How do you change public misconceptions and perceptions of the professional landscape lighting business

How do you change public misconceptions and perceptions of the professional landscape lighting business

By Mike Gambino

key to successHow do you change an industry or market? I can speak from experience about this as we are constantly doing this and it’s one of our main goals on this website … Education! I am even publishing a consumer’s guide but more about that later.

If you’re like me, this is a good thing as I’m a perpetual student. I love to learn and just as importantly, I love to share knowledge! In fact, the act of sharing knowledge is when you actually learn. Therefore, as you seek knowledge to understand and master your profession, you’ll not only learn but you’ll build confidence which will equip you with the necessary information to effectively tell others about what you do, why you do it and how you do it. This is the key to business since selling our products and services is the driving force of business. If you want to succeed you need to master it!

Educating consumers for residential projects is pretty straightforward, simply because we’re the expert and the homeowner has brought us in for our knowledge and expertise. This puts us in charge which creates confidence, and confidence sells!

However on large residential or commercial projects , the process changes. You’re no longer considered the expert because the owner has brought in an architect, engineer or designer to create the master plan which is used by us the contractors to estimate and build the system and most times we don’t even get to meet or let alone speak to the client during the quotation process. So the designer is the expert and we’re just the guys that carry out the work. This is the root of the problem because nobody can be an expert on all aspects of a large project. There are too many aspects of a typical project . There will be structural elements, storm water, aquatic ecosystems, grading/earthwork, electrical, horticulture, hardscapes, etc.

In order to achieve the best and most cost-effective end product, individual experts should be consulted on their respective areas to maximize the project budget. This would be a logical process but it unfortunately this doesn’t happen often enough and the resulting projects sometimes fail to meet expectations. The blame is then placed on the contractor since we installed it, not the designer, so it’s obviously our fault (at least in the mind of the client) that it doesn’t work properly!

A professionally designed system that works but requires excessive maintenance and care.

I don’t want to generalize because there are so many successful installations, but we’re brought in to fix problems often so I see them firsthand. It’s unfortunately a large part of our business, which is good from a sales dollar standpoint but it hurts us in the long run because it gives the landscape lighting business a bad name which helps nobody.

One of the problems stems from the fact that some people don’t understand the importance of working with a professional specialist until it’s too late. There is also a glut of inappropriate, inferior and inexpensive landscape lighting products readily available. These products get misused, improperly installed and then under perform before failing in someone’s yard. In fact most don’t know the good stuff even exists until they have had failed products replaced in their yards.

DSCN0983-1Gambino landscape lighting is known for being different, from our very inception we did things differently and thrived as we were the first (and probably still the only) independent landscape lighting design build company to create our own high quality proprietary fixture and transformer line.  Up until that time we were using a variety of manufacturers selling the various pieces, fixtures, lamps, transformers etc….but every project was different making it difficult to efficiently design, estimate, install and maintain the landscape lighting systems. Trying to stock parts on the service truck from different manufacturers was not only costly but takes up a lot of space in the truck.It’s just not practical.

We came into the market place and put together a turnkey package, everything you’d need to have a project built from one source, all you need to do is to sign the check. We have continued to modify and improve our product offerings over the years and evolution is part of our fabric, the only thing that won’t change is our focus on landscape lighting as this is our passion and driving force.

Lainer31                        This landscape lighting system was constructed using our multi step process.

Although are products are of commercial quality and durability, the majority of our sales comes from residential projects with a mix of commercial projects. This is due to the fact that there are many more residential projects being built and because of the sheer number of potential buyers vs. the smaller market size for commercial projects.  The other reason for our residential success is that the design and sales process is between a contractor and the property owner directly and not the many complex layers within commercial projects.

So the question is, how do you change an industry or market?  Fortunately there is no road map!  That’s right, I said fortunately not unfortunately because if it was easy someone else would’ve done it!

The challenge for all of us trades persons is to know our strengths and weaknesses and is in knowing when to step away from a project and refer to a colleague who specializes in that area.

And for the property owner its to do their due diligence before buying a custom built landscape lighting system.

The other question that we need to ask is, why change? Let’s start with why.  The answer for this is simple, the existing technology and design process is expensive, cumbersome and the results are inconsistent because each project is done differently.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for complex architectural design and engineering but not for everything and not for landscape lighting!

And at the risk of sounding self serving, the experienced landscape lighting designer/builder is the one you want to work with when the best possible result is desired.

I am in the process of putting the finishing touches on the consumer’s guide to buying custom landscape lighting design/build services. It’s a document I initially wrote about 10 years ago and never published. It is currently being updated and will be available to those qualified for free as a download here and at other websites.

Stay tuned for updates because it will be available coming soon.

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 .

Blog articles may be published with permission on other websites without editing or removing links.

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1Comment
  • Mark Carlson
    Posted at 04:21h, 19 July Reply

    Great article Mike! You are dead-on with this understanding of what is lacking in our industry and with the public–education. Unfortunately, there’s no good explanation for why the lighting industry hasn’t provided for this, whether it be to the professionals or to the end-users.

    Another great point was how the building industry lacks the understanding that professionals like us are their best bet towards achieving successful results. I too, have seen it happen where a client will bring in a team of architects and engineers, assuming they know more than we do about this lighting component and that’s bad for everyone. I say this all the time, but “you cannot be an expert at everything”. Just because they are an architect doesn’t mean they design lighting/landscape lighting the way we would.

    So, you are right….there is no road map to follow and it is needed. Glad to know that you are doing something about that.

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