Recently, I found myself wanting to get from my hotel to an event in a town I didn’t live in. I was curious to see if it made sense to call a Lyft or possibly walk the distance. So, I pulled out my phone, typed in my destination, and immediately was able to evaluate my options—I chose to get some fresh air and save a few bucks.
When I think about the evolution of navigation technology today, it’s quite astounding to think about how powerfully dynamic these assistive tools are to help us pick the best option to not only get where we’re trying to go, but also how we get there (car, foot, bicycle, or public transport). We can even deviate from initial routes in real-time to help us avoid traffic jam red zones. This works great in our modern, connected world, but how do you get from point A to point B in less mapped territory—like hiking through a wilderness area?
What about the territory of lighting? Over the past several years, certain voices have loudly proclaimed that “lighting fixtures” are the next great sales “channel” to get into, a fantastic new stream of revenue with great margins, a way to get you into projects earlier, to elevate the client-experience, and an opportunity to “control the ceiling.”
Likely you’ve heard testimonials from your peers, lighting manufacturers, CI-buying groups, and even lighting “experts” (like me) who enthusiastically tell you how great the water is and that you should jump in (I still believe that). Maybe you’ve even attended Lightapalooza, or any number of sponsored educational events that are intended to help give you the tools and motivation to take the leap.
Maybe you’re a visionary who saw the opportunity even before it was ever made public, and now you feel like an elder statesman in any conversation with your peers. Maybe you feel as comfortable navigating the landscape of lighting as if driving home from your local grocery store, so familiar as to easily be forgotten. Or perhaps you’ve never embarked into that territory, equating it to the experience of Frodo and Sam navigating the scorched land of Mordor.
Or maybe, more likely, you’re somewhere in between. You’ve taken the leap, your fair share of licks, and are hopefully starting to be profitable and grow along with this category. But to get there, you’ve cobbled together whatever you could find, wherever you could find it, and from whomever would offer to get wherever you now find yourself. If that is the case, take a moment and give yourself a pat on the back. Congratulations! Ask yourself this, though, in all of that navigating this new channel, did you ever find yourself wishing you had access to some kind of lighting-category-GPS—a device that could have given you a clear path ahead, immediately offering route options and real-time guidance to steer clear of traffic jams, fender benders, and costly wrong turns? Don’t you wish you’d had a map of the territory?
As I’ve worked with hundreds of CI-professionals in this community, I’ve found there to be a tremendous entrepreneurial spirit that permeates their businesses, and I’ve seen many innovative models that I believe will yield a sustainably successful outcome. I’ve also seen some cringe-worthy attempts that make me wonder when the other shoe will drop, and someone will finally call their lighting bluff. And there are plenty of others who are still working through figuring out how to convert their movement into momentum.
Finding Your Path
To all those groups I’d like to offer some perspective—though, perhaps unsatisfyingly, no concrete answers. One reason I prefer not to offer answers, is that there is no “one right way” to be successful in lighting (despite what others might offer as definitive solutions). El Capitan, for example, what many consider the rock-climbing Mecca, has over 70 documented successful climbing routes that differ in complexity and technique, and each required a brave and curious soul to pioneer a new way to the top. Another, related reason is that markets differ, CI companies differ, personalities and capacities differ, and competitive strategies differ. Not everyone is trying to accomplish the same lighting goals for the same lighting reasons.
However, I believe there are some common key elements to consider in successfully launching and/or enhancing your lighting offerings in your market.
And over the next several months, I will dig into each major aspect of what I call a “Lightflow Process Map,” which I was privileged to help develop along with some brave custom integrators in the Azione camp and in partnership with the Six-Sigma Black Belt Process Ninja himself, Jason Sayen. What I will share is nothing more than a map, a series of guideposts that you can use to navigate the territory. Each topic will share the same “mapping” concept because: 1) I think mnemonics help digest and remember ideas better and 2) you will be required to augment and refine your own “map” with the nuances and challenges of your local territory.
The topics we will dive into throughout this series include:
- Mapping Light
- Mapping Territory
- Mapping Sales
- Mapping Admin
- Mapping Design
- Mapping Product
- Mapping Management
- Mapping Installation
- And Mapmaking.
In each, I will provide a series of questions that you can ask yourself and your team in order to benchmark various aspects of your lighting “game,” and I will also offer some insights based upon real-world experiences and observations from many players who are all still engaged in discovering where all of this will end up.
Where you end up is up to you, but with the right attitude, aptitude, and approach, I believe anyone can be successful in this category. Like any good sherpa, I will not climb for you, but I am willing and able to climb with you.
I’ve said for some time now that it’s still the Wild, Wild West out there for this lighting category. There’s a lot of promise in the pursuit, but there’s also a lot of peril to pay particular attention to avoid. Are you a gold prospector hoping to strike it rich? A settler in search of new land? A charlatan selling snake oil to sad saps? A sheriff looking to bring law & order to these new communities? Or some other character joining the throng of would-be hopefuls drawn into the relatively unknown and unexplored territory of lighting?
Well, I’ve got a crude, but useful, map that just might help you make sense of the chaotic chorus of movement.
Glow on and brighten the path ahead.