Steve Hunsaker | Home Service Accelerator

We are testing a fully virtual quoting process for lighting right now While I know we may sacrifice some deals off of “trust” built in person Early results were the first 10 days trying it, our contact rate + quote sent numbers increased 119% compared to the previous period…

So the pipeline is filling up and those numbers look good but we obviously need to see the one metric that actually matters go up…. And that’s sales. Pipeline filling which is encouraging tho. Would love some tips from yall on how you “humanize” virtual quoting

@dylthorn We’ve done in person for temp for 6 years and perm for the entire last year. We find when looking at marketing data our biggest bottleneck is lead->in person estimate booking rate is low. So we find we’re getting more quotes out now and then offering a “final walkthrough” in

@rathbunholdco But is total your units sold number way up because of more volume of given estimates ?

@drakesickpow Exactly… statistically speaking with this model my close rate could cut in half and we’d make more money….

@blessThisMoney Yessssss

I started my 🎅 light biz in 2020 ‘21 we 3x ‘22 2x rev growth then my brother died at 30 in peak of szn Operator ran biz into ground Dec 22 I had $22k in checking and $20k in payroll Paid rent on a CC all year ‘26 i eat Froyo 2-4x/week with my hot latina gf Never give up

@irentdumpsters You heard wrong

@irentdumpsters What are you, my mother?

I started my 🎅 light biz in 2020 ‘21 we 3x ‘22 3x rev growth then my brother died at 30 in peak of szn Operator ran biz into ground Dec 22 I had $22k in checking and $20k in payroll Paid rent on a CC all year ‘26 i eat Froyo 2-4x/week with my hot latina gf Never give up

@mattressguy_ @mattressguysbro 💜 appreciate you gang. Yeah he seems like it from everything I see…

You either die the hero or live long enough to build a door to door division to sell permanent lights First door to door sale in the books. Insane. https://t.co/FbfKTmiEbi

@tj28283 Let’s get you to bed grandpa https://t.co/IAAPpeCI5R

@Nads_Shariff We’re just ripping right now off of some YouTube videos and learning the old fashioned way lol

@Nads_Shariff Door guys set and selling right now while we’re testing

@tj28283 The beauty of capitalism is that the market tells me whether they’re good looking or not 💜

If someone could train a ClaudeBot or some AI for me to capture the Zillow/Google Maps street view photos of our customer’s closest 5 neighbors and automatically create an AI photo with lights on the house (all automated) I’d give you a large sum of money

@ToddLlewellyn He’d get me from 7 to 8 figures in 30 days or less

@MatznerJon Can you set up my Claude bot too if I pay for materials and time? 🥹

@coltonsbuilding I’m a massive manus Stan but it won’t do the photos quite to the standard I want.

@coltonsbuilding The permanent lighting look to be genuine with the estimate is really tricky

@rathbunholdco @erealander That’s so sick but it feels too temporary lighting-ish to send those photos in good conscience for perm. Plus it would need to be automated as it’s a mass-cold outreach play

@rathbunholdco @erealander Manus?

@proctorzt @MatznerJon Yes but the idea is automated and turnkey custom outreach at job approval in our crm

@tannerdripjobs Me and money Matzner are about to one shot those startups with a single bot @MatznerJon

@automatebiz_ This is not achieving it at scale. I want it automated and done to the tune of thousands at a time

@BowTiedDolphin This is wild stuff. Let me finalize my machine to exactly how I want the sales flow to look and then I’ll def hit you up for this portion

Who in the permanent lighting/Christmas lights game has made a decent mockup photo tool using AI? Can’t keep doing mockups with holiday home concepts or jolly lights at scale

@ZacGawn The fact that a mockup takes 5-10 minutes to make perm quotes look good is too long

@stevehaag81 Static but really selling the perm look specifically

$116k renewed with 50% deposits down for Christmas lights 2026. I like doing this because I like seeing how many of my customers are confident that I won’t go out of business 😂 https://t.co/aoiVfxDuKH

@nick_white @Tradecraft_AI Why would I do that when jobber is so wonderful

@nick_white @Tradecraft_AI I have an sub 70 IQ and run 7 figures of sales through jobber like a breeze

The more I do this Christmas light business the quicker I realize it’s an amazing starter business but not such an amazing wealth building business

@jamesonhaslam Diversification Jameson, diversification. Down payment from lights Mortgage from info. The way the Lord intended

@23d_rock Yeah man it’s not that deep I just should rather have a business that makes money 12 months a year and not 2

11 months away baby 🤶🎅🎄 https://t.co/v57zUbIsOG

@Hokieheye Great question I could see how that looks confusing. No this is the total job revenue, not 50% deposits. So average tickets are $3700 on these ones

@Hokieheye They get 15% if they let us install in September for training (VERY few take us up on this but the ones that do, it’s very worth it for us) 5% if it’s an October install Invest is one way of putting it. The mental gymnastics I do is I pay a huge chunk of my previous year tax

few SMB guys on here talk about how much easier it gets if you just stay in the game for a few years We sent out a mass text for earlybird renewals for 2026 Xmas 1 text yesterday afternoon 50% deposits I’d have to be a colossal idiot to break this thing now…I’m still capable https://t.co/YAgYPSuQ2Q

@dylthorn 10% September 5% October

@MatznerJon The only way it break is if global talent doesn’t work out…

@MatznerJon See. Trying my best to break it

@dylthorn We don’t offer the % discounts after 1/20. It’s just flat $200 off

@dylthorn My theory is the lazy ones will always come back, $200 is a gesture of good faith and a very small % of avg job rev. The rest of the deposits I love having working capital all year after paying taxes

Every year I automate a handwritten (in pen) Christmas card to every one of our customers for Valley Christmas. I made a video about it too but you guys should def do this https://t.co/6QMWYSVqZk

https://t.co/cpnqwooFba Video

Another holiday lighting season come and gone🎅 🌲 Cleaning up a few installs, but we should end the year comfortably between $1.15-1.2mil Lead volume always just drops seemingly overnight around 12/5 I’ve been running the same business for 6 years. Here’s how season 6 went: https://t.co/EwBGw5W1Bn

1. I’ll start with where we can improve: -Sales reps are very difficult to find. Hired 4, ended the year with 2. (Fired 1, 1 got sick) -Quote building process is still too clunky at our scale -paid ads got SUBSTANTIALLY more expensive this year

2. Where we cooked this year: -Ops setup we had this year could have easily installed $1.5-$1.75mil. I just don’t have the sales/lead volume for that. -Retention and upselling past customers was zesty this year (last season was our best customer experience for sure so that

3. Where I personally cooked this year: Being that I’m the sales and marketing fella… I saw all these 18 year old info sellers in the offseason selling courses off of PROJECTED numbers in these Facebook groups for this year and I knew the ad market was going to be cooked…🧠

4. So I pivoted old school. Went heavy on print marketing. Spent about $16k and returned well over $100,000 in directly attributed sales. I say directly attributed because postcards are very tricky for attribution since most people just google you anyway. Biggest win we had.

5. Google PPC and Meta both were profitable and I’ll do final numbers when I have them. Total new sales for FIRST TIME CUSTOMERS (not upsold past customers) landed about $430k… we’re still selling so that can go up. I’ll do videos with final numbers soon.

6. As far as cash on hand… currently have about $340,000 on hand on a 1.15-1.2 mil year. That net % should be pretty accurate even though we’re selling a few more jobs these next couple days and then I’ll bonus my guys out.

7. My payroll is extremely expensive and I sometimes wonder if we’re as efficient as we could be… or are things just cake because I have such a dialed in sales + marketing process that it buries my payroll woes a bit. Idk that’s def my weak spot as an owner

8. Last thing I’ll say about market conditions: The middle class is not spending money like they used to. The upper class and mega rich are spending just like they have been. Merry Christmas

@dylthorn Thanksgiving being so late this year and last year made install demand unusual. I loved 2 years ago when normal people had essentially an extra 6-7 days to think about getting Christmas decor up.

How I look at my director of operations when he tells me he over-ordered about $15,000 worth of product this season https://t.co/xXMOJZHiLo

@chris__harvey__ 🤣🤣🤣 oh I’d never make him do that

@mucoucah Chump change I could have used to go to Hawaii in the off season 😭

What do you think is a healthy NET margin for your trade? Let’s use $1mil/year rev as benchmark For me: holiday lighting seems to be 15%-20% net from guys I’ve talked to. That % significantly increases at sub $500k sales. Would love to hear from other trades 👇

@dylthorn I did not. They are def an anomaly at that size. Send me links if you have them!

November is long and full of terrors https://t.co/4JTjQvyBtP

@colealyon 🤣🤣🤣

@OggieO I had 4 sales people at one point this season. Fired one, another one just had a health complication so he’s done for the season. 2 full timers to finish out this last 2 weeks. Why I over hire

@thebrilliantm Dawg what

Window cleaning/pressure washing companies in sunbelt states who add holiday lighting makes zero sense to me. You added a secondary service in the peak season of your main business.

@JWcrucial Yes especially in places like AZ and Florida which are two super popular lighting markets