How To Start An Av Company
How I Got Into The AV Business
For some, AV has always been a passion; for others, it was a job that turned into something more. Either way, it seems that AV workers tend to accept a better-than-average chance for a various biography than some of their professional peers from other industries.
How I Got Into The AV Business
For some, AV has always been a passion; for others, it was a task that turned into something more than. Either mode, it seems that AV workers tend to have a better-than-average take chances for a diverse biography than some of their professional person peers from other industries.
For some, AV has always been a passion; for others, it was a job that turned into something more than. Either fashion, it seems that AV workers tend to have a amend-than-average chance for a diverse biography than some of their professional person peers from other industries. Each one has a unique story to tell about how they've come this far in their AV careers. What are the common threads that necktie this industry together, including interests, backgrounds, and beliefs that go along AV pros coming back for more twenty-four hour period in and twenty-four hour period out? Meet v folks who were kind (and crazy) enough to share how they got into the AV business organisation.
Doug Hall, chief operating officer, The Whitlock Grouping
Doug Hall, chief operating officer, The Whitlock Group
Doug Hall attended Virginia Tech and graduated in 1983 with a business caste. Piffling did he know that twenty-plus years after he would be involved in the sales, marketing, and operations of The Whitlock Group, a growing systems integrator based in Richmond, VA. Hall began his career as a certified public auditor with Ernst & Immature (E&Y). He spent 11 years in Due east&Y'south Entrepreneurial Services Group working with growing companies. In this part, he acted as a concern advisor on growth strategy, finances, mergers, and operations. It was during this time that Hall stumbled into his AV career. "Ane year, John Whitlock [founder of The Whitlock Group] received the Entrepreneur of the Year award given by my firm," Hall says. "Soon afterwards nosotros met, John offered me the opportunity to bring together the company."
Hall came aboard every bit chief fiscal officeholder in 1996 and spent his offset four to v months evaluating potential acquisitions for The Whitlock Group. "Our electric current president, Kevin Thompson, was focused on the circulate side of the business at the fourth dimension," Hall explains. "I got involved and tried to grow the AV business. I've also been the AV sales manager for the by nine years. Over the years, I have also moved over into operations, sales, and marketing — I'grand not really involved in the financials anymore."
Out of necessity, Hall brushed upwardly on AV technology and went out on the road to conduct product demonstrations and presentations. "Although I didn't have an interest in AV before I joined The Whitlock Group, I've come to relish the various AV technologies and spending time with manufacturers to learn more about them," Hall says. "Everything nosotros do is so closely tied into a client's network that you also need to have an understanding of calculator networking. AV is no longer only crafting a three-gun projector."
Hall's eclectic experience has given him a better understating of how to succeed in the AV business concern. "I was already involved in business development and have institute that my most crucial office has been business organisation manager," Hall says. "Success comes when you focus on hiring good people. For salespeople, we wait for folks that are professional and understand the technology. It's nearly important that they're willing to learn. For technical people, a potent involvement in the technology is needed also as basic technical skills. Overall, a candidate needs interpersonal skills and can understand how to communicate with clients and co-workers."
The Whitlock Grouping currently has 17 locations, 300 employees, and $75 million in sales.
Bruce Christensen, president, Concern Media Inc.
Bruce Christensen, president, Business Media Inc.
Like many young men, Bruce Christensen was drafted in 1969, and went into the Naval Intelligence Group. Subsequently his beginning introduction to electronics, he spent three and a half years using and learning the equipment. Following his stint in the Navy, Christensen spent fifteen years in the corporate world in sales and direction for the banking and financial services industry. "My friend worked in sales for 3M Corp., and told me I should get into this new industry called computers," Christensen muses. "He told me at that place was a huge demand for computer supplies to support the booming corporate, educational, and government computer sales."
Then in 1988, Christensen founded Business organization Media Inc. (BMI), in Lincoln, NE, with the intention of selling figurer supplies such as light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printer toner and inkjet cartridges. As the reckoner industry matured, BMI enjoyed brisk sales and close customer relationships. In 1993, Christensen got another phone call regarding a new product called an LCD panel. The manufacturer sent him a demo unit of an LCD flat panel that sat atop the overhead projector. He took it to his biggest customer in nearby Omaha, and they bought 2 panels that day.
"In that location were much better profit margins on AV product so, and so from a business perspective information technology made sense to go in that direction," Christensen says. "There was a natural crossover into selling AV products when the computer market matured and figurer supplies became a commodity. Now our sales are 99.5 pct AV products and very little in the computer supplies."
About five years ago, BMI saw another change in the market. "AV products were condign commodity products, much like what happened in the computer market place," he adds. "Pretty soon, a customer could now buy a quality projector for only a few hundred dollars. The equipment also became much more convenient."
BMI began its AV installation group and started searching for talents like CAD engineers, project managers, and AV designers. "Everything is so software driven," Christensen says. "For AV design, we're always looking for people with hands-on experience. For installation techs, nosotros'll hire people with experience in the structure or electrical trades who we tin can then teach the technology of AV. The claiming is to find expert people. Withal, what has prepared me is the opportunity to grow up with the AV industry and see the new technologies every bit they happen."
Dave Crane, new market development director, SG Integration
Dave Crane, new market development director, SG Integration
Growing up, Dave Crane e'er had an interest in tinkering, a trait most AV professionals can appreciate. In Crane'due south case, he coupled his interest in audio with an education in business and electronics. After finishing his courses, he heard that a friend was working for a phone company that wanted to expand its paging business and delve into basic audio systems for schools and churches. Crane was offered a chore in sales. "It was more like a task in cold-calling," Crane says. "Later on realizing the limited growth potential, I contacted Superior Sound in Kansas Metropolis [a place where many sound industry greats like Robert Scovill got their beginning] to see if they would be interested in hiring me."
In 1988, Superior Sound created a sales/system design position for him working with consultants and Television/circulate clients. A few years later, a personal change brought him to Branson, MO. "When I went to piece of work for Marker Morton at SoundsGreat, I was put in charge of the Branson office," he says. "I was selling and installing large audio systems during the 'Branson Boom' of the early 1990s."
One of his installations was at the Shoji Tabuchi Theatre. Tabuchi, a master violinist, is an international hit on the Branson music scene. Crane joined the Theatre staff every bit the section supervisor for AV, which meant responsibilities ranging from video shoots for DVDs to working as FOH engineer for the live prove. "During my five and a half years there, I learned the ins and outs of signal flow, rigging, and many other hands-on essentials," Crane adds. "The theatre trusted me to bring in the right equipment, which meant I could work with the latest technology on the market place."
After working more than 2,500 shows during his tenure with Tabuchi, Crane then moved over to a sales position at a manufacturing rep firm for a bit of a sabbatical. This position immune him shut contacts with a total range of AV manufacturers and provided an incredible learning opportunity on emerging products. Recently, Crane re-joined the SoundsGreat staff equally the new market development director for its new AV installation segmentation (SG Integration). "Our aim is to become into burgeoning AV markets like our Incredible Pizza account," he says. "Incredible Pizza caters to families, church groups, and schools and offers simulation games for kids and adults also equally go-karts, bumper cars, bowling, and mini-golf. The AV arrangement we designed and installed for them is completely networked. We tin dial into any Incredible Pizza location in the country and troubleshoot their AV system." SG Integration also has a strong customer base in the firm of worship market with services ranging from AV installation to TV-quality broadcasts.
"SG Integration is an opportunity to become involved in high-tech AV systems, which is where the industry is headed. My position spans sales, organization design, too as hands-on piece of work," Crane says. "What has near prepared me for my career is my ability to be flexible in my thinking. You tin can't be too set in your ways, and you have to mind to the people around you."
Ken Dickensheets, primary consultant/chief engineering science officeholder, Dickensheets Blueprint Assembly
Ken Dickensheets, principal consultant/principal engineering officeholder, Dickensheets Blueprint Associates
Ken Dickensheets has had an interest in all things mechanical dating back every bit far as he can remember. At the age of two, he took apart his mom's sewing machine and put it back together by the time she told him to cease. At iii and a half, he figured out that if he stood on the family's tape role player it would spin him effectually. "It was all downhill from there," he jokes.
As principal consultant/chief engineering officer, Dickensheets has some involvement in every projection at the business firm. His background includes a mix of music, physics, accounting, and electronics classes he attended while a student at Brigham Young University, Casper College, and the University of Wyoming. "My commencement paying job in AV was at a TV repair shop when I was 12," Dickensheets says.
During his loftier school years, his local church acquired a new building. "The sound was never expert and then they asked me to accept care of information technology," he says. "Even though live sound equalization had not been developed, I cooked up a narrow-band filter to fifty-fifty out the arrangement'due south response and get some feedback under control. I really had no idea of the scope of what I was doing at the fourth dimension."
Every bit an adult, he worked in radio, Goggle box, film, studio recording, and live sound. In 1971, Dickensheets discovered there was a career in acoustics and AV design; in 1974 he joined an acoustical design firm and formed his own company in 1985. "Common sense and the power to communicate with people have helped me tremendously in my career," he says. "On a daily basis, I also depict on some bones knowledge from engineering science classes I took at Casper College in Wyoming — courses like basic computer science, electronics, technical writing, and mechanical fabrication."
Dickensheets maintains that the next generation of AV workers needs to broaden their interests and noesis and acquire to communicate clearly and effectively. "The consultant's function in particular is so spread out over many disciplines that he needs to be well-rounded and then he tin employ his skills in real-world situations," Dickensheets says.
Per Haugen, founder (retired), Full general Communications
Per Haugen, founder (retired), General Communications
Five years later the liberation of Europe during World War Two, Per Haugen and his family came to the United states of america from Kingdom of norway. As an eighteen-year-old immigrant, Haugen found a job as a shipping and receiving clerk for an electronics company. A few years after, he was elevated to the installation coiffure working on audio systems. "Then the Korean State of war started, and I was drafted," Haugen says. "Although I was not a denizen at the time, I was honored to serve our country."
Upon his return, he went back to his install chore and used the G.I. Beak to nourish night school. In Norway, he had graduated from business organization courses and found that a caste in electronics would serve as the perfect complement. In 1957, Haugen and a concern partner founded General Communications. "The other visitor had gone bankrupt," Haugen explains. "We were continuing in that location wondering what to practise, and so we thought we could form our own company and avoid the mistakes we had seen."
In addition to his partner's capital, Haugen borrowed $300 from his mother-in-law. Presently the pair began soliciting sound installations all over the country. "I remember crawling through a terrible basement in El Paso, TX, filled with snakes and spiders, wondering why I didn't have a desk job downtown," Haugen jokes. "The reply to that is that I liked the work. AV is one of the most important things in a building. For example, in a church the most important element is the message. It was challenging and satisfying to build a audio system to aid people hear the message."
Haugen has also been involved with NSCA for the past 20 years — 18 of which he served in diverse roles within the organization such as a member of the board of directors and former president. "I joined NSCA in its second year," he says. "The expo was all of a dozen booths in a hotel. After my presidency, they asked me to assist outset their educational foundation. Nosotros all saw a common problem that companies were just taking talented installers from one another. With an educational path, nosotros could assistance develop new talent."
Haugen stresses that the side by side generation of AV professionals needs to rely on instruction, but also on a good dose of tenacity and conclusion. "I experience like I have lived the American dream," he says. "I appreciate this country and its opportunities. I still believe this is the land of opportunity."
Although officially retired, Haugen's drive notwithstanding keeps him quite busy. He was the Norwegian attaché for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, and is actively involved in other charitable organizations.
Linda Seid Frembes is a freelance writer who began her AV career working for a loudspeaker manufacturer; it'due south been a great ride e'er since. She can be reached at [email protected]
Source: https://www.svconline.com/news/how-i-got-av-business-370362
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