It all began when I was walking back from the bust stop with my Next-door Neighbor, Lori.

I had just quit my job and was working to open a consulting agency (never ended up doing it) and in the meantime doing anything I could to make money.

I drove Uber, resold old stuff that I’d often find on the side of the road, built bikes and swing sets and basketball hoops. Anything to NOT have to go get a job!

Anyways, Lori and I were talking about how she has to pester her husband to hang the Xmas lights, and I laughingly agreed that my wife Michelle has to do the same! Then Lori said the one sentence that started Let’s Get Lit…

“I bet people would pay you to put up their Christmas Lights”

I thought that was a good little side hustle type thing that I could make a few hundred bucks on, so I walked inside and make a Facebook Marketplace post to see what would happen.

Holy shit she was right, I had clients day one!

Small problem…I didn’t own a car or a ladder. I had to give my free fleet car back when I quit my corporate job, and I kinda owned a ladder…it was the smallest one you could buy at Lowes.

But that didn’t stop me, I borrowed my dads truck, and borrowed my buddy John’s big ladder, and set out giving bids for hanging lights (something that I had no clue how to do BTW!)

And low and behold, people hired me. Quite a few actually! I made about $2600 in 2 weeks. Not bad for something that I invested $0 in!

Mid season I bought a ladder and a Jeep Cherokee.

Jump to 2020. I got started way earlier, for what I thought, posting that I’m ready to hang lights on Nov 10th. No shit, I was hanging lights the next day, and had so many bids that I couldn’t even keep up. I hired LGLs first employee, Brooke.

Brooke and I had worked together for years at my old job, and she had Covid so was out of work for 14 days, so I taught her how to measure houses on google earth over the phone while I was on ladders and in trees, and she took over the bidding and customer service.

It was NUTS. I set out with the “crazy” goal to make $8000, and I had surpassed that before Thanksgiving!

I hired my 2nd employee, Collin shortly after Brooke. He Rode shotgun with me, and helped me on the installs. Together we FLEW through lights and some days were able to install 5 houses!

Brooke had to go back to work, so I hired my mom as the new customer service rep, and she took over right where Brooke left off!

We ended up CRUSHING my sad little $8000 goal, Doing $19,600 in revenue.

During all this time I developed the logo that you see, made shirts, hoodies, signs, hats, magnets etc.

The 2020 season ended on Dec 10th. Collin and I finished a house over off hwy 59, drove home, I poured some Bourbon, and fell on my face.

My family and I spent that Christmas in California visiting Michelle’s family. During that vacation, I set out how to figure out commercial lighting b/c I wanted to run purple, green and gold lights for Mardi Gras.

In true Nick fashion, I did little research and instead decided to just get my hands on some materials. Instead of planning incessantly, I did what I always say…JUST GO.

Commercial grade lighting is a BIG up front investment, so to be sure I wasn’t wasting money, I had pre-sold to some of my clients already.

They ALL literally ended up ghosting me.

So, I had to sell! I took to FB like usual, and got to it. I ended up doing 13 homes and businesses with Mardi Gras lighting, and what was NUTS was that I made over half of my 2020 revenue with only 20% of the clients.

GAME CHANGER.

The slogan of LGL was changed forever. It used to be “We’ll hang YOUR lights”.

No more. Hanging store bought lights is a mess. It’s like a Rubik’s cube that breaks all the time and is unreliable. You pull up to a home and the client bought the wrong clips or not enough lights, or no extension cords….The list goes on!

With commercial grade lighting I have everything I need to make a perfectly fitting, custom light system that is made for that building. I can also sell you other color bulbs for other holidays!

So what started as a sort of joke from my next-door neighbor Lori has now become a real business that generates some serious revenue, changes lives, and employs multiple people.

Finally here, I really like to teach and inspire, so I have to add the moral of the story in here really quick…

You can do anything, you just don’t know it until you JUST GO do it.

I became a Christmas Light Contractor with no idea what to do, with no car, and no ladder. It took guts and I was totally out there “on a smile and a shoe shine” trying to make clients believe in me, but look now, my taxes are more than I thought I’d ever even make!

Thanks for reading!

Email me your thoughts, questions, or complaints at Nick@letsgetlitxmas

Love you guys!

-NG