Anthony Coppedge

Anthony Coppedge

Agile Sales & Marketing in B2B Tech | Certifications in Agile Coaching, Agile Leadership, and Agile Marketing. Anthony has been consulting, teaching, and speaking to leaders since 2003 and writing for rAVe since 2012. Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn.

The Impact of Board Diversity

A diverse plank can make a remarkable impact on a company’s important thing. Increasing the diversity of the board is a strategic investment to your organization as well as for society. The effect of aboard diversity requires a number of factors, from improved market access to better angle with the forums you serve and better […]

Electronic Data Room FAQ

A online data room is a instrument that allows businesses to store and share sensitive data with businesses. The technology is useful in a range of situations, including mergers and acquisitions, fundraising, and due diligence. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Security A VDR is one of the most crucial tools a company can own for handling […]

Agile for AV: Go-To-Market Strategies for AV Firms

The problem is not your technology. The problem is that you can’t pivot fast enough to keep up with the changes (set in motion by a global pandemic). The reason you can’t keep up is that your management system is based on a static, backward-looking, historical view of the AV market because it’s always worked, […]

Agile for AV: Go-To-Market Strategies for AV Firms

Unusual Church AV is Now the Norm

Think you know the HOW market? Think again. Audio, video and lighting are used in creative and unpredictable ways in churches of all sizes and venues. From church cafes to portable church setups in movie theatres to mega-sized megachurches — the use of AVL is everywhere. However, the church market’s embrace of AV for most […]

Unusual Church AV is Now the Norm

Design Thinking — The New Normal for AV

Business-As-Usual is all but done; Design Thinking is here to replace it during the “new normal” of a post-COVID world. As of this article’s writing for rAVe, one of the most recent common phrases in the English-speaking lexicon has to be ‘new normal” during the COVID-19 pandemic. The term is a hopeful euphemism to cope with […]

Design Thinking — The New Normal for AV

AI for AV Is Opportunistic for Service, Support and Sales

Whether your firm has joined the chorus touting “AI” or is more conservatively accurate in the programming of “machine learning,” there’s a non-stop buzz in the industry around the advancements of computing power and advanced algorithms used to analyze dizzying amounts of data from an ever-expanding networked technology install base. Either way, an opportunity for […]

AI for AV Is Opportunistic for Service, Support and Sales

AV Industry Social Media: Quantity vs. Quality

AV marketing professionals spend countless hours pursuing more reader likes, more engagement, more content, more metrics and frankly more of the same in a never-ending hype cycle. Social media is merely another function where marketers are stuck in tactical due to feeling the pressure to produce something — anything — in order to somehow drive […]

AV Industry Social Media: Quantity vs. Quality

Selling AV Technology to Churches: Overcoming Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. We call this ‘FUD’ and it happens all the time for audio, video and lighting sales; one minute the sale looks like it’s about to close and seemingly the next moment FUD strikes and the deal is too often lost. FUD exists in every market within the AV industry, but perhaps it’s […]

Selling AV Technology to Churches: Overcoming Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

How to Make a Winning HoW Advertisement

The house of worship (HoW) market easily exceeds $1 billion (U.S.) in sales each year for audiovisual systems and gear. Yet, the market continues to be one with a mere handful of vendors effectively targeting and selling consistently into this underserved vertical space for the AV industry. With over six years of historical precedent and […]

How to Make a Winning HoW Advertisement

Top House of Worship Ads of 2019

2019 was the year of the message if audiovisual (AV) ads aimed at churches were the litmus test. In our annual roundup of advertising dos and don’ts targeting the house of worship (HOW) market, no single persona-specific word was used more frequently than “message” as the key driver for capturing the attention of church AV buyers or, […]

Top House of Worship Ads of 2019

Church AV: What You May Not Know About the House of Worship Market

The house of worship market is comprised of many church sizes and venue types ranging from portable temporary set-up and tear-down weekly venues to gargantuan giga-churches with tens of thousands of attendees every weekend… and pretty much everything in between. Selling to such a wide variety of client types even with the same market space […]

Church AV: What You May Not Know About the House of Worship Market

Selling AV: Everything Is Amazing and No One Is Happy

Comedian Louis CK once said: “Everything is amazing, and no one is happy.” In the neverending quest for the technology that makes everyone happy, no one is happy because the expectation is often that all technology should be perfect by now and that any issues with current technology (or lack thereof) could be fully remedied […]

Selling AV: Everything Is Amazing and No One Is Happy

Fail Faster to Succeed Sooner

In order to deliver the highest value possible at scale and velocity to the house of worship market, your AV firm will need to learn how to fail faster and succeed sooner. ‘Failing faster’ may seem counter-intuitive because the idea of failing evokes strong, negative emotional responses. And failure is often seen as something to […]

Fail Faster to Succeed Sooner

Marketing Barometers for AV Sales

Ask any AV firm’s marketing team this question: “How consistently do we create deliverables that have a significant impact on our AV business?” The answers to that question will frequently reveal a focus on activities (deliverables) instead of business outcomes (such as ROI). The reason there’s such a disconnect between what’s asked for and what’s […]

Marketing Barometers for AV Sales

HoW to: Improve Consistently

The house of worship (HoW) market has a unique consistency: Sunday comes every seven days for church services. This regularity is both a boon and a challenge for the women and men providing ProAV production to congregants conditioned to the high production values of stage and screen outside of their churches. It is because of […]

HoW to: Improve Consistently

ProAV: Business Agility as a Competitive Advantage

Change isn’t new to the ProAV industry, but the rate of change may be the downfall for even the largest firms. After all, the innovations, inventions and the integration with AV over IT have made for a robust industry with $186 billion in revenue for 2018 and projections calling for $229 billion by 2023 (source: […]

ProAV: Business Agility as a Competitive Advantage

Church AV Trends: Unusual Aspect Ratio Video Walls

As multi-site churches expand their reach with additional locations into retail areas and school buildings to accommodate a larger attendance at these remote ‘satellite’ campuses, the needs for AVL shift away from so-called ‘big box’ venues with high ceilings and ample room to venues with lower ceilings and limited sightlines. The opportunity for audiovisual (AV) […]

Church AV Trends: Unusual Aspect Ratio Video Walls

What Churches Want and Need from AV Sales

In seven years of sharing practical insights on how to sell audiovisual (AV) to churches, we’ve posted over 70 articles focusing specifically on the opportunities and challenges of selling to buyers and influencers in the house of worship market. During that same time, the church AV market has gone from hundreds of millions of dollars […]

What Churches Want and Need from AV Sales

AV’s Headlines Suck. Here’s How to Fix That.

With fresh eyes on amazing new products and services presented over the last few tradeshows (InfoComm, DSE, ISE) so far this year, the rAVe Agency has seen some truly remarkable technology coming out of the audiovisual (AV) industry. But while AV technology is undoubtedly impressive, the way AV products are promoted and advertised has mostly […]

AV’s Headlines Suck. Here’s How to Fix That.

Church Multi-Site Now with Face-to-Face Live ProAV Support

With churches continuing to add multi-site campuses to extend their geographic reach and influence, how can the pro AV market serve this market with solutions equal to the scale of church multi-site expansion? The answer is church multi-site now with face-to-face live pro AV support — that’s a game changer for the industry. The answer […]

Church Multi-Site Now with Face-to-Face Live ProAV Support

AV Industry EOL: Planned Obsolescence (Part Two)

See part one of Anthony’s Planned Obsolescence column here. Since planned obsolescence for pro AV gear harms sales, service contracts and product support, the future for the AV industry may be headed toward the “as a service” model borrowed from the software industry. Should there be standards for planned obsolescence? Even the IT industry, with […]

AV Industry EOL: Planned Obsolescence (Part Two)

Church Online: Pro AV for Streaming Church Services

The dramatic growth of churches using online streaming and on-demand options to extend the reach of their audience offers a steady stream of upgrades and innovations for Pro AV technology solutions. With the increase in both accessibility and adoption of high-speed broadband internet access worldwide has come a massive increase in users taking advantage of […]

Church Online: Pro AV for Streaming Church Services

AV Industry EOL: Planned Obsolescence (Part One)

For all of the massive technology improvements and innovations within the AV industry, there is irony in the faster obsolescence of digital equipment compared to the analog age of AV, leaving customers vulnerable to unexpected end-of-life notifications of planned obsolescence at the discretion of the manufacturer and reducing the life-span of digital AV gear. In […]

AV Industry EOL: Planned Obsolescence (Part One)

Churches Need Long-Term Media Storage Solutions

As local churches have embraced the capturing, producing, editing and publishing of video content for sermons, event promotions, service streaming, digital signage and social media, many are just now counting the costs and cons of storing massive amounts of video and media data for long-term archival, which leaves the future accessibility of this data in […]

Churches Need Long-Term Media Storage Solutions

Converting Leads for Sales

A start-up audiovisual systems integrator needs to take every single lead seriously because, with no backlog of client work, every new lead feels like immediate gratification as a sales lead. When this company grows and has plenty of work, do the leads become less important or is every new lead still a sales lead? The […]

Converting Leads for Sales

Mobile Micro-Controls for Big AV in Churches

During rehearsals before Sunday services, the monitor mix (A2) guy walks onto the stage and approaches each of the vocalists one at a time and has a brief conversation while looking between the singer and the iPad tablet in the A2’s hand. During these brief 15 to 30 second chats, the vocalist removes one of […]

Mobile Micro-Controls for Big AV in Churches

Training and Retaining Your Best AV Salespeople

Focusing on effective sales growth can be either proactive or reactive. A proactive personal development plan (PDP) helps your salespeople self-assess their current capabilities and articulate a proposed set of growth areas for themselves. A reactive personal improvement plan (PIP), on the other hand, is not initiated by the salesperson but by their manager as […]

Training and Retaining Your Best AV Salespeople

The Irony of Technology Obsolescence for AV Vendors

AV companies have instant information about their product sales right at their fingertips. However, those same AV vendors have little to no visibility into the effect of marketing on tracking the reach, engagement or conversions on those same product purchases. The result is ironic for the AV industry: marketing technology obsolescence due to artificial intelligence […]

The Irony of Technology Obsolescence for AV Vendors

The Real Metrics for AV Social Media Success

There’s no doubt that social media is a part of your marketing strategy, but are you measuring more than the so-called ‘vanity metrics’ of likes and impressions? To make your brand’s social media truly successful, your brand’s social accounts must have some personality and they must ‘listen’ even more than they ‘talk.’ When your brand […]

The Real Metrics for AV Social Media Success

When Your Brand’s Email Is Noise

Your business may have the coolest AVL product or service on the market, but amassing more emails in your prospect’s Inbox isn’t helping you sell even one of those great new products. Why? As decision-makers and consumers, we’re inundated and overloaded with information and emails. We’re deluged by data. What we don’t need to know is […]

When Your Brand’s Email Is Noise

The AV Industry and the Power of Social Media

Customer acquisition is time-consuming and expensive, so it makes sense to treat prospects and customers as valued people when they’re looking for your brand on social media. As a person who has a great deal of understanding about the time, effort, and costs of new prospects earned through marketing, I am acutely aware of the […]

The AV Industry and the Power of Social Media

How Much Marketing Budget for AV Firms

How much budget should AV industry companies allocate towards marketing to the house of worship vertical? The answer is likely a surprise for any company that’s not spending on this >$1B annual spend segment of the overall AV industry. In 2018, the American Marketing Association, in partnership with Deloitte and Duke University, published the bi-annual […]

How Much Marketing Budget for AV Firms