The current situation with COVID-19 is forcing us to adapt and do things differently — in multiple ways. We may only have to change for now — but maybe longer. In any case, we should be prepared for any adjustments that may come our way. The business landscape right now is strange. Many of my […]

Sometimes things don’t go the way you plan. I had all these marketing plans prepared to work with my dealers during this quarter. Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. As they say on the internet, “Well, that escalated quickly!” Most of my dealer base shut down. Some are still operating, mostly the ones who have contracts […]

If you’ve spent any time in sales within a professional setting, your boss has likely asked you, “What do you have lined up?” In some workplaces, it’s an informal check-in where your boss wants to know what you’re working on, or for you to give him or her an idea of upcoming project scheduling and, […]

Whether you’re working on improving yourself personally or professionally, it’s essential to have the ability to be introspective and analytical, in order to identify what you need to work on. That’s also true when you’re coaching others. In that, self-improvement has a lot in common with troubleshooting systems and equipment at work: Diagnose, Analyze, Repair, […]

There’s an advertising catchphrase that 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 […]

When planning and estimating, you have to deal with the unknown — this includes both the known-unknowns and the unknown-unknowns, so to speak. Everyone likes clear, concise answers, and at least initially, it’s not always possible for project managers to give them. During the development of the initial scope of a project, it’s difficult, maybe […]

If you know me, you know that my favorite aphorism is “every solution has two problems.” As it happens, I seem to have an occasion to say it almost every single day. I had written not too long ago about having added Disney+ to the streaming services we subscribe to. But there’s a whole other […]

There’s a saying that I regularly remind myself with. It goes, “If it makes you money, it’s a business. If it costs you money, it’s a hobby.” And while in order to be a business you need to have products and services that people want, it’s no less necessary, more so perhaps, that you get […]

One of my favorite aphorisms says that “every solution has two problems.” This understanding applies to all things. We moved into a new home in a new neighborhood. It’s right on the edge of the city. At least for now, until the fields south of here get developed too. A consequence of this being a […]

I was at a party last night where everyone else was non-CE industry people. In other words they were normal. The topic of streaming services came up, so I listened carefully to what they had to say. I kept most of my opinions to myself, because I really wanted to hear what regular consumers think. […]

In the previous installment, we took an overview of estimating and examined some of the basic concepts. Building off of that, it’s time to dig in with a little more detail and provide some context about selecting which methods to apply when you need to develop an estimate. One estimation technique I didn’t go into […]

Time passes. And things change. And while the French saying “Plus ça change, plus ça la meme chose” – the more things change the more they stay the same is mostly true (this understanding applies to not all, but most things), some things, at least with AV technology do indeed change a lot. There are […]

There are any number of things that make big projects different from little projects. The first one that comes to mind, for me, anyway, is that while small projects are typically billed out at time and materials, large projects are more often subject to being quoted out and that requires estimating what the job will […]

  Following up from my earlier blog post about buying a new TV, our household is moved to the new house. And we’re mostly unpacked. My friend and former co-worker Mike came over last week to help me hang the new TV on the wall, and I’ve rebuilt the AV system. It’s fully functional, now […]

It’s a reasonable expectation that in order for someone to be able to do well at their job, they need training. Following that, it should also be understood that training isn’t a one-shot deal: You don’t just enroll in whatever relevant course, program or certification, complete it and then spend the rest of your work […]

We’re moving to a new house at the end of the month. After fifteen years in one place, that’s necessitated some de-cluttering in preparation to pack and move. One thing that’s not coming with us is my 60-inch Hitachi plasma TV. It’s 13 years old, and still works fine. But that’s the thing about elderly […]

Whether working with, consulting for, or even just talking to managers and principals of small AV companies — while they can have unique features about them — broadly speaking they’re more similar than they are different. One of the most common similarities is that the principal or general manager of an AV company needs to […]

In the previous installment, I had promised to discuss making adjustments to the timeline as the project progresses. When it comes to project planning it’s important to be rigid yet flexible. While that sounds contradictory, just think of it as being Zen. (Editor’s note: See Part 1 of Lee Distad’s series on the almighty Gantt […]

If you’ve spent any time in sales in a professional setting, you’re likely to have had your boss ask you, “What do you have lined up?” In some work environments, it’s an informal check-in where your boss wants to know what you’re working on, to give him an idea of upcoming project scheduling and, more […]

What most often differentiates the AV pros who have the best reputations from the ones who, well… don’t is their ability to craft a complete experience for their clients. Accomplishing that requires a balance between the expertise needed to craft a well-designed system, the skills necessary to install it on time and on budget, but […]

While I work with a number of channels, the primary dealer channel I service is telecom. It was pretty low key and the media didn’t really make a big deal out of it so you might not know this but last week Apple announced the new iPhones for 2019. Anyway, on Friday I received an […]

I know I’m a little late celebrating Robbie Burns Day, which was at the end of January, but a line from one of his famous poems is a good intro to this column: “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a-gley.” What he meant was: “Things go wrong.” It’s a reality of […]

Business is almost always a team effort. All of us require a network of team members, all working on what they do best in order to make sure that the client is well taken care of. Building on that, there’s a very important social aspect to business. People don’t just do business with you because […]

You’re probably aware that business coaches are a whole thing now. Whatever skills or aptitudes you’re looking to sharpen, you can find and hire a coach who will help you learn what you need to know to improve on whatever it is you feel you need to improve on. There are any number of things […]

In the first installment, I had mentioned that Gantt charts used to take up an entire wall. That meant that they weren’t mobile, which required team meeting to be planned in the office where the Gantt chart lives. Now, with software solutions, you can take your project’s Gantt chart with you and your team can […]

There are some topics that get all the attention in the trade media. That’s usually because the subject is exciting or novel. Mostly those topics are product-related and form a constellation of gushing puff-pieces when exciting new products are launched. That’s not to say that every article about a new product is exciting. I once […]

One of the regular conversations I have with my clients involves leveraging Customer Relationship Management – CRM – tools to retain and engage their existing customer base in order to keep them coming back to spend money. How exactly that should be done is a lengthy conversation. The fact that it should be done is […]

I got a call from one of my dealers this week. That’s not unusual, someone calls me every day. That’s part of my job. “Lee, I have a problem.” — that was how the call began. What had happened was that he had driven out to a jobsite to install one of our cell boosters […]

There are a lot of ways to close a sale. The shelves of the business section of the bookstore are full of volumes on how to close more deals. Even when you account for the fact that every sales guru who puts up a shingle and starts selling books and seminars gives a different name […]

I’ve talked before about how 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% of everything is crap. The other, courtesy of tech entrepreneur James Altucher, is that “95% of […]

It’s important to be resilient. In this context, that means being prepared for the worst. Everyone knows Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” And there are others like, “The first casualty of every battle is the plan,” or “Every solution has two problems,” and of course, “You don’t need to go […]

I was recently meeting with one of my dealers and he expressed frustration at how may times he has to repeat himself on jobsites when communicating his requirements to trades like the electrician or the HVAC guy in order for them to do the thing he needs them to do, so he is able to […]