By Lee Distad

Thanks to the proliferation of jargon and the growth of business-self-help books as a category, expressions like ‘best practices’ get thrown around a lot.

Alas, like most jargon, people say things like that and while being well meaning, fail to really apply those expressions to what they do every day.

What is a best practice, really?

At its most simple, it’s doing something in a way that helps, rather than hinders your goals.

Make no mistake, there’s more than one way to do something, but inevitably there’s always a best way.

Or, as my old boss and mentor, they guy who more than anyone drilled the importance of processes into my brain, used to say, “There’s the wrong way, and there’s OUR way!”

With that in mind, I felt that it was time to codify and compile a summary of best practices of what it takes to make it as an AV Pro, based on both my personal experience, and my observations from networking with AV Pros all over North America.

Successful AV companies all share similarities and, perhaps unsurprisingly, unsuccessful AV companies share similarities too; often by doing the exact opposite of what successful companies do.

So with that in mind, let’s begin.

First, start small, and build your way up from there. Regardless of whether you’re new to the business, or you’ve struck out on your own from an established firm to start your own company, begin by selling and installing projects that are well within your ability to complete on time, and profitably.

While it will stand you in good stead for your entire career, learn the power of knowing when to say “No” to a prospective client.

While this may seem like a forehead slapper to the veteran AV guys reading this, I assure you that this nugget of wisdom isn’t obvious enough.

Virtually every nightmare job I’ve ever seen, been told about or been paid to pick up the pieces on has had one thing in common: a company that bit off more than they could chew, who then compounded the disaster by, when they were already in a hole, continuing to dig.

If all you can reasonably deliver on is “hang and bang” flat panel installs, or setting up a one-room AV system, then do it — there’s no shame in that.

In fact, my old friend George Berlinguette, owner of Classic HiFi in Sherwood Park, Alberta said it to me best. After barely keeping afloat after a series of huge and nearly disastrous whole-home integration projects he turned his back on large projects and focused his company on the meat-and-potatoes category that delivered not only the most profit, but the most pleasure to do: single room theatre projects between fifty to one hundred thousand dollars. As he put it, “Why risk losing my ass on a big house, when my crew can do a theater room a week, every week?”

Building on the first point, keep your designs and your processes simple. Both your design documents and the way that you install in site need to avoid complexity.

Don’t over-specify, and don’t over-wire your design. Remind yourself that every single box and every single interface between each box is a chance for something to fail. Expect devices and interfaces to fail, and plan accordingly.

Listen, actually listen to what your client wants out of their system, and design accordingly. In so far as it’s in your power to do so, design the control interface so that your client and their children and elderly parents (not just you or your brilliant programmer nerd) can operate it.

Both when pitching the system to the client and drawing out the system, stop and ask yourself, “Just because we can do something, does that mean we should?” If more AV Pros asked themselves this, more often the world would be a better place.

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