Right up front I’m going to admit that I have a soft spot for widgets and dongles. I blame it on my borderline-obsessive fascination with troubleshooting and problem-solving. If there’s a problem, there needs to be a solution. This is where various widgets and adapters come into play, specifically adapters. StarTech.com’s new 3-in-1 Adapter lets […]

The big news in my world last week was Toshiba of Canada announcing that they are exiting the consumer electronics channel. Canada is one of 14 countries worldwide where Toshiba is electing to leave the CE space. According to reporting on the matter by Canadian business media, CE only represents 10% of Toshiba’s total corporate […]

I know that I’ve made unkind comments in the past about LinkedIn’s utility as a social media platform for professionals, but lately I’ve been coming around. I’m starting to find that LinkedIn isn’t completely useless. In addition to being a networking site, it also comes in handy as a venue for collaborating. I know that […]

I have a competitive nature, and I make no bones about it. I like to win, and I work hard to win. When I don’t win, I go back to the drawing board, and work on what I need to do in order to win next time. It might be my bias but I think […]

A couple of weeks ago Gary wrote an insightful blog post that speaks to all of us who do lots of business travel. If you haven’t already read it, you should. https://www.ravepubs.com/five-simple-services-every-business-traveler-wants-actually-needs/ I have to concur with all of his findings, although (spoiler alert!) it hadn’t occurred to me to perform emergency plumbing repair on […]

An interesting study crossed my newsfeed this week, and engendered some interesting discussion amongst my peers and I. From the Academy of Management website: “Men who engage in small talk before getting down to negotiations — compared with those who launch right into it — not only make a much more favorable impression, but also […]

If there has ever been an AV product category that I’ve maintained a love/hate relationship with, it’s motorized TV lifts and mounts. On the plus side of the equation, there are few things cooler than a concealed installation where a flat panel display or projector rises from a tabletop or descends from the ceiling. But […]

Recently I had a lengthy conversation with a friend of mine about the importance of trying to reacquaint dealers and vendors alike with focusing on benefits over features. We both admitted that we’ve done a lot of thinking on this subject. Comparing notes, both of us have observed that the number one priority we hear […]

My absolutely favorite aphorism for sales comes from the movie Jerry Maguire, when the titular character’s mentor and guru Dicky Fox says “The key to this business” *claps hands* “is personal relationships!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyxWWYeXKBw As a manufacturer’s representative my job role is all about personal relationships: making them, and keeping them. In fact, it’s more about […]

Any readers who’ve never been asked by a client, “Will it be wireless?” — raise your hand. That’s what I thought. It’s true that today we have a huge number of wireless options for AV and control. There are solid working options today that were glitch and disappointing five years ago, and only wishful thinking […]

There’s a scene in the Disney film The Emperor’s New Groove that defines my attitude towards user interfaces. “Why do we even have that lever?” was a regular catchphrase in meetings at my old office whenever the design and programming teams met to discuss the of client’s automation systems. We would shout out “Why do […]

It’s good to try new things. Just accept that sometimes things won’t work out. Author James Altucher is famous for saying something to the effect that “90% of everything just doesn’t work out, but you have to keep trying.” Well, I’m nothing if not open minded. One weekend the administration of the mall where the […]

Everybody knows that there need to be differences between the products that AV pros specify into projects and the products retailers stock on their shelves. Obviously AV pros want to avoid products in their bill of materials that can be showroomed by customers who double check stuff on Amazon.com (in fact, you don’t want customers […]

There are rules to live by, and mostly they’re pretty universal. Some our parents teach us, like that touching a hot stove is a bad idea. Others are taught to us as part of the Social Contract, like signaling before changing lanes (To be honest, where I live, an alarming majority of drivers haven’t heard […]

  The one word that best encapsulates my job is this one: Communication. Ultimately, my job is to be a liaison with my dealers. I provide them with the information that best meets their needs; from product knowledge to logistics schedules to best practices. In order to be effective at that, I also need listen […]

If you’re called back for a second interview for a job, the fact is that they’ve already decided to hire you: The second interview is simply your last chance to screw it up. You just have to reinforce the good impression you made in the first interview and you’re good to go.By that same token, […]

AV pros need to make the best use of their clients’ budgets. At the same time, AV pros need to make the best use of their own resources: time, money and expertise. One aspect of that resource management is weighing the decision to subcontract out some business functions. I’ve previously discussed choosing to subcontract programming, […]

I recieve a lot of emails. I also recieve a lot of spam emails, mostly product pitches from overseas manufacturers. I actually do read (okay, skim) them all. While most of them are tedious and uninteresting there is the occasional gem hidden amongst all the dross; the odd interesting new product that I think worth bringing […]

More often than not the inspiration for my editorials and blog posts come from recent events/incidents/disasters in my life. Invariably, in these incidents (and disasters) I have to fall back on my training as an installer and designer. To quote Al Pacino from The Godfather: Part III: “Just when I thought I was out…they pull […]

What matters most to all those expensive black boxes neatly connected and stitched up in the rack, connected via other expensive black boxes to displays throughout the project aren’t buzzwords like resolution or bit-rate but one single, simple thing: electricity. As even small (fewer than ten rooms or displays) systems depend on more sophisticated technology […]

I make no bones of the fact that, despite being a tech guy, I’m not an early adopter, and I can be kind of curmudgeonly. I’ve refused to support Bluray since the beginning, since hardcopy media is so 20th century. Downloads and streaming aren’t the future, they’re the now. Even early on, Bluray seemed to […]

It’s a popular saying that you’re the synthesis of the five people you spend the most time with, so you should choose wisely. Some of the lessons that you learn from other people, and the impression they leave you with will last you a lifetime. Still brand-new to commission sales, I had been on the […]

If there’s anything that I’ve done more often than attending trade shows, it’s been writing about attending trade shows. That includes both editorials and blog posts about how to work the show as an exhibitor to get the maximum return on your company’s investment, as well as suggestions on how, as a member of the […]

There are many different ways of making the sale, all with their own pros and cons. The thing about how you close a sale, and this is where so many salespeople go wrong, is that it’s entirely dependent upon the context of each sale. How you ask for the sale depends on a whole bunch […]

Success doesn’t mean that you don’t have problems; it just means that your problems have changed. Quite frankly, it’s preferable to face the problems associated with having a booming business than the ones that you have when business is slow. As your company’s client base grows, and both the number of projects in your funnel […]

I’ve never met an AV pro who didn’t love tools and gadgets. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that of all the AV pros I’ve known all these years, their love of tools and gadgets vary only by degree. Some, like my friend and former co-worker Mike, one of the most talented […]

The other night it was Family Movie Night, and since it was my son’s turn to pick a movie he selected the Pixar film Bug’s Life. Watching Bug’s Life again after all these years was surreal for me for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that it was weird, retrospectively, to hear Hopper, […]

By now the people who don’t believe that vinyl is making a comeback are the ones who declare that in never left. That’s hardly news. What is news, and what I found very hard to believe is sources who declare that cassette tapes are making a comeback. What? I found that hard to believe. But […]

There are two key ways that real AV pros set their work apart from the offerings of both the big box retailers and the hang-and-bang guys. The first one is that their integration of multiple devices, sources, display and controls actually work. The second is that they know how to set the stage. A really […]

Words matter, both what you say, and how you say them, which is something that I’ve blogged about before. When your job centers around strengthening client relationships you become very conscious of how to best speak with your clients in a way that will do just that. Whether it’s delivering good news or bad, you […]

I’ve said before that a successful business is nothing more than “selling stuff to people.” But there are many ways to go about doing that, and by far the most effective is building lasting relationships, and the best way to do that is to take care of people’s needs and wants, and make them feel […]

One of my old bosses and business mentors had a key motto that he ran the company by: “I believe that we have the capability to design a home automation system to fit any of our qualified client’s needs.” The key word in this case was “qualified” and uniquely, he wasn’t referring to the usual […]