Creating Street Lighting Opportunities, a City at a Time

One of the challenges for electrical contractors and lighting specifiers is business development. Inevitably business is generated because someone has decided to initiate a project. Rarely are contractors and specifiers able to reach out, share an idea, and then the “suspect” (in sales vernacular), upgraded to a prospect (meaning that they have interest), and then converted to a customer.

But it can occur.

One strategy is idea sharing.

The essence is self-evident – sharing what someone else has done successfully. The Shoestring, an independent news site covering Western Massachusetts, has an interesting story about the journey of a small town that reduced its light pollution as a by-product of efforts to improve the quality of lighting in the town and reduce its lighting costs.

It was a “ground up” initiative that can be viable for every small town. While the beginning of the article covers research regarding Dark Sky and some of the benefits from DarkSky International’s “State of the Science 2024” report, the interesting part is the journey of Shelburne, a town in Massachusetts.

This town had a citizen led effort to become more energy efficient which resulted in about 100 streetlights being converted.

And the fixtures that they converted to were based upon a committee being exposed to fixtures used by another town.

In other words, they networked with others to identify what they wanted.

Take Away

Here’s the opportunity. It isn’t glamorous and tied to large markets, but …

Every municipality, especially smaller towns, is seeking to show its citizens that it is upgrading their local experience, making wise investments (and maybe saving money), and focusing on sustainability.

Perhaps sharing the Shelburne story and highlighting how you can help the local community achieve similar goals could be an opportunity for you?

And if you are in a small town, this is an opportunity to educate your town. Doing business with the town is a create door opener to generating business with others in the town.