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Light up homeowners' winter nights with landscape lighting
16 Nov, 2009 By: Ron Hall LM Direct!What man or woman returning home in winter's early darkness from a stressful day at work doesn't appreciate the welcoming appearance of their homes and landscapes illuminated by soft, warm lighting? Now that days are short and nights long, how better to allow homeowners to appreciate their landscapes than through professional installed night lighting?
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Landscape lighting remains the best way for homeowners to extend the beauty of their landscapes, and especially during winter when conditions make outdoor recreation or entertaining impossible.
Yes, it takes some training and some skill to do it well, but that's learnable. But that's not the biggest reason why landscape pros don't get more excited about offering landscape lighting, which can be a profitable service opportunity, especially when it's linked with a service contract.
Evening demonstrations keep many landscape pros from night lighting installs, or at least as much as they should. What owner or manager, after working a full day in the office or in the field, looks forward to traveling to a prospect's home for an evening demonstration?
David Schuster, CLT, Terra-Firma Landscape, Inc., Milwaukee: Dennis Williams, Regional 5 Hardscape Coordinator John Deere Landscapes; and Kyle Webb, CLP, A to Z Landscaping, Dayton, OH, shared several night lighting sales tips during a recent panel discussion at the recent Green Industry Conference in Louisville.
Terra-Firma has an outdoor demonstration area at its headquarters, which has night lighting that clients and prospects can visit evenings at their convenience, said Schuster. He also shows clients photos of landscape lighting projects his company has done for other clients, and brings fixtures to show them and let them handle during regular sales visits.
“Night demonstrations can take a long time,” said Schuster, who suggests doing a pre-setup, then following up after the prospect has had a chance to see what the lights mean to their landscapes.
Williams of John Deere Landscapes said he knows a contractor in the Carolinas that goes out during the day and strategically arranges eight lights on a prospect's property. After several nights he will go out and retrieve his lights. As often as not, said Williams, the homeowner will call and ask, “Hey, where's our lights?” The job is sold.
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Webb of A to Z Landscaping said a distributor in his market will provide demo kits to landscapers and, in cases of its valuable landscape partners, sometimes even sets them up, too.
A final word about landscape lighting — don't think of it solely in terms of uplighting, downlighting or pathlighting, even with today's energy-efficient and attractive LED lighting, one of the hottest landscape categories in the market.
Schuster said he is now integrating LED lighting into countertops and cast concrete landscape features. Customers love the look, said Schuster.