Latest headlines: Omar Prashad on where all the sales professionals are, Scott Tiner on a new product end users are begging for and more
April 15, 2021 | Volume: 19 | Issue: 14
In this week’s issue of ProAV, Omar Prashad asks a simple question: Where are all the sales professionals? Our industry (and most industries) have plenty of salespeople. But Omar illustrates the difference between salespeople and sales professionals. Why does he want to hire one over the other? Read to find out!
Also, in this issue, Scott Tiner writes to the integrators and manufacturers in our industry from his perspective as an end user. He and others are dreaming of an AV tool for inventory and asset management. Does such a thing exist? They haven’t found it. Could you possibly make one? If you do, chances are Scott and his colleagues will be first in line to be customers.
Otherwise, we have some cool product stories from Lectrosonics, Audinate, MAXHUB and more.
P.S. I hope you’ve been checking out rAVe [TV], a passion project put on by Gary and me. We talk about the latest industry news each week, along with our favorite columns from our BlogSquad — and we pepper some personal news in there as well. There’s something for everyone.
Here’s my problem: There are way too many salespeople and way too few sales professionals. In my experience, 99% of all salespeople are just that, salespeople. Not sales professionals. The distinction seems irrelevant; it isn’t, and it’s been giving the profession of sales a bad rap since the beginning of time.
Recently, on the higher ed AV Slack channel, there was a discussion of what different people use for asset and inventory tools. Not surprisingly, there were a wide range of various options, but mainly the consensus was that most people have fiddled around with a spreadsheet or database and created their own system. No one felt that a suitable product existed on the market. If you are a manufacturer, software developer or integrator, let that statement sink in for a bit.
On March 31, THE rAVe Agency Founder and Director Gary Kayye was joined by ViewSonic’s Ryan Strayer, Dan Sharpe and Chris Graefe for another installment of our LAVNCH & LEARN sessions. The session — titled “Collaborative Education and Workplace Solutions” — aimed to discuss ViewSonic’s exciting new products designed to foster collaboration in workplace and classroom environments.
The past year demonstrated how the immense flexibility of digital signage helped many organizations quickly adapt to operate safely during the pandemic. And while we’re not yet out of the woods, this is a good time to reflect on some takeaways from the COVID-19 crisis.