What is a good price on christmas light installing?

[justin.r.wade]

Im just getting started and Im really not sure how to go about good bids on lights. I have a few customers already calling and I procrastinated. If someone could help me that would be awesome. Thanks

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Hi Justin, We have been talking about this quite a bit lately and I am glad to see you have customers calling you to do this. Are you marketing this service or how did they find out you were offering it? What hourly rate do you try to shoot for with lawn care? When you estimate the job, will it be for putting up and taking down the lights or just putting them up? Will you be using their lights or your own?

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[justin.r.wade]

Hey steve,
I wanna start by saying thanks for the things you do for us rookies, its extremely helpful. I actually put a nice ad in are local paper and thats how I have been receiving responses. $60/hourly is my normal rate for lawn care. Also the estimate will be for both putting up and taking the lights down. We will be using the customers lights. Should I possibly ask if I need to supply the product? Thanks Again
Justin

[Steve]

You are very welcome.

I would since this is your first time doing this, why not decorate your house with some lights and figure out how long it takes you to do some standard lighting. Such as running lights across the roof line. Figure out how long it takes by the linear foot. This should then help you measure other homes and get an idea how long the job will be.

Then if you are going to be taking them down as well, you will need to double that fee.

Shoot for your hourly rate of $60 an hour.

Why not experiment with this and take some pictures. Post the pictures here so others can see. Then show us how long it takes to put up certain lights.

If you want to offer your own lights, why not consider figuring out how much lights are costing and buy them as needed. Charge the customer for the lights and then you will be able to take them down and reuse them next year as well.

Are you planning on keeping the lighting design simple or will you be really getting into it with wreaths, garland, yard decorations and all that?

[justin.r.wade]

Ok I like your ideas. I planned on keeping it simple with just lights but I will do whatever is asked by my customers. I just don't really want to get out of my league with the whole light thing, but its a great way to make some extra cash for the holiday season. I will put my lights up this weekend and post them online. If you would critique them then maybe I can grab a few more ideas for the customer. Thanks.
Justin

[Steve]

I am looking forwards to it.

Another thing I was thinking was if you experiment with the holiday decorations a bit, you could potentially create a design for the home owner and upsell them on a bunch of add-on designs.

As we have seen in a previous post, it pays to ask the potential customer what their budget is for the holiday decorations first. That way you can create some designs that will fall within their budget.