Let There Be Light

Jeremiah Olsen, a 23-year-old entrepreneur, calls his business, "Let there be Light," his love child. The Provo-based window cleaning and Christmas lights installation company is the first of many businesses Olsen plans to start. He and his partners, Lance and Ryan Wight, want to learn as much as they can from running the company, and apply those lessons to their future ventures. “I’ll know I’ll be making a lot of mistakes with my first company,” he said. For instance, undercutting the competition helped the company gain market share, but also hurt its profit margins and ability to expand, he said.
“The profit margins for window cleaning aren’t very big. if we undercut other companies to win a customer, the margins become so small that the account becomes barely profitable,” Olsen said. “As owners, we know the costs associated so we know how low we can go when we undercut our competition in the lighting business. But it’s hard to train competent sales staff, some of whom undersold their accounts. Without good sales people, we can’t expand.” But he said he has learned a lot from dealing with different companies, how to negotiate better prices, what types of services customers want, and what they’re willing to pay per month for certain services.
While Christmas lights and decoration installations account for 70 percent of his company’s revenue, Olsen struggles with generating steady cash-flow during the off-holiday season. For tips on managing cash flow, he turned to Peter Robinson, Morris Professor of Entrepreneurship at Utah Valley University’s Woodbury School of Business.

• The story

Olsen and his partners were selling pest control services for EcoSure in Provo when the idea for their business began. “Lance and Ryan had worked for a Christmas lights installation company in Ogden, and they thought it would be a great way to bring in income during winter,” Olsen said. Founded in 2008, let there be Light began installing holiday lights and decorations in residential areas — primarily for homes that are more than 2,700 square feet — and then later, commercial buildings. It also sells holiday lights for wholesalers like Sprinkler World in Orem. Last year, the company added window cleaning and other handyman services, which now account for 30 percent of its revenues. The company, which is now looking at adding pest control, power spraying and other services, has two offices in Provo and Ogden. It has a total of 250 customers including 200 in Utah County and the rest in Ogden and the Salt Lake area.

• The advice

Develop a whole home service package for your customers, and sell it as a time saver, Robinson said. For say $100 a month, you can provide services every quarter like installing holiday lights, window cleaning, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, pest control, tree pruning, adding water softener salts, changing furnace filters and batteries in smoke detectors, and lawn fertilizing services. These services can be customized and priced accordingly. “You’re basically providing services that home owners don’t want to do themselves either because they have no time or they don’t want to, or forget about doing,” he said. “It’s value-added with very minimal costs.” Depending on the services you provide, you may want to set up a multi-year contract with clients who just want you to install their Christmas lights and decorations, Robinson said. “If you’re doing the whole home concept, you can do a yearly or a two year contract, because toward the second year, you may see costs going up enough that you would want to renegotiate the following year.”
Developing alliances or partnerships with pest control and lawncare service companies and outsourcing work to them could help bring in additional revenue for the company. “What you’re good at is sales, and if that’s what you do best, subcontract everything else. You just make the sale, get the companies to guarantee their work, and get 10 percent to 20 percent off the contract,” he said. “You still want to be providing some value-added services because you want to be able to maintain personal contact with your customers, and be able to assess their needs and up-sell them.” Developing an advisory board or a group of three to five business mentors and meeting with them on a quarterly basis to tap their expertise could also help Olsen’s business, Robinson said.” You can bring up problems you have, ask for suggestions on services you can offer and build the business with the customer in mind,” he said.



The Business: Let there Be Light
The Players: Jeremiah Olsen, 23, co-owner, manages accounts acquisition and accounting; Lance Wight, 23, and Ryan Wight, 23, co-owners are both responsible for account acquisition and management.
The Service: Installs Christmas lights and decorations, provides window cleaning services to homes and businesses.
Bottom Line: Annual revenues of $40,000 a year
Contact: 801-870-0166

The Challenge: How to generate steady income throughout the year especially during the off-Christmas holiday season? How to provide more value-added services and improve profitability?