An open letter to fellow landscape lighting system design/builders

13 May An open letter to fellow landscape lighting system design/builders

by Mike Gambino,

I attended Lightfair, the big lighting industry trade show this week in Las Vegas and had some thoughts after speaking to several of the major manufacturers and distributors who had exhibits there.

These days some people in the outdoor lighting business (homeowners looking for landscape lighting too) seem to believe buying garden lighting fixtures should be more like a visit to zappos or amazon.com

Here’s what some pro lighters’ don’t realize: these online retailers (the companies offering deeply discounted lighting materials) are not your friends. They are parasites, feeding off of the relationship that exists between homeowner and professional landscape lighter’.

Consider this: the lighter’ pays a visit to the homeowner/prospect to consult with and discuss and prepare a lighting scheme custom tailored to their needs and site requirements. A list of specifications, lighting materials and cost to complete the project is established. Prospect goes online to one of these “wholesale to the public” websites promising to provide the “same” or better materials direct to the end consumer for at or slightly higher than wholesale pricing. Once the prospect thinks he knows approximately what the pro is paying for materials she can either use this information to leverage a lower cost to do the job or offer to supply their own materials purchased from the internet at what they believe is pro quality sight unseen as it may be.

No thanks.

The worst part is that some lighters’ themselves are financing their own demise and commoditization by buying their materials from these same online distributors. What’s the worst thing that happened to the airline industry (besides unions)? Online ticketing. Who got hurt worse than the airlines? The small service providers, the travel agents. As any industry moves closer to commoditization, where the widget being offered is so easily compared and considered without actually being seen or touched or interacted with by the customer, there is a reshuffling of power, value and profit. When is the last time you went to a travel agency and sat down with an agent to book a trip? Why would you? The agent has been replaced by expedia.com.

For you as a professional lighter’ to give money to the promoters of commoditization makes about as much sense as the travel agent of a decade ago shelling out money to have their name listed on Orbitz. Ultimately your own money is being turned against you. You should be hopping mad about this instead of supporting it.

Reality is you both lose.

Clearly the lighter’ loses to shrinking margins, negative perception and the customer’s ability to buy direct without the lighter’. You have a lot on the line and invested in your business. Don’t you deserve to make a profit?

Perhaps not so clearly, the customer also loses. Have you walked into a big box hardware store recently? No help, no expertise. You’re on your own. Have you bought anything online? Sure you can get good deals…but what happens when something breaks or you have a complicated situation that you need to speak to someone about? It’s not such a great deal then.

The online buying environment is only suitable for the simplest transactions. And if lighters’ profits are cut in this digital price war, the customers will suffer right alongside the lighters’ as quality, access and availability of service declines.

The only winners are the website providers. Do you go into work every day to help them or to help yourself and your customers?

Buying a lighting system is not like buying a book. Choosing a landscape lighting pro is not like choosing a restaurant or booking a plane ticket. It’s time we, as an industry, wake up to that reality. The majority of customers don’t know what they want, don’t understand how to go about achieving it, and don’t know how to go about getting what they need (which is help, from someone like you the lighting pro). All the low price material in the world won’t help connect you with that customer.

Of course there is a plethora of research that all indicates that buyers are spending more and more time researching online before buying a lighting system. But there must be an important distinction between the role of the distributor and the role of lighter. It’s the distributors’ job to market and sell their products. It’s your job to market and sell your lighting systems.

But most online marketing paid for by online distributors is all about the product with price as foundation. Why? Because the easy method of lazy marketers is to advertise price. It’s the most basic of all lures. And true, advertising low price is a good way to get lots of customers. But then what? And what’s worse, there will likely always be somebody with a price lower than yours. And in the price war, if you’re not first, you’re last. It’s you against the distributors against the customers. There can be no winners in this scenario. Everybody will lose long term.

An Unlikely Sales “Smack Down”

A few years ago, having just conceived an outdoor kitchen project at my home, I believed a new grill was in order. I’m not just talking about your ordinary Char-Broil grill from Home Depot. I wanted the S Class of grills, the Viking BBQ grill. Naturally, I went online to do research (about the grills, not the dealers). I found a number of online stores selling the grill I wanted at a slight discount and with free shipping and no sales tax. But I couldn’t see it or touch it. And I needed to get a sense for how big it was, and how it would fit into the space I had provided for it.

So I drove to an independent hardware store that happened to be the regional Viking service provider. I had no intention of buying that day. Though I clearly wanted the grill, my sensible side suggested I should order online and wait for it.

When I showed up I was given an enthusiastic demo of the grill and all its features. I was told stories of other customers who had bought this same grill. I was treated well and politely…and I was PRESSURED to buy the grill that day, from there. And I did. I was SOLD. And I paid more for it than I needed to. But I really liked how informative they were and I appreciated their expertise…and I WANTED it immediately. Not only did I buy the grill that day but I also bought a matching stainless steel built in warming drawer and storage drawer for several thousand dollars more. For my qty of purchases that day I received for free a Viking BBQ cover and Viking grilling accessory kit a several hundred dollar value.

So what does that say? It says that even a high-end customer has wants, desires, emotions. Even a high-end customer can be sold. And though I did my research online to start with, my final purchase was made offline. The relationship is with the Viking dealer, not Viking. And that hardware store owner made and earned a healthy profit, whereas the online store would have made very little.

Draw a line in the Sand

So really, this is a call to arms. Join me and other lighters in rejecting that “best practice” that suggests you offer your lighting systems at the lowest prices and compete with distributors for the now buyers at the expense of your profit. It’s not worth it.

Of course, you still need to sell lights as part of your design and installation service. And that’s what we do. There is a wide sea of potential buyers waiting to be sold. And that sea is largely uninhabited and uncluttered by other lighters’.

I’ve heard the claims by some professionals that say we don’t sell fixtures or hardware we sell lighting effects, lighting portraits, pieces of art. I say you’re in denial and are putting your head in the sand. I agree that everyone has the right to sell whatever they want for whatever price they choose wherever they choose as long as it’s not breaking the law of course. I also believe that as professional lighting design installers we also have the right to choose who we buy our products from and support financially by way of our purchases. That being said we also have a responsibility to ourselves our families and our fellow trade professional to preserve the ability to keep professional landscape lighting a viable business.

While some distributors are scurrying around chasing after the thin deals of today selling to the do it yourself market, you can and should be directing your efforts toward accelerating tomorrow’s buyers to create your own evergreen crop of “solutions” buyers who value your help and the service you provide and are happy to pay more for it. It’s the biggest opportunity in the landscape lighting business and the most untapped source of quality clients. Happy hunting!

This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 20 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .

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