SnapCount Insights

As an LED lighting retrofit business, the current economic and labor climate is ripe with opportunities. The demand for what you do is high…and the number of people who can claim your skill and experience is declining.

But for smaller firms, how can you insert yourself into larger projects that cover multiple sites, include a lot more than lighting and carry price tags in the tens of millions of dollars?

One way is to partner with one of the “big fish” in the energy efficiency pond: an Energy Service Company (ESCO).

Energy audit software comes in many shapes and sizes, from bare-bones apps to multifeatured platforms. (Or, some lighting retrofitters choose to cobble together their own solutions using spreadsheet software like Excel or Google Sheets.)

The differences between auditing tools – in terms of capabilities, usability, extensibility, support, and other factors – can be vast.

So why is it that, when conducting an energy audit software comparison, so many lighting retrofit businesses focus almost exclusively on cost…instead of value?

A single enterprise customer can provide a commercial lighting contractor with a steady stream of LED retrofit projects – and revenue – for years to come.

But landing deals with enterprise customers takes a lot of patience, tenacity, and a strategic mindset—most large corporations have painfully slow and rigid sales cycles. Not only are you often several steps removed from the person holding the purse strings, but your lighting retrofit project must also compete against some of the biggest players in the industry.

It’s a tall order … but far from impossible.

For many retrofitters who aren’t using a lighting project management software, the old standby for tracking project management is the spreadsheet.

But while spreadsheets are comfortingly familiar, they’re not built for the purpose of project management – and this can lead to errors and omissions that impact the precision of audits and the profitability of projects.

It would be impossible to accurately predict where the LED lighting industry is going in the next few years without first looking back at the unprecedented period of disruption we’ve just experienced (and, in some ways, are still going through).

When we gathered four leading LED industry insiders for a lighting retrofit roundtable during Retrofit Showcase 2021 (a virtual conference this May sponsored by SnapCount), the official topic of conversation was what lies ahead for the rest of 2021 and beyond.

And as it turns out, there’s reason for optimism.

The nationwide labor shortage is real, and it’s a significant problem for nearly every industry.

Unfortunately, in the retrofit business, a labor shortage – a skilled labor shortage, to be more specific – is nothing new. The post-pandemic employment landscape has only exacerbated a challenge that lighting professionals have been dealing with for several years.

The good news for retrofit contractors is, although the skilled labor shortage has been around for a while, technology provides one pathway to a solution. Technology has served to engage and attract a broader audience of talented energy workers to the retrofit industry, and digital providers like SnapCount are helping pave the way for continued growth.

The electrical revolution is upon us.

Businesses, governments, and individuals around the globe are all embracing a vision of a fully electrified future — and once that happens, there will be no going back to fossil fuels.

Over the next two decades, no sector will change more due to electrification than the transportation industry.

The SnapCount Retrofit Showcase 2021 was another huge success. But if you had other plans and couldn’t make it, don’t worry. One of the perks of an online conference is that you can always go back and revisit video recordings of the sessions you missed.

We brought the SnapCount Retrofit Showcase back this year by popular demand – and because of the speed at which the retrofit industry changes, there’s so much new ground to cover.

An LED retrofit may seem like a no-brainer to you – it’s easy to calculate how quickly your customers will pay back the expense in cost savings. But large capital expenditures are often wrapped in red tape no matter the energy savings or ROI, especially for larger organizations.

LED lighting retrofit financing offers you a way to get your foot in the door with cash-strapped (or spending-shy) organizations so you can save them money in the long run.

Whether you’re in Wrigley Field or your local high school gym, there’s something kind of magical about sitting under those lights, sharing the excitement and the action with a crowd.

And as large public gatherings resume and sporting events become a regular part of our lives again, we’ll appreciate that experience more than ever. To make it even more amazing (and economical), it may be time for sporting facilities to look at upgrading their lighting.

As a retrofitter, there is a world of business opportunity in ballfields and gyms across the nation. The question is: How can you win more of these deals?