Episode Transcript
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Tim Hikade
[00:00:00]
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Tommy Cole: Welcome to another episode of Roots of Success Podcast. And I am your host, Tommy Cole. And we have another awesome guest today. My friend Tim Hikade from New Jersey. He's got a business called Full Circle Lawn Care. As well as NJ Holiday Lights. He's one of our peer group members and has been for years.
Welcome Tim.
Tim Hikade: Thanks, Tommy. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Tommy Cole: Yeah, this is, this is going to be great. So everybody's probably wondering what are we going to talk about? And man, we have got a great subject for our listeners today, it's about holiday lights and it's an add on service to your landscaping business. Tim [00:01:00] has got a wealth of experience.
Failures and wins along the way of doing holiday lighting. That's what we're going to dive into.
Full Circle Lawn Care and NJ Holiday Lights History
Tommy Cole: But first, Tim, tell me a little bit about yourself and your business and what you guys do
Tim Hikade: Yeah, so we're a full service landscape contractor. We do everything from your basic landscape maintenance, outdoor living areas. also had a small garden center and florist in the area. And you know, I started the Christmas light business. This will be our 14th season when somebody asked me to put up their Christmas lights.
So we've grown that substantially since that time.
Tommy Cole: nice 14 years. Wow. So let's talk about year, year one. How did you get into holiday lighting, installation, takedown, decor, all that?
Tim Hikade: One of our landscape customers came up to me and said, Hey, would you put up my Christmas lights for me? I was like, Really? He's like, Yeah. You know, I have a lot of friends. I'll pay a lot of money to put it up. And I was like, Sure. Why not? It's something we [00:02:00] always enjoyed doing as a family growing up. So, you know, I jumped on the opportunity to do his house and a couple of buddies and, you know, made some mistakes along the way, but that's how we started.
Somebody asked.
Tommy Cole: Yes. So you did this as a kid, right?
Tim Hikade: Yeah, growing up, you know, that was a big big deal. My family growing up, decorating our house and helping our family out. And yeah, I was surprised somebody asked me to do their house. So I was like, why not,
Tommy Cole: Make a few extra bucks, right?
Tim Hikade: yeah, you know, off season, you know, we're slowing down and we need something to do.
I'll bartend wait tables in the winter, whatever I had to do to keep the company going, you know, cause it was the beginning of when I started the company. So I had to do something.
Tommy Cole: Yeah, I, I was in the, same boat as you as a kid. I always enjoyed installing holiday lights at my house. I was the, I was the person each year wanted to add on one or two more extra strands. And back in the day we didn't have this fancy thing called LED lights, right? It was like you had like what, two [00:03:00] strands to put together before you got to find a, an outlet.
And if you put the third or fourth strand, it kind of blew up. Right. And you, you had to find more power and you're tripping circuits. And my dad was getting upset because he's, he can't use the normal things in the house and he's freaking out and I'm blowing fuses. left and right. Long build. Here we are.
When I was in college, we did, we did holiday lighting when I worked for a landscape company and it was good. We got extra cash in our pocket. We had work to do during November, December and January, and it was great.
Struggles at the Start
Tommy Cole: So early in your years, Tim, year one, how was that like? Give me some things that went wrong.
Tim Hikade: like I said, incandescent lights, you know, I still have nightmares about that, you know, spill up the power, you know, you do it four strands, you got to split the power, split the power, different power sources, you don't know if the refrigerator is on one outlet on the outside, where the GFI's are connected, you know, just nightmare phone calls, Christmas Eve, people's [00:04:00] lights are out.
I was out, you know, out with my wife on a Christmas Eve one night and all dressed up and I had to go take care of a client on Christmas Eve and, you know, it was a nightmare and she's just sitting in the car, watching me in the rain, trying to fix this guy's lights. I'm glad that's over.
Tommy Cole: Yeah. So what, so here's the magic question. What kept you going? If you went through all that year one, like what kept you going?
Tim Hikade: I asked the opportunity in my I live in a fluid area and there's a, just, I just saw the opportunity there and, just kept going, it was hard to switch over to led. Cause the it was more expensive, you know, really good margins with incandescence, but it wasn't worth the headaches, so I'd say five, six years into it, we switched totally to led and It's, it's been a lot better, you know, yeah,
Tommy Cole: Well, good. So, all right. So you're a multi, you're a few years into this and led kicks in after five or six years. And, and quite frankly, you'd stand, you know, you can put a whole bunch of lights together at the end of the day. Right. [00:05:00] And, and into, into one outlet. So it made your life easier and you got less phone calls.
what is this gearing up for the season? it's like a six month season for you. Correct? Explain, explain what you've told me over the last few years. Like it's six to eight months long for you.
Tim Hikade: Oh yeah. So our office, once the season is done in January, the office, we'll go through everybody's quotes, get those up to date for this year. We'll, we'll have a March madness sale to start booking clients, which also helps us front loader cashflow for the landscape season and, We're coming up to July.
So we're, we're about to start getting, getting ready to hit Christmas in July, you know, we'll start, we'll send out all of our clients, even clients. We Then again, last year, we'll send them out their quotes and, see if we could book those guys especially June, July, and August is the best one bracket commercial clients.
this is Tom, you try to get your commercial clients lined up. I just spoke to a lady, their business went out, they did all the [00:06:00] Hospitals in the area. I actually set a conversation and, she's going to introduce me to her contacts. And, this is, it's almost a year round project.
it kind of goes to the side during landscape season. We'll have our 3 month rush with that. And then it goes into June, July, August, we're getting ready for Christmas. And then, really kicks off in September.
Tommy Cole: yeah. You know, the one thing, Tim, that is great is I never thought I would say these three words,
Christmas in July
Tommy Cole: but Christmas in July, I'm like, what in the world does that mean? I remember you mentioned that years ago and it's really stuck me pretty hard. And if you're a client, of your business.
That is that is really good because you're you're jumping way ahead. You know, it's 100 degrees probably where you're at in July. It's hot. People are on vacation and you're reaching out to him for November work. And you're starting to get the ball rolling. Contracts are in. You, you, you are, you are getting in front of this because [00:07:00] why you've got to order all this material, right?
It's especially if they're new or organize it, get it ready. So talk about once you've had this Christmas in July opportunity, what happens after that to get ready for November?
Tim Hikade: Yeah. So, you know, we'll put a budget together for what we think we're going to make this year. You know, budget wise, how many guys we're going to need, how many trucks we're going to need returning clients, how many, how many new clients we could take on, there's a short season, you know, for new clients, you probably pretty much have four weeks to get any new clients.
And meanwhile, you're trying to service all your, all your clients. Prior clients, and we start that start them in September, October, November is the crunch. So at this point, clients have been with us for years, know that they have to, they really should sign up in July and get their slot to pretty much guarantee their.
Be up in a timely manner for him. So, you know, it's
Tommy Cole: Good.
Tim Hikade: Yep.
Tommy Cole: And so, so you're talking about budgeting. So getting the budget set, getting the, getting the crews [00:08:00] ready. a huge planning session for multiple months to figure out the routes of where the opportunities are, where, where are you going to go service the clients, a lot of the purchasing of more material probably is for the newer clients. One of the things that I saw when I, when you, when you hosted your peer group was the storage area of all the Christmas decor, and we did a video there. It was absolutely fascinating how organized you were.
How Organization effects profits
Tommy Cole: One of the things you got to take in consideration when you're doing holiday lightings is stay very organized one and two, think well, well ahead.
Tim Hikade: How has that helped your business from a profitable standpoint and a margin standpoint? It's just the efficiency, you know, having a couple of guys working in the shop while the season's going on, we created our systems over the years, you know, and we pretty much have it dialed into, we will know what day we'll stop doing installs in our back office. We have it dialed in and having the staff out, in the field that know what they're doing and [00:09:00] efficiently as possible, And making sure everything's organized, everybody knows where everything is material wise, who's handing out material, what's on the trucks, how many trucks are out and really what we can handle.
Tommy Cole: Yeah, when we were there, it was, it was a very fascinating piece to see the bins and organization for every single client, you had a client's name on a specific bin or two or three. It was categorized, it was routed by different colors in different neighborhoods. It was like a Costco Home Depot on steroids of wreaths.
I remember wreaths and bins of holiday lights, right?
Tim Hikade: Yeah. Yeah. we have our system down now, it's been four, this is our 14th season doing it. So, we know what works and what doesn't work, and with our back office is really got it together for us. it takes a whole team to make this thing work at the size,
Tommy Cole: Yep. So talk about,
How to Train on Holiday Lights
Tommy Cole: Tim, another question is what about training? For holiday [00:10:00] lights, you know, that's a little bit of a sensitive subject to have landscape dominant people, right. In your workforce to go now put up lights, you've got ladders, you got fall protection, prevention. You have, whether you have now roofs and gutters, and there's a little bit of a liability type deal.
Now, what, what were some of the things that you guys had to learn and train? For you and your staff.
Tim Hikade: Yeah, liability, like I said, safety is number one, no matter what, it's a little wet outside, snowy, number one safety, number one. I don't care what's going on, how far behind we are or whatever. The weather's not good. We're not going, it's the last thing you need somebody to fall and get hurt.
So after Labor Day, that's when we'll start bringing crews in, training, ladder safety, harness training, roof training, we go, we go really adept. We do some ocean training with somebody come in and train to come in for a day, fall protection, you really [00:11:00] have to really, really be careful because one little slip and somebody could take it on their life, so we take it very, very seriously. It's a fun
Tommy Cole: That's really good.
Tim Hikade: it's very dangerous, you know?
Tommy Cole: Yeah, you don't want to be wearing Crocs. And, as you're climbing ladders and they're wet, right? I have, I, the reason why I say that I personally have seen show someone show up in Crocs ready to install lights. And I was like, are you serious right now? Like what could happen? So I think about that. I think about that image all the time.
All kidding aside, that is, that's pretty scary because then, you know, you're, you're, now you're on someone's property.
Tim Hikade: Right.
Tommy Cole: and, and it creates a whole nother set of issues.
Tim Hikade: Oh yeah, totally. You know, like I said, gutter, gutter protection, having the right stabilizers and not crushing gutters, taking care of the folks homes, you're not going to go to a mahogany 20, 000 front door, there's, there's a lot that goes into it.
Addressing Seasonality
Tommy Cole: So let's talk about what another, topic here is, you've got the landscape business, but this holiday light [00:12:00] spills in a gap. And that gap is this What we always coach to all the time is taking the seasonality of your landscape company out and make it a year round landscape company.
Parts of the country are less likely to do that, but what are you doing in the, the, the slower months besides just kind of closing up shop and draining your bank account to keep people on board? You have been able to run this successfully for 14 years. Maybe the first few years are a little rough. So we'll say we'll give you some 11 to 12 years, right?
Of, of good profitable things that has helped your team stay there year round. And tell me the impact of having a year round staff.
Tim Hikade: It's huge, having the stat, February will slow down. It's almost a guarantee that for four weeks, we'll take off until the season picks back up. But, we tell the folks you're working with us to Christmas season. You're making all those extra hours to cover your winter hours, until you start back up.
But having the seasonality of landscape and then we have Christmas and then we have the folks that come back just for Christmas time. we [00:13:00] can almost rely on those folks coming back every year, to hit that season. It's pretty much almost a three month season where it's a, it's a lot of work with other landscape companies are slowing down.
We're, we're getting a lot of those guys back to just handle Christmas, unfortunately, we can't, we, we staff up more at the end of the year than we do the regular season landscape season. So we can't keep everybody. So, it's they make more money, they get more hours and, they have money for winter time.
Advice for Starting Christmas Lighting
Tommy Cole: So if someone's trying to get into this holiday lighting business, what, what's some advice that you would give someone out there? I
Tim Hikade: Reach out to your client base, just, you gotta start somewhere. I talked to a lot of guys and I tried to talk him into, he's got to start somewhere, reach out. There's some other trainings out there online. Everything's on YouTube. You just got to do it, just go out there. You have a client base already, and then I'm sure you can pick up five, 10 customers and just dabble, that's all you have to do just start.
You just got to start somewhere.
Tommy Cole: would agree with you [00:14:00] start with the low hanging fruit, right? So if you've got a maintenance company, that's got 50 maintenance clients and, and you're, you're doing the weekly maintenance services, mow and blow and, and all the, the FERT treatments start with those 50 existing clients.
Tim Hikade: Yep.
Tommy Cole: pick five or 10 of your best clients and offer an opportunity.
My suggestion would be to start with those five or 10 and go, Hey, we're starting this add on service. I'm kind of a little new at this. We're going to do our best. We're going to provide you a great product. We're going to give you an estimate. We're going to produce the quote. We're going to install your lights.
We're going to take them down. We're going to bring them back to our shop or leave them there on site neatly organized in bins and come back the following year and repeat. Are you willing to do this? And most of them will probably say yes. So by the time you get, let's say you get five or 10 clients of the 50 on your first year, that's a win, right Tim?
Tim Hikade: Oh yeah. That's a big one. [00:15:00] You know, you know, you said you got to start somewhere and it'll snowball. I had a, I actually hired a consultant. I had to be eight, eight, nine years ago. Now he had a big company in Arkansas, so he had a Christmas light business. It's insult in the off season. And I hired him on one year to come up for a weekend, and he gave me the game plan, what to do.
And, he's like, if you follow the plans, it's going to keep snowballing, you know, and it really does. Like I said, we have the client base and it's just educating the customers of what we do. it's, it's, it's a fun time of year and the clients love it and, you know, it's a win win for everybody.
Tommy Cole: Yeah. You know, more and more now, more so now than when I was a kid, when I was a kid, a lot of our friends and family and everyone in the neighborhoods, we did our own lights for years. Like you just, it's just part of the deal, but you can see Tim and I can see it in my own eyes that people aren't less likely to just jump on ladders [00:16:00] and do all this themselves.
They're spending more time doing other things with friends and family. So this is a huge opportunity in your market, wherever you are. Don't compare yourself to anybody else that's already been doing it for 14 years, Tim. Just get started with this, the low hanging fruit and jump on it and go with it because I'm here to tell you right now, people are looking at this type of service.
that homeowners are going to pay for. So it's no different than, you know, the trades industry. It's no different than a trash bin cleaning service that's out there. Now, people are not willing to go on the ladders, do this hard work, you know, risk an injury, repeat the process every year. So people like Tim and his, His entire team can service these clients that quite frankly, don't have time to do that.
Tim Hikade: I'm one of those guys too. I have two little kids and I have time to do anything, I'm like, I'm one of you guys out there, I just, I don't have time to do it. I need somebody to do it for me, and a lot of times we'll, you know, the wives will call and I kind of want my husband going on the roof.[00:17:00]
So can you guys just do the roof line? And, for a young family, they want to still be involved a bit. So they'll do all the ground stuff, but then it usually turns out it's just doing everything anyway. So, know, one of those guys too.
Tommy Cole: you're one of those, you're one of those to hire it out, which is great.
Tim Hikade: Yeah.
Tommy Cole: anything else to, in your 14 years experience of holiday lighting that you would throw onto our listeners?
Tim Hikade: Just keep it simple. I saw, we, we saw basic Christmas lights, scarlet and wreaths. That's it with red bows. That's all folks really want. Classic Christmas, all the other fancy stuff we've dabbled in and we haven't had much success with it, but people like classic Christmas and I think just keep it simple, you know,
Tommy Cole: You know, you hit something really interesting, classic Christmas. So what, what is your take on all these, Glitzy, all these like, what are these like, what do you call these things out there in the yard that are like reindeers and blowups and all that. [00:18:00] So you're saying like, stay simple, like lights on houses and what lights and shrubs and keep it very simple and classy
Tim Hikade: That's it.
Tommy Cole: you're, you're kind of like the Chick fil A model of landscape lighting.
Tim Hikade: Exactly. Let's keep it simple. You know, many lights, roof lighting, wreaths, garland, and just keep it simple. Blow ups and all the other stuff. It takes up a lot of space. They break, if people want to add it on, we'll throw it on, on an extension cord for them. But besides that, you know, we keep it super simple.
It's easier for the guys. They know what they're using. It's all the same material and It's easier all around for us and, it's, it's a look most of the clients want,
Tommy Cole: Yeah. I did notice that in your shop, you have artificial garland wreaths. They're all different sizes, but it's basically the same wreath. That you guys generate. So in other words, you can bulk order those wreaths and a 48 inch, 36 inch, 24 inch, and keep them in stock and have [00:19:00] those available when the client is ready to upsell, because you, it's the simple wreath, you know where to get it.
You know, the cost, you know, to put it up versus having 50 clients with 50 types of different wreaths. I'm already getting a headache thinking about that.
Tim Hikade: yeah, that's it. And it's easier for the guys. You saw our racks, they just pull them as we need them. it's a 48 to 60, 30 entry, and the Garland's all the same Garland. So, quantities, the guy prepping everything, loading everything into the trucks, it's all the same materials.
So it just makes it a lot easier for everybody.
And like, we love, we love Christmas, it's all the same materials. any crew can hop on any other crew that needs to help out. And, you're not dealing with landscape projects where it's all different materials and strategizing. And we love Christmas.
It's all the same.
Tommy Cole: We love Christmas. I bet you do. You love Christmas with the cash it brings in and, and the, the work for your team. So Tim, I'm going to go through some Tommy's takeaways and add in if there's anything that I'm [00:20:00] missing, because this is, this is really good stuff. So a few takeaways that I got was one, if you're getting started in Christmas or you're about to get started, or you've started for a couple of years.
Existing clients is where to start that you already are doing some sort of service at that property, get them on board with some sort of holiday lighting. Two it's winter work for your team. So between November and December and January, tons of opportunity for them to make extra money, keep them on the payroll three, I love this idea.
Just keep it simple, classic Christmas. It's Chick fil A type service. We offer chicken and different varieties of chicken and that's it. Very hard margin work. Very profitable. I love your takeaway on training and safety is the number one thing because that stuff can be dangerous, way more dangerous I would think than landscape.
And one of the things I took away was plan ahead. I [00:21:00] love the March Madness idea. I love the Christmas in July idea, but you got to plan ahead for material, deliveries, training. It's not like you show up on November 1st. you just roll up the truck and get lights out the door. Anything I'm missing there, Tim?
Tim Hikade: I think that pretty much covers it all, you know, just keep it simple and start. That's it. You got to start, you know, a lot of talk. A lot of guys are hesitant. He's got to start with one and take it from there.
Tommy Cole: Start with some of your best clients cause above your best clients will be a little more forgiving for the hiccups along the way. Right. That's where I would start.
Yeah. And they know you, they know you're service, you know, you know, You just got to start, Well, good stuff, Tim. Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. It is Christmas in July, according to Tim Hickade. I will, that's the famous quote at the day. I enjoyed it, Tim. Next time I need to probably wear my Santa Claus hat or something like that with some With some lights around my [00:22:00] neck next time, but thanks, thanks, Tim.
We really enjoyed it. Thank you for taking the time out in your busy schedule.
Tim Hikade: no problem. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
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