It’s part science and part art. Landscape lighting is a wonderful field,” says Michael Gallia, owner of Metamorphosis Landscaping, Milbrae, Calif.
He founded the company 16 years ago, focusing on second-story decks at first. He’s since expanded it into a full landscape firm and has been providing lighting services for more than a decade.
Gallia has discovered that integrating lighting services into his company has been rewarding both professionally and personally. He takes pride in seeing the smiles on his satisfied clients’ faces after a job well done.
Landscape company owners thinking about providing lighting services, can pick up a few pointers from Gallia about making sales, installing lighting and then maintaining them.
Getting started
“We just saw a need for it,” says Gallia, explaining why Metamorphosis Landscaping began providing lighting services for high-end residential properties. His company is located in the San Francisco Bay area, where the homes are expensive and people have to work hard to keep them. Other than on the weekends, the people usually aren’t home during the day to enjoy their landscapes, so it makes sense that they’d want them lit to enjoy at night.
Gallia says that his company has always been technologically advanced and he liked pushing the envelope with irrigation and decking, so lighting technology was no problem. However, he still studied his options very carefully.
“Truly learn about the products,” he advises, adding that a good distributor is key. Back when he was exploring landscape lighting services, his distributor sat down with him and walked him through all the concepts.
“After that, all the pieces fell together and made sense.”
Selling
“It’s profitable,” admits Gallia when asked how landscape lighting profit margins compare to the other services he provides. But, he warns against having the wrong motivations. His three keys to selling landscape lighting services are:
1. Truly be excited about lighting
2. Have a professionally shot portfolio
3. Give tours of past clients to potential clients
“If you’re just trying to sell it to add to your profit margins, clients smell that a mile off,” explains Gallia. “You have to truly be excited about lighting.”
Gallia adds that the photos in his portfolio are taken at dusk, showing the landscape lighting in very “demure” terms. “People just love that,” he says.
To prepare for the tours, Metamorphosis Landscaping goes to some of their past clients a day or two in advance to provide some free services, such as trimming the garden so it looks its best for the tour.
The tours start at 6 p.m. (dusk is best), and the clients are transported in one or two large rented buses. The first three stops are in daylight to show irrigation and structural issues, says Gallia. Then the last five jobs are at night.
“There’s no fee but we’re selective,” he says of the tours. “We don’t let every Tom, Dick and Harry come in and steal ideas. We screen pretty good. If this tells you anything, 70 percent of the people who put their feet on the bus buy our services.
“If you do a better job, you’ll make money and you’ll get a lot of referrals by doing nothing.”
Gallia adds that the average lighting job that Metamorphosis Landscaping does has 150 fixtures. Some can have upwards of 300.
Why so many? “When you try to light, you want to take a scalpel versus taking a shotgun approach, so you’re using smaller lights, more specific lights,” he explains. “And what we also do, one of our trademarks is these computerized lighting controls where you have your lights and they’re all on separate channels, just like you would zone an irrigation system; and you have it set for Party, Intimate Dinner, Safety, Dog Pooh is actually one of them…” Dog pooh?
“You see the dog out in his garden but not when the other lights are on,” says Gallia.
“One we have set up for spas,” he continues, “where it’s relatively dim around the spa but bright around the property line so that it’s private, so that neighbors can’t spy.”
Maintenance
Selling lighting is one thing, but what about maintaining them?
“The (lighting) fixtures are built like a tank so you won’t often be called back,” says Gallia. “Occasionally there will be a problem. The maintenance gardener hits it with a weed whacker or something, but more often than not there’s not much.
“Let’s say for the first eight years of a fixture’s life there’s no worries. From eight to 10 years we’re starting to see a little bit of repairs here and there. And then at about 10 to 12 years the clients usually want fresh fixtures in.”
In fact, some of the very first lighting jobs that Metamorphosis Landscaping did more than a decade ago are now being updated with new lighting, notes Gallia. “Technology’s moved forward, the fixtures have lived their life, but the wiring and the actual electrical are already pre-done so all you’re doing is like changing bed sheets.”
Gallia concludes with one final tip, “One thing I’ve learned, leave extra room in your transformers because once we’ve wired it and lit up the project — in all the years — I’ve never had one client that said, ‘I want less lights.'”
— Greg McConnell is a business writer who lives in Palatine, Ill. Reach him at gjmc90@yahoo.com.
