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Will You Design or Build?
Often the best way to appreciate an industry is to compare it to others.
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Focusing on The ‘Middle’
It goes without saying that our industry is currently undergoing massive change in terms of the products we sell (or used to sell) and...
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New Skills, New Reality
Most ESCs in business today either started or have helped grow companies that possess the skills required for delivering many or all of the...
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How Do You Define Success?
Embracing and Learning from Our Failures Can Lead to Success
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It All Starts on Day 1
Seven Ingredients for Creating an Effective Employee Manual As business owners, one byproduct of our continuous...
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Simplifying Technology
Our Clients Expect a Lot More From Us, But Can We Deliver? Based on my 20-plus years of...
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Our Game Is Changing
Five Market Challenges That Can’t Be Ignored By Your Company ...
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Listen to Win
As we enter a new decade my big question is this: Are the manufacturers who serve our industry going to continue churning out...
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What’s on the Inside?
Improving The Perception Of Your Company’s Inner Workings ...
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Fix That First Impression
Elevating Your Status From Sub-Trade To Project Professional “You never get a second chance to make a...
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The Face of the Business
Why Your People Are Fundamental To Your Long-Term Success Well, that was quite a year wasn’t it? Regardless...
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Commercial AV Pitfalls
Why residential escs should think twice before ‘going pro’ A high school basketball area installation of Electro-Voice speakers like this one is not a...
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Get Your Game Face On
New Technology From E3 Will Help Change Our Business Focus During Microsoft’s E3 demo, the movements ofthis gamer were accurately captured by the ProjectNatal...
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Back to the Drawing Board
Why Project Drawings Can Be So Critical To Your Success Most people familiar with the workflow of a typical, new-construction, residential project can likely...
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Targeting Your Product Mix
When It Comes To The Lines You Sell, Sometimes Less Is More As electronic systems contractors, we all make a variety of decisions every...
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Tightening the Ties that Bind
How Manufacturers’ Rep Firms Can Better Serve Our Industry During these challenging times, every company in our industry should be looking for better ways...
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There is a Better Way
Five Critical Ideas For Improving Your Sales And Operations If you have been in this business for a while and attended your share of...
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Killing the Killer Showroom
Ditch Your Design Center For A More Productive Work Space So if you are like most integrators these days, then you are probably looking...
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Simplifying the Interface
It’s safe to say that the world has changed. For all but the wealthiest of our clients, discretionary income has been replaced with a...
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Raising Your Standards
How do your customers and your prospects perceive you and your installation company? It is important to understand the components of your image and...
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Riding Out the Storm
Wall Street is in the midst of a Category 5 financial hurricane, and it’s time to hunker down. The storm’s damage is already in...
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Moving Up-Market
Every year there is a consistent flow of new companies jumping into the custom installation business. Unfortunately, most make the same initial mistakes. ...
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Surviving Tough Times
Our economic crisis has grown to immense portions. More than 250 home mortgage companies have gone out of business or have entirely left the...
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The Future of Home Control
I recently visited Disney World to see one of its most enduring attractions: the Carousel of Progress. This revolving presentation clarifies how accelerating technology...
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Get XP While You Still Can
Business PC users are pretty much stuck with Windows. Yes, I also have a Mac and I love working on it with ProTools, Final...
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Gauging Your Financials
Editors Note: Last month, Leslie Shiner answered questions about using QuickBooks on the financial side of your business. This month, Rich Riehl adds his...
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Earning a Place at the Table
It took weeks of calling and lots of patience to finally break through and get the go ahead for this important sales meeting. You...
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Riding Business Waves
I had been pondering the growing mortgage crisis and how it was affecting our entire economy. I was trying to process stories I had...
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The Busy-ness of Business
Nobody likes red tape. Nobody likes spending hours reconciling bank statements and comparing a pile of purchase orders with a pile of packing lists...
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The Future of High Fidelity
A lot has changed on the technology landscape since I started writing this column in January 2000. As I move into my eighth year...
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Planting Seeds that Grow
As we begin this New Year, I believe we can learn something from the pioneers of the Old West. In those days, there were...
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Windows of Opportunity
I finally did it: I upgraded my personal home system to a 42-inch flat screen HDTV with a Blu-ray DVD and added a new...
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Building a Business System
Running your custom installation business profitably requires putting systems in place to manage your products and prices. It is not possible to build a...
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Charging What Youre Worth
Properly setting prices can have a huge impact on the success or failure of a custom installation business. To casually decide that your company...
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The Bosss Long Vacation
We all work hard in this business. Our personal energy is the fuel many of our small businesses run on. We give it all...
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A Womans Wishes First
I visited a big-box AV retailer recently and was surrounded by what seems like 100 flat-screen displays. After so many years in this business,...
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Three Cheers for Sales Reps
Reps are the unsung road warriors of our industry. They pay the price to travel to make house calls to all the small dealerships...
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Securing Your Place
The custom AV installation business is a hot market to be in. While our small installation companies may never make it to the NASDAQ,...
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Racing Against Time
Whenever I talk shop with someone in the installation business, they always mention that they just dont have enough time. This constant stress is...
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Battling Big Box Retailers
Most custom AV installation companies are pretty small. Even those generating a few million in annual sales generally operate with a handful of talented...