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The Power of a Weekly Reflection

How a simple weekly ritual can help us navigate complexity and stay on course.

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2021 Showroom Showcase Gallery

A look at some stellar shop spaces from across the country that are used for showing and selling.

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The Showroom as a Destination

Digital Installers proves it is more about the experience than the sales pitch.

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Staffing Up!

HD Staffing's CEO Tres Huber discusses current CI hiring trends and what to look for and avoid in candidates.

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Working with Builders: Starting Smart

With builders looking to make homes smart right from the beginning, integrators get the chance to get in early and stick around.

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What’s Your Ikigai?

Help your business grow by understanding its reason for being, and communicating that to clients and employees.

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Simplification Through Specialization

Try to be more purposeful about who you are and who you aren’t in an effort to attract your ideal customer.

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Where We’re At — the State of the Industry

What’s being spec’d, what’s being bought, and how business is doing compared to the pre-Covid landscape.

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Wired for Distraction

The real source of your difficulty focusing, and what you can do about it.

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CEDIA Expo 2020: Product Showcase

Some of the new products you ll find on CEDIA Expo's virtual show floor.

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A Different Kind of Safe Space

How to create high-performance teams with belonging.

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Tech Showcase: Business Software and Services 2020 [Updated 7/17/20]

Help for the less-fun side of being a residential AV integration dealer.

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10 Ways to Revitalize Your Business

It’s the right time to take stock of your company and implement some improvements.

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Reinventing Your Integration Company

Fundamental product development practices to help your business be more adaptable.

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Selling Beyond the Sale

Changing the game around client and partner interactions with Relationship Science techniques.

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Understanding What Architects Need from Tech Integration Firms

A primer for residential systems integrators.

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The Pygmalion Effect

How higher expectations lead to higher performance.

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The Right Time for Resimercial

Cloud, IP, and strategic partnerships are helping residential integrators tackle light commercial AV.

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A Big Bet

What SnapAV’s acquisition of Control4 means for the future of our channel.

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Best Buy and the Client Experience

Surprising lessons from an unlikely source about the power of long-term vision.

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Aging in Place: A Primer

Aging-in-place integrations offer their own sets of challenges — and opportunities. Here’s an overview.

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Are Your Customers Successful?

How you can leverage the popular discipline of customer success to create happier clients and a healthier bottom line.

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Someday We’ll Find It: The Design Connection

A conversation between an integrator and a designer on how to work together more effectively — and why it is important to do so.

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AV Junction Aims to be the ‘Uber of Our Industry’

Just launched this week, AV Junction is an online marketplace for AV talent where freelancers and integration firms can connect with one another to...

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Closing Out the Last 5 Percent of a Project

When it comes to closing out a project, a detailed scope-of-work statement is one of the most important documents you can have in your...

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Service Contracts: An Understood Benefit

How do you handle the topic of ongoing service and maintenance during your sales process?

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The Customer Experience Equation

If you were asked to define how you ensure a great experience for your clients, how would you reply?

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Managing Your AV Guilt

They say the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

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DIY Manufacturers: Meet Us in the Middle

If you are a maker of a DIY product, there’s ample opportunity for partnerships here. But if you’re looking for sustainable success with a...

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Working Deeply

I recently finished a book titled Deep Work by Cal Newport.

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Forward-Facing Customer Service

Admit that you’re in the service business. Understand service is not the transactional side of your business, but the manner in which you conduct...

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Can the CI Business Be Fun Again?

The most common complaint I hear from dealers is, “The business isn’t fun anymore.”

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Is it Time to Rethink the Showroom?

I’ve visited dozens of dealerships that had installed a theater and vignettes in years past, and for the most part, their demo facilities were...

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Selling Against the Mass Luxury Trend

Client expectations have intensified in the past decade, putting increased pressure on your margins, workmanship, and timeliness.

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Become a Luxury Merchandiser

In 2008 Tiffany & Co’s stock traded around $26 a share, down from a 20- year high of $57 a year earlier.

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Move Beyond a One-to-One Client Model to Improve Your Labor Costs

Certainly the greatest challenge in the CI business is a healthy labor return on investment (ROI). I maintain that manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP)...

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Torus Power’s Howard Gladstone Addresses Common Misperceptions of Power Management Products

Torus Power Products, which are designed and manufactured by Plitron Manufacturing in Toronto, Canada, provide power management solutions for audio and AV systems, from...

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