Lee Distad

Lee Distad is a rAVe columnist and freelance writer covering topics from CE to global business and finance in both print and online. Reach him at lee@ravepubs.com

Random Encounters

When you deal with the public you get to meet all kinds of people, for better or for worse. Most people you deal with are average, and as a result not necessarily memorable. Others are more memorable, and not always in a good way. I had a new client who wanted a retrofit project: a […]

It’s not lost on veteran AV pros that even as they need to make the best use of their client’s budget, in order to do that they need to make the best use of their own. That means allocating your firm’s funds, resources and expertise in a way that maximizes everything from effectiveness to profitability. […]

There’s an advertising catchphrase that’s probably dates back to the dawn of advertising: “We service what we sell!” You’ll see it appended as a tagline everywhere from car dealerships to general merchandise retailers. Last week my kitchen fridge died. It was only seven years old. I say “kitchen fridge” to differentiate it from the downstairs […]

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. Hang around long enough in this business and you’ll see a lot of changes, and a lot of technologies come and go. Mostly, you’ll see them go. Nothing lasts forever, but some technologies die off faster than others. The one common thread in all the jobs I’ve held […]

We all have things that we hold dear. And often, the things that we believe are so internalized that we take them for granted, assuming that everyone else knows what we do. Take baking bread, for example. When leading training I often use that as an example of a basic skill. The thing about baking […]

Everyone who knows me knows that I have an aphorism for every occasion. (I have sports metaphors too, but that’s not the topic at hand today.) One of my favorite aphorisms (although really, I have so many, it’s hard to choose a favorite) is that “Professionalism isn’t about not having problems: Everyone has problems. Professionalism […]

I mentioned in a brief blog last week that my inbox is deluged every day with unsolicited product pitches. And most of them are garbage. I’m reminded on a daily basis of two key aphorisms. The first is Sturgeon’s Law: that 80 percent of everything is crap. The other, courtesy of tech entrepreneur James Altucher, […]

I imagine that my household is typical of many, in that there are multiple smartphones and tablets in use by members of the family. In fact, despite a big flat panel TV in the media room and a less-big one on the wall in the living room, mobile devices are the primary vector for people […]

From the outside looking in, there doesn’t seem to be much of a distinction between the CE retail and AV install channels, yet the distinction is there. It may be somewhat blurred and move back and forth from time to time, but the line is there and residential AV pros need to be aware of […]

Everything changes and the pace of that change can be dizzying. Change for its own sake, however, isn’t always advisable. It needs to be carefully considered. A recurring trend in my discussions with consumer electronics dealers is their efforts in exploring avenues by which they can both differentiate themselves and seek new margin-building categories. Over […]

In a recent editorial, talking about the importance of vendor reps making face-to-face contact with their dealer base, I mentioned shop-talk as one reason why: Finding things out through the grapevine that might not learn any other way, especially sitting in your office waiting for the phone to ring. Keeping an ear to the ground, […]

This can be a sensitive subject to both suppliers and resellers, so I will endeavor to tread lightly. In CE retail, co-op promotional costs are largely the norm. That’s where the supplier supports their dealers’ sales efforts with measures that can range from subsidizing advertising costs, to sell-through credits, to paying for product placement in-store. […]

I’ve got no real point to this anecdote this week. I just wanted to reminisce and allow readers to bask in some corporate schadenfreude. I dislike legacy systems. In fact I may have already mentioned my feelings about them upon occasion. At one job I had the company’s sales processes were burdened by not one […]

Previously, I had written an editorial that addressed deciding what to do with long-term clients in the context of applying the analogy of legacy systems to them: Do you upgrade them or do you get rid of them? Of course, that got me thinking back to legacy systems themselves and again: Do you upgrade them […]

I have a tendency to subvert aphorisms and expressions to suit my own purposes. We all do it to some degree when we use the language of sports as either an metaphor or an analogy. At work we all know you’re not talking about hockey when you say you have to “take one for the […]

This may seem like a small thing, and perhaps it is, but many pet peeves are like that: just because they’re small doesn’t mean they don’t mater. My point is this: brand websites need to keep their dealer finder up to date. At one of my old jobs, I would regularly get phone calls from […]

In the first installment, I flew over what sunk costs are and how they differ from the other kinds of costs you face in your business. To recap briefly, economists and business courses make the point that sunk costs should not be taken into account when making decisions about new expenditures. The money is spent, […]

This weekend the New York Times published an in-depth investigative piece, The Follower Factory. It details the use and abuse of fake accounts on Twitter. It was such a captivating read that I shelved the blog post that I was working on for this weekend and felt compelled to chime in on the subject. Anyone […]

Last week I received an unexpected, wonderful surprise. I got a couple of Christmas card from some of my dealers. I’ve sent out Christmas cards to my dealers in the past, but I’ve never received any in return. You may wonder why they were so late. I could be glib and tell you that […]

Years ago, one of my old mentors said to me that “the key to success in business is knowing what to spend money on, and what not to.” Like a lot of the Zen koans he was fond of dropping, on the surface, that doesn’t seem very helpful. When you run a business it costs […]

This is a confession blog. We all have blind spots, sometimes. And I’m not too proud to admit that sometimes I’m not the brightest. Anyway, I’ll just say it: I’ve had Amazon Prime for years. And, like our Costco Executive membership we definitely get our money’s worth out of it. Or so I thought. I’ve […]

Presumably you’ve had some quiet time over the holidays to reflect on the past year, and to look forward to the next. Since traditionally now is the time to think about resolutions for the coming year, perhaps you’re thinking about what you can do differently at work, whether it’s how to streamline processes to be […]

One of my favorite aphorisms (and I have plenty) is that you have to make the most of what you’ve got. Because, and while I know that it’s a tautology, all you have is all you’ve got. That’s the essence of what it means to have best practices in your business. Best practices are just […]

Until now I haven’t understood the appeal of so-called Smart TVs. I didn’t want my TV to be networked. I didn’t want it to do tricks. All I wanted was for it to do what it was told, and to display an adequate picture. Until I had to make some refits to the TV install […]

It feels like a million years ago that pulling wire in residential installations almost exclusively meant speaker wire. AV pros who’ve been around long enough have seen a lot of changes since then. And at the risk of sentimentality or applying too much nostalgia to the past, the changes that have come and gone in […]

There are all kinds of lovely aphorisms about how important it is to prepare ahead of time: Forewarned is forearmed An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure Measure twice, cut once I could go on. The thing about aphorisms and common wisdom is, to borrow another one, that they so often go […]

For as much traction as the so-called smart home has gained in consumer awareness, it’s still audio and video that remains a key part of the residential business. While I’ve met a few HiFi shop owners who loathe automation and prefer to deal with it in the context of cinema room design, I don’t think […]

As Dickey Fox said in the film Jerry Maguire, the key to business is personal relationships. I agree wholeheartedly. Knowing who you have to deal with, and how best to work with them is of paramount importance. But it’s not always as easy as buying people coffee, or taking them out for lunch to get […]

The tech media never lets up with thinkpieces about cord cutters and the imminent dire future for broadcast TV providers. Yet we’ve been reading these pronouncements for years now. And the broadcast landscape has changed a lot in that time. Whether it’s for better or worse is probably a matter of opinion. I’ll concede that […]

When I’m coaching sales training I talk a lot about the importance of follow up. That’s because it makes a difference. As a salesperson if you actually follow up with prospective clients, you’ll be well ahead of your competitors. That’s because most salespeople either don’t follow up at all, or they only follow up half-heartedly. […]

I just spent a week road tripping in the wilds of northern Alberta. That, in itself, is not unusual for me. I do it all the time. What made it different this time was that I had cajoled the Canadian sales manager for the biggest brand we distribute to ride with me. My main objective […]

It is absolutely possible to have too much of a good thing. In the various AV and CE channels, you’ll find that at least a trickle of nerdiness runs through most of the people who work there. In some, it’s not so much a trickle, as it is a raging river. And there’s nothing wrong […]

Lee Distad

Random Encounters

Subcontracting: Part 1

Should You Service What You Didn’t Sell?

Obsolescence And Things I Feel Guilty About

Reaffirming Top-Down Selling

The Joys Of Troubleshooting

What Matters When Selecting New Products

The Consequence of Wireless? WIRES!

What Makes a Product AV Install Specific?

Adapt or Perish

How Plugged In Are You Really?

Should You Pay Co-op Dollars for Placement?

Strange ReTales: Something Doesn’t Add Up

Handling Legacy Systems

Picking Up Pennies In Front Of A Steamroller

The Importance Of Being Up To Date

Sunk Costs: Part 2

Twitter’s Credibility Problem: Signal To Noise Ratio

In Which I Belatedly Reflect On Christmas Cards

Sunk Costs: Part 1

Amazon Prime, or: Nobody’s Perfect

Resolve To Close More Deals In The New Year

Have You Done These Three Things?

Reconsidering My Stance On Smart TVs

Wiring Then And Now

Strange Re-Tales: If It Fits It Ships

When Was The Last Time You Did an AV Demo?

Who’s On First?

With Broadcast Boxes, It’s Always Two Steps, Forward Three Steps Back

Too Much Follow Up?

Where Have All The Sales Reps Gone?

Leave Your Propeller Hat At Home