Daniel Cowan: So I guess we'll start off with one of the first questions I have is how long have you been installing Christmas lights for professionally? And is this a part of your existing service or do you just focus exclusively online?
Daniel Bellows: Yeah, so this is our first season doing holiday lighting. So, this is what February so October November, so we were three or four months post our first ever holiday light. season so this was all exciting for me.
Daniel Cowan: Fantastic. That is a big steep learning curve.
Daniel Bellows: Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Cowan: What's when your favorite part of the business?
Daniel Bellows:
Daniel Bellows: I mean I enjoy I mean dealing with customers that are In a different way than what we're used to I mean people are excited to have their windows cleaned or things power washed or their gutters cleaned. But when you give someone a quote for Holiday lighting Their mood is It's a different type of mood. People that call for Holiday lighting or excited to have it done.
Daniel Cowan: Yeah.
Daniel Bellows: that's really nice to deal with when maybe that's not what you always deal with. On a day-to-day so that's probably my favorite thing about putting them up. And then of course getting the feedback after putting them up about the products that you guys provide I mean, all of our customers were Really really impressed with the quality of the product.
Daniel Cowan: Did you experience any challenges with a product you may have used before and if so, how have our products helped overcome those challenges?
Daniel Bellows: Yeah, so before for myself and for family and a few friends, we would put lights up on their home. Of course. They were always The Big Box store products and those could not be cut to Links. So you had to plan things out a lot you had to use regular Box Store extension cord. So that created issues. So yeah, just less professional the quality was. challenging and then of course all the issues On doing it with your products. it solves those issues by being able to custom cut things to the link that you need them.
Daniel Cowan: Okay, excellent. Now you mentioned earlier that you already had some feedback from customers already that they do like the light. what exactly the love about the product from big star lights?
Daniel Bellows: All of our customers mentioned how much brighter they are than everyone else's lights, whether it be in their neighborhood or…
Daniel Cowan: Okay.
Daniel Bellows: or the Box Store products that use the year before having a professional done.
Daniel Cowan: right
Daniel Bellows: They just really noticed a difference in the quality and the brightness.
Daniel Cowan: that's something we definitely strive for and we work really hard to maintain that brightness without making it too high of a wattage so that you can have those longer runs.
Daniel Bellows: Yeah.
Daniel Cowan: Can you share any specific projects where big star lights made it a significant difference?
Daniel Bellows: so this being my first year, I mean all of our projects were for new customers that we hadn't done lights on before because we weren't offering it but
Daniel Bellows: We did a commercial building that they enjoyed how it looked so much that they had a professional videographer come out and do A Drone footage to create a Christmas card for everybody that works at the office and they sent it out Showing a drone overview of the whole building lit up for the holidays.
Daniel Bellows: that they were that impressed with the product and how it looked. That they wanted to get video footage of it. So that was cool to be a part of that. And then we did a tree wrap for a lady she used about.
Daniel Bellows: 32 no, I'm not sure I think.
Daniel Bellows: I would need to look at the count, but she used a lot of strands of red mini lights on a big humongous oak tree. And that's all she wanted done. And her husband had done it years before with. Box Store lights and they had always had a lot of troubles with them and She was really happy with it. Everybody was happy with it It was the same thing. The y couldn't believe how easy it was to deal with because we put them on automatic timers. And just the brightness and quality. It just look really professional. I mean One of the jobs we did I could see from about.
Daniel Bellows: two miles away in the distance driving this road. I could see the blue gleaming off the house from Far Away in the distance knowing that that was the house. We put the lights on so that was pretty cool.
Daniel Cowan: Awesome, and I don't know how much competition is in your area. and if there is what ways Do you think banks are lights?
Daniel Cowan: There's our lights have set you apart from any competition.
Daniel Bellows: the quality I'm confident in telling people that we sell to and…
Daniel Cowan: Yeah.
Daniel Bellows: install to The manufacturer warranty that's behind them and how long they'll last I mean for me it's a good selling point. I tell I explained to them that You guys mainly sell to people in Canada and in the Northeast and Northwest of the United States and that. this product is able to handle the weather. In those areas, how it can hold up in South, Texas. Perfectly fine exceed the expectations and the longevity that they're looking for because our competition is mostly landscapers. And they're charging Bottom Dollar, but they're using a bottom dollar product.
Daniel Bellows: the clips they use the plugs they're using are very very cheap and poorly made so because I had to use some of those products on a whim a few times and had to go to the box stores to
Daniel Bellows: to purchase some of the landscape supply stores around here and purchase some of the plugs that I ran out of and They're all using the spt-1 wire and with the green. I mean, I had some plugs that just outright didn't work. I tried them all different ways and just I mean I had a whole of I think the package had 25 in it, and I think that maybe 10% of the 25 worked So you'd be up on the ladder trying to install a plug.
Daniel Cowan: Okay.
Daniel Bellows: Somewhere and you'd have to keep pulling them out and trying them until they worked. So that was a challenge. But I think I had an issue.
Daniel Cowan: okay, and just
Daniel Bellows: I think I had one bulb. That just flat out did not work with your product. Pretty good,…
Daniel Cowan: okay.
Daniel Bellows: and we bought. a few bulbs so
Daniel Cowan: And I mean it's using a big star lights heavy noticed Can you tribute any cost savings or increase deficiency in your projects? That may improve your bottom line.
Daniel Bellows: I mean, we'll have to see it being my first year. I don't have anything to compare it to But just from that one instance I told you…
Daniel Cowan: Okay.
Daniel Bellows: where I had to plugs from another distributor a lot of the product didn't work and that was of course. Very frustrating to spend the money on something that didn't even function. So all of your product except for one bowl worked perfectly as stated.
Daniel Cowan: What's one piece of advice? You might give to others considering installing lights professionally?
Daniel Bellows: do it sooner than later because it's an awesome add-on. and then of course teaming up with big star lights is just like it's been better than I expected It was smoother than I expected. I mean, like I said before the information you guys do provide. It's super helpful.
Daniel Bellows: And I think growing on that and staying in the loop with that could just help me more and more. So I hope that's helpful.