From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
From Operator to Owner: Scaling Smarter with Ryan Lee
Tired of adding hours and still feeling stuck? We dive straight into the moves that create freedom: pricing for profit, selling outcomes in the home, and using a simple, layered marketing mix that actually compounds results. Our guest, Ryan Lee—former landscape lighting owner turned coach—shares how a 10% price increase can double profit for many service businesses, why on-the-spot closes beat emailed quotes, and how to use personal branding to smooth out slow seasons.
We get honest about the operator-to-owner shift and why so many founders accidentally buy themselves an 80-hour job. Ryan lays out a practical way to buy back your time: compress your workweek, force focus, and dedicate protected blocks to working on the business—hiring, training, pricing strategy, and sales scripts. We also unpack the power of niche: how specializing helps you stand out, charge premium prices, and deliver a white-glove experience that earns five-star reviews and referrals. When your core runs smoothly, you can bolt on high-ticket services the right way—serving the same customer with a dedicated team and tapping the goldmine in your existing client list.
You’ll leave with three levers to pull now: raise prices to fund growth, close in person while emotion is high, and prioritize high-quality leads over volume. Expect actionable ideas you can apply today—whether you run HVAC, plumbing, electrical, pest, or lighting. Want more of Ryan’s insights? Check out Lighting for Profits and connect with him online. If this conversation sparked ideas, share it with a fellow owner, hit follow, and leave a quick review so we can help more service pros build profit and freedom.
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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com
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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
What's up, Limited Heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Chris Dole, co-founder and lead strategist at Limited Marketing, your one-stop place, where you could be building a great brand and driving great strategies. Today I am talking to someone outside of my traditional industries. So I'm I'm in love with the idea of what we're gonna talk about today to get you outside of the normal speakers that we hear in the APEC and plumbing space, but someone that still understands home service. And so I'm really excited to talk today. You're gonna want to grab everything that I normally tell you. If you're on the treadmill, turn up your AirPods. If you're driving, buckle up, all the good things. But let's system lemonade. All right, Ryan, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks so much for having me. I love nerding out on business and profits and all this stuff. So thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, who doesn't love to nerd out on profits? I'm totally here for that. So I was reading your background. So you and I have not met before the podcast. We kind of did a call. Uh, but when I saw this come through, I was like, oh, this is interesting. So, contractors, when you're listening, I loved one of the things he told me that he was about is bolting on high-ticket offerings. We're not gonna live a lot in that space because I love a lot of the other stuff he has to say there. But if you're listening, bolt on high-ticket offerings is a really cool thing that Ryan's gonna talk about. And listen, contractors, I'm gonna step on your toes already. Y'all aren't good at it and you don't like it. But Ryan, I want all of my listeners to know why they should care about what you have to say? What gives you authority today?
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. Well, I would say, I mean, unless you hate money, success, having creating impact in the world, buying back your time to get freedom for yourself, then I don't know, maybe you shouldn't pay attention. But yeah, I I I had my own lighting business, uh, specifically outdoor lighting. So landscape lighting business grew it up to uh a couple million dollars in sales uh every year. And I and it took me 12 years to do that, but I sold that in 2019 and uh now full time. This is what I'm I'm focused on helping that small business owner go from operator to owner. So I'm not just a guy who's like, well, I'm doing this because I I have to, like, I'm doing this because I want to, and that's really one of my goals. Yeah, yeah, you've lived that life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you went through it, you went through it. So, one of the first topics that we decided we would kind of talk about is you know, scaling without getting burned out, right? So, like, how do I build my company, grow my company without being just so burned out, so worn out uh from not only the emotional stress, the financial stress, and things like that. Like you've worked with hundreds of service businesses, owners who maybe have just hit the wall. What do you tell them about scaling right away? You know, maybe something that that is just a little piece of advice for them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, for me, it comes down to being intentional. So you might listen to this podcast or someone else's dream, and you're like, Yeah, I want to scale. And it's like, why? Like, do you do you really know why you want to? Because you like I used to try to live off of other people's dreams, and I'm like, Well, you the more you learn about them, like, I don't want their dream, you know, like I just want my dream. Yeah, that's a nightmare, right? And so, yeah, like just because I did something and I talk about how it's awesome, it might not be awesome for you. And so um, you you got to understand there is gonna be sacrifices to be made. You can listen to some tips and tricks and stuff like that, but um, growing a business is hard. There's there's gonna be times where you got to put the gas down and and you're gonna have to, you know, work some weekends or whatever. Um, but there are some tips, there are some strategies that can help shortcut that. And so, what I tell people is like, I don't really care about revenue. Like, I'm so focused on helping people create profit in their business because that's how it's done. You have to be able to afford to scale. And it's it sounds obvious, but most businesses fail because they don't have enough money, right? And if you have enough money, you can buy back your time, you can hire more people, you can hire the right people instead of complaining, like, I can't believe this guy wants 20 an hour. I'm like, I'll pay him 30 because now they're gonna overdeliver for me.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Well, I love this. Um, and I love like one of the points that I wrote down that you mentioned earlier was like, you've got to shift from being like this technician or owner or operator um into really like owning what you're doing and being intentional. Like uh that was a whole theme for me a couple of years ago. Uh, because I'm a high eye on the disc profile, like very um, very talkative, very outgoing, and I have tons of all these big ideas, but actual intentionality behind implementation and execution really can change. But you know, growth doesn't just come from adding hours to your day, right? It's it's building leverage. I loved that kind of mentality there. The mind shift that is really important that when it comes to growing your business, so many people are just in the wrong state of mind. So, your background though, you actually blend sales and marketing together, which you know, speaking my love language. Um, what strategies do you see working right now in service businesses um that's helping drive revenue?
SPEAKER_00:Well, if if I could go back just a little bit because the the one thing that happened to me when I started my business, I I thought I was doing things right. I've got a marketing degree, I got an MBA. Like you would think I know how to do stuff, but the real world is different than the book world, right? And so I was like, man, how are how are these companies doing this? There's massive companies, and they're like, how are they afford to do this? And I realized you mentioned a really good word, leverage. And I realized there's that the easiest thing that any business today, right now, can use to apply leverage to their business is changing their pricing. And pricing is so magical because you can do it today. You don't have to hire anyone, you don't have to hire me, you don't have to join my program, you don't have to hire more people, get more trucks with a small, I'm talking a small, like 10% price increase. If you think about it, like what what do you think that the average service business, like the average? There's there's above and there's below, but what's the average net margin of a service company, like you know, net income? What do you think they're making at the end of the year?
SPEAKER_01:Oh gosh, hardly anything, most of them. Hardly anything. Well, and then you have ones that are making a lot because they are so skimping on everything else, like they're probably like drastic extremes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they might be like, you know, I'm I'm not investing in this and I'm doing everything myself, so I'm making a lot more percentage, but it's still a nightmare, right? Yeah, but let's just be generous and say the average service business makes 10%. Okay. Um, net. And again, some are making way less, some might be making more, but on 10%, if we raise our price by just 10%, we just doubled, we doubled the profitability of that company in one tiny move. Like that's huge. You know, if you're if your 10% is$200,000 profit, now you just made an extra$200,000. So, like, what what would you do with an extra$200,000? That's why I love leverage, is because you can find these small tweaks, a small 10% increase is a hundred percent effect to your bottom line.
SPEAKER_01:Love it. Um, and it's not so it's not rocket science. That's the other thing. Like, this is not people get really caught up in pricing. And you know, for most service businesses, you're not dealing with a recurring service model. So if you just take a price increase, most people haven't experienced your pricing yet to even know that you took an increase. And if you are on a recurring service model, like maintenance plans and recurring contracts, it's so minimal that most people know that there's pricing that has to be increased over time. So it's not it's not as brutal as it might intend to be. Um, but I know you have this background in sales and marketing, like you mentioned. Um, are you seeing a certain pattern right now in the industry that is um really helping companies drive revenue?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So that this these trends happen regardless of like the problem is if people aren't investing consistently into branding, into marketing, into advertising, then they follow the trends of the economy. So if it's like like right now, we're end of August. This is traditionally a slow period of time for landscape lighting businesses because people are going back to school and finishing vacations and people just aren't focused on like home service type stuff. Now, September, October, November, it's gonna ramp up very, very quickly. Definitely the best time of the season. So the problem is if you're not doing some of these other strategies, like you're just gonna follow the curve. And it's like, why? Like you don't have to. And so, like right now, the companies that are investing heavily into social media and specifically like personal branding, building a relationship with their audience, with their clientele, they are what's happening is yeah, there might be a dip with like an August or a certain time period, depending on where you're located. But instead of dropping down to like a really, really slow month, they'll just dip a little bit. And so maybe, maybe there's still a dip, but they're minimizing the effect of the natural economic state. So, one, I would say you should be doubling down on your social media, personal branding, getting in front of the camera, building a relationship with your audience.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Listen, preaching to the choir. Um, lemon see, you know, we offer full service social media marketing for our contractors, and there are contractors that begrudgingly do it, and there are those that embrace it and love it. And either they intentionally delegate it to someone on their team or they're the ones that are doing it. And they are the ones that their brand recognition and their organic searches grow is growing exponentially faster than our other contractors who are just um, you know, lazily uh sitting around like well, I make a few posts. When you become intentional about marketing on social media to build customer relationships, you really start turning the curve, like turn around that I call it moving that cruise ship, turning it back around. So, and I also love like stop selling features and start selling outcomes. Like that's a traditional approach sometimes too. Like you, as a home service contractor, you are solving a need that homeowners have. And so you have to get out of their bank accounts, right? Stop worrying that they can't afford the options, that they can't afford these cool features, communicating equipment or you know, new uh different styles of thermostats or whatever that you've got that's new. Um, you have to stop worrying about their financial ability to afford it and start telling them what problems it's going to solve and then letting them decide if they can afford it. I'm sure you ran into the same thing with landscape lighting. Like, if you worried about if everyone could afford it, you probably wouldn't have sold anything.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, the the problem is like the average homeowner, they're not the expert. Like they're too ignorant to know better. So if you ask them like what their budget is, like what that's a that's a dumb question. They say there's no such thing as a dumb question, but asking someone what their budget is is actually a dumb question, okay? Because like as an expert, as a solution provider, as an experienced creator, like we my your budget has nothing to do with if I'm coming to your house and I'm gonna give you a lighting design, I'm gonna design on possibilities. I'm gonna show you what's possible because you don't know. You know, you could say, well, I only want to spend 5,000. That's totally fine. Would it be okay is as an expert, if I showed you what's possible? If I if you let me off the leash and went crazy and I just nerded out on lighting, and it's like, well, yeah, show me what you got. I'm probably not gonna spend it, but show it to me. And I show you something that's thirty thousand dollars, you still might not spend thirty, but you might spend 15. Right, you might spend more than your original budget, and it's like, well, that's just because you didn't know. And and why would you? You're not a lighting person, you know. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Same thing.
SPEAKER_00:I can show you and I can create this experience for you. So when you come home, you come and you show up to this resort style property, like, dude, this reminds me of the vacation we went on to Mexico, and then you're in backyard, you have your sanctuary, and you're around your pool, and you have this really you don't have that glary floodlight, the security light hitting you in the face, like, man, I can relax and unwind. I have more peace in my life. And again, I'm I'm not saying everyone's gonna just pull the trigger on your full you know proposal, but um let them say no, you know, go for no. There's a great book called Go for No. Go for no and let them decide at that point because now they're making an educated decision. Before they were just making a decision based on a price that they made up in their head, where now you're the expert and you've differentiated yourself because everyone else just asked them what their budget was and gave them that. And now you're selling commodity instead of selling an experience.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love it. When we start focusing on, and this is why it's hard for contractors. A lot of you are like just good HVAC technicians, you're good plumbers, you're good landscapers, you're good pest control people. Like you know what exactly what pesticide to use, exactly what roof shingle to use. But you have to have the mind shift of now you own a company that provides a service. Who freaking cares what service it is when you switch your mind to go? I need to be providing solutions. It changes you from being the technician to being the owner. So I'm obsessed with that. Um, I love build on possibilities. I wrote that down. Like I sell, I do sales for lemon seed. And a lot of times I tend to find myself like I will dial back on what I'm offering based off what I think they can afford. And really at the end of the day, if I built them what I really knew they needed and let them decide that they weren't going to dive in, then that would be much more um applicable to their like that would be much more applicable to what we're saying here that I need to get out of their business, like get out of their financial business and just start providing solutions and letting them land somewhere in the middle because they don't know most of the time what it takes to really have an in-depth marketing plan or um an in uh a new HVAC system installed with brand new ductwork and updated installation and modifying their communicating equipment. They don't know, they think they do, but they really don't. So I loved that um statement. Another keynote that you made here that really stuck with me is marketing should be simple, repeatable, and measurable. Um, otherwise, you can't scale it. Um, and so Limit Seed's been talking to some private equity groups that are like they've figured out they can't just live on the hamster wheel of digital marketing. And so they're like, hey, we really should dial this in. And I'm like, man, marketing is does not have to be complicated, it can be super simple and it can be scalable very easily.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And for me, what I I call it the marketing mix. So if you if you if like if I called you and I said, Hey, I heard uh social social media is good, how how much do you charge for Facebook ads? And to your point previously, you you could just say, like, yeah, here's my here's what it is for Facebook ads, or you could sell me an experience and say, Hey, is it okay if I run something by you? Like we could do just exactly what you're asking for, but we could give you a whole package where it comes with this and this and this. And here's why it would make sense because when you do a Facebook ad, it's going to generate interest to your website. And then what we want to do with the website is we want to retarget those people, and then we want to send them a postcard and all this stuff. But the marketing mix is being everywhere, it's really just being like all over the place. So that let's say you put out yard signs, and if the only thing you did was put out yard signs, I mean that's that's fine, it works. We've we've done that, we've seen success. But then all of a sudden, that just plants a little seed in their mind, right? And then eventually they're gonna be like, they're gonna go online, and if your branding's good enough, they're gonna search for a company, maybe yours. If if your branding was good enough, they might just do a direct search. But if not, now all of a sudden they're gonna see you online. And then all of a sudden, after they see you online, you send them a retargeting Facebook ad because they were on your website, and so the and then you have a wrapped truck when you show up in the neighborhood. So it's really all of the things. Digital marketing is awesome, it allows us to use leverage, but it only works really, really good when you're doing all the things, and that's that's where it's hard for a smaller business because they're like, Well, I don't have the money, right? So that's fine. Like, start start small. You might have to be the gorilla marketing guy, you might have to dark knock doors, social media, joining or all that stuff, right? So yeah, but that's the key, is like some people tell me, Oh, I tried Facebook ads, they don't work. I tried direct mail, I tried Google Ads, they don't work, and on their own, they don't work as well. It's when you it's when you do them all together, that's when you start to gain momentum.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. And and I call it a cake approach, you know, like when you ask me for a slice of cake, I don't go, here's the egg. I have to actually take the egg and the flour and the butter and the flavoring, mix it all together, bake it correctly, let it cool, set it in front of you, slice it, and serve it on a plate. So all of those advertising tactics are literally ingredients to a perfectly baked cake. So you keep serving ingredients and wondering why the cake doesn't taste the same. Well, you're trying to make me eat an egg, a raw egg, that's nothing's been done to. So I 100%. So, you know, and we've talked a little bit about the mindset shift, like operator to owner. And uh, one of the things that really uh another thing that really stood out for me was um in one of your key points that I I really liked is like the goal is freedom, financial freedom, freedom with time, but you can't get there if you're still chained to your truck or to your company as a whole. Like, you know, if you are such an important part of the everyday operations, you should be working to get yourself out of that, right? That's what I've always tried to do.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's it's kind of ironic because if you think I I learned this actually, I learned the hard way, and I read it in the book EMyth, great book. It is like most on the e-myth is the entrepreneurial myth that entrepreneurs don't start businesses. You it's usually technicians, like we're like passionate about something, good at something, like I'm sick of working for that guy, you know, I'm not gonna be treated like that. I'll start my own business. And so you you start this business, and you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna finally get freedom, I'm gonna control my schedule. And then the irony hits in where you're like, Whoa, like I bought myself an 80-hour job. Yeah, like I'm so stuck in this business. I if I leave, like the whole thing falls apart. Um, I I I thought I got freedom and now I got, you know, I'm I'm I'm trapped in this business. So it really you you can't teach that to someone, like they almost have to experience it, right? And so once they get to that spot, then all of a sudden it's like, all right, I hit rock bottom, what do I do? And that's when you got to get intentional. That's when it's like, okay, how do I how do I build this to be so I'm not an owner or I'm not an operator, I'm an owner, right? And that's that's the biggest challenge, I think, for small businesses is it's it's hard because you get stuck on the hamster wheel, you get stuck working in the trenches, and you hear people like us talk about working on your business, like, oh, that sounds all cool, but like I don't have time. Yeah, like I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:How the heck do I do that? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, um, one of the things that and I love like you got to work on your business, not in your business. I do think that there is a fine line of that because like you still need to be actively listening, like you still need your finger on the pulse of things so that you can be creatively pivoting and being more in real time. So there's a fine line there, but the gist of that statement means you if you never look up, you can't see where you're going. So you're just like you're you know, deadheading back towards something that you can't look up, you've not looked up to see. Um, and you're just you're headed for a a place where I call it blockbustering this thing, right? Like if you never look up to see what else is going on around you and how you can make it applicable to your company, then you're just like driving. I don't know, I just feel like you're driving blind. And so you have to have a you have to have the both both hands on the wheel, if you will, um, about that. But and focus on building people. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say, here's what I do to help people work on their business because the problem is it's actually addicting. Like most of us are addicted to work, we're addicted to our business, and we're like, actually, I don't hate it. I mean, some days I do, you know, but like I actually like work, right? We're not we're not trying to just be lazy to go sit on the couch, like we actually like the chaos that we've created, we're addicted to it. So it's like, okay, we have right now, according to the calendar of 2025, we have seven days in the week. Is that right?
unknown:Correct.
SPEAKER_00:Seven days, five, five working days. Some of some of you guys are working 10. Yes. But we have seven days. But if I said today, hey, you know what? I it figured out a way, I invented two more days in the week. Do you think people would take that that as a weekend, or do you think they would just go, sweet, I'll make more money, I'll just work those days? Most business owners, they're gonna just work nine days a week. Like that's just that they're not gonna allocate that time. So I'm sharing that because we fill the time that's given to us. That's just a natural weakness of a visionary and entrepreneur. Like it's like, oh, if I got more time, then I'll just work more, right? And so what if I said, I'm creating fake rules, I understand. But what if I just said, you know what? We only have four, four days a week, starting right now. Like you only have four days a week to get the same amount of work that you're doing now in five, six, or seven. You have to get it done in four. You have to make the same amount of money. If I gave you those rules, I guarantee that everyone could figure it out. They're smart enough, they know how to do this, but they're feeling the time given to them. So I'm just asking you to collapse the time, get everything done in those four days. What would have to be true for you to do that and ask that question? What has to be true? You can do that. And now all of a sudden, you have an extra day to work on your business. You can time block to say every Tuesday, every Wednesday, every Thursday, whatever day and time that you want to time block four hours to be like, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna work on my business. I'm gonna solve the bottleneck, I'm gonna solve the problem. I suck at hiring, I suck at training, I suck at whatever it is. I want to build a better thing, a maintenance plan. It's never gonna happen because you're just feeling the time that's been given to you. So you have to get intentional, create your own rules. Like, I I always just create my own, it's my game. Yeah, I don't have to, I don't have to work seven days a week just because someone gave me seven days. I I only want to work three. So I'm only working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and I get to do whatever I want on Monday, Friday. Like it's my game, my rules. So I want everyone to take that. Like you get to you're in charge, like you, it's your life, it's your business. You don't have to take what's given you and accept that. Well, you have these days to get it done because people are smart. You can figure out how to get all the same stuff done in four days that you're taking five to seven right now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yes. I 100%. And I'm guilty, like I I am addicted to chaos, I love it. Like, I I thrive in deadlines and things like that. But I also once I actually get some downtime, true downtime, I'm like, oh, I've been missing this downtime. You know, I've been missing this. So um, here's the other topic that uh we have, and I told him at the beginning when we were prepping for this, I said, Oh, we're getting to this one. Uh, niche industries as profit machines. So niches make it easier to stand out and charge better pricing, premier pricing, um, expertise put plus specialization. So, you know, when I started Lemon Seed, that was the big thing. Like, oh my gosh, you're so niche, you're only dealing with home service industries. We love it. So, tell me a little bit about what you're saying about your focus there on those niche products or niche offerings.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, what once you discover it, it's like it's the only way to go. Yeah. So, yes, my experience with landscape lighting was was pretty cool. Um, I discovered I was a window cleaner and I discovered it through my brother. And I was like, wait, you're telling me like we could we could go from doing like$500 jobs. This was in 2007. We could go to from doing like 500 jobs to like$5,000 jobs just by doing landscape lighting. I'm like, heck yeah, let's do it. So we started, didn't know anything about it. But what I found really quickly is people loved the experience they had with us, and we weren't necessarily we were still learning, right? But we got better over time, but people were like, Man, you guys are the best people we've ever worked with. We could go in in a day and knock out a$10,000,$12,000 project. And people are like, That's phenomenal. You flip on the lights, they're like, Holy cow, this is our property. I drove, I drove past the house the first night because I didn't know that was our house, it looked so good, right? And so they loved us, and people would ask us, and I'm not kidding, Crystal, they would say, Man, you guys are the best contractor we've ever worked with. By chance, do you guys do like outdoor kitchens or do you do pools? Anything else like that? And I'm like, hmm. I'm like, what if I said yes? You know, like I was so tempted. Like, and I but I ended up telling people, I said, Listen, the reason you love us, the reason we're so good is because we do one thing and we are experts and we do it very, very well. If I decide to do pools and outdoor kitchens and all the artificial turf and all the things, you won't like me. I'm not getting a five-star review. I'm probably getting a one-star review because I'm the jack of all trades at this point, and I can't control the chaos. Right now I can control it because we have a dedicated lighting designer, dedicated install technicians, dedicated maintenance crews, like they're specialists inside the specialty. And so I think it makes sense to just dive deep because that's how you build momentum. That's how you get repeat business, that's how you get referrals. And people appreciate the fact that you are the expert. Doesn't mean you're for everybody. There's some people that want to call the GC and be like, oh, cool, this guy can handle everything. They can do the home build, the landscape, the pool, all that. That's fine. Um, you're not gonna get that client, but the ones who appreciate it, you're gonna be able to charge a premium price, roll out the red carpet, white glove experience, and build relationships and build your business.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay, love it. So I love that little nugget there of information um for everybody that keeps trying to add on a bunch of things. Like there's just a controlled way to do this, um, a controlled way to book on some unique things and but still maintain your core product. So I love that. And then last but not least, oh yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's what I was gonna say is key is like I I actually love the idea of bolting on services, but it has to be done in the right way. And for example, I'll have people that come to me and they say, dude, I heard you're the guy, like they can help me bolt on the high-ticket, you know, landscape lighting. I'm like, yeah, tell me about your business. And if they're the problem is if they're doing this to like avoid the chaos they've already created, yeah, it's not gonna work, it's just gonna make it worse, right? But if if you can build up that division or that company to be like, hey, I've got this window cleaning company, it does pretty well. I've got people, the right people in the right seats, like this thing's flowing. Then I think, okay, now let's bolt that on because now we're just an email, a text, a phone call away. We can target your existing client. You've got a you've got a gold mine of opportunity. You don't even have to go to another city to start a new company. You can stay in the same city and just add a new offering. So I think it's controlled chaos at this point. I've I've I've convinced myself that business is always chaotic, but now it's controlled chaos, and you've you've got this one system running itself, and and and you've got a dedicated person to run the new division.
SPEAKER_01:Love, yes. And again, everything with intentionality and everything with a little bit of control goes a long way. So, but before we wrap up all the way, um I know you have a playbook, uh, kind of looked into this a little bit. So, what do you think every service business should be focusing on right now, according to your playbook?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I this is just my opinion. I know someone's gonna disagree, but I I love pricing, I love sales, I love marketing. So there's three things that basically I think every business should focus on. And if you focus on only these three, like if you're stuck right now and you're feeling a little cash flow problems, or you're feeling like, man, I just don't know how to get to the next level. And I I've worked so hard, like we've made a lot of money, but it's not in my, you know, not in my wallet. These are the three things. So, number one, increasing your price without a doubt. If you can focus on raising your price, and and and if you're if for if you're afraid, just start with 10%, right? So we talked about that. Increasing your price. Number two, closing deals on the spot. So many people are afraid to ask for the business. And they're like, well, let me let me get something, I'll put it together and I'll email it to you. Okay, people buy an emotion. If you as soon as you send an email, they're buying, you're you're you're commoditizing yourself and they're just buying a number on a piece of paper. No one wants that. So close deals on the spot. And then the third one, it's really hard to charge a premium price and close the deals on the spot if you're not in front of the right person. So the third one is you need to focus on high quality leads, not just leads, high quality leads. Because if you focus on these three things, charging a premium price, closing deals on a spot, getting high quality leads, you can apply leverage to your business that small tweaks add up in a major way. And now you have this lump of profit, this lump of cash that now you can invest into hiring and training and recruiting and all the things to help you grow your business to the next level.
SPEAKER_01:Love it. Love it. Sales, systems, mindsets, those are the three levers that really unlock growth and freedom. And I just loved this conversation, right? Like there's just so much. It's been gold. Um, but what I love is how your advice applies to not just lighting, but any of these service-based businesses that I get the privilege of working with. Um, because this is not this information, this guidance, this advice here is not just specific to the lighting industry. We all can apply this to any of our service-based businesses. And so um, I think for our listeners, the big takeaway is this, you know, scaling doesn't mean just more hours, more stress, more chaos, you know, um, which is true. Um, but with the right mindset, mindset and with several of these systems that you've talked about, the strategy, the playbook, um, and more freedom and time to focus, it's going to equal more profit. And so if listeners really wanted to get in touch with you and and hear about your actual product offerings, like what you offer as a um as a business, how could they get in contact with you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. I appreciate you having me on. Um, landscapelighting secrets.com is my website. So we've got some case studies and uh and things that you can check. Check out there. Um, and then connect with me online. So I'm on on uh on Facebook, Ryan Lee. I think it's like you know how you have like Facebook.com slash whatever. I think my thing is Lee Bottoms. My it's Ryan Lee. And I think in elementary, my my nickname was Lee Bottoms. So I think it's Lee Bottoms, but oh Instagram, Instagram at landscapelighting secrets, and then I I kind of make a big deal of it. People think it's kind of weird, but I'm I'm actually the host of the number one landscape lighting podcast in the world, lighting for profits. So you might want to check that out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_00:It's the only landscape lighting podcast in the world, so that's why I'm the number one.
SPEAKER_01:Still number one, still number one. I will I acknowledge your award and I celebrate your award. So congratulations on that. But it's because it's so niche, that's why there's not a ton of it out there. Um but listen, it's it's the uh a lot of I'm sure what you talk about is very applicable. So go give his uh podcast, Lighting for Profits, a listen. Um, and guys, as always, thank you for listening to another episode of From The Yellow Chair. I hope you've learned a lot from Ryan and all that he brought to the table. Go listen to his podcast. Uh, check him out, see what all he can do to help you grow. And in the meantime, guys, let's learn to scale, get outside of the chaos, um, and live our best life. So have a good day. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.