This week's episode of Automation Unplugged in our Marketing Experts segment, we’re joined by Stephen Edwards, Account Executive here at One Firefly. 

Stephen spent years running the AV division of a large electrical contractor before joining One Firefly, and today he helps integrators grow by connecting their sales efforts with the right marketing strategies. He knows firsthand how critical it is for these two teams to work in sync—and what happens when they don’t.

About this episode:

This episode is hosted by Kat Wheeler, and together she and Stephen dive into:

• Real-world scenarios where sales and marketing either collaborate or clash
• How shared goals and open communication help both teams win
• Practical steps integrators can take this quarter to strengthen alignment

SEE ALSO: #340: Inside Lightapalooza 2026 with Tom Doherty — Education, Power, and What’s Next for Integrators

Transcript

Kat:

Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Automation Unplugged Marketing Experts. I am your host, Kat Wheeler, and today we are talking about one of the most powerful and sometimes the most challenging partnerships in any business. The relationship between marketing. And sales. When those teams work together, , leads turn into customers, and customers turn into repeat business. When they don't, eh, things can get a little bit messy. So joining me today to dig into how to make that partnership thrive is Steven Edwards. , he's here to share his experience aligning marketing and sales for real results. , Steven, welcome to the show.

Stephen:

Thanks, Kat. I'm actually kind of glad to be here. Ron's never invited me, so I'm like, I appreciate it.

Kat:

Well, I knew if I was gonna get anybody to talk about this delicate balance between marketing and sales. You were the guy.

Stephen:

I'm always here. I'm always here for you.

Kat:

I appreciate you. oh. Yeah. But speaking of, can you tell our audience just a little bit about yourself or anybody that doesn't know you?

Stephen:

, sure. So Steven Edwards. I'm actually a, one of the salespeople here at One Firefly. So I work for a marketing company, but I get to do sales. So. Kind of cool. Um, I actually come from the integration space, actually ran, um, the AV division for a large electrical contractor in Kansas City for about four and a half years. Prior to prior to one Firefly. , I've been around the block, you know, just kind of living down here in Florida, living the good life. Fishing, boating,

Kat:

boating, drinking, the Bud Lights.

Stephen:

Yeah, I was, I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah, a few of 'em. Give or take, give

Kat:

or take. , but you're an industry guy, so you, you know, our business and that's how you kind of can help our customers in a, in a good way.

Stephen:

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I, I, I feel like I do know a little bit about it. I, I play around,

Kat:

you know, their struggles 'cause a, again, we're, I mean, I know we say this a lot, but we're kind of a niche industry, so it, it is a different dynamic when you're talking to customers than most other markets. It's

Stephen:

very dynamic and very different. In fact, I was just talking with a dealer yesterday about it. It's like we have to take this wire and this piece and plug it into here and make it all work, and then we have to trade 'em, and then we get them this little remote or app and say, everything works because of this design that we put together Pretty.

Kat:

All they see is this. And then you get blamed when the thermostat doesn't work or when the boiler goes out or when whatever happens. So yeah, it's a,

Stephen:

it happens all the time.

Kat:

It's a unique position to be in. Okay.

Stephen:

Unique.

Kat:

So let's set the stage a little bit here, because marketing and sales, we could put 'em in a ring and let 'em fight it out, which I think sales would win. But that's just me. , I don't know. The marketing team may be a little more creative, so it's touch and go. They're, yep. But when they're aligned. Really good things happen. So tell everybody why it matters for AV integrators, for sales and marketing to be together.

Stephen:

Yeah. You know, it's, it's kind of funny. It's, I'll give you kind of a, a story.

Kat:

I

Stephen:

like a story. Think about like with us as the integrators, what do we love? We love to sell the dream, the lifestyle, the the big projects. Now imagine if a email went out about a smart door lock. You were getting 50 calls a day about a smart door lock. You're spitting your wheels trying to find that good, good client, and you're sitting there talking about Z-Wave versus Bluetooth versus all this stuff about a smart door lock. It's terrible. I don't wanna sell. That just comes with, I'll give it to you for free. Just buy this cool big project, you know?

Kat:

Yeah. Pass the wine. Now it makes perfect sense because if. If we don't under, if marketing doesn't understand the projects or the jobs that sales wants, and sales doesn't understand the messaging the marketing's putting out, nobody wins.

Stephen:

It's true. It's, it's, I don't want to do 50 calls on door locks. I wanna go sell the dream.

Kat:

I. Yeah, I don't either.

Stephen:

And make the money. And make the money.

Kat:

Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna throw out some common scenarios that that happen between sales and marketing teams, and this is our little game for today. You're gonna tell me if it's a collaboration. So collab or clash is the name of our game. So is this a good collaboration or is this scenario just set up to fail? And marketing and sales are just gonna scrap over this one.

Stephen:

I'm in. Let's go. Okay. Do I get points if I win?

Kat:

I mean, you're not competing against anybody, but I can keep points for you. I'm in

Stephen:

sales. There's always competition. Are you kidding me?

Kat:

Okay, I'll get, I'll get, I'm on marketer. I'll get the scoreboard out and I will keep score.

Stephen:

Alright, I'm in.

Kat:

Okay, so here's the first one. Okay,

Kat:

I'm ready. Okay. Marketing hands over, lead to sales, but you have zero context and zero notes.

Stephen:

Oh, man, that's terrible. That would be a clash.

Kat:

Tell me why.

Stephen:

Oh, well, first off, when we're in sales, I think we can agree we're going to war. Ooh, there is other people out there trying to take our clients, our prospects money. So when we go out, we wanna be as prepared as possible. 'cause quite honestly, in sales, I'm never prepared. But when it comes to a, a meeting with a prospect, I wanna be as prepared as possible to make sure I talk about the right things. 'cause at the end of the day, I have one shot, one opportunity

Kat:

I drop. Okay. Okay. So if they don't set you up for success, they're setting you up to fail.

Stephen:

Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Kat:

I can, I can see how we would get there. So, lesson for marketing teams. Um. Okay, here's the second one. Sales provides feedback to marketing about which leads are converting the best, so marketing can refine their targeting.

Stephen:

Ooh, that sounds fun. I would say that would be a collaboration because the more of those good projects you get, guess what? You're selling more. You're run into a groove. A hundred, a hundred percent.

Kat:

Because like, so in your example, you tell marketing guys. Way off the mark. This isn't our customer, this door lock guy, this is not our customer. You need to refine your messaging to say X, Y, or Z, and then we get the right customer

Stephen:

versus being pissed off at marketing, like just work together.

Kat:

Jesus. That's, that's the whole theme of the show, Stephen, is how do we not get pissed off at marketing?

Stephen:

Is that why we're awesome. Okay. Alright. I'm, I'm the whole thing focused now.

Kat:

Okay. All right. Marketing promises a special offer in an ad campaign, but they don't tell sales until the first customer calls you about it.

Stephen:

Boy, I've had that before. There's nothing worse than sitting here like, I'm giving you what for free. I thought we were here talking about something else. Again, being prepared versus egg on your face. Ooh,

Stephen:

egg on the face is there's nothing worse because at the end of the day, you're having that face to face. I know too many faces, but. When you're having that interaction, you never wanna look like you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. And if that is the first thing they bring up is this, this deal, this discount, this special you're, you're fighting from behind.

Kat:

Well, especially if you're not aware. Again, it's setting you up for success and setting each other up for success. Right.

Stephen:

Absolutely. Okay. We're all here to win.

Kat:

Well, we try. Um, okay. Both sales and marketing teams meet quarterly to review lead quality conversion rates and plan upcoming campaigns. Oh, that, that was

Stephen:

it.

Kat:

That was it. Is that too much or is that appropriate?

Stephen:

Yeah, it sounds like a collaboration, but um, um, say that one more time. So we've, we're meeting once a quarter, quarterly,

Kat:

once a quarter to review lead quality conversion rates and plan upcoming campaigns.

Stephen:

I think that's a beautiful thing. That would be a great collaboration. Like, absolutely. Let's go.

Kat:

I, so I talked to a dealer the other day. We were talking about close rates, and they have three different verticals that they work in. So residential, commercial, and then renewables. And they were like, and they were like, we feel like we've been really successful in renewables this year. And we feel like the residential side has dropped off. And I was like, well, have we looked at the metrics on that? Have we looked at, you know, how many proposals have been out and which ones you closed? It turns out that once we looked at the data, their feelings were not entirely accurate. And other, um, verticals, other parts of the business had been more successful than what they had thought. Yeah, so I always think that's, yeah, so I always think that's really interesting 'cause again, how you feel about something may not be accurate.

Stephen:

Data Always tells. Yeah, always tells.

Kat:

It's my new catchphrase data, not vibes.

Stephen:

Alright, I'll roll with it. Oh, lemme write that down.

Kat:

Data, not vibes. , okay. This is, we're gonna tell on ourselves a little bit at this one. Oh shit. Sales. Ignore. , CRM updates from marketing because there are too busy closing deals.

Stephen:

Yeah. Guilty. Guilty, guilty. Anybody on our team from marketing? I apologize. I try. It is a huge clash.

Kat:

Yeah.

Stephen:

It's a clash.

Kat:

Again,

Stephen:

goes back to the data, but yet we still don't. Yeah, it's, it's real.

Kat:

Okay. All right. Marketing joins sales on a few customer calls to better understand objections and pain points. , love it. That would be killer. Huge clap. Huge clap.

Kat:

Okay. And the final, final one in our game, , leads for marketing, go straight into a spreadsheet on somebody's desktop instead of the CRM.

Stephen:

That would not be good. That would not be good. That would be a clash. That'd be a huge clash.

Kat:

Leads are gold, right? Like leads are the what we all want.

Stephen:

Leads are one of those things where you can track it as a KPI for marketing. Mm-hmm.

Stephen:

You can track it as a KPI for sales. And then if marketing is bringing the leads in and deals aren't getting closed, guess what? Probably the sales person needs to step up their game a little bit or get a little sales training or needs to figure out like maybe that type of lead should not go to that sales individual. Maybe it should go to somebody else 'cause they're really good at that. Lighting, shading sector versus security versus AV versus a holistic picture.

Kat:

But it's kind of like one of those things we don't know if we don't measure it, right? Yeah. So we don't know if marketing is bringing the right leads and if they are, and sales isn't closing them, or vice versa if marketing's bringing the wrong leads, so sales can't close them.

Stephen:

That's why there's, there's less finger pointing whenever leads are in, leads are closed, leads are in, leads are closed. That's how, you know, everything's working cohesively.

Kat:

But I think you're right. I mean, to the point that when leads come in. They're the wrong leads, then we can refine marketing, we can adjust, we can, you know, redo the messaging. We can select different audiences to target. We can try different tactics. All of that can come into play, but if we don't know, we can't. Same for sales, if the salesperson can't close it, but we don't know that. We just know nothing happened like that. Trackability, I think, is important.

Stephen:

Yeah, it goes back to, I'll use an example. , light fixtures. They're, they're hot item right now. Yeah. If marketing says, Hey, we're gonna go push out light fixtures, and at the end of the day the sales people are like, I don't even know how to sell light fixtures. Do we even do that? Is that part of our mix? And if the owner's like, we don't, we haven't touched light fixtures yet. Guess what? Egg on the face again.

Kat:

Yeah. We don't wanna have egg on the face, but we do wanna sell light fixtures. 'cause the margin is great.

Stephen:

They're great and it changes, I mean. Good stuff.

Kat:

We need to get people away from 4K instead a fan Brooks.

Kat:

I know. Okay, so that was the end of our game. , you got a hundred out of a hundred, you win. I don't, yeah, I, you're not competing against anybody's, Steven, but if at you win,

Stephen:

I'm like. Where is everybody?

Kat:

Okay. Well, and I love those answers 'cause I think a lot of people that are listening will recognize some of those scenarios as either things that they've been through or things that you know they wanna avoid or ways that they can improve.

Stephen:

Yeah, it's at the end of the day, everybody wants to make money. Everybody wants to win. And if you're working together cohesively, you will.

Kat:

And I think, correct me if I'm wrong here, but one of the major disconnects between marketing and sales is maybe a lack of understanding about the other department's job, like what they do all day and kind of, you know, not understanding how we're all trying to win together. That

Stephen:

Yeah, I think you're, I think you're onto something there because. It goes back to assumptions. Mm-hmm.

Stephen:

And when, when there are assumptions out there, typically there's going to be a disconnect. Remove the assumptions, collaborate internally, and that's when things really start moving.

Kat:

I love that. Okay, so let's, let's go back to the big picture here. Yeah. When marketing and sales work in silos versus when they collaborate. What happens? Nothing good. Like

Stephen:

just, was that a question or are you, are you telling me that was

Kat:

a statement? I'm telling you, I'm telling you, when marketing and sales don't work together, it's bad, but I want you to tell me why

Stephen:

it is bad. Um, because again, if it's not, if they're not working cohesively, you're literally putting creative work and effort into something that's just going out into the ether. It's not coming back the way it should. So in sales it's feast or famine. We have to like, we have to sell in order to put food on our table and to get all the cool stuff that we want. So if we are putting pieces and parts out there and we're not making money, guess what? The sales team may, may possibly turn over in more, which means more sales training, which means more people. Then you have marketing team that's sitting here like I'm doing my job. They have to like come together. It can't be a finger pointing situation.

Kat:

And this is, I mean, a, a communication situation, but it's also for an integrator's business. , you know, resource wise, a huge investment for them to have, you know, marketing and sales departments actively working to grow that business. So what happens when they do work together? What benefits can an integrator see when that collaboration works?

Stephen:

So I'll go high level then I'll kind of dial in a little bit. Okay. Because there's, there's quite a bit. You know, when you're a small business owner, every dollar counts. Yeah. And so if you have a hot lead come in and it's not converted. That means that person's money went somewhere else, which means that other people, when that money goes somewhere else, guess what? That may be a referral into another, into that business, not into your business. So at the end of the day, we're all talking about money, but if, if we're talking about happiness, when people, when salespeople are selling, they're happy when marketing is bringing in quality leads. The salespeople are selling. They're happy. If everybody's happy and they're all making money. Stances of turnover are pretty low, low turnover, less training, more longevity within the company as a whole,

Kat:

and it's a huge investment for integrators to replace staff stuff because the downtime, the investment on, you know, hiring and training and all that, getting 'em up to speed, let 'em go, and then just turn over. It's a huge investment.

Stephen:

It's a huge investment and time and time's finite. And when you're a business owner, you're not gonna have the time to sit here and keep training people and training people. Something has to change. They have to work together.

Kat:

You did say something really interesting in there that I want to touch on is if you do lose somebody and they do go somewhere else, we are a hugely referral based industry. So it's not just that one project that you're losing. If it's a builder, you're losing. I mean, God knows how many, but if it's an end user, their friends, their family, the parties they throw, the people that come over who they would refer you to also go somewhere else.

Stephen:

Yeah. It's, it's a revolving, wow. I'm gonna come up with the best phrase, revolving bad situation.

Kat:

Okay.

Stephen:

My, , thesaurus is not working right now, but it's not good for, for anybody's kind of morale.

Kat:

Mm-hmm. No, that makes sense. Okay. So we talked about why it's bad. We talked about why it's good, but how do we get sales and marketing to align? So if a business owner or manager's listening to us right now and saying, okay, well yes, my teams could definitely work better together. I hear a lot of this stuff is happening here. Where do you start?

Stephen:

If it was me, I would say, let's go to a happy hour. We're gonna sit down and have some drinks. Yeah. But. We'll keep it pg and we'll keep it, we'll keep it real. , the biggest thing is asking both teams what they want. What are their goals? Hmm. So whether that be individually or as a department, if sales team, and you ask them, I'm gonna make an assumption here, sales, like, I want more leads. I need more leads. I need more leads. We, we've all heard it. I've said it. It's a thing, Kat, you've said it. I've said it.

Stephen:

Marketing if they're gonna sit here and say, I want this. So at that point, if you look at what each team wants, what their goals are, what makes them tick, what makes them really come into work and, and start kicking ass, so you can kind of interweave those together where one win is another person's win and vice versa.

Kat:

Ah, I love that. When

Stephen:

both departments win, that's when there's like, well, let's do more of that.

Kat:

Yes, dude. Yes. Love that. Okay. Um, sometimes,

Stephen:

sometimes it works. Um,

Kat:

well, you, you kind of stole my next question was why it's important to have shared goals and metrics so that, and I think the idea is that marketing's not measured on one thing and sales isn't measured on one thing, but some of those things overlap so that you're invested together. Does that sound alright?

Stephen:

Yeah. You know, I use the, kind of, the analogy of. If you're going to buy a luxury vehicle, when you walk into it like a Rolls Royce dealership, there's probably not gonna be that many people there, but there are qualified people versus a CarMax where you're bringing all these people in and you could just pick out a car, but you, if you're going to buy a luxury vehicle, you walk into CarMax, you're gonna be disgusted. You're like, this is not the experience I want. Mm-hmm. So at the end of the day, you wanna bring the right people in, not just a ton of people has to be, but again, it could be a security company where it's like, Hey, we'll take everybody because we want those accounts. We want, we can, we can serve that amount of people. So it's different for every business,

Kat:

but it's about knowing your audience.

Stephen:

You have to know your ideal client.

Kat:

And about marketing and sales communicating together to understand that shared vision, that shared, and maybe even ownership trickling in a little bit here to kind of share that vision of the company and what they want that company to be and look like.

Stephen:

Yeah, because at the end of the day, it's not about the sales person or the marketing team or X, Y, Z, it's about the business owner and what that vision looks like. Okay. If the vision is to grow and to get better and bigger and expand or bring in more products or more services or bigger projects, like that vision has to be delivered and then the troops go out and fire. Okay.

Kat:

I just want the troops to know they're on the same team.

Stephen:

Yeah.

Kat:

What? The troops

Stephen:

don't be shooting each other. It's not good.

Kat:

Other maybe paintball for sales and marketing. Maybe that's how we get it out.

Stephen:

I'm still thinking happy hour, but whatever. Okay, that's fine. Okay.

Kat:

Well it's speaking of, do you recommend formal meetings and processes for alignment or can it be more organic or maybe a little bit of both. Maybe we happy hour and have formal meetings.

Stephen:

You know what? I think it all depends on, 'cause it's a great question that I don't think there's going to be a definitive answer and there shouldn't be because culture plays a big part of that. If there is a culture where meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting your sales team probably will check out. Which is not gonna be a good thing because if they're checked out after beating, after meeting, 'cause they're, they're, they're out hunting doing what they gotta do. It's not gonna work. But you still need formal processes and procedures and some check-ins to make sure that we are all on the same page. Mm-hmm.

Stephen:

So it could be a mix between organic, formal, purely organic, but the end of day, if you're purely organic, there may not be that really cohesive discussion. , I, I keep using KPIs, but what metrics do people want to hit?

Kat:

No, I think that makes a lot of sense. 'cause to me, if you have a set meeting. We're gonna come to that meeting prepared as long as we're not having it every, every day, right? We're gonna come to that meeting prepared with the things we wanna share and talk about, and, and so is the other team, , organically we might get to know each other and our work habits and our processes in a way that makes us more comfortable working together. But maybe we forget some of those salient points after your 10th Bud Light at the bar, or you know, the tequila shots. I have no words, Ben. Sure, yeah. Yeah, that's

Kat:

true. I you wouldn't know, but yeah, I've heard it.

Kat:

So let's say that you've built alignment between marketing and sales. It's one thing to start a good solid foundation, but how do you keep it going long term? 'cause you know, things fall off as people get this.

Stephen:

Ooh, that's a good question. Um, you know what, it kind of, it kind of sparked something that a good friend of mine and a good leader in this industry, Keith Esly said one time he brought out a really badass diagram where it's like, okay, let's help. And it's like a process map, right? We'll do this circle back, come back and, and just keep improving it, improving it. But when you look at it on paper. It looks, it looks flat line. So it seems like very repetitive. Um, and ironically enough,

Kat:

do you have a, do you

Stephen:

have some? I do.

Kat:

Do you have a graphic?

Stephen:

So,

Kat:

oh, here's your

Stephen:

process map, right?

Kat:

Mm-hmm.

Stephen:

Going back and forth. But in reality, whenever you make that loop, you're actually going up because you're making it better. So think about this. You go around the loop. The next time you hit it, you're actually moving up because you're better after the first round. So you just keep moving up, up, up, up. So instead of the same repetitive circle, and Keith said it way better than me, that's fine though.

Kat:

No, I, you're making a salient point because each time you implement something new, you come back together. You talk about what worked and what didn't. Your process improves and so you get better as a team every time you kind of. I don't know, have a little bit of a flashback and kind of review things.

Stephen:

Yeah, it's, it's, it's important to continue that growth. If you're not, if you're stagnant, you're dead on all levels of the business. So if you are, literally, if you start working out and you do, I don't know, 10 pushups and you come back and let's say this on a Saturday, you come back on the next Saturday, you do 10 pushups and you do that. Same 10 pushups every Saturday for the next 10 years. You're not gaining muscle, you're literally just doing the exact same thing. You're stagnant.

Kat:

Solid point. No, I like, I like that. And I love that you had your slinky available because I think that, yeah, as, as human beings, I think in our industry especially, we're really used to change because technology changes all the time, and it has every, every year we're in this business. We change, you know, connections, we change, resolutions, we change. I mean, everything changes very quickly. And right now we're in a huge, you know, AI infrastructure business change scenario. So I think, I think our dealers are uniquely qualified to make changes and make improvements in ways that maybe other businesses don't. 'cause we're experienced and things change.

Stephen:

Yeah. And I think, you know, from a business standpoint, that's the hard part is if you don't change. You keep doing the same thing, but you do it very well, and that's what you're known for. That can be an okay thing as well. I go to the audio guys, you know, strictly audio or strictly security. Now things are going to change in that market, but at the end of the day, you can really dial into what you're really good at versus spread yourself too thin. Mm mm-hmm.

Stephen:

Um, it's just, it's different for every business, and that's one of the cool things about talking with integrators is, is. Everybody has a different goal, a different vision, and that's how it should be. It's just making their vision better.

Kat:

Agreed. And if sales and marketing can be aligned on that vision, businesses can win.

Stephen:

I, that's a, I'm glad you circled back on that. That's perfect.

Kat:

, just highlighting, highlighting that we can all get along. Okay. So as we come to the end of this show, we wanna kind of talk about things that our integrators can implement for their teams to make them better. So if there were three things that AV integrators could do before the end of the year or this quarter or whatever to help the connection between sales and marketing, what would those three things be?

Stephen:

, okay.

Kat:

Okay.

Stephen:

I'm ready. So I think probably the first thing is to, , kind of go back to what I said earlier was to make sure you ask each department what they want, what their goals are, and then you take that information and you, you simplify it. Business, buy it. I know it. Quote me on that one. It's perfect. Fify it, you, you level up. If they want more leads, what are you gonna do with those leads? If, if I give you 10 more leads per month, I need a higher close rate. If, if you want to be more creative with how the marketing is delivered, I need to see better results of that. So again, business, business, buy what those goals are, and then that way there's still ownership of department. That's 1.2.

Kat:

Okay. Gimme two.

Stephen:

That's one. That's one. Second one is, is take a pulse on where you are now. Where is the business right now? What leads are coming in, what marketing's going out? Because if we're going to make a change and we're going to look at either more collaboration or more of this and that, what does that look like now and what does good look like in the future? Mm-hmm.

Stephen:

It has to be, it has to be kind of outlined versus. Feelings, right? Feeling date of equals vibes. Data not vibes.

Kat:

Data not vibes. Data not vibes. Yeah. Um, I'm gonna cut you for a second and just say you hearken me back to the dealer. I mentioned earlier that we were talking about their feelings about which departments were closing and what we discovered was by taking a pulse of where they are now, like year to date, we were able to find that if they could increase the one, um, business. , vertical that they were succeeding in that year by like 5%. They would hit their goal for the year. So all they needed to do was, you know, do this one thing that they were doing really well, and then worry about what's going on in the other parts of the business too. But they could still get to their number if they really dialed in. And so, I just think you're right. You have to take the pulse of where you are now. 'cause if you don't know where you are, how do you know where you're going?

Stephen:

Yep. Gotta, you gotta lead the ship down the right. Channel and not cut 'em short into a shallow spot.

Kat:

A shallow spot. Okay. Boating references are, are out of my purview. I'm just gonna let that, I'm gonna assume that we know what we're talking about there. Um, okay, so number three, final thing that an AV integrator can do this quarter or this year to strengthen sales and marketing teams make 'em better

Stephen:

besides happy hours.

Kat:

Besides. Put the beer aside. What can these teams, is it get to know each other or understand the other people's jobs? Or, or just, or just get it together guys, just get it

Stephen:

together? Well, I think there's a little bit of both. You know, I think the, if there's one thing to do now, it's to recognize is there an issue? Because at the end of the day, everything we're saying, the assumption is that there is an issue. Yeah. If you recognize there's an issue, that's when you can look back and figure out what is it. So bring the departments together and ask them questions together. Don't make the assumption that something's wrong. Don't make the assumption that sales is pissed off at market or vice versa. Actually bring your team together and ask them directly what they want more of. What's good, what's bad, indifferent. Then really dial in deeper behind that of, okay, this is wrong, but what is really the root cause to that? And what's the root cause to that one? It has to be, it can't be surface.

Kat:

I love that for me because you are our best question asker. You are a really, you are well, you are a really dig deep kind of guy. Like you really get to the heart and the root of things. And I think that's really important in this too, when you're talking about, you know, different departments and different employees and teams working together is really digging deep and you do that so well. So thanks for bringing that up. 'cause I'll skip to it. I'll be like, I'll solve it right now.

Stephen:

Thanks. Thanks Scott.

Kat:

You're welcome. Um, but I appreciate you joining me today and I, I thank you a lot for all the insights 'cause I think there's a lot of really fun things we can unpack here and a lot of really actionable things for dealers to take forward. So before we go, I just. Wanna know, , sales or marketing? Which one wins? Sales?

Kat:

Yeah. Fair, fair. , for the closers?

Kat:

Yeah. Closer. You gotta a B, C, A B, C. Spoiler alert. Did you know that they made that a musical on Broadway?

Stephen:

Really?

Kat:

Yeah. We could go seek Lynn Gary, Gil Ross in New York on Broadway.

Stephen:

I would love

Kat:

that.

Stephen:

That would be so much fun. Ron.

Kat:

Yeah, fraud. We should get all of our AV integrator salespeople to go with us, and we'll make, we'll make a big pilgrimage for, for all of our sales teams up to New York to go see Glen Perry. Glen Ross.

Stephen:

That would be dope. I would definitely go to that.

Kat:

And if you can't come, all you get us a set of statements

Stephen:

that works.

Kat:

All right, Steven. , tell everybody who's listening if they wanna learn a little bit more from you or, you know, talk a little, talk about this a little bit deeper, how everybody can get ahold of you.

Stephen:

Yeah, look me up on, , only, I mean, um, link. You can LinkedIn me, you can, , email me first initial, last name at one Firefly. So s Edwards at one Firefly. , shoot me a a call text. I mean, reach out to cash. I'll put you in touch.

Kat:

I will. I'm good like that.

Stephen:

Yeah.

Kat:

Well, LinkedIn,

Stephen:

yeah.

Kat:

I appreciate it and thanks for taking the time today and thanks again to everybody listening. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to like and subscribe and join us next time for more automation Unplugged marketing experts.

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Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

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Resources and links from the interview:

• • The One Firefly Approach

• • Stephen Edwards LinkedIn Profile Page
    
    
• • Our Team!