Brad Finkle, whose Creative Decorating has been lighting Omaha homes with holiday displays for more than 28 years, has gone beyond that to show others how to start their own holiday lighting business.
Through a Web site and other marketing outlets, Finkle provides training manuals, videotapes and other materials to help people get started. www.CreativeDecoratinginc.com
“We’re not a franchise or a distributorship,” he said. “ We provide the benefits but without the large investment contracts or monthly dues.” This fall Finkle will publish a second edition of his book, “The Business of Exterior Holiday Decorating,” giving detailed instructions on how to plan and execute lighting designs. Creative Decorating provides custom design, installation, maintenance and storage of displays, employing about 16 workers during peak times. Advancements include simple clips that allow for easy attachment of lights to exterior surfaces and LED (light emitting diode) lights that burn more brightly and efficiently. “Lots of times, one person in a neighborhood will call us to light their home, and the next year there will be a few more, and so on,” he said. Creative Decorating’s clients are most of all residential. Some of the most intricate designs are in Linden Estates, where one client has come to be known as the Golden Palace. “That was a particularly challenging home,” Finkle said. “The owners wanted lights on the exterior, but it was a stone and mortar house, so the only option for attaching the lights was with a hot glue gun. It turned out really well, and the house is kind of famous for its display.”
Shortly after Finkle’s grandparents died, he said, he found a couple of strings of lights in their house and put them up on his house. “Dad didn’t say anything, so every year after that I added a few more decorations,” he said. “In the early 1980s a neighbor asked me to help install his lights and said he would pay me. I thought to myself, ‘People are going to pay me to do this?’ A big colored light bulb went off in my head, and that was the beginning of Creative Decorating Inc.”
The company operates year-round. Finkle said most people want to have their lighted display turned on from Thanksgiving night through the first week in January. |
