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HADCO BL5016-AS7BAB Bullyte Black

8K views 26 replies 9 participants last post by  muddywater 
#1 ·
#2 ·
It's basically the default contractor fixture of choice down here. I would say that you see the 5016 bullet here about 5 times as much as any other small directional bullet. Vista 2216 would be the next in line, but it's a distant second. Little bit of info...

Pros:
1. That price is terrible, you can do MUCH better (Let's just say if that is the 7 watt LED, the price is more in line).

2. Hadco is a philips company, I have had great experience with them instantly warrantying any product issues on the spot, no questions asked.

3. The 5016 is a generic base model fixture. It doesn't have any fancy bells and whistles, but it's quite durable, two large O rings do a pretty solid job of keeping it water tight. I have seen plenty of these fixtures in the ground that are over 10 years old.

4. The fixtures base screws into the stake and has an adjustable nut that allows you to self tighten once you are comfortable with it's alignment. (Something Vista still has not seemed to give a damn about.)


Cons:
1) Fixture comes with a 3 ft lead, if you are used to 25 foot leads, this is a con.

2) Hadco ships most all of their fixtures with starter lamps, I have been complaining about that and they are generally pretty good about listening.

3) It's a very generic fixture. Personally, I love this. It doesn't stand out, it's very bland looking, but it's not ugly. Honestly it blends into most landscapes very naturally.

4) They are a little suspect about allowing water in when downlighting.
 
#4 ·
........

I bought 10 hadco's for 22.50 shipped. If i can do better than that somewhere, let me know!
I think GreenLight was referring to the ebay price which you linked.
My reaction was the same......you could do better. Apparently you did.
 
#5 ·
Yeah i am trying to find a cheaper option to quote out at the same time i quote vists halogen and vista led.

I bought 10 hadco's for 22.50 shipped. If i can do better than that somewhere, let me know!
Probably not a good idea to openly discuss what you paid for them, I was just trying to warn you about that price you were looking at on the site you displayed. But in full disclosure, yes, you are doing pretty darn well at that price point (it's beating mine on 5016, 616 is a different story).

Short follow up on Hadco LED since you are doing some comparing. I have been very pleased with the color and performance so far. It's a drop in, but if it fails hadco replaces the whole fixture (I haven't had any failures yet). Im still a little confused about why they do that, but I have had a few people try to explain it to me and some of it is logical but seems a little paranoid.
 
#6 ·
Well i bought them on ebay from somebody, i just have not priced them at my dealer and did not know what the contractor wholesale price was.

I saw some volt led's that looked nice in the pic, very competive pricing. I was thinking of buying one to check it out. The led price was about vista halogen price. What do you think of volt?
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#7 ·
I dont have any experience with volt. In all honesty I am very loyal to hadco in most areas and only really venture away from them for some specialy fixtures that Vista and FX have that I prefer on rare occasions. From reading posts over the past few years most people I have seen on here that use the volt product seem pleased and the volt reps on here seem knowledgeable and staunch in their defense of the product. That said, I have zero first hand experience.
 
#9 ·
So far I have installed the BL5016 Kit and the RL4 Kit for two different customers.
My expertise is using integral wall lights on walls, I am originally a mason but have added on lights as a up sell for my business.

I have been very happy with the hadco line because they are local for me in PA and I can get them relatively fast. The other company I work with is Integral Lighting but they only have wall lights so the hadco accent and path lights are a good compliment.

Here are the respective kits I got
BL5016 http://www.buddingco.com/Hadco-Ligh...ting-Kit-p/hadco-bl5016-accent-bullet-kit.htm

RL4 http://www.buddingco.com/Hadco-Lighting-Kit-p/hadco-rl4-tudor-pathlyte-kit.htm
 
#10 ·
well said james. probably one of the reasons I see so many of these and we replace quite a few as well, at least down here, is that these fixtures are stocked at several home lighting showrooms and distributors that sell to electricians. While I would say they are a solid step up from a big box store fixture, but not quite a best quality fixture out there.

and although hadco fixtures come up short, I have nothing against hadco transformers so far. guaranteed for life, they have performed flawlessly in the field so far and we have quite a few out there.
 
#11 ·
I want to give my clients 3 options.

Hadco - no warranty
Vista halogen - 2 year warranty
Vista led - 10 year warranty on fixture

I have bid on about 3 jobs in the week or two, but nobody wants to let go of the money. And I have bid them very competitively. Just trying to give clients another option.
 
#12 ·
I want to give my clients 3 options.

Hadco - no warranty
Vista halogen - 2 year warranty
Vista led - 10 year warranty on fixture

I have bid on about 3 jobs in the week or two, but nobody wants to let go of the money. And I have bid them very competitively. Just trying to give clients another option.
So how do you feel when they go for the cheaper option and then have a problem? And what do you say to them? "Oh well, you chose the cheap stuff."
 
#13 ·
So how do you feel when they go for the cheaper option and then have a problem? And what do you say to them? "Oh well, you chose the cheap stuff."
It means they get billed for a service call and replacement light.

I got real close to selling a 6 light job last week. Vista bullets, vista 150 watt transformer... $1500 2 year warranty add 275 for led. Still did not get the job. I mean goddamn that is cheap. But i want to find an even cheaper option.

Honestly i have some cheaper fixtures at my house, the finish is starting to fade a bit, but i havent had a bulb burn out in a year.
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#14 ·
I'd recommend not giving them options. Since you are the expert, you should know what is best for the application. Tell them that the lighting system will cost XXX. If they want it done, they will agree to the price. From past experiences, I've had too much headache giving the customer options.
 
#15 ·
I just saw those posted on ebay... I don't know who's selling them... at that price..but they're giving them away.... it's one thing to sell lots of 10, but it's another to charge less than the cost of one .. for all 10. when I see pricing like that, I often become suspicious as to where they got them that they are selling them that cheap.


As for the Hadco BL5016... I agree with the consensus... I've been using these fixtures since they came out... decent, solid.. basic fixture with a pretty durable finish...

The value when you buy with lamp and stake is good... I also know that they have or will be coming out very soon with the combo of fixture, stake and Phillips LED.

George
 
#16 ·
I'd recommend not giving them options. Since you are the expert, you should know what is best for the application. Tell them that the lighting system will cost XXX. If they want it done, they will agree to the price. From past experiences, I've had too much headache giving the customer options.
I like giving more options to clients. I think it increases my chances of selling. It two landscape designs for a client the other day bc they would not give me a budget. If they cannot afford a 10k dollar job maybe they can afford a 5k job.

Not everyone can drive a lexus, but alot of people drive toyotas.
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#17 ·
I like giving more options to clients. I think it increases my chances of selling. It two landscape designs for a client the other day bc they would not give me a budget. If they cannot afford a 10k dollar job maybe they can afford a 5k job.

Not everyone can drive a lexus, but alot of people drive toyotas.
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Without my going into a long explanation: It is called "qualifying" the client.
A good salesperson will determine ahead the client's wants, needs, and amount they are likely to spend.There are ways to get them to commit to a budget without merely asking them.

As for your landscape designs, I assume you changed the "scope" of the design not the "quality" of the plants and materials. Or am I wrong?
 
#18 ·
Yeah sometimes it is hard pulling a budget out of someone. Maybe i just suck, but i think others struggle too. What ways do you use to get clients to committ to a budget?

One design had more specimen plants and natural stone accent planters and the other was more basic, but still nicer than any other yard in the neighborhood.

Not all clients want to pay for encore azaleas, regular azaleas will satisfy them.

Sure i want to sell led lighting on every job, but if i cant do that then why not give them a more affordable yet still quality option? Hell i paid for the sales lead, damn right i am going to try to sell them something
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#19 ·
Yeah sometimes it is hard pulling a budget out of someone. Maybe i just suck, but i think others struggle too. What ways do you use to get clients to committ to a budget?

One design had more specimen plants and natural stone accent planters and the other was more basic, but still nicer than any other yard in the neighborhood.

Not all clients want to pay for encore azaleas, regular azaleas will satisfy them.

Sure i want to sell led lighting on every job, but if i cant do that then why not give them a more affordable yet still quality option? Hell i paid for the sales lead, damn right i am going to try to sell them something
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You seem to be giving way to many options to your potential clients. I mean if you want to reinvent the wheel go for it but give them 1 price. Then let them know if they cant budget it all at once you can do it in "zones"
 
#20 · (Edited)
Do your clients ever want an led price and a halogen price?

Could not zone out a 6 light system i mentioned earlier. Alot of my jobs seem to be smaller... Front of the house, backyard, etc. i am not a big dog lighting company... Just alandscaping company trying to increase lighting sales in a town that outdoor lighting is not very prevalent. And i just like doing it. And i have an anal retensive irrigation tech that is a great installer.
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#21 ·
Maybe there is just not enough demand for lighting in my area. Population of my town is 300k, so its a big enough town but is only 2% of my total sales. I really would like to do more. The few systems I have bid on in the last couple of weeks seem to be hinging on price point. They will spend 3 grand on irrigation but not $1500-2000 on a small 6-8 light job. The last client we did last week spent 5 grand on plant material which was an add on to the 40k worth of 20' palms, waterfall and other landscaping we did last year. BUT you cant see any of it at night!! He wouldn't spend 5k on just lighting the palms. I guess its just not that important to people here. Which brings me to my next question.

How do you reach people that WANT to spend money on lighting? Direct mail? google? what? I am in the yellow pages, first on google for lighting in my area, and hell I even have one 14' side of my one of my maintenance trucks wrapped in a full color lighting job and two tailgates of other trucks wrapped in landscape lighting photos.

I don't get it. From my other landscape advertising experience this year, direct mail seems to be going down the tubes, it works but I am not getting even a 1-2% return. Yellow pages is crap and I have the biggest full color ad in the primary book. Haven't got any calls off of google for lighting... plenty for irrigation, landscaping and maintenance. It seems like you really have to build a base of clients to get the referrals... at least that seems to work on maintenance, irrigation and landscaping.

I have some new ideas I am going to try in the next couple of weeks. I am going to donate the labor to rehab a halogen lighting system with led at a college entrance on a busy street... probably 25000 cars per day. And I got some nice signs made that are going to be uplit at night. So maybe that will help. And I have a full color insert going in the paper that seemed to work for landscaping and irrigation.

What else can I do? If I had to survive off of lighting, I would starve.
 
#22 ·
muddy- folks on here are happy to help, but remember that your potential and current clients may read your posts here. so I would be careful about profanity and your costs of material.

we only do Christmas and Landscape lighting in an area of about 500k folks. we get our lighting clients from various areas- yard signs, post cards, truck graphics, yellow pages, referrals, website, and Christmas light customers turn into landscape light customers. we spend probably 20-25k yearly in dual Christmas and landscape light marketing, we still only are able to be part to full time landscape lighting for 2 workers and me from march 1 to sept 1.

I offer LED if the customer asks, but most don't. more ask not to use LED, I have given uop overcoming objections on it because after years of testing, I am not sold on it myself. in 5 years I may change my tune.

we offer seperate prices for front, back, add sides, etc, and then the customer can jump to 3k, 7k, 10k, or whatever.

I would find a very good fixture, trans, and stand behind it. installing items with no warranty just does not sell you as a professional. even if we are testing a new item, as long as we maintain the system with rebulbs and cleaning, we warranty all items-wire, connections, bulbs, etc, forever.
 
#23 · (Edited)
muddy- folks on here are happy to help, but remember that your potential and current clients may read your posts here. so I would be careful about profanity and your costs of material.

we only do Christmas and Landscape lighting in an area of about 500k folks. we get our lighting clients from various areas- yard signs, post cards, truck graphics, yellow pages, referrals, website, and Christmas light customers turn into landscape light customers. we spend probably 20-25k yearly in dual Christmas and landscape light marketing, we still only are able to be part to full time landscape lighting for 2 workers and me from march 1 to sept 1.

I offer LED if the customer asks, but most don't. more ask not to use LED, I have given uop overcoming objections on it because after years of testing, I am not sold on it myself. in 5 years I may change my tune.

we offer seperate prices for front, back, add sides, etc, and then the customer can jump to 3k, 7k, 10k, or whatever.

I would find a very good fixture, trans, and stand behind it. installing items with no warranty just does not sell you as a professional. even if we are testing a new item, as long as we maintain the system with rebulbs and cleaning, we warranty all items-wire, connections, bulbs, etc, forever.
As far as profanity, my company name will never be mentioned because I know the power of google. And I am who I am, sorry to offend you. This is a contractor website with people that deal with the public 12 hours out of the day right? :) I have never said what my cost of materials were except some of the stuff I have bought on ebay which accessible to every consumer in the world. I missed out on a Vista ct600 tonight that sold on ebay $100 unfortanately!

And if consumers knew our cost on materials... I think their reaction would be... WOW this stuff is expensive!

Price point seems to be a hinging factor here so that is why I am trying to get creative. Some people seem to care about warranty some just care about price. Either way I am giving them all the options. Maybe I should include a one year warranty on hadcos.

How do you charge for maintenance of a lighting system?
 
#24 ·
I am also who I am, yet since I never try to convince folks to take on Christ in baptism on this site, even though I love the idea of eternity in heaven and all, I'd like to keep it somewhere neutral if possible. I am happy to offer advice if you can keep the profanity down. Its also against the rules of the site itself.

we charge 10% of the original install cost for yearly maintenance. that includes extending the warranty for another year on all items. we trim back foliage that blocks any lights, we install a new bulb and grease o-rings, grease sockets, clean the lens, re-aim, clean out bugs in transformer, back out any screws in tree lights and on the zip ties. On LED retrofits we charge 8-9%, we still do everything but replace the bulb, we still grease the socket but use a different grease for bi-metal corrosion. LED sealed fixtures I charge 6% since we do not replace bulbs or grease. The foliage, the aiming, cleaning the lens, transformer, tree light stuff still has to be done.

But that 6% carries a much larger risk than I like. There is really not enough warranty money there to replace multiple fixtures if they start going out en masse. not a financial worry in years one through 3 based on the last 4 years of testing I have done with LED fixtures. but all the data I have beyound year 3 and 4 is really ugly. Everyone talks about me funny and also talks like I have grown horns when I mention this in other threads and forums, but I try to learn from history rather than just hope the future will be 100 times better than 4 years ago.

and even if manus replace them, customers and manus will not want to pay you labor to replace them. put another way, oddly, on a $3000 LED job, $180 is probably enough to do the maintenance service but not enough to also honor the liability labor side of the warranty on LED fixtures. but on a $3000 halogen job, $300 easily covers the cost of the extra time and materials to grease and bulb, and cover your time for an extra service call or 2. In the end, halogen fixtures will last a lifetime if maintained properly. LED's will not. but nearly everyone is jumping on the LED train to avoid the maintenace of halogens, and nearly everyone is ok with the clock ticking on the fixtures. I am fairly alone on it not being ok with me.
 
#25 ·
I just wish i knew how to get in front of people that had money and wanted to spend it on lighting. There is a secret somewhere... I am just not seeing it.

I even have worked on getting reviews on angies list. I have 300% more reviews than my nearest competitor.

What other kind of advertising is there to do? Something to get in front of people with discretionary income. Part of the reason the newspaper has worked for me is that it reaches people that are educated intelligent people. I think direct mail goes straight in the trash. Yellow pages doesnt even make it the house, mine didnt make it in the house and i paid 12k to be in it!

What are jimlewis' secrets? How do you increase sales by200-300%?
 
#26 ·
Muddy:

Start searching the contents of this forum as contains hundreds of discussions on marketing, advertising, and selling lighting systems. Everything you need to know can be found in here. You just have to commit some time to read it.

As for not publishing your identity here, I would recommend you reconsider that. There are a lot of successful and talented people here, but most prefer to know who they are dealing with before they help out.

From reading your posts, it sounds like you have some work to do in order to establish yourself as a lighting professional in your area. I would recommend you start reading (a lot), attending seminars when offered, and investigating the AOLP. And don't forget to do a lot of experimenting at your own home and on promotional jobs that you should consider offering to groups and associations around your primary market.

Best of luck.
 
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