How to Host a Contractor Demo Night for Permanent Lighting

A brochure cannot do what ten minutes in the dark can. Permanent lighting is a visual product, and a contractor understands it fastest the first time he changes the color of a lit roofline with his own thumb. A demo night makes that moment happen for a room full of accounts at once.

Brighter Nights Lighting Technologies is the manufacturer and sells only through distribution. Contractors order through a stocking distributor, so the branch is the natural host. Here is how to run the evening.

Who to invite from your account list

Start with accounts that already have a ladder on the truck and a homeowner in front of them. A customer base and a reason to add a service are all they need.

• Roofers and gutter installers, who already work the roof edge.
• Exterior painters and siding and soffit crews.
• Landscape and irrigation contractors.
• Deck and dock builders.
• Holiday light installers who hang and remove Christmas lights every year.
• Electricians and low voltage contractors.
• Pool and screen enclosure builders, if your branch is in Florida, Alabama or elsewhere in the Southeast, where pool enclosure lighting is marketed.

Invite owners and the person who actually sells jobs for the company. Have your outside sales reps and counter staff make the invitation in person or by phone, and follow with a text the day before. A printed flyer at the counter helps, but a personal ask from someone the contractor already buys from fills the room.

Keep the group small enough that every guest gets hands on the product. A crowded yard where half the guests only watch is a weaker event than a smaller one where everybody drives.

Picking the night and setting up the room

Work backward from sunset. The product has to be lit in real darkness, so check when it gets dark that week and plan for guests to arrive while it is still light out. Midweek evenings usually suit contractors better than weekends.

Split the event into two spaces.

Put the sign in table at the door and staff it. Collect name, company, mobile number, email and trade. That sheet is the whole point of the night, so do not leave it to chance.

Keep the talk short. Cover what permanent lighting is, who buys it, how a contractor orders through your branch, and where training lives. Then stop talking and go outside.

Light real product after dark

Install the demo product ahead of time, and install it the way it would go on a house. Roofline track belongs on a roof edge or fascia. Soffit fixtures belong in a soffit. If you cannot mount to the building, build a simple mock wall section with an eave and stand it in the yard. Contractors judge the hardware as much as the light, so let them walk up, look at how the track sits and see how the connections are made.

Test everything the night before, in the dark, from the spot where guests will stand. Kill any yard lights, sign lights or security floods that wash out the demo, and check with whoever handles branch security before you do.

One thing makes this easier than most tech demos. The system is controlled over Bluetooth mesh and runs without Wi-Fi, so the demo does not depend on your branch network reaching the yard.

Start in a single calm color so the product shows as architectural lighting first. Then move through other colors and a couple of holiday looks. Save the brightest, loudest look for last.

Put the app in their hands

Do not run the whole demo from the host’s phone. Hand a phone or tablet with the homeowner app to a guest and let them change the lights. That is the app their customer will use every day, and a contractor who has worked it himself can picture handing it to a homeowner at the end of a job.

Give each guest a simple task. Change the whole run to one color. Change it again. Bring it back to where it started. Pass the device to the next person. Keep a staff member beside the device to help.

Expect questions about connectivity here. The short answer is that control is Bluetooth mesh, it runs without Wi-Fi, and an optional Wi-Fi Gateway adds remote access for homeowners who want to reach the system when they are away.

Take training sign ups before anyone leaves

Interest fades on the drive home. Before the night ends, give every guest a clear next step and a way to take it on the spot.

Contractor training lives in the Masters of Lighting Academy. Put a second sheet or a tablet on the sign in table for contractors who want to start training, and point them to the installer program page for the details. Do not quote training specifics from memory. Send people to the page or to BNLT.

For guests who already have a job in mind, sit down with them right then. Open the job estimator on the counter terminal and rough out what the job would need. A contractor who leaves with a real job sized up has a reason to place a first order.

Send everyone home with literature, your branch contact and the name of one person at the counter to ask for.

Follow up the next week

The event is the easy half. The follow up is where the accounts are won, and it should be assigned before the night happens.

• Soon after the event, send a thank you text or email with the branch contact and the links you promised.
• The following week, have a rep call every name on the sheet. Ask one question. Do you have a customer in mind for this?
• For anyone who signed up for training, confirm they have started and ask if they hit a snag.
• For anyone with a live job, offer to size it with them at the counter.
• Note who did not show and invite them to stop by and see the display in the branch.

Track the simple numbers for your own use. How many were invited, how many came, how many signed up, how many placed an order. That tells you what to change before the next one.

Make sure your counter team can carry the conversation after the event. If they have not been through it yet, run the session in training counter staff on permanent lighting before demo night, and time the event with your busy season using planning for lighting seasonality.