An AV and integration-focused podcast broadcast weekly

This week's episode of Automation Unplugged we’re bringing back our guest David Warfel, founder of Light Can Help You

About this episode:

With over 25 years of experience in architecture, theater, and education, David has helped integrators across North America transform how they sell and deliver lighting. His firm partners with dealers to design impactful, human-centered lighting plans that drive both sales and client satisfaction.

David’s also a powerful educator, regularly writing, speaking, and pushing the industry forward with tools like the new Light Box — a portable demo that’s helping integrators tell better lighting stories.

In this episode, David and I discussed:

• Why lighting is still a massive untapped opportunity for integrators.
• The challenge of scaling lighting knowledge in the industry.
• How mentorship and partnerships can help fill the gap.

SEE ALSO: #315: Content That Converts — Crafting a Winning Article, Social Post, or Email

Transcript

Ron:

Hello. Hello there. Welcome to another episode of Automation Unplugged. Hope you're having a great time. If you're watching us on the day of our release, we release new shows for automation Unplugged every Wednesday morning., or maybe you're gonna be watching days, weeks, or months, my goodness. Maybe even years into the future. What is the future like right now? I don't know when, anyway, I'll stop that. I won't go down that line. I hope you're all doing well. It's still summertime, so you can tell I'm a little bit wacky. I hope you all are finding time to relax and, and spend some time with friends, with family. Hope you're all not working quite as much. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't working quite as much. My work life hasn't changed that much, but this episode, which is gonna actually be dropping here in early August, is gonna be dropping the same week as. It's gonna be work, but it's gonna be fun work. And that is gonna be the annual all staff event for one Firefly. So once a year, every year. Every year since 2016. And that was the year one. Firefly went fully virtual as we closed our office in Hollywood, Florida. And, we all started working from home offices., we've maintained an office. We have a, a public mailing address. We have, um, one or two people that work out of that physical address, but the rest of our team all work from home offices. So for us it's really important and,, I would say a, a very important element of our culture that we get together as a company and we get together in the same space and time. And,, we fellowship, we have fun. We learn together. That's actually gonna be happening this first week of August, 2025. This year it's gonna be an indie, so if you're reaching out to your, your, your people at one Firefly, you might actually have a little bit of a slower reply,, this week. But, , I appreciate you giving us a little bit of grace and a little bit of patience, , because we are sharpening the blade and we are working on improving so that we can provide better service to our industry and to our customers. So that's what's happening this week, but I know you're all here to listen to our guest. I have, , one of our industry's best with me today, and, , I'm very excited now. I'll get into the fact that he's returning in those exact, , you know, time-based details. But this is a returning guest and, , he's, he really is fantastic. This is gonna be David Wolfel. , he is a partner and advocate of light. That light can help you. And without further ado, let's go ahead and bring in David. , let's see how he's doing. Actually, let me change my view here. So we see him large and in charge. There you are,

David:

David.

Ron:

How are you, sir?

David:

I'm doing great, Ron. How are you?

Ron:

I am well. , as I turned the camera on and started recording, it was, it was going a little bit sideways there. I was talking about the future you, the future me that's watching this and like, what's the world like in that future. Then I was like, all right, let me just stop that. It's, . Clearly the end of the day here that we're recording. , how's your day been so far?

David:

My day's been really good. The air conditioning got fixed yesterday. I don't think I would've wanted to record this. It was a little warm in here.

Ron:

Oh my gosh. How many, how many days did you have to go without air conditioning? ,

David:

24 hours. So it wasn't very long, but it was a very hot

Ron:

night. It was a night of misery. I, I can't sleep. My goodness. If it's cooler, I'm gonna, I'm a total air condition. Snob. Mm-hmm. But I, I can't sleep if it's less than 70 degrees in the house or if it's hotter than 70 degrees in the house. Wow.

David:

Yeah. I sleep better when it's cold as well. Yeah. But it's fixed now. It's fixed, thankfully. Yes.

Ron:

Awesome. So David, , this show. Is, , being released. , I'm actually gonna come over here and look on my calendar because as everyone knows this, I'm not spoiling the punchline. , we are are not necessarily, , recording on the same day of release. So we've recorded a little bit in advance, but I think wanna say this show is gonna release on August 6th on Wednesday. I'm looking over here at my screen. Alison is gonna tell me if I've nailed that. But the reason I'm pointing that out and it's , so important is that you were last on the show on August 5th, 2019. So it's been almost exactly, we missed it by a day. Been almost exactly six years.

David:

That was a different David Wolfel, like I just say, so much has changed in the last six years.

Ron:

What do you, we'll link to that show, that interview in our show notes. What do you recall or what do you remember from that interview or what life was like for you six years ago?

David:

, that was really the start of. Light can help you in the custom integration space and the start of our rapid growth. So I was holding on for dear life as the thing moved forward. So it was a, it was a fantastic time meeting people like you, , meeting people in the industry, trying to figure out how to solve problems that were ex that existed, , that kind of stuff really. Um, gives me energy. So it was a fantastic stretch and we were going remote. I know as you were talking about earlier, when fireflies remote, 2019 was the year we went remote, which was prescient. Um, yeah. Um, made made the next few years much easier for us. So a lot was going on. Um, I don't know if I remember anything specifically from the, the recording because I try to forget. Because I know I said something stupid, so, well, I

Ron:

say I, I don't try to forget. I just forget. In fact, I would argue, I try to remember, but , my brain doesn't cooperate as much, , these days and I'm perfectly okay with that. Mm-hmm. I do my best and that's all one can do. , what I do where you, where the audience may have seen you and I, then they may have, , heard some of your many words of wisdom. And that is of course, in addition to. The fact that you are a prolific educator in our industry. , but you and I did collaborate recently. , we collaborated, , with a handful of our, our fellow industry, , masterminds. , and that was, we, , participated in a webinar, , just a little bit ago and we had, um. A bunch of really smart folks from the industry that you and I mastermind actually with regularly. And we were coming right out of the spring period of uncertainty with all the tariffs and all the uncertainty and the economy. And we pulled together a webinar and there were, there were eight of us on the panel and we fielded questions from the audience and it was, it was rapid fire. Just try to deliver value. And, , it was, it was really well received. We had almost 500 folks register for that webinar, , nearly that attend the webinar. It was frankly, one of the best webinars we've ever run at One Firefly. And I was curious if you had had any feedback from people that it, it talked to you about that, saw or heard any of, um, the feedback from that webinar?

David:

I, the feedback was universally positive and still coming as some of the snippets get released, I know one Firefly is doing that. Those go out and we get even more feedback from it. I think everyone, I think the viewers really recognized that. While any of us could do a webinar bringing us all together, there was a lot of firepower in the room and people were really impressed that all of us came together. And that's the beauty of the Mastermind group. It really just accelerates what each one of us can do or augments what each one of us can do. So I learned from being in that group. I think everybody learns from being in that group, but together we, , have collected quite a bit of knowledge.

Ron:

I I'm gonna give everyone a shout out. , so I was on the panel, you were there, Matt Bernath from Vital. Joey from One Vision Mark, also your partner there. My, like, can help you. Jason from I am saying Josh, , from HTA and Paul Starkey from Prep Tech. , and I mean, I say, I say prep tech. Paul is, , prolific. , Paul's been in the industry for 30, 40 years and, , Paul knows probably more than all of us combined, but, , so he, he was kind enough to, to join us as well. Um, now we did that initial webinar on May 15th, so if anyone wants to check that out, I know we have that. Up on the one Firefly site, and what we'll do is we'll drop down in the comments, maybe a link if anybody wants to check out that webinar from May. But we are gonna be you and I and, and those same panelists are gonna be doing this again on August 27th. And this is a shameless plug here, , on Automation Unplug, but it's a shameless plug to solicit if there's any topics that anyone watching or listening. Would appreciate, , that we address in that webinar format. Again, there, there's no one on that stand or on that stage is selling anything or pitching or trying to promote their business. They're really trying to offer value and guidance. And, , we've solicited all of our content from the May event from the audience. We actually did a registration and solicited in advance and, , and we're doing that again. So, David, is there anything you wanna mention in order to implore people to kind of tell us about, , maybe , threats or opportunities in their business that they could serve up to us, that we could try to assist with?

David:

Yeah, absolutely. The value of bringing all of these people together on the panel to discuss is that we have a lot of answers. I, , most of us have already made those mistakes in some form or another, and we've found solutions to them, and that's why we are where we are. , so I would say everybody that's listening or watching this episode of Automation Unplugged is probably going to, after the episode. Go back to work and deal with some issues. And what I've found as being part of this group is that whatever that problem is. You might think it's a little problem, you might think it's a big problem. You might think it's something that nobody knows anything about. We bring it up in this group and somebody is inevitably gonna say, oh, I went through that in 2014, or I went through that in 2023, or, I'm dealing with that now. Here's what we're trying, here's what solution. So the more people bring us the questions. The more we can answer. And I don't know, maybe I won't answer any of them, but it doesn't matter because there's so many, , there's so much experience in the group.

Ron:

So thank you, Dave. I appreciate and I agree with that. So if anyone's listening or watching and you wanna contribute, , we're, we're collecting your questions that you'd like to see us field. Again, remember, the date of the webinar is August 27th. It's gonna be from two to 3:00 PM Eastern Time. It will be live. You know, technical glitches and all. Okay, I'm saying that I'm scared that all those technical glitches go away and it runs perfectly smoothly and everyone's audio and video is , working perfectly. And, , we will field all of our topics directly from everyone that submits. And, , we will drop the link to that survey again, we'll drop it into the show. The show's dropping on August 6th. , and so please let us know if there's something top of mind and we'll try to get to it. Alright, so that's the, , , the, the advertisement portion of our interview. Um, David. In, in all of our automation unplugs, , we go through the background story of our guest, right? I mean, I, I like putting you up on a stand and shining a light on you and helping our audience understand where you come from. And then we'll, we'll talk. I have a bunch of fun questions, , ready for you. , I'm gonna imagine maybe our listeners today in 2025, some of them maybe didn't listen to that episode six years ago. And so maybe they aren't familiar with your backstory. Can you kinda help us understand, you know, where'd you come from? How did you ultimately land in this space? And you're such a prolific educator and thought leader on all things lighting. How did that come to be?

David:

Do you want the three hour version or the six hour version? Ron,

Ron:

I wouldn't mind, you know, if, if I had a bourbon in hand, I might sit there and be ready for the three hour version. But our audience, everyone I, I know is probably listening to us on their drive to work and maybe they don't have that long, so maybe, I don't know, the 10 minute version.

David:

So some, some of the key points I think have led to where I am now. I am definitely a creative type. Also a problem solver. And I think that's, I like to blame my growing up on a farm in rural Illinois as the, you know, some of the reason for that, you're out in the middle of nowhere. You have to create, , that like, there's, there's not a lot going on. So you create, you imagine you do those things, but also there's a little bit of that Midwestern. , you know, well if, if you want it, you have to build it. You have to find the duct tape. Literally. You have to put the thing together. And so there's, there's kind of that weird mix of creativity and problem solving that happens to be a good fertile ground for lighting. And I'm also someone who probably has a shorter attention span than I should, but it's. Been fairly valuable, meaning I go after something and I really go after it for a while, and then I'm sort of bored with it and I go after something else. So I look back at the last, you know, 30 years of professional life, and I started as an architect. I, I got my undergraduate degree in architecture. I worked for an architect. Um, and then I thought, you know what? I think I'll build houses for a while. So I worked for a nonprofit. Designing the houses and then building the houses. They were simple houses, but I learned how to put a house together, a basic house together. I, I led those construction crews and then I thought, you know, I'd like to take my theater hobby where I was doing lighting design and I'd like to take that to the next level. So I went and I got a master's of fine arts and theatrical lighting design, and immediately after that, went to work for an architectural lighting designer. I put those two things together. Architecture and lighting, and I was like, and

Ron:

theatrical lighting is different than architectural lighting.

David:

Oh, absolutely. Very different. Yeah. We use different tools. There's different reasons. It's all temporary. We use a lot of color. You know, it's, it's, it's a completely different world. But what is the same between the two of those is that light has a power over humans. Light impacts the way we feel. The way things look our, our health and wellness, it impacts. Every moment of our day. And in theater you really learn how to manipulate it. You really learn how light works, um, and how it affects our emotions and those sorts of things. And you can apply that in architecture, but you have to learn a different language. You have to learn different tools. Everything in architecture stays there for a very long time. So it is, it is a different world. But I put those together. And then after a while, , working for an architectural lighting designer, I was doing mostly commercial work in the Chicago market. Um, high rises, a million square feet of office, that kind of stuff. Um, some museum exhibits, some fun stuff. Um, I thought, you know, I'm gonna start my own business. And there was a teaching job open and I thought, well, I taught some in grad school. I'll go do that 'cause that'll give me the time I need to start my own business. So I jumped over into academia and jumped out 12 years later. Um, I had always been. Doing architectural lighting and teaching in the, um, theater program and teaching architectural lighting as well. And then 12 years later I was like, okay, I'm done with academics. I was so burned out on academics and I said, I'm done. I'm gonna, I'm gonna transfer all my weight to the other foot, which is the architectural lighting. And, , said, well, I guess I'll hang up my shingle and. See what I can do. Looking back, it was probably the third or fourth business that I had started and incorporated, but I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur until the last, you know, six or seven years. But I certainly was doing it and, um. Then a lot happened between then and now between me deciding to start the business, which was in 2014, , there's, so over the last 10, 11 years, a lot, , there's a lot of water under the bridge and I just keep learning and I think that's one of the things I love, Ron, is that every time I. Shift weight from one foot to the other, try a new thing, start a new venture. , I have to learn a lot, and my brain loves that. I love sucking that information in and reorganizing it and figuring out how to make it work for me. , so there's kind of the brief, there's sort of the brief overview.

Ron:

No, I, I love that. I, I can relate to that so much. I, I, I, I've mentioned this I think before on the podcast, but you know, I, I graduated from college in 2000 and I. I, I had this career, you know, initially with manufacturers, then started Firefly and around 2000, in the early 2000 tens, I started having pretty severe back issues. Like to the point where I, you know, was going to doctors and they started to want to, you know, potentially do surgery. Um. And I, I counseled with enough friends and people in my network that said, make the, you know, do that as a last resort. And so I found walking as a remedy, walking and stretching. Mm-hmm. And therein I discovered podcasts. And I, I, for me, that was a rediscovery of learning.

David:

Mm sure.

Ron:

And it was, you know, I really can look at that. I can't remember exactly the year, but I'm gonna say maybe 13, 14, 15, something like that. I found myself walking every morning for an hour or more, and then I discovered podcasts. Then I discovered the whole portfolio, the infinite rainbow of topics of podcasts that exist. , I had a reawakening. I mean, I found, I, I found joy again in my ability to learn. I was learning about history and Roman history and Egyptian history and the Persian Empire and the Mongolian Empire. And then I was learning about marketing and then I was learning about this topic and that to, you know, it was awesome. And now I firmly say with that rediscovery now 10 years later. , learning and avid learning. It was like a light bulb that went off like, oh my God, I'm so happy when I'm in this state of learning. Any entrepreneur listening knows, if you're going to be successful as an entrepreneur, you better be ready to eat your humble pie on a regular basis and you better be ready to learn because there's, I don't wanna say there isn't a manual to run a business. So that's where I'm gonna pivot to you like what is it like running a design firm and what are some of those challenges maybe that you weren't expecting, but it's, there's probably in our rule book you just opened up and said, this is how to go run an agency serving integrators.

David:

Well, another strength or weakness of mind, depending on how you're looking at it, is that. Even if there was a book, I probably would've skipped reading it because I, I wanna create something and sometimes that works well, sometimes it doesn't work well as, as an innovator, , you, you create a lot of things and some of them are just really bad ideas. Some of them are good ideas and you know, those are the ones that you focus on. Um, but I think in terms of business, like I wanted to do something different. There were some holes, some problems, and I, I think of myself as a problem solver more than anything else. And there were some problems and I thought, you know what? If we do this a little differently, we may be able to solve some of these problems. And if we solve some of these problems, people will come to us for help. And that's ultimately. The underlying, I think, factor that created light can help you. Um, but as a business person, as you just alluded to, Ron, you know, I used to, I, I don't know what to use as a job title, and I don't know what, when people ask me in a cocktail hour, Hey, what do you do? I stumble, I, I like, I literally go, whoa. Even today, right

Ron:

now, August, 2025, you'll stumble.

David:

Yes. Yes. Because it's like, well, I, well, which day? What? What are you, are you asking what I did today? Because that might have been differently than what I did yesterday and next week I'm gonna be doing this. And I, as the business grew from zero to 16 people in a short amount of time, it seemed like, you know, you run a business with one person, it's a thing. You run a business with three people, you gotta learn a bunch. You run a business with eight people and there's more you have to learn. You run a business with 16 people and you have to learn a whole another thing. So. I felt like I have had five jobs in the past five years. There are, you know, at least five jobs, and that's part of what I think makes it fun, but it's also exhausting, you know, to be like, okay. When can I just chill out and relax? But I'm not a really chill, out, relaxed kind of person, so I

Ron:

I'm not great at chilling out or relaxing either. So you, that's why we get along. We, I can relate to that statement. I've sat through some of your classes, David, whether at CDA or at a pro source event or at various buying group events and, and you're a, you're a wonderful educator. Thank you. I'm, I'm curious for you on behalf of your business. Do some people see you as an education arm for lighting? And do they in fact, fully process or fathom that you're a design agency for with services for hire? I'm just curious, like when you're out there in the wild, 'cause you're trying to grow your business, what, just, what do you, how do people perceive you?

David:

Um. You know, I, I wish I knew somebody who was good at marketing Ron. Um, oh, oh, you, so we've done a pretty terrible job at marketing ourselves. Um, you know, it hasn't been a huge issue. I

Ron:

don't know that I agree with that, by the way, but I, I'll let you run with it.

David:

I had a manufacturer that we work with, you know, on a regular basis just this year, , asked me whether more of my revenue comes from the education side, or more of my revenue comes from the design business. And I was like. Seriously. Like we don't actually make revenue on the education side. Like that's not our business. It's the thing we do because we, , you know, that is our marketing in essence in many ways, and it's something we're passionate about. But our business is designing lighting for homes. That's what our team does all day, every day. That's where we spend most of our time. And I think there are a fair amount of people out there that don't know. Our business model is to, in essence, , in similar ways to one firefly to say, oh, you're an integrator and you want top flight lighting talent, but don't have the money to hire eight people. I got you. We can take care of that, and not only are we gonna take care of that, but we're fundamentally different from other lighting designers in, in that we understand at a deeper level what the integrator's business is. So we're gonna say, okay, what kind of fixtures can you sell? What kind of margin do you need on top of that? So when we make a budget for the client, our budget is sized enough that you can run a good business and sell those fixtures. Like I don't wanna sell the fixtures. I want my partners, our dealers to sell those fixtures. And I think we haven't done a really good job of. , marketing all of what we do for dealers, , all of the different components, and that's something I, I think we need to work on.

Ron:

No, that's fair. We, we, all of our businesses, , certainly mine included, I mean, we're all a work in progress and, you know, it's, it's a. It's a matter of, , this is actually one of the theme of I've mentioned in the opening, we're doing our all staff event the week that this you, our interview is launching, , will be an indie at our all staff event. And one of our segments is around innovation. And particularly there's an exercise we're running our team through around business processes. You know, think of tasks and processes within the business, you know. Um, what should we start, stop, or continue and or sustain doing? Mm-hmm. So in other words, what, what things should we start doing as a business or, or modify? What should we stop doing? A lot of us in business get in the habit of doing something the way we've always done it, and we need to stop it and or what's working, sustain what's working really well, and we should keep doing it because it's really driving the success of our business. That process of reinvention. Analysis for you, for me, and certainly for everyone listening, it's always a healthy exercise to not only have the leader, the CEO, the manager, but to try to in ingrain that throughout the organizational structure because then you, you get a business that's always evolving and it it, it has a chance to move forward and be a living, breathing entity versus a static entity. That's, that's what I'm hearing from you as you're describing your last six years, is it's just been a constant process of reinvention and refinement, which I, I would call perfectly normal.

David:

, I certainly feels normal to me. , anytime something's been sitting there unchanged for a year, a year and a half even, you know, I look at it and I think. Well, we've got a, our team has evolved. We've evolved. The industry has evolved. What's happened over the last 18 months? Let me look at that again, because I bet there's a better way to do it, and virtually every time there's a better way to do it. You know, nobody gets the perfect answer the first time, and nobody gets an answer that's gonna be good forever. I mean, you look at the changes that have happened in the industry over the last six or seven years. When I first spoke at a ProSource event, was the first event that I, , spoke at, um, people were asking each other, um, and someone reported this to me later, they were like. Is this lighting thing real? This is, this is, this is not a thing. Right? And you look at how many manufacturers are in the space now, how much of the conversation includes lighting as part of it? You know, CEDIA light, a palooza, like it's, it's a thing is a very different thing than it was six years ago.

Ron:

Well, it's a thing, and I, I'm gonna say that I think you're at the epicenter of that thing, your business. So what's your observation? From that standpoint and, and how's the industry doing? What, what are they doing well and what are they not doing well? The industry as a whole. Yeah.

David:

I'd give us a d.

Ron:

Okay,

David:

and the reason I'm,

Ron:

you are a professor, so you get to deliver grades.

David:

I'm gonna grade, I'm gonna give us a d I'm gonna be kind of harsh here. Obviously there are some integrators who are a plus. There are absolutely some integrators who are a plus, but I think as an industry, we are leaving Two things that, there's two reasons why I give us a D one is that there are literally billions being left on the table. That's a, that's not,

Ron:

that's not with an M. That was with a B.

David:

That was with a B. Every time I sit down and I estimate the potential of lighting in the custom integration channel, , I realize my numbers have been too small. But we're failing to achieve that, and that's why I'm not giving everybody an A, we're not doing billion, a billion dollars in lighting fixtures in this industry. We could be. We, we absolutely could be because you have access to

Ron:

the customer.

David:

We have access to the customer. If we did lighting in all of our, in all of the houses that all of the integrators touch, if we did the lighting in all of them, it would be multiple billions, probably. Tens of billions.

Ron:

Yeah.

David:

, so I think we're, we're missing out. We still haven't captured all of the opportunity or even I think, a fraction of the opportunity. Um, and. You know, so that's one of the reasons I'm,

Ron:

we're very much in the first innings of this. Oh, yeah. Nine inning game.

David:

Yeah. We're still scratching the surface, as they say. And the other component of that, which really drives us, I mean, I, I'm driven by business as well, but the, the other, the, the flip side of that is that there are 1.3 million new homes built every year. The custom integrator, that's a very small slice of those homes and the ones that are being remodeled. It's a very small slice of them, of course, but you know, thousands of homes that qualify for some support from a custom integrator. And what we're doing besides leaving the money on the table is we're, we're in essence condemning those homeowners. Crappy light, and it's negatively affecting their lives. So not only could we be taking their money, we could be helping them live better lives. And that part, I think we're also missing. And you tap into that, people are happy to pay for that. Yes. And we could make, you know, we could make a real difference in, in people's lives.

Ron:

Tell me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna describe to you. A way this was explained to me early in my career, 25 years ago or so, maybe by a sales leader, and he had, , we had gone out to a customer dinner. It was, it was at Lutron and we had gone out to a customer dinner and it was a super great restaurant and when you walk into a super great restaurant, you know, a really nice, classy joint, you feel different when you walk in the space. But to the novice, they don't know exactly why they feel different. And I would put me in that category 25 years ago. I was very much a novice. I had no idea. But what I was, , made aware of by someone pointing out and helping describe what I was observing, what I was feeling is they pointed out the lighting in the space. Hmm. They pointed out the fact that there were highlights and there were shadows, and there was appropriate task lighting on the dinner setting. But yet the room felt dark, but yet the art was appropriately spotted and, and it was. And when the room transitioned over the course of the evening, you didn't even realize it, but the room was actually now darker, but you never saw the lights change. Whereas when you're in a less sophisticated restaurant, you see that abrupt change that happens at dinner time. 'cause someone's back there turning the knobs of the dimmers and it's just so everyone stops talking. They're like, what just happened? Are they kicking us outta the restaurant? Is it time to leave? And then just go back to that flip side, a poorly lit restaurant. It just doesn't feel great. I don't wanna name any names and call any restaurants out, but there's just certain places that. Let's just say it feel rather cold or uninviting or what's the difference? It's lighting that applies to people's homes. I mean it from your experience. I actually, I don't know this. When someone, when a homeowner experiences beautiful, a beautifully lit home, an integrator or a lighting designer, or maybe they've engaged you guys directly, however that's worked. They have a beautifully lit home when they go and build another home. Do they ever imagine building a new home without paying attention to the lighting?

David:

I don't think so. I, I think of it like air conditioning. Once you have it, you're not going back. Once you experience what it does for you, you're not going back. And I think lighting is even more imper, you know, more powerful, more fundamental than air conditioning. Um, but the problem there, you said Ron, is like, once people experience it, people aren't experiencing it,

Ron:

right? They really

David:

don't see it. Um, you walk into nine out 10 integrator showrooms and they might have really nice downlights, but they have really bad lighting. Mm. Um, because they're just lighting the floor, like there's just a grid of downlights lighting the floor. Maybe there's, you know, some tape light, but it, it takes, , some artistry as well as some technical know-how to do what you were describing in the restaurant to manipulate. The environment in such a way that we can say, Hey, I want you to have more energy. Hey, I want you to have less energy. Hey, I want you to relax. Hey, I want you to jump up on your feet and clap and stomp and you know, like these are all things that light can push people and, and augment and sort of accelerate people into those things if you know how to do it. And we're turning lights on and lights off. We're doing lighting controls with high, medium, low, and they're literally high, medium, low, and it's bad lighting to begin with, and it's like that's not a good experience. So I think most people will likely go through life without ever having experienced good lighting in a home. It's incredibly rare.

Ron:

So. I learned about what I'm about to talk about a, a month or two ago. 'cause you teased us in, in our, our group mastermind and you said you, you had invented your team. You and your team had invented a little demo house that you were gonna help your dealers. . Enable them or empower them to have more informed conversations with their clients or prospects or members of the design community. But I didn't get to see it then, and you were kind enough. Just before we started recording, you grabbed, , the artwork and you can share it now. , I, , let's see here. I think I can share it, but you did just provide it to me, so I'm gonna put it on screen. Okay. And I want you to describe why you created this. I'm, I'm not gonna flip through, I'm gonna, I'll flip through it ultimately and have you describe what we're seeing and why this matters. But you just pointed out that so many integrators maybe aspire to make lighting of a relevant portion of their business. But they aren't effectively demonstrating it in their showrooms. Either they aren't willing to or they don't know how.

David:

Yeah, and let me say, like to the integrator's defense, there's no reason they should know how, like no one has ever given them the opportunity to learn this. So they're, they're, they're putting their best foot forward, but they haven't had the chance to experience it themselves. How are they gonna make that happen in their, in their showroom? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna flip through. Tell me,

Ron:

tell me what we're seeing.

David:

, so we call this light box, and I would say for 20 years or so, I've been using models to teach lighting concepts all the way back in the theater days. We, you know, I had a whole lab that was dedicated to models and illuminating models so that you could very easily. , create things without having to build a whole house. And when we started doing education at Lita Palooza, we do shine, , which is a, an eight hour course. Um, we knew that we needed to be able to demonstrate things, and so a couple of years ago, I, um, we built. , our first, you know, prototype light box for just, for that, , event. And when we brought this one to, , the, the, the, the father of this one, I guess, um, to shine this year at Lita Palooza, , people just were like, Hey, can I buy that? Can I buy that? Can I buy that? The participants who are all custom integrators were asking to purchase it and. They wanted to purchase it. They kept giving us reasons to sell it and reasons to use it. They were like, Hey, this thing is so small, I can put it in my car and I can take it to my client's house. And I can put it on their coffee table and I can say, here's why you need better lighting. And then another integrator's like, Hey, if that's portable, I can take it to an architect's office and they're all gonna love it. 'cause it's miniature. This is one 12 scale. You're looking at something that the opening is 12 inches tall by like 24 inches, 25 inches wide. And, , you know, they, they kept giving us ideas and I, I, so we said, okay, well we're not in the business of producing these things, but if there's enough interest. We could do a limited production run this summer, and there was enough interest, so we started building them. What you're seeing now is bad lighting. This is what everybody has. Disc lights, wafer lights, LED, trims. We've seen it in $10 million houses, $15 million houses, and almost every $2 million house or $3 million house has this. And so we demonstrate. This is why it's painful. I mean, you can even tell by just looking at the photograph, it's painful to look at those lights because it's overwhelmed the camera sensor. And that's exactly what it does to our eyes. So by building it and then by pre-programming it with scenes, we can show sunrise and then how we bring that sunrise indoors by bringing on electric light. And you know, in the, in the next image, it's like we can talk somebody through the course of a day and show them. How light could support their natural rhythms and what they do in the house and help them live better lives. So that's why we made it. Um, and we just started shipping, , last week, I think. So, um, they're, they're getting into people's, our dealers hands now.

Ron:

All right. So I, this is sunrise. Yep. And now I'm gonna go to the next scene.

David:

Yep. And. You know, obviously I, I don't wanna talk about every one of these scenes, right? We'd be here all day, but if you go back to the previous slide, what we don't understand as humans is that, okay, well I've got windows, right? But if you were living in a tent or living outside, you would not have light from one side. You'd have it from four sides and the ceiling if you covered your entire house with windows all the way around. That's the natural light the body needs. So when you click into the next slide, what we're doing is saying, we'll bring that sunlight indoors for you so that you get the more of the benefits of it. But you can still have a ceiling. You can still have walls and you can still have cabinets and all of the things that we want in our homes. So having this set up, that way we can toggle back and forth and we can go through a whole day and we can talk through evening and all of those components.

Ron:

I, I think it's beautiful and stunning as a, a tool for demonstration and just to get into the logistics, when you're selling these as kits, it's. It's the model, which, I mean, for those, , people listening to the podcast, it's like a, a living room with a fireplace and a kitchen. So an open space floor plan, but it's like you have to stare at it. 'cause you think maybe this is a picture of a real space, but you're like, wait a second. I, maybe this is not, maybe it's a model, but it's real. But it comes with the, the electronics. I see a, a, a hunk of electronics here. A a. , a control pad of some type. Mm-hmm. , upfront. It's inclusive of all of the electronics and the lighting, so it's turnkey.

David:

Yep. Absolutely. You, you literally plug it in and push a button and you're ready to tell a story.

Ron:

That's, , I'm, I'm clicking through the screen, the, the different scenes. Now, David, , has, has mentioned he's, he's not gonna by default talk us through each and every one of these, although I'm sure if you reach out to him directly, he'd be happy to he or a member of his team. Um, what has been the, the result you, you said you have started delivering these out into the field. This thing looks incredibly intricate, like. I think every dealer should have this, but you can't, I mean, you're not gonna make these at scale, you're not gonna make hundreds or thousands of these things.

David:

No,

Ron:

no.

David:

, that's not my business.

Ron:

I was just say that's a different business. Yeah.

David:

Yeah. I suppose we need to find somebody that wants to produce them, but, , I'm got other things on the roadmap as they say. Um, but it's been fun to do.

Ron:

So that's, I, if you're one of the few dealers that do get your hands on one of these things. I almost think for you, David, like putting this thing inside of a case and making dealers can lease it out or something. Maybe that's a way to do this at scale and get it moved across the industry without everyone needing to own it.

David:

Oh, no. That's an interesting idea, Ron.

Ron:

There you go. We'll have to brainstorm offline and , okay. Okay. Yeah. See, see if there isn't another idea there. How do you get your name on

David:

the wait list now?

Ron:

Yeah. Get your name on the wait list now. Well, I, I know that's gonna be a hard thing for you to. Necessarily do at scale, but I thought that was so beautiful. , we had a lot of fun. Such idea.

David:

It turned out way better than we thought.

Ron:

So how do we ramp the knowledge? I'll just say if you're an integrator and you're listening or you're watching, which means you're, you're tuned in and you're working on your business. 'cause you're, you're looking to learn from the smart people like David in our industry. You're listening to Automation Unplugged. And they wanna grow or scale their business. There's a, there's, I'm going to imagine you, you challenge me. There's not a lot of native or ingrained knowledge about light architectural lighting design and specification native inside of these integration businesses. So it's hard. Whereas they may know about audio and video and, and all of the control and the topics that they, they practice every day. But they don't, maybe many of them, because lighting is so new for our industry, have that native knowledge in-house. How does our industry scale if it's hard for them to scale internally? Like it's, it's a natural bottleneck for the whole channel, at least for the foreseeable future.

David:

I think it's one of the limiting factors in why we're not doing. A billion dollars in sales is that, that knowledge is difficult to get. And you know, I should have seen this earlier. I did a four year bachelor's in architecture. You know, I got a master's of fine arts in theatrical lighting. Um, I've done, you know, I learned, I learned a lot. Um, I didn't know how to light a house after all of that. I didn't know what was, what was good and what was bad. I'm sure I had some knowledge, but there's a. There's a problem with all the lighting education that's out there, including the lighting education that light can help you offers and has created, like we've done a lot. We created the lighting technology certification for ProSource. We do shine at Lita Palooza. We've done hundreds of hours of education. There's a problem with all of that, and the problem with all of that is that this is not something that people learn in a classroom. Mm. The entire residential lighting industry is really the bottleneck there is that if somebody wants to become a, an expert in residential lighting and design and the implementation of it, they, they really have one option, and that one option is to go work for an elite lighting designer. For, you know, five years, 10 years, whatever it takes. And that elite lighting designer mentors them. So it's really an apprenticeship model profession, and you can't scale an apprenticeship model profession. Those lighting designers out there who you know, are, are big names in residential lighting. There's a few, there's, you know, a half a dozen or so or a dozen. Um, they don't want a hundred interns. Right. They don't wanna train their competition. They don't want, they don't like, so there's, there's really no way right now to get over the gap. So education gets you started, but you've gotta leave the classroom behind and learn elsewhere. And you know, we talk to integrators all the time and they're like, well, I hired an interior designer. They're gonna be my lighting person who's gonna teach 'em? There's nobody in your business that can teach them. You've probably got somebody who can teach them controls or you know, some of the, the mechanics of it, but who's gonna teach them how to be a designer? There's no one to do it. Well, we'll send 'em to a class. That's great, but that's not how this industry works. It's an apprenticeship model. So there has to be an, there has to be another solution to bridge that gap. And,

Ron:

and what is that solution? You've, you've posed a really challenging problem without an obvious solution.

David:

Well, I did mention earlier something, yeah, I did mention earlier that I like to solve problems.

Ron:

Yeah.

David:

And I think once you identify, once I identify the problem, it becomes much easier for me to generate solutions for it. So identifying that the issue, the bottleneck issue is that it is an apprenticeship model profession, and that education just can't. Like it just physically can't get you there. No. No matter how many classes you take, it can't get you there. There's a gap there, and yes, we are working on a solution and you should stop by our booth at cedia. I can't say anything right now, but it is a solution that leverages our company and the scalability that we've built and the process that we've built. To train people and more than train them to mentor them to the next level and to support them as they grow in their own business to the next level.

Ron:

Mm.

David:

And that's just kind of a teaser.

Ron:

Well, that, I mean that, I mean, it doesn't

David:

exist. This thing that I is to the best of my knowledge, doesn't exist anywhere. Right. It couldn't exist without. Our company getting to the size and scale that it is. I couldn't have done this five years ago. In other words, , when it was just two or three of us, we had to get to a certain size where we had the talent pool and the knowledge pool and the skilled labor to be able to scale the next level.

Ron:

So you are at Cedia? Mm-hmm. Do you, do you, and I'm putting you on the spot here. If you don't know this, we'll put it in the show notes. Do you know your booth number at Cedia? I don't know my name. 40,

David:

24. It's, oh, there you go. I think so

Ron:

maybe. Alright, well we'll put that down in the show notes for those that are listening. , check out show notes, , on the podcast. Nope,

David:

sorry. 40 47.

Ron:

You got it. Okay.

David:

40, 47

Ron:

that I idea. I I did 4 0 4 7. That's your booth number? Yeah. And are you teaching classes or courses? Is there anything that people either can go through Cedia or go to you directly for any education?

David:

Um, we're not teaching anything at cedia. , of course, , we plan to be at Lita Palooza as always in January. Um, and we have a number of online courses. In a learning management system, in a portal for our dealers, so our dealer partners have access to those courses. , and then, um, what level

Ron:

of engagement do they need to have? What, what can we talk about here that a high level open to the public? What level of engagement, what call, what makes them called a dealer of yours and thus qualifying for access to that LMS?

David:

Well, you, you could kind of think of us like a manufacturer. Um, not everybody can sell Macintosh. , that's a, there's a, there's a group of dealers that can do it and they have to qualify in some way. And, you know, um, there's a relationship built there between the dealer and the manufacturer. Yeah. Um, we're the same way. If we're gonna truly support the custom integrator in growing their business and, you know, advancing in lighting, we have to have a close enough partnership that we. Know what to do to support them. 'cause they're all different. So I need to know you, I need to know what your goals are as in your business. I need to know what your market's like so that I can, you know, our team can support you. So we have a dealer partner program, there's an application process and a review process and you know, there's a, um, partnership buy-in. And you al you, like I said, you could almost think of us like a manufacturer in that sense.

Ron:

Okay. So when they've passed the test and you vetted each other to mutual vetting mm-hmm. Then they're on board and they now have access to that. Yep. Information. I think that's, that's great. , I wanna throw some rapid fire questions at you, David here, mindful of time, your time's valuable. Um. We are now at the middle of 2025. We did that webinar with the first half of the year. At least a piece of it was a little, , wobbly. , when you look into the balance of 25 and you look into 26, what's your crystal ball say in terms of, , the marketplace? Any trends, economic trends, growth trends or challenges that you see ahead?

David:

Ron, I took the crystal ball and I just smashed it on the floor with a hammer. Did you, you know, this year has been, I, who knows? I, I, I would love to know, but I think the, the answer is you've gotta stay flexible. , and I think diversification is more important than ever before. Um, because we don't know what the market's gonna do. And, you know, our business is reliant on people feeling. Confident. Yeah. That they have a couple million dollars to spend on their house and even if they're, they've got plenty of money, if they lack that confidence. They won't splurge on what they think are extras, even

Ron:

though they can afford it. Well, they emotionally, they're not ready to pull the

David:

trigger away.

Ron:

Absolutely.

David:

But they're gonna, they're gonna make the, you know, sound financial choice of, of limiting those things. And that turns on a dime and has flipped back and forth like five times this year. So I'm not gonna predict the future.

Ron:

That's fair. That's, that's fair. You, you don't have to answer your, your non-answer is the answer and I fully accept that. Alright, next one. What do you say to the integrators that would push back on the category of lighting and say the, the, the fixtures or the hardware sales are too low margin compared to maybe the other categories that they might be selling and therefore it's not worth their time or money to go and, and figure out lighting.

David:

I think there will be a few businesses that survive that don't do lighting. Um, you know, because there's always gonna be those super special niche AV audio, something, you know, two, you know, you know, there's always gonna be an audience for that, but it's gonna be a small audience. Um, but every integrator that I talk to that is growing rapidly, is growing rapidly because of lighting. So, you know, it's sort of like. I suppose there are still people out there that do car stereo, but how many and where do you find them? I think in some ways there are gonna be businesses that are in business now that they're out of business already. If they, if they're not moving forward, they will become obsolete. People are getting, is it

Ron:

a true statement? That lighting is a lower margin than, I mean, is that just objectively true or false? Lower margin in the, the pieces and parts than, say other categories they typically deal with.

David:

Um, it can be. Um, but there are, you know, 40 to 50 point margins on a decent amount of product, and that's, we encourage our dealers to put 40 points on everything. That's sort of our default. Um, but we have dealers that put more so is it, um, you know, some, in some cases lighting is a little more work. It's a little harder work, but you can also. Monetize the project management that you do, you can, you know, there are other components of that that you can monetize. Um, so it's, it's, it can be a good business if you're just selling a widget. It's not a good business because you're competing with somebody on price. In that case, if you're selling a full solution, a designed, implemented solution, yeah. Then the pros price of the fixture is less, is less relevant. Okay.

Ron:

If you sell, if a dealer sells a pair of speakers. It's a skew. If you sell a lighting fixture, there could be a lot of skews. I don't even know all the right buzzwords, but I know there's trim rings and there's, this is and that's, and, and I sat through one of Tom at Light of Paloozas, Tom Doherty's, , project management classes, out of curiosity at Liap Palooza and, . I'm not gonna lie, I, he appropriately terrified me and some in the audience about the complexities of lighting. , not to scare people, but to prepare them, you know, where, you know, I believe in yin and yang and good and bad. And yes, lighting is a world class opportunity and yes, there are things you're gonna need to learn. One of those things to learn was around how to handle the complexities of the pieces and parts with most specifications, and then the change orders related to that. So just like that could be scary or intimidating to a business operator that isn't used to managing that. So I know I didn't leave you a lot of time to kind of field that hairy question, but you know, what sort of counsel could you give to. Any business owner listening to say that it's, it's worth figuring out.

David:

Well, let me give you the corporate answer and then I'll give you the real answer. And the corporate answer is, of course. Well, that's why you partner with like, and help you, because that's what our team does all day, every day is, is that kind of stuff. But the other answer to that, I think is that, um, yes, there are an incredible number of skews. You know, you can easily get 40, 50, 60,000 from a single manufacturer, individual SKUs. , but it, I think lighting is like everything else. There are, if you take all of the speakers out there, how many SKUs of speakers are there? If you add up all the different manufacturers, no dealer has 27 speaker lines. They've got three or four, whatever it is that, that, that they need. And in lighting, like we specify the same 10 fixtures over and over and over and over again. And yeah, we might be changing the trim or something, you know, a little bit here and there. But we specify a lot of the same fixtures. Now we have to, we have to know what that is, and we have to keep up with the technology and we have to make sure that it's the right one. Um, but it's not that hard. This is not rocket science. I think that people can learn it. Um, you know, you take DMX for example, which is a control language. The first integrator, I, I, I said, Hey, we're gonna do DMX on this so we can do color changing. He was like, yeah, I don't want to do that. That's complicated. I have to figure that out. Well, I forced him to do it 'cause he wanted to do color. He's re now he does everything DMX, the whole house. He's like, I want everything he does the whole house. DMX.

Ron:

Wow.

David:

You know, integrators are smart people. That's what I love about this industry, is that they understand how to make things work and how things go together. So, yeah, it's intimidating at first. They're capable of.

Ron:

Got it. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna close on that. Your vote of confidence for the integrator. I, I, I give them that same vote. David, , folks that wanna get in touch with you, , how do they do it?

David:

Yeah. Um, our email is easy. It's David at like, and help you.com. Um, um, you can also reach out to my partner Mark at like can help you.com. Um, we're online at like Can help you.com so it's, um, fairly easy. , to get ahold of us, , I'd give you my phone number, but I never answer it. So it's, I I'm the same way, man.

Ron:

I, it's spam calls are so out of control now. I, I, I don't think I ever answer the phone unless I know exactly who it is otherwise. Yeah. Yep. It's outta control. I You also do a lot of blog writing. Mm-hmm. Where could people go and, , read your, when you're throwing down knowledge,

David:

, language of light blog is, is the blog. Um, and that's just sort of like my playground because it's my space. I can do whatever I want, I can write whatever I want, and it's a place that I use to help figure things out. So each blog post, in essence begins with, okay, how am I gonna solve that? Let's work. What's

Ron:

your frequency? What, , is there a cadence where content is being put up on that blog?

David:

, , yeah. , after a slow 2024, I'm back to about once a week.

Ron:

Okay.

David:

Beautiful.

Ron:

Well, David, I wanna, I wanna thank you, man. We're, we're gonna make it not six years again before you, , come back on. But, , I wanna, I wanna thank you for joining, , myself. . And the audience for this episode of, of au It was great having you on,

David:

Ron. It's always a pleasure. You're a great conversationalist and I enjoy every, every chance we get to interact. So thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Thanks buddy. Appreciate you.

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Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

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Resources and links from the interview:

• David’s First Automation Unplugged Appeaance


• Visit Light Can Help You at CEDIA Booth #4047


• Register for part two of the Navigating Uncertainty Panel

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