This week's episode of Automation Unplugged our guests are Keith Jones and Adam Kraemer-Dent from Design Flow AV.

About this episode:

Keith Jones, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Design Flow AV, has over 20 years of experience in the industry, with expertise in high-end audio, AV installation, and product design. He founded Design Flow in 2015 to share his knowledge of smart building design and project documentation with the industry. Keith is also a CEDIA instructor, and passionate about increasing awareness of design in AV to help businesses grow and improve client satisfaction.

Adam Kraemer-Dent, Lighting Designer at Design Flow AV, has 19 years of experience in the residential custom installation industry, with a focus and expertise in lighting design. He has extensive experience in lighting control systems and cinema design, and holds certifications from top brands like Lutron, Crestron, Control4, and more. Adam is also a CEDIA instructor who regularly educates architects and consultants on current and emerging lighting technologies.

During this webinar, we will cover:

• Keith and Adam’s professional backgrounds and how they formed their business partnership.
• Key strategies for seamlessly integrating lighting design into your projects.
• How to leverage interactive virtual experiences to enhance the sales process.

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Transcript

Ron:

Hello. Hello there. Ron Callis with another episode of Automation Unplugged. We are here in early fall 2024 and super excited to bring you two guests, not one, so two's better than one from a super exciting design firm, actually out of London. And we were able to coordinate schedules and get us all together. Let's go ahead and meet Keith Jones, co founder of Designflow AV and Adam Kramer Dent who also is helping to head up the lighting design efforts over at Designflow Lighting. And Keith and Adam, how are you fellas doing?

Keith:

Hey, Ron. All good. Yeah. How are you doing?

Ron:

Where are you guys now? We know I'm here in Florida and you guys are over there. So it's much later right now. It's it's actually, I'm going to date us. It's about three o'clock PM here. What time is it there for you guys?

Keith:

It's almost nine.

Ron:

I appreciate you guys staying up late for me here for the for the show,

Keith:

It's the best thing to do on a Friday evening.

Ron:

Awesome. Keith, you guys are based out of London. Tell everyone that may not be familiar with Designflow. Who are you guys and what type of work do you do?

Keith:

Okay. So Designflow is all about AV design. We've been working with integrators, installers since 2015. And yeah, I guess it's all, for me, it's all about design and helping installers and integrators improve the way they deliver. The design and the documentation of their project. So that's what we're all about.

Ron:

Where are the customers generally based right now for Designflow? Are you only working with clients in England? Are you spreading out through Europe or the Middle East or the U S?

Keith:

We've got, yeah, we've got a global handful, a handful of really good customers. So some in the UK, some in the U S some in the Middle East and then a couple of guys in Australia. So it's pretty all over the globe. And I guess it works for us because we're good with time differences, as you can see.

Ron:

Doing great so far. I'm not falling asleep.

Keith:

I'm still awake, so that's all good. And it's, I don't I think the time difference sometimes works against us, but the Australian, when we were in Denver for CEDIA the Australia time difference was like quite tricky 'cause the like opposite timescale. But yeah, it works well. It's all about finding the guys who need our. Our help in their businesses and understand where we can fit in and where we can add value for them. So that's the crux of it.

Ron:

Oh, that makes sense. And Adam, you're heading up the lighting design portion of the business. Can you tell us just a little bit about just generally what that scope of services looks like today?

Adam:

Yeah, sure. With my background being on the other side of the fence for most of my career as a, as an integrator. Yeah, there is a market for the lighting design that creative element rather than the less creative AV design. If you like the AV designs driven by the sale, what system gets sold to the client, and then the design falls out after that whereas the lighting design is very much the other way around the, it's sold the creative element of it is sold to the client. And then the design comes after that. So it's very much the other way around. Yeah, we, there's definitely a gap in the market for integrators to get involved with providing lighting design because that's why I've seen it. I've been on their side of the fence. Just seeing that there's terrible lighting designs out there, and...

Ron:

Including my house, I'm here in Fort Lauderdale and this builder, I won't call them out, but I got the typical four cans and a fan in most rooms. Now I don't have one of the big fancy houses that a lot of your customers ultimately would have. So it I think what I have is pretty, pretty good. Probably pretty typical, but it's fair to say even a lot of big, beautiful homes, lighting and the design of fixture selection and fixture count. And then even the control of those systems is often negated in the entire process. Adam, when you were on the integrator side, did you see that was. Often true as well?

Adam:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because I would be on the control on the lighting control side of it, having to bring people, chase them and ask them for the detail that, that should have been there really. And it still surprises me now, some of the homes that we see multimillion dollar homes with zero design. And you ask the client who's done your lighting design. And you just get a blank look like...

Ron:

What do you even mean the lighting design? The electrician put in my four, four cans in a fan. What, there's another option?

Adam:

Exactly. That's what we're seeing more and more. And so some clients, they're savvy to it and there'll be a lighting designer and somebody's thought about it. But I'd say 95 percent of the time, they look to the architect and the architect just shrugs and says we just dropped some plans on a we dropped some blobs on the plan. And that's the lighting design and you're like that's what everybody's working to on site. What lights are there? How much is the client paying? And then again, the client just, yeah it's an interesting journey. It's, that opening question, who's done your lighting design, opens up a can of worms and hopefully...

Ron:

I'm totally putting you on the spot with this question, Adam, but of all the quote unquote luxury homes that you've. Come across what and I don't even know if that's a fair categorization, but I'm trying to get to what percentage of homes in the category where maybe they should get a lighting design. What percentage of homes do you think actually have a proper lighting design?

Adam:

10, 10 percent will, there'll be a designer. Somebody thought about it early enough at the right stage and. It's there, all the information is there when the integrator is asking for, dimming types, number of circuits, loading on each circuit, driver locations, things like that. Yeah it's a super high percentage that's just not there. The design and build industry as a whole, it's lacking on the lighting side. Absolutely.

Ron:

Yeah. I would imagine that stat is probably close to the same over here in North America is it's gotta be the vast majority of these homes are going underserved in that way. Adam, let's start with you. What's your background? Where did you come from? What's your backstory? I heard you were with an integrator and then I'm going to bounce the same question to you, Keith.

Adam:

Yeah. So my background briefly is a British army telecommunications. So joined the army straight from school. Got into telecommunications traveled the world Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, all over the place, doing networks, installing satellites, local area networks, moving on doing the rest on the. Passive side of the networking. Left the army in 2005, got into business to business telecommunications initially, but had a client who said, look, you're a smart guy. Come and sort this system out that I've got at home. And it turned out to be a Control4 system. So that was my first look at AV if you like. And it wasn't it, this particular case, it was a networking problem. So it was an easy fix for me. The more I started looking into it. The touchscreens on the wall, playing music around the house, thinking, it's all sat on internet protocol. It's what I know, this is what I do. So it was a relatively easy transition from that point. I started to inquire what's Control4, there's AMX at the time, Crestron and just got into it slowly that way. I had my own business for a couple of years on the integrator side, and then 2008, the crash in 2008 put an end to that and then since then.

Ron:

That's right when I launched my business, I launched it in November of 07, so I launched it right into a freight train of 08.

Adam:

Yeah, it hit pretty hard but the bigger company, so since I closed the business then, because there were no customers. And, but when consulting for the bigger companies that rode through the crash in away and then, yeah, since that I've been UK based mainly in London do integrators from project manager, right up to the last sort of 15, 12, 15 years as a consultant on design and sales. And yeah, really focused on lighting. So it was really from an early stage in the industry. Lighting always held my. It was, it's high impact. The clients really engage with lighting. As soon as you start talking about speakers and a really well dressed rack that, every system needs. The client just glazed over them, they're not bothered, but with lighting, I found that, that point of engagement, the input from them was much higher and the engagement is just much better. So yeah, my focus for the last sort of 15 years has been on lighting, the control, obviously from an integrator side, but the design is what really interests me, that creative element and combine that with the knowledge of fittings and control I already had. It was a no brainer, and I've just looked at lighting design from that point, and then Last year, 2023 at ISE is where I approached Keith at Designflow. I was well aware of Keith and his services. We used them at the companies I was consulting. We used Keith's services for design and it was, an opportunity that I saw. And I initially spoke to Keith in ISE. I think I said to you, what was the first words I said to you, Keith?

Keith:

You've got my dream job.

Ron:

Did Keith say you had me at hello?

Keith:

Yeah, that's right.

Adam:

But yeah, from my point of view. Customer facing all the time, expectation management was the big thing. The biggest part of my job to be on the other side of that now, to, to peek behind the curtain and be on the supplier side, but having the knowledge of the importance of that customer engagement, knowing that people still buy from people at the end of the day. And the people that we're selling to, all they need is information. Just give them the information and let them make an informed decision. And it's, it's the same with lighting design. You give them all the options, show them all the images and effects of lighting and you find out what they like and what they don't like. So yeah, with Designflow, I think I've found a really nice little niche that puts me on the other side of the fence, but then with all my designs, because lighting is so subjective, you've got to speak to the homeowner, you've got to be speaking to the people that are going to be. Sat underneath these lighting designs. So I get both, I get a creative outlet with the clients and I'm also, I'm one step removed from that expectation management sort of element of the integrator, the day to day on site. So yeah, best of both worlds.

Ron:

A little bit of a breath of fresh air with that. Space or that, that distance.

Adam:

I absolutely love it. Yeah. It's not working anymore. It's just I do what I love every day.

Ron:

Now, when you do what you love, it doesn't feel like work. So kudos to you to find that. I know many listening are probably like, man, I want to feel the way he feels. That's awesome. Keith, what is your what's your background story? Let's go all the way back to Elementary school. Let's go like...

Keith:

1996 I left uni. So I studied product design at uni So that's just to give people an idea that's design has always been my passion. And then also another passion of mine is two-channel audio. So music, I love music. It's always been a big thing for me. And I. I was like, I need a break from product design. It's just, I'm burned out with it. I've been doing it for cause I did a, I did a two part degree. So I ended up doing five years of study and I was like, I need a break from it. So I went and got a job in a two channel shop, which was supposed to just be like a little, maybe a year or two, see what, just maybe get a nice system for me. I'm that kind of thing. That was the plan. And then it I got off with the job as the manager of the shop after a year, which is just ridiculous. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but anyway, there you go. And then from the, I think I lasted there for about. Seven or eight years. And then you could just, we started to see the multi room audio market growing and the market for, at the time it was like Linn. I literally, I saw a post on LinkedIn today. Someone posted a link Linn. RCU from back in the 90s and we I just wrote on LinkedIn. I installed loads of them I remember the blinky eyes and the what word do and yeah, so that's when I started a custom install business with a business partner about 2001 and shortly after we started we realized that we were like looking for software to help us get designs the projects done because Excel, Visio, it can only go so far as two separate entities. If you're doing quotes in Excel, which we were back then, and then Word documents. And it was all like, my business partner was more than 10 years younger than me was like, we've got to join all these dots up. He was like really. Just a bit more, I don't know, more forward thinking than I was at the time. I was just like, I just want to get the job done and have a weekend off. That was my kind of aim. So he discovered D-Tools and that was, that's where my story from today kind of starts. After about seven years, I moved on from that company and I didn't really know what I was going to do. I took a career break, went traveling around Asia for nine months, came back. My business partner was like, I was still part of the business. Then when I went traveling, came back and he's I'd want to buy you out because it's been great when you've you've been away, I can make all the decisions. I don't need to ask you anything. There's no arguments. It's great. So we made an agreement. He bought me out and I. The agreement was that I would keep doing his proposals and his design work as a freelance designer. So I was like, yeah, that sounds great. And then as in the industry, the word got around as what I was doing. Can you do it for us? Yes, of course. And then 2015, formalized the company with a co-founder at the time, she's now moved on. And yeah, we've been doing, I've been doing design only. Since 2009. So it's been quite a long time doing it. And it's just what Adam said. It's, it gets you away from the tricky client facing side, which can be very demanding. I think that was the part of the integration business that I wasn't really enjoying at the time. And now I get to still do, I'm still involved in projects. I'm still involved in design. But we've got that step back where we only work with integrators and installers. We don't work with end users. And then, yeah, up to date as in last year, we started doing lighting design with Adam. So...

Ron:

I'm gonna I'm going to put up on the screen for, so for folks that are watching let's see if I can have technology behave here. I'm going to say share screen. There we are. There we are. So here's your website Designflow. And I'm going to come over here to a section built in design. What I want to, what I'm curious about are the. First of all, what are the types of design product, or you might call them services that you provide for integrators. I want to go deeper and talk a lot about the philosophy of design and selling design versus quote. I know so many businesses perhaps listening or watching do a lot of work and they don't necessarily charge fairly for their or their value contribution to a project, or at least. That was my experience back when I was doing a design business back in, starting in 07.

Keith:

Yeah.

Ron:

So let's just start there. What are the types of design or documentation? services that you guys offer.

Keith:

So we break up on the AV side, we break it up into drawings that go to site and then drawings that will be used by the engineers to build things like racks and lights and panels, wire schematics, that kind of stuff. Okay. Now the stuff that goes to site is obviously things like floor plans, cable and that may go with the integrators own wire pulling team or it may go with the electrical contractors wire pulling team. And those documents will look different depending on who's reading them. If it's an AV installers team, they don't need to be as foolproof as they need to be if you're handing them over to a contractor or a electrician. They've got to be legible. They've got to make sense. But I think a lot of the time we're working to like the lowest common denominator of trying to make things very clear and very obvious. And it's really all about just keeping protecting the integrators margins and protecting them from when things don't go to plan. If you've got a drawing of the plan. But that didn't go to plan is different to the way you're drawing is you've got a piece of paper that says, look, this is how we asked you to do it and you didn't do it like that. So it's not our, we're not responsible for fixing that problem. And that, that is a, there's a really good way. And I think what a lot of people maybe miss on these projects it's all great. When you land a big job, if you don't take, you keep control of like things like change control. And keep everything documented so that when a crisis happens you've got the answers in black and white, we drew it like this. This is the right way. It's been put together a different way and that's why we've got a problem As long as it's not your own team who's putting it together wrong and not following your drawings, which is another completely different conversation but yeah, I think that's so this what you can see here is a there's a site, drawings for site, so you've got a set floor plans and a cinema, set of cinema drawings there and then some elevation drawings, so. That's the thing that I'm really big on, the elevations and just keeping control of what is actually happening on site.

Ron:

When you're outside of the CAD elevation drawings, when you're doing like the pre wired drawings, at least in this example, I've got on screen, I see, it looks like probably pre wired drops are, is the, does the integrator that you're partnering or collaborating with, that's hired you, do they also typically have D-Tools or do they need to be using D-Tools or, and, or do they just need to be using it in a different capacity than the way you and your team use?

Keith:

We have all different types. So we have guys who have full D-Tools and we will basically doing the work for them because they don't have the resources all the time maybe. And then that will be imported into the D-Tools so it's like they've done it themselves. To the opposite end of the scale where it's someone who doesn't use D-Tools and they're not they don't they the fact that we use D-Tools it's not really here neither here nor there It doesn't have any impact on someone who doesn't have D-Tools and it doesn't really have much impact on someone who does have it. And then you've got the guys in the middle where it works quite nicely with if you've got someone using the cloud based D-Tools for doing proposals, they've got that piece boxed away. So the proposals are quick, they're accurate, they get the job done and then they win the job. And then they come to us with, they can push their proposals through to our D-Tools SI, and then we can start working on the engineering side of the project. That's quite a nice combo, but we work with people who don't have D-Tools, don't use D-Tools, use other software providers are available as they say on the BBC in the UK. So yeah it's not, I think the fact that we use D-Tools and we've used it for many years is almost like a legacy of how I started when I started doing custom. And it's something that I guess I've been using it for so long. I never questioned it until Adam comes along and goes, why are you using that? It's it's drag and drop. It's so easy. Why wouldn't you use it? That's the answer. And we're looking now at actually taking to see if we can take the lighting design, which is currently being done all manually. Outside of it's just CAD and...

Ron:

Just straight CAD. No database.

Keith:

And then the the lighting schedule is done in Excel. We're looking to see if we can bring that into D-Tools to follow our normal process and take some because at the moment Adam's doing you know, he's the guy with all the hats. He's going out selling light design. Coming back, doing the light design and managing the expectations of the client and what kind of stuff. And in order for that side of the business to grow, as we now see after the first year that there's definitely a market there.

Ron:

The demand is there.

Keith:

Yeah. We need to find ways to scale it. Cause obviously, as much as Adam loves doing it. We can't flog him to death because then he'll get burned out and...

Ron:

Then they won't have as much fun.

Keith:

Yeah, exactly yeah.

Ron:

I'm curious. I want to get into this concept you mentioned and even on your website you call it site packs versus engineering packs. So you said like drawings for the field maybe that helped you and I'm going to get a bit detailed here. Like in the sales process, you might have drawings that are simply used for communicating with a customer or prospect while you're trying to zero in on a design. And that concept is very similar, whether you're talking about a touch panel location or whether Adam is talking about potential fixture locations, looping group plans, fixture schedules, right? The idea that there's visual aids that help communicate to a customer, what the design intent is.

Keith:

Yeah. And in my, in our experience the right on the right i'm not going to say right and wrong but the best way That we've achieved we've seen it achieved is just with an iPad, the set plans and a pencil. And it doesn't have to be an iPad again, other tablets are available.

Ron:

iPad like devices

Keith:

Yes and Apple pencil like devices. It's just the quick and quickest and easiest way of communicating with a client. And the bonus is if you're then going to employ a design company, doesn't have to be Designflow could be, anyone else you've got your markup already done. If you've created that to, to communicate with the customer, which I think is a great idea to, to show a customer on a...

Ron:

I think it's a no brainer. I think why would any business selling such complicated stuff in a house. Why would you not want to make it easy to understand upfront by all the stakeholders that matter, whether it's the architect, the designer, the homeowner, why would you not? But in the end, in the I'm going to ask a question and I'm going to compare it to lighting with Adam, as it relates to the audio video and automation design, Keith. Is it your experience that integrators are normally charging a fair fee to do that sort of concept drawing development and or yielding... Like what's normal right now? The drawings, because I have, maybe personal beliefs that then budgets and scope documentation and sign offs are probably a really good idea before you head into a detailed proposal. Yeah. And I think a client should pay for a detailed proposal. That's my personal point of view. Yeah. What is normal in the markets that you've been serving?

Keith:

I think that people still are still doing things the way that we used to do them when we were an installation integrator business, which is you go out, you see a project, you come back, you do a quote, you do it in D-Tools, a full bill of materials, because that's the way you're used to doing it. That's how you do it in D-Tools. And you don't really, you don't necessarily, after that meeting, you've got another meeting the next day with another prospective client. You don't have time to step back and go, am I doing this the right way? And what, what really helped us as a, as an installation business. And this is something that probably it's just one of those things. My business partner's sister left uni just as we were setting things up. And she said, I'll come in as a business consultant. And I was like, you're not a business consultant, but anyway, it doesn't matter. And I'll help you, get the basics right. And she opened her eyes to, you need to have a document that explains how you work. And when you want to get paid, because if you don't have that to show a customer, how does the customer know how you do things? And that became our one sheet. We used to send that to every client. It was like our response to a client inquiry. We'd speak on the phone and then we'd send them this, we'd say, we're going to send you a document about how we work just so you can understand what we're going to do better. Go on the website, have a look at, previous jobs, testimonies, all that kind of stuff, all the usual stuff. But this document was like key because then there were no surprises when we. Asked them, we said, okay, we're going to spit ball, ballpark, whatever you want to call it, your project. Cause we've done lots of them. We know roughly what you need to spend. And once we've given you a ballpark, which is something that we're not going to just go, Oh, a hundred grand. We're going to, Excel some mechanics to it, but very quickly to spit out a number. And then when we do a full bill of materials we'll be within 10 percent plus or minus of the ballpark. And we say that because we knew how that we could...

Ron:

You have experience you've done this before.

Keith:

It's just, it's what you do. And what that did really quickly with, for us was it just got rid of anybody who wasn't the right person for us. Who didn't have the right budget who, or who wasn't, Oh no, I want, I want really, I want the best, but I want to spend 10, 10 cents, those kinds of. Just got rid of all of that nonsense and the how we work thing put a lot of those kinds of people off anyway. So it was all about trying to cut through all the noise and just only do proper proposals for people who, who paid a design fee and who were serious customers who were going to, they're going to, they're going to buy something from someone.

Ron:

It's sales. Getting a no is just as important as getting a yes. And getting the right no's is in many cases more important than getting the yes. That way you don't waste your time and energy on people.

Keith:

We don't have time to waste. So, you know, it's, I think you've got to cut through all of that noise and just get straight to the point. And, people, when I tell the story of like how we set up our, the way we used to charge for design based on my business partner's mom was a director of a big interior design company and they sent us probably 90 percent of our business And she just sat us down one day and she said, listen, this is how we work. We won't touch any project that's worth less than a million pounds. And we charge 10 percent for our design. Why don't you just do the same? Just charge 10 percent for design because the customer, the customers used to us doing it, we're going to introduce them to you. So if you have the same fee structure as us, I'm not saying you won't touch a job, less than a million pounds. That obviously was, that's a bit toppy, but. That was, and that's the model we used and yeah, that helped get more no's, but the ones that said, yes, they're fully on board. Yeah, we want to pay you 10 percent and then the design we would do would be a full design, like all the site drawings, cable schedule, rack elevations, panel drawings, full schematics, the whole lot. And a lot of people will say to me that it's too early. You can't do it at that stage. But by doing a full design. You then can generate a proper bill of materials. You've got everything because you've got all the cables in, you've got everything there.

Ron:

It's an engineered proposal versus a bill of materials.

Keith:

We would literally, when we finished it, we'd hand over everything to the customer, right? No, like hands off. This is, here's all of your documentation that you need to finish this project to the end. Obviously changes will happen, this is, this will work as this is what we spoke about. This is what you want. And then we'd step back and we'd be like, you can, we can carry on now. If you want us to start supplying cables, you know, you've got our, how we work sheet, you know what the next step is, we need 25 percent for cable. delivery. Or you can go with someone else. If you're not feeling the way that we work or the, or you're just not happy with the the one to one relationship that we're having, maybe you don't like my dry sense of humor, that kind of stuff, whatever it might be. Feel free to to, to go and knock on someone else's door or get yourself other quotes or whatever it might be, but you've got something that you can take that design to any integrator and ask them to price it. And you know that the three quotes you get will all be for the same thing unless you allow them to make substitutes.

Ron:

And when you were doing that Keith the vast majority of the people still then hire you to finish the project?

Keith:

Funnily enough yes, because you're already I think the fact that you're prepared to walk away and say, I'm done with the design. If you want to carry on, great. If you don't, that's also fine. It shows a lot of confidence in what you've already done and the relationship that you've already built up with the customer. And I think that's what that's what maybe some people miss. That it's once you've got the trust of the customer, if you walk away, they'll follow you because they want to work with you. So I think that's key.

Ron:

No, that, that makes sense. Adam, when you're looking at lighting, what is the normal way that. I'll say the end customer and I'm going to refer maybe you have a lot of different perspectives here, but I'll start with the integrator. What's the normal way, the integrator and lighting design services they're offering a customer. Those lighting designs are not typically for free. Isn't it always for a service fee of some type and that's understood? There's no, is there a question from the customer that they would be paying for design?

Adam:

No, absolutely not. It's having sold AV design for many years, selling lighting is far easier. It's, it has, it's a lot higher impact on, for the end user, the homeowner. It's really easy to get them excited about lighting design because it's visual. There's a instant visual impact. Oh, my house can look like that. Amazing. Where do I sign? How much have I got to pay for my house to look like that? Where on the other side, there's selling AV design. There's nothing tangible that they, yeah, I'm getting speakers and I can put a value to that, but surely, I've had so many battles trying to sell AV design. And I think that comes from just you've got to have the conversation early very early with, so the expectation after pay design, because. You mention that right up front. If you start talking about the systems and the cinemas and the speakers and how good they sound, and then right at the end, you say, Oh yeah, and here's a 10, 000 design for you.

Ron:

It won't go over very well.

Adam:

No, exactly. But with lighting, it's back to front. To the AV because you, the sales aides are lots of pretty pictures of amazing homes but I'm focusing in on the lighting and yeah, it just gets them excited straight away. You say okay, a good lighting design looks like this. Have you got one? Who's done it? Why have they done that? What fittings are you getting? And I implore the integrators to start asking these questions because we see, we're still seeing terrible lighting designs. If there's a lighting design done, it's more than likely just symbols been dropped on a plan by the architect to tick a box and it will just be rows of fixtures, you know. So it's really well lit like Walmart. That's what I say, Walmart's really well lit

Ron:

It'll be bright enough that may not be pretty but it'll be bright enough.

Adam:

Exactly. So nobody can say to them it's not well lit, because it's going to be well lit. There's no shadows anywhere. So once, once they start asking these questions on the projects that they're on and start to grow the customers will start looking around at their team, at the consultants who's done the light and design? What fixtures are you using? Why are you using those fixtures? How much is it costing me? Oh yeah. We did it for free. But it's just part of what we do. And like why is an architect doing a lighting design? Did he design the plumbing system? Did he design the, I don't know that the sprinkler system? No, he didn't because he's not an expert at that. It's trying to get them the message across that it's a specialist subject and if done right, this is what it could look like. If done wrong...

Ron:

It could be bad. Tell me about the fee structures and what, what is normal? Like what, what are, and, or what are the schools of thought of how you've seen lighting design services sold to the end customer? What are the different frameworks?

Keith:

So it has to be broken down. It, the message, the most important message I think has to be, it's not one size fits all. It's really subjective. Every design that we do is different and it's based on your likes. And, I'm going to give you logic. And design rules that, say that you can't do that, but you can steer them the way that you want to go, but you have to break it down. And what we do, we start with one room. If you just want to focus on the open plan living. Dining kitchen area, because that's an area, that's a key area that most homes have that have multiple entry exit points and at least seven or eight different lighting circuits. And again, it feeds into the control, the lighting control aspects. You have a nice keypad on the wall that sets the scenes, or you have a bank of eight dimming knobs that you've got to turn at every door into that space. So we start at a single room. And build them up and, the sales aides that we've put together show, even if you're doing a lighting design for one room, there's six different documents that you need. There's a lot of work that goes into it because the guys on site need to know what cables they're pulling in. From where to where? What size cutouts? Is there any first fix elements? Do we have to get different trades involved? Do we have to get the main contractors involved? The plasterers, the joiners, the carpenters? Once you show them what a good lighting design should be. Then it's a much easier sell. And then what tends to happen is go, okay, I can see the value in that. Let's go for it. I could do with my entrance hall, that's the, that's what people see when they come up to my house. And then when you actually say no, when they come through your gates and they're driving up to your house, the lighting is really going to make or break your property. So you start there, then they get to your front door. What does the lighting say about the house? So you can build it up from that. So we've got single room, single floor, two floors, three floors, and then a full house internal and external. So they can pick and choose and they can see the different value add stages along the way. And I think that's from a selling design point of view, that's been important for to try and. Not just break it down on the lighting side, but try and have that synergy with the AV design. So last year we changed our pricing structure on the AV to start building them up slowly.

Ron:

Makes sense. A technical question just for you guys as a design firm working with different integrators. And it sounds like in the United States, in Canada, in the UK and in other markets. Do you have, do you guys, and this is both for lighting, maybe we'll start with you, Adam, then as same for you, Keith, do you guys collect that company's lighting manufacturer fixture preferences or brands, same for the AV? Do you have to learn what their mix of gear is? And work within that framework or do you work within your recommendations and push that back down and advise that they pick up these lines? What's the normal way or I guess the best way you found to work with people?

Adam:

Yeah. So with lighting it's very different with AV because they're looking at me as the expert to say how do you get my house looking like that? What fixtures do you need to use? So it's driven by On that side, straight to the homeowner. So we've got thousands of fixtures available from multiple manufacturers to pick the right, the right fixture for that property. So the difference, the AV it's the other way around again it's led from a product perspective. And people have favorite products, but yeah with the lighting, it's very much.

Ron:

So your contract, Adam, even when you're working with an integrator, you're then ultimately and again, I'm not familiar with exactly how that dynamics working, but you're able to work within your full arsenal of lighting fixture and manufacturer options. And ultimately you're able to bring that custom solution to the consumer.

Adam:

Absolutely. Yeah. So most of the major manufacturers will operate in the Middle East, in the Americas and in Europe. Yeah, absolutely. So I can get any fixture I want on any site that I want in all the major continents. So that's where it's different from a...

Ron:

You use that word creativity early on. Now I see where you're coming from. Like you have this blank canvas and you get to use any color of paint that you want. Depending on what's going to help you paint the prettiest picture.

Adam:

Yeah. And you're getting the homeowner excited right from an early stage. Whereas Keith's not.

Ron:

So Keith how do you work with then? Because you, I'm going to make an assumption. You don't know how to design, you and your team don't know how to design. Maybe you do, by the way, design all things across all systems. And so do you concentrate on collaborating with integrators that are like I think I saw on your website, a Crestron logo or a Control4 logo. Do you pick those particular types of concentrations of dealers? Of which there are thousands. So there's a very large cohort there. How do you operate?

Keith:

It's not necessarily it we've worked with people who do all kinds of weird and wonderful things that like there's a brand in, I don't know if it's in the U S there's a brand in Europe called Fibaro. Which do KNX-y stuff which literally, this happens rarely. The integrator came to me and he was like, yeah, we're going to use this. And I was like, I've never heard of it, but don't worry, we know the right people to speak to, to find out about how this is going to work, if it's KNX based. It's a protocol. And it's a single cable, so we're not, we haven't got too much to re wrap. When you really dig into Control4, Crestron, RTO, whatever it might be, control system wise the architecture is all very similar. As Adam touched on earlier, as we all know AV now is basically everything is IP based. And a switch, I think that it comes down to switches and. And routers and they all did the same job in different ways.

Ron:

But your database sorry to jump in there, but you're working in D-Tools. So you've got pieces and parts on your drawing.

Keith:

We only have 10 things in our database. That's...

Ron:

10, 000 or 20, how many do dads are in your database?

Keith:

Haven't looked. And I really don't want to it's like when we were doing, so we, up until last month. We literally just finished last month. We were doing proposals for people. Because that was a, that's a very tricky area for a lot of installers and integrators, just getting proposals out the door in the timeframe that they've given themselves to do it in. And we were helping. I think in the peak of it we had, we were helping about 10 plus integrators doing all that proposals. And, we were it was a full time job. It was, you know, we were doing like probably 50 proposals a week. And we had three people going at it, like hammering tongs to get it done. And the problem that we had with that side of the business is it's very difficult to charge properly for the time that you need to do a, an actual proper proposal. We got very efficient at it because when you do a lot of something, you become naturally more and more efficient. So everything we had was built in packages. So when you bring in a speaker, it brings the cable with it. That kind of stuff, that basic D-Tools functionality, but yeah, through doing that, like every time we do a proposal, you'd they'd always be something that wasn't in the database on every single, almost every single project, so the database now is quite bloated. But on the plus side, now that we're very much focused on just engineering a V design and no proposals, it means we haven't got to worry about the pricing side of it. So that itself is actually the reason why we stopped doing proposals because post pandemic, the price fluctuations, things that we'd had one price in our database for five years. Suddenly. All those prices changed. And they were changing.

Ron:

Database management. Anybody listening knows that in proposal design and even project documentation, your database management is a bear. Early days of our engineering business. That was for me back in Oh seven through 15. I still wake up. With, sometimes thinking about all the database management work we had to deal with.

Keith:

You're looking at the database manager.

Ron:

The database. Oh man.

Keith:

Then I need a gun, right?

Ron:

I was going to say that sounds like nights and weekends in between getting the work done.

Keith:

When we were doing proposals, it was cause I was doing database management and pricing updates.

Ron:

Yeah, that's hard.

Keith:

I'm so glad I don't do it anymore. Look how happy I am now.

Ron:

Look how happy. Well, Let's talk about something that's actually the opposite of hard and maybe it's on, it's over to Adam's favorite word, creative and fun. And you showed me this and you're going to tell me whether this is actually ready for prime time. You did authorize me to show this, so I'm not. I'm not showing any secrets here, but you guys have developed something you're calling interactive project showcase. So I'm going to share my screen. I'm going to see if technology behaves. There we go. And so for those that are listening, what I just put on the screen is it says interactive project showcase. This is a product. A service that, that you guys at Designflow offer your customers. I'll let you tell us more about it, but I'm just going to, I'm going to click on a button here. It's a Matterport type environment where I'm walking around a home. This is a real home. This is actually the... this is your location right where you are right now, right?

Keith:

Yeah, if you come down this end you'll be in the office I'm in right now.

Ron:

Am I gonna see you there? I'm not gonna see okay. So there's no camera robot actually walking down your hall. But when I click over here , I see the tv has content and those that are listening they hear audio and it's working. It's going to pico down the hallway here.

Keith:

It's probably going to go off now. Yeah.

Ron:

Yeah. It's going to go off. I'm going to walk over to your office. Cause I'm going to listen to an Alexa command. That's going to turn this lamp off. So if I click this, turn off the lights. Everyone's going to see that's watching. They're going to see. So I just had a Matterport though, that became interactive. And I want to talk about what is this? Tell us what this is. And then we'll talk about potential applications because I know some people are going to be listening and now they're going to go, Oh crap. I need to jump over to YouTube to see actually what they're talking about.

Keith:

Yeah good way to get them onto the, onto YouTube.

Ron:

There you go. They're going to jump on LinkedIn or YouTube to check this out. So talk to us. What are we looking at here?

Keith:

So as you quite rightly said, this is like Matterport, but we've made it interactive. So you can turn on TVs, you can control lights, you can show lighting scenes which is something that Adam loves.

Ron:

I've walked into the bathroom and there's a, like a mirror TV and there's a video of a little spider on the screen.

Keith:

If you click on the eye, you'll see the install drawing that we did for that as a PDF. So that's how we installed it. And the same thing, the reason in the lounge, the reason we had the Sonans invisible, video on the tv is because that room has invisible speakers in the walls behind the tv. Okay move on to that sofa and then turn around and press the eye again, you'll see the install drawings that we've done with the... It's like the that I call it the frowny face. So it's back in the day when you had to show speakers in the room, you have a smiley face around the TV and that's the frowny face, but you can't see it because it's all invisible. And that I think is what is really powerful with the interactive project showcase that you can show off all the hidden technology and not just that, also all the hidden work that goes into a project. To an end user. So as you know, Ron, you can, you can meet a customer inside this showcase. Looked at yesterday. And you can show them around a project that you've completed. And just talk to them about what you've done in that project and how it can change the way they live in their house through technology. I think that's the, that's what we're trying to do with this the showcase, just make things more interactive. Maybe bring a smile to people's faces when they go in the bathroom and they can turn on the TV. That kind of stuff just. I think, we're all technology based we're talking about installing technology in people's homes. And this is a great piece of modern technology that I think is absolutely just made for our industry.

Ron:

So I'm envisioning something like this being a way to showcase the work that you've completed, and I'm imagining putting this, for example, embedding it into a website. And allowing for visitors to a website to interact with that. Does it work in that way? Or is that type of integration possible today?

Keith:

That's exactly how it's designed. So embed in your website. So you might have a a project page on your website or a portfolio page, whatever you want to call it. And then over time you can build up a nice little portfolio of different projects that you've completed. And show, you know, allow people to visit those projects on their own, or as part of a guided tour around that property. And I think there's a lot of benefits. You don't have to, make a deal with a customer to allow you to bring people to their completed job. You might have to get their permission to, to use that kind of stuff on your website. And I think it may be that we have a less expansive version that goes on your website. There's just a few little bits and bobs. So it doesn't give too much away about where the project is or, just for on the security side of things, because you never know who's looking on your website could be.

Ron:

Could you interact with a keypad? Could you bring a keypad on the screen? And I'm thinking of tying that into lighting. Adam, are you starting to imagine being able to demo like lighting scenes with something like this?

Adam:

Absolutely. I've been being customer facing for so long. I know what. When customers start to glaze over and switch off and it's when you show them working engineering drawings, which are they're vital to any successful project. With this new project showcase that we've got, it excites them. They're walking around a project. Oh, that's fantastic. And then with the information button, the drawings pop up, but they're secondary on the screen. Yeah, they're secondary. Exactly. You can just say, look, without these drawings, this doesn't happen. And what problems that you might have had? Look, this speaker's really close to the edge, so we have to move it over here, but you can't see that in the images. We're still on the images. We've still got the interest of the customer and you're just there and then you move on to another room. So it's just taking that project portfolio and the photos and images that you show them to the next level. And just given that layer of interactivity. And if a client's struggling with something like lighting scenes, I don't get it because I've been there, you're trying to explain to them the value, but then what you can do with this is just go to the keypad, press evening. And the whole mood of the room changes. The blinds come down, the lamps go on, the high level fixtures go off with one button press. And then they go, ah, now I get it. It's so powerful.

Ron:

It's so powerful visuals, experiential selling is powerful and you've just empowered or enabled, virtual experiential selling. And I think in our industry, this. I can't see how this isn't a big hit. Keith, are you, some of our audience, maybe the majority of our audience at Automation Unplugged are in North America, but we do have a global audience. We appreciate all of our listeners and watchers around the world. But are you guys able to sell this service if people are in, various markets outside of the UK?

Keith:

Yeah, absolutely. The only place that we maybe can't cover right now is Middle East. But. Certainly Australia, UK, Europe, US, Canada, all good. So yeah, absolutely. We can offer this, that the, that is the intention is as our AV service to a less degree at the moment, the lighting design services is offered to people globally. The whole kind of structure of the way that we're going to create the interactive project showcase is the intention is for it to be available anywhere to any installer, any integrator. That's the plan.

Ron:

That's a brilliant place to call it here for this show. We're just coming up on an hour for folks that want to get directly in touch with you two gentlemen, I'll direct this at you, Keith. How how can people get in touch with you?

Keith:

I think the best way is through the website which is on the screen now, I think, but for our audio listeners, let's go ahead and describe that. Okay. So if you head over to the website, which is https://www.designflow.co. Or you can get on email info at designflow.co, or you can get on the phone if you want.

Ron:

People can call you? You have a phone. You have a landline number?

Keith:

Yeah. There is on the screen now. +442071757270.

Ron:

Oh, and you have a separate email for lighting. So Adam I've got lighting at designflow.co on the screen now. Does that go directly to you or your department?

Adam:

That's it. That'll come through to me and then we can have a chat on email. Yeah, absolutely.

Ron:

And Adam, just a specific question. If folks are out there tuned in, do they need to engage the business for both lighting and AV or can they engage one or the other side of the business?

Adam:

Yeah, one or the other. It's fine. It's completely separate. We will take either or, yeah we have customers for both and, some customers take everything, some just lighting, some just AV.

Ron:

Got it. Love it. Gentlemen, I want to thank you both for joining me here on Automation Unplugged. And it's been exciting to learn about your business. And to learn about your software solutions. And in fact, I'm going to be talking to you guys about ways we might be able to collaborate in the future. I think a lot of people would benefit from this, but just want to say, thanks for coming on the show.

Keith:

Thanks for having us Ron.

Ron:

Awesome gentlemen.

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.

Resources and links from the interview:

• Design Flow AV Webpage
• Design Flow AV LinkedIn profile
• Keith Jones LinkedIn profile
• Adam Kraemer-Dent LinkedIn profile