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How ROI Calculator Makes LED Lighting Easy Sale
Integrator tells CE Pro 100 Summit attendees that using a simple ROI calculator with clients turns LEDs into an easy sale.
A panel of dealers who have switched the direction of their A/V businesses to be energy oriented addressed the CE Pro 100 Summit. From left: Jeff Zemanek of Lutron, Heather Blease of Thayer Corp., David Epstein of Integrated Energy Technologies, and Jim Sweeney of Eco-Tronics.
We've said it before, but we'll say it again: LED lighting is going to be big business for integrators.
Now, there's proof.
Jim Sweeney, partner at Eco-Tronics, participated in an "illuminating" panel discussion at the CE Pro 100 Summit about LED lighting. Sweeney offered multiple real-world examples of how he is saving retrofit clients money by simply replacing their incandescent bulbs with LEDs. The numbers are staggering. And once Eco-Tronics is in the home or business, it opens the door for control and A/V installations.
The primary sales tool used by Sweeney is an ROI calculator. He uses this one from Solais Lighting, along with a custom-made piece of software. The calculator allows the dealer to input the number and type of existing bulbs, along with the LED replacement, to present the cost of the bulb plus the installation cost vs. the savings from not having to replace the existing bulbs (bulbs + labor) as often (in some cases incandescents will need to be replaced up to 21 times in the same amount of time as one LED lasts) plus the overall energy savings. The software spits out the 10-year savings and ROI immediately.
In one commercial installation, Eco-Tronics did an installation for $175,000. The 10-year savings was $1.5 million.
According to Sweeney, the average ROI for LED bulb replacement and lighting control is six months to 4 years. That is compared to 15 to 20 years for solar panels and 8 to 10 years for geothermal systems. Solar thermal (hot water heat) has a 4- to 7-year payback.
The numbers are impressive, and according to Sweeney, irrefutable, even by the cheapest of clients.
From a sales standpoint, Eco-Tronics finds its clients the old-fashioned way: cold calling. "We got a $2 million school installation simply by walking into the school and asking to see the maintenance manager," he says.
Schools, hotels and restaurants are all prime candidates for a cold call discussion about switching out lights to LED.
Now, there's proof.
Jim Sweeney, partner at Eco-Tronics, participated in an "illuminating" panel discussion at the CE Pro 100 Summit about LED lighting. Sweeney offered multiple real-world examples of how he is saving retrofit clients money by simply replacing their incandescent bulbs with LEDs. The numbers are staggering. And once Eco-Tronics is in the home or business, it opens the door for control and A/V installations.
The primary sales tool used by Sweeney is an ROI calculator. He uses this one from Solais Lighting, along with a custom-made piece of software. The calculator allows the dealer to input the number and type of existing bulbs, along with the LED replacement, to present the cost of the bulb plus the installation cost vs. the savings from not having to replace the existing bulbs (bulbs + labor) as often (in some cases incandescents will need to be replaced up to 21 times in the same amount of time as one LED lasts) plus the overall energy savings. The software spits out the 10-year savings and ROI immediately.
In one commercial installation, Eco-Tronics did an installation for $175,000. The 10-year savings was $1.5 million.
According to Sweeney, the average ROI for LED bulb replacement and lighting control is six months to 4 years. That is compared to 15 to 20 years for solar panels and 8 to 10 years for geothermal systems. Solar thermal (hot water heat) has a 4- to 7-year payback.
The numbers are impressive, and according to Sweeney, irrefutable, even by the cheapest of clients.
From a sales standpoint, Eco-Tronics finds its clients the old-fashioned way: cold calling. "We got a $2 million school installation simply by walking into the school and asking to see the maintenance manager," he says.
Schools, hotels and restaurants are all prime candidates for a cold call discussion about switching out lights to LED.
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Best Buy Founder Schulze Steps Down After CEO Probe Best Buy Marketing Exec Barry Judge Resigns Bjorn Dybdahl Among 2012 CE Hall of Fame Class Let’s Stop Vilifying Best Buy How We Verify the CE Pro 100 Best Buy, ADT, Vivint Take Different Paths to Success CE Pro 100 Tops $1.4B in Sales The Biggest Challenges & Opportunities of 2012 More filed in CE Pro 100 |
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Article Topics
News · Business Resources · Home Automation and Control · Lighting · Energy Management · Events · CE Pro 100 · Commercial · Ce Pro 100 Summit · Commercial · Led ·About the Author
Jason Knott, Editor, CE Pro
Jason has covered low-voltage electronics as an editor since 1990. He joined EH Publishing in 2000, and before that served as publisher and editor of Security Sales, a leading magazine for the security industry. He served as chairman of the Security Industry Association’s Education Committee from 2000-2004 and sat on the board of that association from 1998-2002. He is also a former board member of the Alarm Industry Research and Educational Foundation. He is currently a member of the CEDIA Education Action Team for Electronic Systems Business. Jason graduated from the University of Southern California.
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