Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Kurtz.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Mike. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In 2005 I saw an opportunity to make extra money during the slow time of the year for construction by hanging Christmas lighting for existing customers that were either too old or had no interest in climbing on top of their house.
I created a small website and did a little google ad that focused only around Rockwall / Heath area advertising our service. The next day my phone blew up. I had no idea there was such a demand and we still had some small construction jobs going at the time.
We were late, it was already Thanksgiving and I had not thought this through. We quickly had to juggle around 40 light customers and our small construction jobs to make sure we still had the lights up in time for people to enjoy them and meet our deadlines for previous jobs.
2005 was a huge eye opener for this business, with a great learning curve ahead I spent 2006 making sure we could handle more clients and larger jobs as the season approached.
From 2006 to 2012 we grew every year, from starting with only 40 clients my first year we were now averaging around 200 residential houses. In 2013 I decided to expand out of just Rockwall and go as far as Frisco, and really focus more on large commercial jobs.
We now have added more employees, trucks and full-time office staff during the holiday season, and from the small idea back in 2005, we currently serve around 400 residential homes all from Rockwall to Frisco, several municipalities and a few dozen HOA’s.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Growth has always been a struggle. The customers are always there and have always been easy to reach out to and acquire with the systems we have put in place. Time has always been against us.
You have a very small window to get all your customers serviced, now usually we start in late October and by the second week in December if your client’s lights are not up they are going to look elsewhere, a bad stretch of weather in November can keep you off houses and put you days behind, time you don’t have.
Growth just adds more projects which require more time, and there is simple just not enough of it during this time of the year.
Employees are also a struggle, you always want to keep the good ones coming back every year so we pay them well and give them lots of hours, but without year-round work they have to find it somewhere else during the off season and sometime you don’t get them back. This leads to a training curve with the new guys that we need to start early, once November hits it’s there is no time for much else except getting the lights up.
Please tell us about Rockwall Lights.
We basically specialize in installing our Christmas lights. “Our” lights are the important part here, we don’t install Wal-Mart lights or the lights a customer picked up at the hardware store.
We provide Commercial grade Christmas lights that come off 1000′ reels that are custom fit to the client’s project only. This provides a much nicer look with reliability year after year.
Once the client has us install our lights we guarantee them year after year. Once the customer has purchased lights from us they will never have to buy another bulb or socket again as long as we install and remove them. Even if a bulb burns out we take care of it as part of our service
Storage is another option we have; most customers don’t need another thing taking up space. With our storage option you don’t have to remember to leave the lights out for us, you get first option for scheduling and an early bird discount for scheduling early.
Another aspect that sets us apart from our competition is we have full-time office staff during Christmas season. Call around, most guys are doing this part time with their full-time job and taking call on their cell phones when they can.
We are always there for our customer during Christmas with fully manned phones and office staff. Other conveniences include online billing, online scheduling, custom designs, drone videos of projects, professional photos and commercial displays.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have started our Christmas lighting wholesale business much sooner. This year we have invested in a new warehouse to house containers of Commercial Christmas lighting to provide to other installers.
Commercial Lighting supplies were hard to come by when we first started, since then we have made the relationships to be able to provide these for other installers, along with answers to all the question that come with starting a Christmas lighting business.
Contact Info:
- Address: 800 Lake Shadow Dr.,
Lavon, TX 75166 - Website: www.rockwalllights.com
- Phone: 972-630-9627
- Email: rockwalllights@gmail.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Rockwall-Lights-120309208077908/
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