 10 percent of his annual revenue from holiday lighting, and he hopes to double that this season. “We actually make more of a profit on a holiday lighting job than a landscape job,” he says. “It takes less labor and less time, and people are in a spending mood during the holidays.” A typical job for Locke requires four to six people and takes about a half day’s work.

“It grows a little bigger every year,” Locke says. He advertised exclusively to his existing customers to try it out before marketing the new services to the general public. As his holiday lighting business grows, Locke has had no problem bringing in new customers and has even had holiday lighting customers hire him for landscape work during warmer seasons.

Bruce decided to ease into his new lighting endeavor when he started out in 2005. He participated in a few training seminars conducted by a holiday lighting supplier, and didn’t do much marketing at first. In just two years, his customer base has more than doubled by word-of-mouth alone, and he’s expecting 30 customers this season. Bruce still does almost every holiday lighting job himself, but he says he will hire seasonal help when his jobs grow beyond 45 per year.

Creating Holiday Magic
Locke offers a range of holiday decorating services, from hanging strings of lights with C-7 or C-9 bulbs on roof lines and trees, to setting up lawn decorations and animatronics. He also creates holiday wreaths, swags and garland for exterior decoration. Some landscaping companies also offer interior holiday lighting and decoration services. Both Locke and Bruce start installations in the first or second week in November, and work up until a week or two before Christmas.

Locke & Textor Landscape offers three service levels for their customers. At the least expensive level, the customer leases the lights each season, or the customer can buy the lights and either store them themselves or have Locke & Textor Landscape store them for a higher price. “The highest price is if they buy them and we store them because of that initial investment,” Locke says. “But if we store them, then we’re responsible if any bulbs break. Customers like not having to worry about that or finding space in their garage for all the lights.”

Each job is priced individually, depending on the size and complexity of the job. “We talk with the client, measure everything out and figure out the amount of feet involved and how many sets of lights we’ll need,” Locke says. “We figure in material cost, time and things like how high the home is.”

Every package includes a postseason dismantling of the lights and other decorations. “Make sure you consider the take-down part in the price,” Locke says. “It’s often the most dangerous part because of the snow and ice.”

Safety First
Electrical safety is crucial for the installer and the homeowner. Always make sure you use the proper and appropriate commercial-grade lighting for each application, and don’t use anything that is not Underwriters Laboratory (UL)-approved. Educating yourself about the proper electrical usage, wattage and amperage required is vital, Bruce says.

He also recommends educating the customer about electrical and outlet safety, as well as providing a rough estimation of their energy bill for the amount of time they keep the lights on. If customers are wary of the energy use, recommend light-emitting diode (LED) holiday lights that reduce energy consumption by as much as 90 percent compared to traditional lights, according to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

“It’s about educating them and showing them the price difference between C-7s, C-9s or mini lights and the LEDs,” Bruce says. “LEDs cost more initially, but they last longer and the energy savings is huge. They are the future of the holiday lighting industry.”