As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Gaming now occupies a place in end-users entertainment options that is as mainstream as a cable box. It’s entirely typical now for a media room or theater room install to incorporate at least one gaming console as a source and quite […]

One of the items that popped up in my feed this week was the news that Google no longer requires job candidates to possess a four-year degree. Further discussion among friends and acquaintances in the tech sector pointed out that this isn’t an earth shaking development. It’s been the case for decades that tech companies, […]

It’s not a particularly glamorous topic to write about, let alone read, but anyone whose work falls within the bounds of the construction industry needs to have a grasp of liens and holdbacks, since they affect all parties, including suppliers, subcontractors, general contractors and owners. The definition of a holdback is related to its context, […]

Some people fear change. Some people embrace change. And I suspect that for many of us it’s a mix of both, depending on the circumstances. Despite somehow having earned a reputation as some sort of “tech guy” I can be kind of stodgy. I’m definitely not an Early Adopter. I like to see how things […]

Previously, I’d gone into depth about the basics of managing your relationships with your clients which, when you drill down, is about how you manage your communication with them. Early on, while talking about initial interviews and needs assessment, I’d alluded to the using the initial needs assessment as a filter, not just to identify […]

So, funny story. Or at least I think it’s funny. Also, this coincides eerily with the editorial that ran last week, “Going To Get Myself Connected.” The router in my house has been acting up, needing near daily rebooting. It occurred to me today that not only have I not updated the router’s firmware lately, […]

It doesn’t feel like that long ago that network connectivity in AV hardware was an idea more noted in the breach than in the observance. But times have changed. What started with lighting control and other automation hardware eventually migrated into mainstream AV products. Honestly, once you’ve got those features, there’s no going back. Luxuries […]

Articles and blog posts about selling talk a lot about cold calls, but seldom deal with warm calls. While I think cold calling has an undeservedly bad reputation, and can actually be fun once you find your mojo on it, I’m willing to concede that warm calls are most salespeople’s favorite. Unlike cold calls, where […]

Owners, general managers and inventory managers of AV companies routinely need to consider the pros and cons of buying products either from the manufacturer or a distributor. In addition to those options, there are also buying groups: an organizing of dealers who negotiate terms with their suppliers collectively. The primary rationale for buying groups is […]

View parts 1 and 2 of this series here and here. There’s the old saying that sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. In order to stretch the analogy to its limit, I wanted to digress from my topic of addressing the pros and cons of hiring and using subcontractors to […]

Previously, I began an exploration of the relationship between AV pros and subcontractors, and examined ways in which the relationship can work. Now it’s time to consider the converse: when it doesn’t. We all know that not everything pans out. Silicon Valley old-timer James Altucher famously said, “90 percent of everything doesn’t work out.” One […]

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 […]