“Alexa, turn on the church audiovisual system.” Clever voice-activated connectivity? Maybe. But practical? Not really. “Alexa, show me the upcoming maintenance on all of my audiovisual components, listing them in descending order by date.” Clever? Maybe. But practical? Absolutely. In the house of worship market, convenience isn’t a key driver for upgrades or new purchases. […]

‘Solve their technology pain, then introduce them to a technology strategy.’ That should be the mantra for consultants, systems integrators, and manufacturers selling to the church market. The House of Worship (HOW) market is not without strategy. In fact, they’re some of the most focused organizations around when it comes to their strategic purpose. However, they […]

It’s all in the fine print. Most people won’t open up new gear and grab the owner’s manual and warranty information and spend the next two hours pouring over that fascinating documentation. For those of us who do, we will find myriad legal terms that outline our options should we need technical support or have […]

Money. Price. Budget. These nouns tend to put the emphasis on the bottom line instead of where the emphasis has the most effect: the desired outcome. A dollar amount will always be a sum of the outcomes and needs of a church, so why do salespeople in the House of Worship vertical tend towards the […]

“Can you come and fix our church AV?” This singular question is rife with implications for the audio, video and lighting (AVL) industry and one that needs to be addressed by manufacturers, systems integrators and rep firms serving the $1 billion (annual) church AVL market so that the pain experienced by all involved is properly […]

The dog days of summer are upon us and much of the commercial and education vertical markets have slowed to a crawl, but the house of worship market is heating up seemingly in proportion to the high temps of the season. That’s because, for churches, summertime is the time when the planning for the big […]

Amazing new product? Check. Great fit for a church installation? Check. The dissonance between who you say you are and who your church prospects say you are? Ummmm. To complete this checklist, it begs the question: What is your brand known for? Your brand is not what you say it is; it is what your prospects […]

Video sharing and advertising are ironically lacking from the audio, video and lighting (AVL) industry while the growth of this format and medium continues to become the defacto standard for consumption. The stats are in and they’re staggering. Sometimes the writing is on the wall so clearly that you have to look at another wall […]

To prepare for the future trends in the house of worship market as it pertains to Audio/Video/Lighting (AVL) technology, one must glean insights from the past. There may be no better way to do that than to survey the technical staff of churches actively involved in AVL technical production, which was done earlier in 2016 […]

By aggregating trends from the past, we have a significant indicator of future trends and shifts in the House of Worship market. The word cloud graphic for this article lists the top 25 recurring words from all of the previous columns written here about the church market on rAVE, and they are an excellent look […]

Compared to huge government contracts or big commercial deals, the church market may not seem nearly as compelling for manufacturers and systems integrators selling audio, video, and lighting technology. And while there won’t be $50MM dollar AVL deals in the House of Worship space, there also won’t be the massive complexity and low margins of […]

Church online: where local churches are hosting either live or video on demand services for attendees who are not at their physical church campuses. Yep, thanks to the technology the Audio/Video/Lighting (AVL) industry manufactures, a rapidly growing number of churches have taken their church services to the congregant, online. In my study of this growth, […]

To ensure your technology solution ends up in more churches, you simply must solve the one problem all churches have. And to do that, you’ll need to understand why, exactly, they’re having the problem in the first place. It’s not that technology hasn’t been widely adopted, or that the exponential increase in performance coupled with […]

There is a saying that churches buy a sound system three times. The first is the one the building “comes with” that was most likely designed by the general contractor or a local music store. A well-meaning but ill-experienced volunteer who adds some new equipment typically installs the second system. The third system is usually […]

The church bought all of your gear and are fully equipped to leverage the best of your technology. While this sounds like a sales dream, the natural progression will now turn downhill unless you continue to provide the church with what they really need most: your expertise. Interestingly, the Second Law of Thermodynamics provides us […]

When a church technician asks a question about video, are they also thinking about lighting? As the saying goes, ‘without light, it’s just radio.’ In online forums or at conferences, I’ve heard the same type of questions focused around a specific technology, narrowly focused on one aspect when the bigger picture needs to be considered. […]

The old sales trick of providing a list of desired features and benefits to overcome purchase barriers may still work with some church leaders, but the Internet has taught consumers a thing or two about what is offered and what they really want. To justify the expense, churches need metrics from real data. Rethinking Repairs Technology […]

As a house of worship consultant to manufacturers and systems integrators, I’ve seen and heard from a wide array of companies in the Audio/Video/Lighting (AVL) space about their experience with the church market. I think your experience at a manufacturer or dealer will likely follow one of these patterns of thought and leadership. All the […]

Fellow geeks have united and converged upon Las Vegas, Nevada once again for the annual tech-fest that is the Consumer Electronics Show, and the future’s digital handwriting is on the proverbial wall: audio/video/lighting (A/V/L) technology is once again the dominant technology. With prognostications aside, the trends of these present-future technologies have a direct impact on […]

Near cinema-quality field video capture is available for well under $10K, a price point so low that the A/V/L industry feels threatened by low cost technology dazzling the focus and buying power of consumers. A visit to InfoComm or NAB quickly reveals a rush to service the exponential growth of the sub $10K market space, […]

I geek out when I find out new ways of using my smartphone — hidden features or undocumented I-didn’t-know-it-could-do-that shortcuts elicit mini-celebrations and a secret calculation of how much more more value I just got out of the original purchase price. Usually these are shortcuts and features that existed when the phone launched; I’m just […]

Does the value of your product really come down to the lowest price? In an effort to sell more, dealers and systems integrators are often setting the price of their technology based on an aggregate price that they believe will help make the sale happen. Sales may happen, but the value of your brand, manufacturers […]

There are many A/V/L systems in place at churches of every size, location and style. Many are there because they were the lowest bid price point; others are stitched together over time, mostly borne out of necessity — and yet others are in place because an integrator specified what worked in other churches. Finally, there […]