Wesley O'Leary: My name is Wes O’Leary, I own North Pro Home and Cottage Services, pretty much like a home service business doing everything from house washing to window cleaning to Christmas lights. We’re located in like the kind of central Ontario area about an hour, hour and a half north of Toronto.
Daniel Cowan: And how long have you been installing Christmas lights for professionally? And is this part of an existing service or do you just focus on lights exclusively?
Wesley O'Leary: Yeah. So it's been probably a couple of years now that we've had - we've been really into the lights. It's been I mean, we've just been kind of growing step by step as it goes.
It initially started with, just like I said, our kind of house washing and window cleaning, and then we were like, what do we do in October, November, and December? And then we kind of moved into the Christmas lights and it's been I mean, in my opinion, I love it more than, than the house washing and stuff.
Yeah, we figured out before it works a different part of the mind and the crews love it more and it's a little bit cleaner, a little more exciting.
Daniel Cowan:
Yeah. And maybe that's one of your favorite parts of the business. Or maybe you can elaborate. What is your favorite part of the business?
Wesley O'Leary:
I was washing a window cleaning, you know, you go in, it looks nice at the end everyone's like, okay, cool, you get paid. But Christmas lights, like, I mean, almost all the clients we do work for, they're just ecstatic about the lights. They're like, my gosh, you've never had lights before because, you know, they're 65 and they can't go up a ladder and we can actually bring like some kind of Christmas lights to them or they're just, you know, they're they've just never had gotten around to getting lights. And this year they're like, let's do it.
And they’re just loving it, right? So that's, to be honest, that's the actual part I love most about it.
Daniel Cowan: And what about is there a least favorite part of it?
Wesley O'Leary: Least favorite it's cold in central Ontario. That's pretty chilly.
Daniel Cowan: Yeah. Yeah.
Wesley O'Leary: But't know. I love it probably to take downs. I guess just trying to figure out when to schedule our take down time because sometimes March can be minus three degrees. Sometimes it can be 20 degrees. it's super weird over here.
Daniel Cowan: right
Wesley O'Leary: So yeah, I mean that I love it.
Daniel Cowan: All right, and before working with Big Star Lights. did you have any specific challenges with related products And if so how have our products helped overcome those challenges?
Wesley O'Leary: So before I was with big star, I was with a kind of a more Local Company in Ontario and the big issue we found there will I mean every suppliers got their different Hues of Warm White and stuff like that. So mix and matching really was an ideal. But the first year we were with the other supplier. They actually ran out of Warm White in end in November beginning in December. I was like kind of need some more of those and in checking with you guys. That's why I've discovered you guys had lots and stocks and was like, he actually got lots of stuff on here. And then that's when I kind of made the progression over but yeah, it's mostly the stock and I personally like the warm white a little nicer with yours rather than the other one, but
Daniel Cowan: Yeah, we worked really hard at making sure that warm white matches the incandescent warm white to which is everybody is really familiar with that that candle light glow is…
Wesley O'Leary: Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Cowan: what really makes people.
Daniel Cowan: Feel like they're in a much more traditional environment and…
Wesley O'Leary: Absolutely.
Daniel Cowan: we work really try hard to mimic that. What feedback have you have received from your clients regarding the lights from that you might have bought from Big Star Lights?
Wesley O'Leary: I mean they've been ecstatic like the lights I but knock on wood, but I haven't had any service calls so far this year with bulbs going out or wires not working or things flickering like everything's been running smooth. And so I mean no calls is good for my end things. But the lights, they're bright.
Wesley O'Leary: Some places only Supply a certain few. I know one client this year had fuchsia and yellow or something like something weird, right and luckily you guys had something that can fit the bill.
Daniel Cowan: Can you think of a specific project and there's another specific project like that where we're Big Star Lights made a big difference?
Wesley O'Leary: Let's see a big difference would probably be, probably actually we are originally going to do some more casual lighting where the clips are super specific so we had the multi-clips from you guys. But we also have a whole variety of multi Clips. We didn't actually end up getting to use those gutter clips yet that you guys came out with this year, but they looked super sweet for the ones with the gutter guards. Definitely that'll be probably a game changer for next year. I'd assume I'm not sure if those are specific to you guys are not but those look like they be really awesome for next year for sure. But so far, it's been pretty much just great product that lasts so long.
Daniel Cowan: Yeah those gutter clips we designed ourselves as the first of his kind to specifically work with gutter guard. So it'll solve a lot of issues…
Wesley O'Leary: Yeah. exactly
Daniel Cowan: because gutter guard is becoming more and more popular at homes. And so if you come across that you won't be able to say you won't have to say no to the customer.
Wesley O'Leary: Yeah, and yeah, you mentioned challenges before I forgot that is definitely one of the challenges is gutter guards trying to work around that right.
Daniel Cowan: Yeah. Yeah.
Wesley O'Leary: So those might come in really handy this year.
Daniel Cowan: you mentioned brightness as something that sets big star lights products apart from others? Can you think of any other differences that set us apart?
Wesley O'Leary: Specific actual product-wise. I mean it's like I said the brightness and stuff. The actual build quality lights is great. For actual product wise I've really mostly only used some of those bulbs. I do like the mini lights with instead of just a regular outlet plug. It's like the watertight seals and everything on there. Whereas our old supplier had The two prong plug-in and you had to try and tie it in a knot and plug it in so it didn't come loose and so definitely like that kind of whatever you call it the coaxial or something like that where you're consider them on. that's a really big one but For the product wise for the service wise though. when I ordered something there this year so there's a big spool of electrical wire.
Wesley O'Leary: and when it through shipping or whatever happened spool the end of it broke off or something like that. So it's a kind of a jumble in the box. So I'll give you guys a call and he's like, we'll find something for you. You guys found a new real for me. You sent it out just free of charge just to kind of, make sure it wasn't gonna be absolute hassle for me for the year. That was I mean, like I said not really so much the product but the quality of the customer service was phenomenal on that side of things compared to some others have had in the past. Yeah.
Daniel Cowan: I'm really glad to hear that. since using us at big star lights, how do you noticed any cost savings or increase in efficiency in your projects? that really helped improve your bottom line?
Wesley O'Leary: it's been I really don't have too much experience there Just a couple years, right but definitely compared to when you can buy in bulk. That's definitely a game changer, especially at the very beginning. I was like, my gosh, how can even buy that many lights at one time but now we're getting more and more clients. It's like, for sure. I'm going to save the 10 to 15% whatever it is, right, so, Just that alone like that the fact you can do bulk pricing. I'm not sure if other places do it too, but the ball pricing is brilliant.
Daniel Cowan: so then let's talk about product a bit more in your opinion. how does Big Star Lights stay ahead in terms of innovation and meeting the evolving needs of your business and your installers.
Wesley O'Leary: I know when I was first taking a look at you guys there the really key difference was you guys had a lot. Of things that you could actually get and there's so many things on your site that I haven't even really ventured into yet. there's the Twinkly Pro and all that kind of stuff that I want to get into more this year because I haven't really seen it other than in your store and it looks like it can open up a whole other ball game of lights. Right? So, Twinkly Pro and even like some of the other kind of styles lights the flood lights and things like that. It could be super neat.
Daniel Cowan: maybe something that you would have told yourself, two years ago self before getting into Christmas Lights?
Wesley O'Leary: Yeah. I'd say definitely make sure you're organized on your takedowns because it is confusing going back for here too. And if you didn't organize anything, but definitely simplifying it in a sense that I got the very start we offer everything we had garland, we had lights you could do this and that and mix and match but when we actually started simplifying things a little bit more that way we can kind of predict what we're gonna get from you guys. We can predict what's gonna happen in the market and then we're prepared for when people ask for things. that was a big change rather than just …
Daniel Cowan: Yeah.
Wesley O'Leary: Let's stock literally everything and see what they want. It's like all right, we're gonna offer this kind of selection. We know that you guys are always going to have in stock. So we just, if we have any more just order it back and it's kind of streamline that way that's probably the biggest difference.
Daniel Cowan: Yeah, those are all the questions that I had on the list here. And is there anything else that you wanted to share?
Wesley O'Leary: he I think that's pretty much everything.
Daniel Cowan: before we started recording
Wesley O'Leary: Every time I call you guys was like, this is how you do it. This is that or I guess I'm just some photos over a couple times with some trees. I'm like Daniel. I have no idea how many he's gonna go on this tree and you're like, no about this much maybe and you can use these kind of lights and so just customer service been phenomenal pretty much is the best thing for sure.