#327: Chris Sterle on Building Acoustic Design Systems with Culture, Vision, and Content
Episode 327 our guest is Chris Sterle, CEO of Acoustic Design Systems, who shares with us how culture, creativity, and content have fueled his company’s success.
This week's episode of Automation Unplugged our guest today is Chris Sterle, President and CEO of Acoustic Design Systems in Las Vegas.
About this episode:
Since launching ADS in 2003, Chris has grown the company into a trusted integration partner, delivering custom-designed systems ranging from audio, video, and security to lighting, shades, and whole-home control. Originally from Ohio, he began his AV career in 1995, gaining hands-on experience in sales, installation, and professional AV before moving to Las Vegas in 1998. His diverse background and commitment to culture, innovation, and service have shaped ADS into the successful business it is today.
In this episode, Chris and I discussed:
- How culture, process, and profitability fuel growth at Acoustic Design Systems
- Why marketing and fun, engaging content have become cornerstones of the Acoustic Design Systems brand
- The future of integration, from lighting and panelized systems to service revenue and M&A
SEE ALSO: #326: Big Speakers and Bigger Passion at HiFi Buys with Chris Doughty
Transcript
Ron:
Another episode of Automation Unplugged. , I'm happy that you've all joined me. Maybe you're watching, , watching or listening here on Wednesday, the day of our release. Every automation episode is released on, , early Wednesday morning. Or maybe you're, you're watching this at some point, distant in the future. Thank you for tuning in. As always, this show is brought to you by my day job at One Firefly. My name is Ron Callis. I'm happy to be here with all of you. And now let me get you introduced to our awesome guest. This person is an AV and automation industry rockstar. If you do not live under a rock, you know who this person is because they are all over your Instagram. They're all over your TikTok. They're all over your Facebook. Actually, I'll, I'll find out. I don't know how active he and his wife are on LinkedIn. That'll be a good question. , but they are producing, , some of our industry's most fun, , positive content on social media. They also are running just a spectacular business, , that continues to grow and reach new heights. And so without further ado, I'm happy to introduce you to Chris Sterl, he's president and CEO of acoustic design systems. Let me go ahead and bring in Chris and see how he's doing. Chris, how are you? Hey Ron. How's it going buddy? I am good. For those that are living under a rock and do not know where you are located, tell us a little bit about, , where you're at right now and maybe a quick snapshot about acoustic design systems.
Chris:
Cool. , I am in, we are in Las Vegas, Nevada, sunny, warm Las Vegas, Nevada. I think it's gonna be a hundred degrees today, but the fall is coming and, , there's no better place to be in the country than Las Vegas in the fall. Weather's perfect. Um, , thank you for shouting out all of our social sites. Appreciate that. Hopefully get ourselves onto OnlyFans soon as well so we can start monetizing some of this content. So just drop off. That could be big, big for you, man.
Ron:
The OnlyFans, the, the Chris and Amanda OnlyFans. Maybe you just do like OnlyFans where you show your feet. One, one of those odd only fans.
Chris:
So that's a feet finder account, Ron. So if you're gonna, is that Yeah. How do you know this Chris? I'm a well read man. Read a book, Ron.
Ron:
Read a book. Okay. Alright. Acoustic design systems. What type of projects do you guys do and where do you do these projects?
Chris:
So we pretty much focus on the greater Las Vegas area, which is Las Vegas and Henderson. We do have a small presence up in southern Utah with one of the builders that brought us up there with them. But it's a small, just, , we send people up there as necessary. Um, type of projects are anything from, , we deal with high end volume production builders, so, , the kind of the lowest level that would maybe be a toll Brothers, who's America's luxury builder all the way up to $20 million custom homes in the summit, which is a discovery property here in Las Vegas.
Ron:
Okay. What would be a, , I always like to ask our guests this, what would be a small project? What would be a medium or average project and what would be a large project for you guys?
Chris:
I mean, a small project, we're happy to hang someone's TV for them, , and just fill up the schedule on maybe a slow day. Average project for us is between 20 and $50,000 and then a large project. We've got projects we're working on right now from a half a million up to a million and a half for the project, which is all-encompassing lighting, audio, video, shades, and everything in between.
Ron:
I'm curious, when you are, , winning those, those bigger projects, do you go after those bigger projects or do they just kinda happen just through the, the natural state of things?
Chris:
We've been in business for 22 years now and we have a really good name in the industry. And in Las Vegas, we, I love this town. , so a lot of the time the projects are coming to us because we do so many volume projects with a lot of different builders and those people that maybe the employees that work at some of those, , larger national builders might move to a smaller bespoke company, a smaller builder here in Las Vegas or someone who's just building customs and they know our quality of work and they're, they know how, um, just how we handle projects and the project management side of things. And they wanna bring us into those projects 'cause they're just used to the quality that we bring.
Ron:
We're here in late 2025. What's the state of construction in Las Vegas?
Chris:
I mean, everything on the news says that Las Vegas is dead and slow and, but we have not noticed a slowdown at all. You go to a casino on the weekend, they're packed. Everybody's spending money. So again, I don't think you believe everything you see on social media. I do think Vegas has, , maybe not the best they, they've got. It's gotten expensive here for sure. The median home price has gotten very expensive here. To go to a casino and get a dollar 99 steak and lobster dinner is a thing of the long, long pass. Now you're paying 17 bucks for a Coors Light, so that bit of Las Vegas has changed. But the influx of. , I guess higher end home buyers with the Raiders coming to town, the Knights finding all their success in town now. We've got the, a's coming to town, looking at a basketball team in the next couple of years, , all the other industries in the town get to, um, kind of get a bump off of all of those employees from the front office, the players, everyone moving to town. So it is growing constantly. And if you drive around Las Vegas at all, it's expanding in all directions.
Ron:
We are post CEDIA, we're right as this show is being released. We're right in the middle of all the buying group events and activities. Yeah. Um, what was a, a takeaway or two from you, from the, the, the US CEDIA show? The one that just took place in Denver.
Chris:
Well, I enjoyed it. I love it because I like going to see all my friends. We have a lot, we have really good relationships. You guys were
Ron:
celebrities. You and Amanda were celebrities on the floor, people. I saw you stopping and, and wanting to get their picture taken with you guys. It funny. Did you feel some of that? Did it
Chris:
feel we built, it's funny, like you can't for Amanda, and I'm not like patting myself on the back. It's not self-serving at all. But like we had a guy from Nova Scotia stop us. Like when we were riding a bird home at like after dinner at nighttime saying, oh my God, you were Chris and Amanda. I follow you guys on TikTok. You guys are so much fun. Which is like, again, that's, it feels good and gives us maybe some of the encouragement to keep going. But then in general, just on the show floor vendors, um, peers in the industry, everyone seems to like our content that we put on, on social media. So we'll keep doing it as long as you guys, , like the ridiculousness that we enjoy putting out there.
Ron:
Well, we're, we're gonna share lots of that ridiculousness in this interview. I've got it all teed up on, on my browser. We're gonna go one by one through your channels. How far for everyone that's tuned in and wants to know in the creative mind that is, , Christopher and Amanda and how they operate. We're gonna try to pull the layers back and, and understand how they do what they do. , yeah, that's totally
Chris:
not just Christopher, Amanda is the biggest piece of that. She has the marketing background. She is a, she is just good at everything she does. So kudos to her for continuing to, , encourage me to not be embarrassed about seeing myself on screen and just putting myself out there because people enjoy it, which makes us pretty happy.
Ron:
Chris, you have a really fascinating backstory in terms of where you got started that, and, and tell us where you came from. So then we can rapid fire, go through all these fun topics in the present. Sure. But I, I love your backstory. I know you've written about it. You've, you've been interviewed. This is my opportunity to dig deep and share this with, with my audience. So please tell us about your background.
Chris:
So real quick, clickbait for everybody. Would you, do you want to hear about the drugs and homelessness and all of that, or
Ron:
everything, all the words that are gonna get the clicks?
Chris:
Sure. Um, so as far as entrance into the industry for me as a whole is, um, I got a car when I was, I think 18 years old, and I wanted to put a car stereo in it. And I don't come from money by any means, so, , I couldn't afford to just pay retail for a car stereo. So I got a job at a big box, like a Best Buy type of a store, , as an employee to sell, to sell. Car audio and home audio so I could get a, , employee discount on a car stereo. I, um, I got fired from that job. But what I realized while I was there was, as an employee, you also had to set up some of the displays in the store. And I very much enjoyed, I know tinkering and hooking up interconnects and hooking up speakers and turning it on for the first time was a really fun thing. So when I got fired from there, I went to another company in my same hometown outside of Cleveland, Ohio, , installing bows and DirecTV systems. So I got to learn how to run wires and attics and crawl in basements and kind of learn some of the install side of our industry that went along with the sales and the product knowledge for everything.
Ron:
Was it a residential type? Low voltage contractor? I mean, as we think of an integrator today, or was it a different type of business?
Chris:
I would say it was a version of what you would look at an integration company today. They were very focused on, they did a lot of TV sales. So I also did delivery of TVs back when a Sony 35 inch trinitron weighed 250 pounds and a Mitsubishi 65 inch rear projection. And I was a 18, 19-year-old kid smoking weed, delivering TVs. Which,
Ron:
so this was in the late, this would've been the late nineties, mid mid nineties to late nineties.
Chris:
This would be 96, 97. 'cause I moved to Las Vegas in 98 after being fired from that job also. So what, what, all right. You got into two firings. Do you recall why you were fired from those jobs? A hundred percent. The, , the first job at Big Box store, , I was stealing CDs. Okay. Yep. So I deserve to get fired. The second one was, , the official termination form set. I smelled like a brewery. I went out the night before I was out, very late the night before. I slept in and missed my alarm. Met the guys at the shop two hours late, and I was sweating beer, and they let me go, which I deserved it. I've deserved, I've been fired from every job I've ever had, and I've deserved to be fired from every job I've ever had.
Ron:
Okay,
Chris:
so what ha what happened after the delivery job? Um, I ended up moving to Las Vegas to, , my cousin owned a company in Las Vegas that was more similar to what you think of an auto, um, an integration company is today. And he knew what I had done in my experience back, , in Ohio. So he offered for me to come out and run kind of the field operations and be the main installer for the company. , it turned out my company, my cousin, wasn't the best business person. , no offense, I mean, any, most people in this industry don't happen to be the greatest business people. We're good at what we do because we like the technology and everything else. Yeah. And then you learn the business side of it, hopefully as you go on, and you grow a really good business out of that. Um. It didn't work out with him. I got a job at the show, EFX, at the MGM, which doing, , kind of props and sound and lighting and kind of learned a little more of the professional side of things. What was EFX That was like a show at the casino? Yeah, it was the MGM was the big show at the MGM. , it was with Tommy Tune when I joined, who was a Tony Award winner, , song and dance guy. And then Rick Springfield was after him, and I was show call. So I worked during the show every single night. , did two shows a night. It was a fantastic job. Met a bunch of really cool people. Um, but I just have never done well as an employee because I don't really subscribe to the shit rolls downhill philosophy. Like if the boss gets in trouble, then the employee gets in trouble and then the employees kind of addict to everyone else the rest of the day. I just, I just don't buy into that whole corporate world. So I How long were
Ron:
you at EFX?
Chris:
, just about two years.
Ron:
Okay. And I got
Chris:
fired for, they said, 'cause I abandoned the show. I got a, i, I went, I left to go help somebody on our team. And when I come back they said I didn't ask for permission. So they fired me. But again, I wasn't the best employee. So I, no, I don't hold any grudges. Even the main guy, like the lead stagehand was my boss at the time who got me the job. He and I are still friendly to this day and he tells me regularly that he's proud of me and the company I built and everything, which is kind of fun.
Ron:
That's, and he's also the guy that
Chris:
fired me so.
Ron:
That's awesome that you've managed to stay in touch, stay connected. Yeah.
Chris:
Have you stayed
Ron:
connected to all the bosses that have fired you? One more time. Have you stayed connected to all the bosses that have fired you? Oh, no. They were dicks. Okay. They were dicks. All right. Just that one from EFX?
Chris:
Yeah. Okay. So where, where'd you go from there? Um, I started my company the next week. In fact, when they fired me, I, they gave me my last check and they fired me and I looked them in the eye, said, you will be the last person to ever sign a paycheck for me, other than me. And I was a chip on the shoulder, cocky, 23-year-old. It was a month before my daughter was born. I, the next day I filed for a business license and a sales and use tax permit. And then the following week I file, filed my articles incorporation to start acoustic design. It's literally all I've ever done ever since, and it has not been sunshine and rainbows. None of that happened because between the time of, I guess around that e before that EFX time moving to Vegas, my cousin, , that not working out with him, I, I had a roommate that stole our rent money, so we got evicted. I was homeless for a while, bouncing on off of people's couches. I had no money. I sold drugs for a while, for like two years. I sold drugs. I stole food from the grocery store so I could eat. I was not a good human being during those years. I mean, I was a good human being. I just wasn't doing good shit. I didn't really care about my future. I was a young 20 something and I didn't really put much thought into how my actions would affect my later life or other people around me until I grew up a little bit like we all have to do.
Ron:
What was that turning point for you? What caused, did something cause you to grow up a little bit? 2008. Do you remember? 2008? I remember I've told the story many times on the podcast. I started the business in November oh seven, so, oh, I walked right into the blender with one Firefly.
Chris:
Yeah. So, so this was in 2001, um, that I was, that, that was my last job. And in 2003, I changed the name of the company to Acoustic design and kind of went full bore with the name Acoustic Design. Um, and it was easy doing business in the number one growing city in the world, Las Vegas from oh 4 0 5, 0 6 0 7. They were fantastic years in business, but I was still the same cocky 23-year-old with a chip on his shoulder. I didn't know what I was doing in business. I was angry. I was not a good boss. , I was not a good business owner. I knew nothing about the business side of things, and I thought that I was a genius because it was 2006 and 2007 when the phone was just ringing all the time. Right. And then when 2008 happened, it was a really big kick in the ass that, , Chris, , you're not that bright. The phone just doesn't keep ringing because it's you. And I had to grow and learn, which is probably the best thing that ever happened to me.
Ron:
What, what exactly happened? Like in, in terms of the size of the company, if you wanna share revenue or just employees? Sure. Like before and then post oh eight, was it like immediate or was it a slow decline over some years?
Chris:
So I had, , in 2007, it was probably our best year. Prior to that, it was right around $2 million. And I had, we were doing $2 million a year. I think we had 11 employees. I had three cars, a boat, an American Express Centurion card, the black card, and $0 I, when I made any money, I figured I'm gonna buy all the things that make me think that I'm gonna be happy. All the things, all rich people
Ron:
owned.
Chris:
Yeah. I was not rich. I was, I was, I was hood rich, right? I had a bunch of shit and no money. Um, and then oh eight happened and I was like, all right, I need to teach myself what to do. So oh eight happened. I went from, we were $2 million business. I don't even know what we went down to. I, I just kind of, it was kind of a blur, but I paid, we went down to two employees, myself and two other guys, and I paid them all out of my pocket for everything. I paid every single one of my vendors outta my pocket. I never reneged on, , an obligation other than my, I got my house foreclosed on at the time. That was, I mean, I was, I got divorced at the time. It wasn't the most positive time in my life, but it was exactly what I needed to teach myself to be a business person, , to starting to teach myself to be a business person and also realize that waiting for the phone to ring is not a business plan.
Ron:
When did, on the other side of oh eight, when did things start to stabilize and then start an upward trajectory? I mean, was it a straight line up or was it kind of a wobbly for a bit? What was it like? It's
Chris:
been, it was fairly a straight line up, I say in, , 2012. So during that time we were doing these little one-off, two off jobs, waiting for the phone to ring, still trying to figure out what I wanted the business to actually be. And I saw this missing sector that people didn't focus on in the industry. Everyone I see, even still, for the most part, most of the, most of the companies in our industry focus on those Uber top 1% of 1% jobs. Custom houses, custom builds, architects, designers, all that entire world, which I, it makes a ton of sense because there's a lot of money associated with it, but I didn't think that we, like this is kind of, we like now, in hindsight, I could say this, but I didn't think that we were. Smart enough to do those big 200, 300, half a million dollar projects. We had no process. We had no great accounting skills, we weren't doing anything. There was a way for us to be great at something other than managing chaos every day. And that's all I was doing was managing chaos. Um, which is when we kind of had the thought to what if we go after luxury production builders where we can do the same thing time and time again to the point where it's replicatable. You can write a process around it and then you don't need the smartest people to be figuring it out. There's already a plan for it before you go into the project. And we got really good at that. So we got the first community we did with Toll Brothers, and they really liked us because I said, we're gonna put everything we are into this and try to make this, try to be the best subcontractor that any builder's ever worked with. And that grew into an exclusive relationship with Toll Brothers over the years. So 2012, we had two guys. I wish I knew the exact numbers for each of the years, but I think I had two trucks in 2012. , I bought a third truck and then in, we got the first community. We got another community, another community, another community. By the end of 2015, we had a dozen trucks and we had, um, probably about 20 employees still managing chaos, but we're on the path to, , being a little more successful and a little more, , processized in everything that we did. And then that year, between 2000 and. 15 to 2017. That 2016, I bought a new truck every month for 12 straight months. Wow. We hired 15, 20 more people. Our revenue tripled in those two years, , over that course of those two years. And we started writing process around every single thing that we did as a company, a documented process. So then we hired somebody or something ever came up. We had a document to refer to about this is the way we're gonna handle it as a company. And you don't have to go to Chris for everything to solve every problem
Ron:
as you start to increase your staffing at that rate. , layers of management or operational activities. You mentioned process changes. Was there anything else that sticks out to you that made that sort of growth possible? Not just revenue growth, but people, when you have that many people, those people need to be managed. Yeah. And they need to be led and they need to ultimately be inspired. Yeah. What, what are some of the things that stick out to you that changed?
Chris:
, a hundred hour work weeks is what stands out to me. During that time, I was so focused on building something different in an environment where people would be, would feel supported, would feel like they knew what to do every single day. I heard all of the complaints from employees that worked for other companies. I heard the complaints from homeowners that had worked with other integrators in the past, and I thought I was the only one that could lead the charge to, . In every department of our company to build it and continue to move things forward. What worked out during that time is we got this core group of guys that were working their butts off, that started from the bottom, that worked their way up the ladder with me as the leader, and I could see different things in all of them where they could be great. My, one of my strong suits is people. I just, I'm good with understanding people and understanding what's motivate them. I like talking to people and understanding them, so as that core group of people continue to grow, we needed more help. They stepped up and said, Hey, I'm gonna take care of this for you, Chris. Can I do this for us? Can I do this? I have an idea for this. And they kind of promoted themselves just based on their actions and their care for the company and the customer and their brother beside them, to be able to take over some of those roles from me so I could continue focus on pushing the business forward and not working in the company every single day.
Ron:
And then you ran into COVID and so what's that? COVID to the present period? I mean, co. That first COVID, it was good, right? What's that? Was it good? It, I mean, for many integrators it was a great period. I don't remember what happened in Vegas though.
Chris:
It was scary. Okay, without question. It was all I could think about When it got announced that COVID COVID was a thing, , Las Vegas is shutting down. The only thing I could think of was 2008 again, I said, I'm going outta business again. I'm gonna go outta business. This is gonna be the end of it. And we were doing so well. Like everything was trajectory for everything was on the right path. Everything was happy, our builders were happy, everything was going fantastic. And then that happened and I got terrified and we ended up. When we found out about it, I, I mean now that I've learned, we had to act fairly quickly to try to save as much as we can of acoustic design before it got whittled away. That was our thinking at the time. We cut the salaries of the top people in our company and they all did it with a smile. They were happy they were in from the beginning. I might get teary as I tell you this 'cause tough time, but, , we, we laid off, I think 10 people or something like that. And then, , a week later we saw actually what COVID was going to do with people working from home and needing networks. And since people couldn't travel, they were using some of that budget for home improvements. And that's what we learned over the, the course of COVID. But a week after I laid them off, we hired everybody back. We gave everybody their salaries back. And then over the course of the month, I think we hired another 10 people over that next month because it, we were, we were booming. Housing was booming in Las Vegas. Interest rates were low, everyone was staying at home, people were starting to work remote jobs. So we had this big influx of people from California who are tired of playing, paying California taxes. Just the living, that influx is still
Ron:
happening now, right? Even in 10 25. It's constantly, yeah. I mean, I'm hearing that. I, I love my friends in California.
Chris:
Yes. No offense. I love the beach. Beach is like one of my favorite places.
Ron:
I, I love, I, you know, all I love all of California, at least the Geograph. And I, but I see, I hear so much of this, I mean, flow, heading into Utah, heading into Arizona, heading into Nevada, heading into Texas, heading into Idaho. I mean, it's, it feels like it's nonstop. So it's still happening
Chris:
in Vegas. Absolutely. Because I think a big reason for that also, one, the remote things, but the largest generation, the baby boomers are all at retirement age. Retirement age people, their kids are out of the house. They're starting to look at what's the rest of our life look like. And they've got a house they've lived in and their families grew up in for 30 years that they now own free and clear that's worth 20 times what they paid for it. So they're selling these homes in California, moving to a better tax advantageous state, , bringing all of this capital in, buying homes for cash. And I believe they're also the oldest generation that started living with technology. So as they've bought new homes or built new homes, they've, Hey, at what I, now I know how this smartphone works. How do I get this to control my music or my thermostats or my door locks or everything that goes along with everything in our industry. So they're getting outta California with some capital buying houses in any of those states you mentioned. And they want technology in their homes because they've never had it and they're building their last home forever. Home for themselves.
Ron:
That's an And are the folks that, out of curiosity, are the people moving to Vegas? Is this their. , forever house or is this their second or third home, or what are you typically seeing this particular cohort that's, you know, say they're retired kids are outta the house, they've got capital 'cause they sold their house. What, what do you seeing? Yeah. This,
Chris:
they're, they're downsizing or building a really nice production style home. Not a $10 million, um, custom home. But, um, real estate in Vegas is real interesting. You could easily spend 4 million, $7 million on a production home. So these people are coming here and buying a $2 million house, which is fantastically nicer than the house they used to have. They're paying cash for it. They're getting all the technology they want in it. They've been living in a state with a better tax structure, better weather, blah, blah, blah. And it's just, it's, it's a really great place to live and it's continuously booming because of so many of those factors.
Ron:
I'm gonna ask you a totally random thing, but this is for me, watching the news. Could be truth, could be lies. You'll tell us the truth. Yeah. Is Vegas running out of water? Like Right. Is there like a water challenge for availability of water for your house or your yard or taking a shower?
Chris:
So the Colorado River is running out of water. Vegas is not running out of water. Other than the fact you could say if the Colorado River is running out of water and Las Vegas draws water from the Colorado River, that yes, we're running out of water. But according to every scientific report that exists, Vegas is a model city for every state and city that pulls water from the Colorado River. Vegas is only using 60% of their allotment of water that they're allowed to pull from the river. And they say that if every other city that used the Colorado River for water modeled themselves after Las Vegas, the Colorado River would be just fine.
Ron:
Wow. Is there a movement, not that I wanna take it into politics or whatever, there a movement in other cities and states to make that happen.
Chris:
, I don't know. I just know that stat. I would like to think that everyone is as conscious of it as Las Vegas is. Yeah, I'm not. We've had major, I'm a big golfer and there's major restrictions on water for golf courses. , there are no more golf courses that are gonna be built in Las Vegas because of the water demands that a golf course carries. , but there's a lot of other states, a lot of other cities along the Colorado River that just aren't abiding by it because there really isn't a rule of the amount of water. I've watched a good special on it, and I'm paraphrasing, you can fact check me and tell me if I'm wrong, but
Ron:
Allison will fact check us and she'll love it out in the show notes. There's just
Chris:
things I've known or heard, but there are, um, the amount of water people pull is on a system called dibs. Like they just say, I'm gonna take this much water. Or if they say, I'm only gonna take this much water and then I'm gonna pull from an underground aquifer. Well, those underground aquifers are part of the Colorado River, so. There isn't been, there hasn't been enough regulation around it or enough stopping, or people caring enough to stop taking as much water. Okay. That's my naive understanding of it. No, that's
Ron:
good. I appreciate your, your lessons for me and on our listeners on, on the geography of Las Vegas. Yeah. , that's awesome. Your day job, you see that you have two primary functions. What are they? , I
Chris:
am the Amanda says I'm the cheerleader for the company. 'cause all I focus on is the culture and, , our employees experience inside of my company. And I do, I like marketing. I focus a lot on our marketing efforts. , I pay attention to it. Um, and now there's one other job I have. Is I golf A tremendous amount.
Ron:
Well, that's, that's biz dev, right? There's,
Chris:
it's what it is. There's clients, the bump we've experienced in business over the last three years, 100% can be attributed to my golf club membership.
Ron:
Has your golf game gotten better over those three years?
Chris:
Next question. Okay. Yeah. Ebbs and flows, buddy. It's golf. If you know golf, it's like, it, it's got, it gets better, it gets worse, but it's, it's good days and bad days. You're golfing and it's a, it's a wonderful thing. Have you and Amanda , picked up pickleball? You know, it's funny. We bought paddles, we bought all the stuff for it, and we still have never gone. I love a sport where you can buy gear. Yeah. You know, like
Chris:
you, you learn snowboarding, you get to buy a board and boots and bindings and a coat and pants and hats and goggles and all this fun stuff. You buy, I don't know, pick another sport. Like you buy a boat, you get wakeboards and surfboards and all this other fun stuff. I like sports like that. So we got the paddles. We just haven't made it out yet.
Ron:
Haven't made it out yet. So, marketing and culture, let's go marketing first. I know a lot of folks are tuned in and they see you on Instagram and in fact, while you're talking I'm gonna pull up, , your company Instagram page. Yeah. And, , I'd love just. How do you guys think about your approach to marketing? Maybe we'll just start there.
Chris:
Um. I think the first step is get over yourself, and everything we do is content. , so we typically, so for our social media, we shoot, we do a video shoot and pictures three days, every six to eight weeks. We, those three days are from morning till well after the sun goes down, thinking of ideas, shooting content, and we might go into those three days with 10 ideas. But when we're shooting one of the ideas, six more ideas are born out of it. We'll be walking through a home or a model home or in our office or whatever, and I'll just look at something and say, I can make a video around that. So once you get the chip off your shoulder of, you sound like an idiot on social media and you look like an idiot on social media, 'cause I know I do. But once you get over that caring about hearing your voice and everything else, everything we do as an industry is content. 'cause everything we do is the coolest part about building or buying a new home. You have to get a roof, you have to get flooring, you have to get a water heater, but you want to big tv, you want speakers in your backyard, around your pool. We have a want industry and it's fun and exciting and the, when you're turning that TV on for the person or that surround system on for a new homeowner for the first time in their new home, nothing is more exciting than that thrill for the customer and for our techs.
Ron:
You have, I'm on your Instagram page For those that are listening, , you have, , , 8,600 followers on Instagram, , which is, , very impressive. I'm assuming you have not paid for followers. You have not. No. These are not fake accounts. These are real people that have chosen to follow you guys, correct?
Chris:
Yeah. If we, I think we'd have more than 8,600 if we paid for them.
Ron:
I, I agree.
Chris:
Because if I'm gonna buy some, I'm gonna buy like 2 million. I'm I Yeah,
Ron:
you're you're not going, you're, you're going for broke. All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna play one or two and I want you to, to talk us through it. So here's, this is, , oh my God. First of all, I'm gonna, do you hear this? Yeah. Hi. Thank you.
Chris:
This was a, , fun re-shoot, shot for shot. We did it with, , the jerk and Amanda, when she was
Ron:
here. I'll, I'll turn the audio off. Talk, talk to us. What are we seeing
Chris:
here? Um, so Amanda was, , last year, 2024, was in 40 women to watch in the industry. , and her picture was on the cover of CE Pro. So I just like doing movie parodies. I think they're super fun. , and I've always wanted to do it with myself. We were, we've been in a couple magazines and everything, and I've always wanted to do it for myself, but when she got on there, I just thought it was, , I thought it was more fun and funny for her to do it. And then we just, we wrote a shot list and just shot it, shot for shot so we could, and who doesn't love Steve Martin and The Jerk? It's such a great movie.
Ron:
I, I agree. All right. So our
Chris:
social media, I think is just a good mix of education for someone maybe looking to do some smart home tech, maybe someone looking to build a house, , just for random people that just are looking to learn a little bit more. So it's a good amount of education. Another aspect of it is we celebrate our team on a regular basis. We have an amazing group of, , employees that really, truly care about our customer experience day to day. And then we just do some goofy, fun stuff because that's just who we are. This is a really fun industry we work in. I'm not, we don't take ourselves very seriously.
Ron:
I'm gonna turn the audio Social Media Clip: back on. We plan, invest in a solid foundation, work with a smart home professional who can really help future proof your home.
Ron:
All right. When I, when I see you or Amanda and you guys are looking into the camera and you're talking, are you guys looking at a prompter? Are you doing this from a script it that you've memorized?
Chris:
Never are just ad-libbing. All ad we, so we might have a conversation around it and then we say, okay, ready, let's go. And I would say 99% of the time, the first take is what we use. We love mistakes. We like putting out blooper reels and everything, but there's no script or a prompter or anything. It's just we know the industry fairly well. We know what we want to talk about and we just turn the camera on. Amanda's also likes to yammer like you and I do, Ron, so she's really good at just hopping in front of the camera and talking about something as well.
Ron:
All right. This, this is spectacular. You guys are getting tremendous engagement from the, the videos. I mean, I'm looking at the first video that's just here, here on your Instagram. You have 162 likes, seven comments. The the second 1, 69 likes, 15 comments. For those that are listening, Chris, that are, that will quickly hate to you or me on social media and tell us why it doesn't matter.
Chris:
Yeah,
Ron:
give your perspective on why you think it does matter.
Chris:
First off, I love the hate, so please keep it up. There's a couple videos on there you could find if you just read the comment section. It's a blast because people love to talk shit on the internet and I love to talk shit right back. I do not care. And it's fun for me to like get someone to hate us. 'cause one thing it's engagement and how are you gonna hate people who are just trying to be happy and share good information and try to teach people stuff. , the world is too big of a place for, , people to be so small minded.
Ron:
I, I agree. Do you have challenges getting your team to go on video or do they mind getting their picture taken or do they, do they, they think it's cool or do they like, man, boss, like, don't point the camera at me.
Chris:
They love it and they constantly come up to us. So I saw myself in a video yesterday. Everyone likes to see themself, their name and print, or just like Steve Martin and the Jerk, , or themselves in a video. And they like to know that we care about them. We wanna show them off as well. And there, there's a couple videos where it's just our employees talking about the culture and the experience inside of our company. And they, they love, it's, it's who we are as a company. It's not like we're springing something new on them that we've been doing this for quite a while now.
Ron:
All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump through a couple of different platforms just to, to show the audience, the, the places that you're putting content. Sure. And then I wanna back up and gonna go high level and just talk about your creative process. Like, cool. Thanks. How do you guys think about what you're gonna create and how do you go about it? Because I know a lot of people are gonna lean forward and take notes to, , ultimately learn that. All right. So let, let me, , let me see if I can get technology to behave here. Let me bring up your YouTube channel.
Chris:
We're just starting to, um, , produce some long format videos for YouTube. Most of our, , video on YouTube right now is just shorts, because that's kind of what we've cut our teeth with, with Instagram or TikTok or anything like that. But we'll wanna start making some long form comment for YouTube as well.
Ron:
Okay, so that's what I'm seeing. So when I log into your page, lot less subscribers. So this is a newer focus for you guys, is that correct?
Chris:
Yeah, I'm kinda, if you're gonna watch quick videos, you're not gonna go to YouTube shorts a lot of the time you're gonna use TikTok or Instagram or the platforms that were built around it. YouTube's a so a lot of times the ways a lot of these platforms work is you'll do clips of a long form video to post on your TikTok or your Instagram that are pointing people to go watch the longer form com, , content on YouTube. That's what we're working our way towards. , it's just a lot more work to do long form videos.
Ron:
Yeah. So if I go to your video section, um. So there are some long form videos here. Here, I'm gonna pull one up. Oh, this is a good one. You guys can hear the music. I'll turn the music off so you can just kind of talk the audience through even those that aren't watching the screen. What, what are we seeing here?
Chris:
So, this is one that we, , one of our, , home builder partners, Christopher Homes, we do a lot of penalized lighting with them. Like every one of their houses that they build, , it's a production home. They go for four to $7 million and we do a penalized lighting system in all of them. , it's an option for the home buyer, but everyone chooses it. And they wanted a way to be able to easily describe what the difference is between panelized lighting and the standard lighting that they would get without doing panelized lighting. So we built them a video just for them to use and send to their home buyers, , about the benefits of panelized lighting.
Ron:
That's awesome. So the builder sends this video in some communication to every customer that's gonna purchase a home.
Chris:
Yeah. We created some, um, just like white paper with QR codes showing I'll just scan this code, watch this video with them, with a little bit of a description. And we've given them that to them in digital format as well, so they can send a flyer to a customer that they're able to actually click on or scan a QR code and go watch the longer form video.
Ron:
And I see here right at the top of your YouTube channel, you've pinned a video. Is it from four years ago? It still looks impressive. It's, , armada of vehicles front.
Chris:
We're up to, , we're up. Yeah, we, we probably had around 30 video or 30 vans in that video. I think we're up to 38 vans right now. And then with the addition of the acoustic design slug bus, I just got a, , Volkswagen, ID buzz the new electric van from Volkswagen as a promo vehicle for the company.
Ron:
, what's the purpose of the, the van? What are you gonna do with it?
Chris:
Do golf tournaments, drive it around town. So, a fun thing I like to do, so I'm a big car guy. I love automobiles. I have quite a few cars and, , see, here's the bus. Love it. So we logo it up and everything. Um, and then I got a bunch of t-shirts and swag and everything made around the bus, so I just drive it around town and everyone wants to talk about the van because you don't see them anywhere and they're really neat and quirky. I think it's like a better version of the cyber truck, to be honest. It's, I think cyber truck and the Volkswagen are the best two marketing vehicles you can buy, but the cyber truck has its own feelings behind it and the bus is a little more whimsical and fun, which is who we are. So people stop us and talk to us about it, and then if they follow us on social media, I give 'em a t-shirt. If not, we've got QR codes with our link tree for all of our social sites. And if they follow us right there, we'll give their kids a shirt or give them a t-shirt just to continue to promote the brand. And then we have 38 trucks on the, on the road in Vegas. So they, you see our brand every day anyway, so I just thought it was a fun way to continue to engage with the community.
Ron:
Just for everyone watching, , I'm gonna go ahead and put across the bottom your Instagram handle so people can go check that out. If they wanna, , know how to go follow you on Instagram. If they, thanks aren't already. Talk to us at a high level. Talk to me at a high level, like, how are you guys going about, like, what's your process to create this content? Like, I, I can imagine a lot of people say that's great, but that's Chris and Amanda. I, I, I'm not as creative as they are. I, I don't have the, I don't have the energy that they have. What's the method to the madness? And maybe I'm gonna cheat here and just say it, it starts with a foundation that you and Amanda believe it matters.
Chris:
We do believe it matters because I think people buy from people. Not, of course, you want a product and everything else, but if you've ever dealt with any big corporation, I had to call a customer support line yesterday and it was infuriating. People buy from people. So I wanted to, our whole goal is to create content around who we are as people, as a company. Um, and then when you do business with us, you feel a little bit of familiarity and you feel like you know us already. We aren't any different. You can go and watch. We do, we post our outtakes, we post all the silly stuff that we do, and I, we want people to see that we're real people. We, we have 45 employees I think now, so we're supporting 45 different families with our company and we brag about our staff all the time. They're all amazing people. And I just, I think it matters because we are a company that cares about our industry. We care about our customers, we care about Las Vegas and the town that we're in. We care about supporting all of those things. So I think social media's just another component of that, because if you're not on, I mean if you're not, if you're not advertising on social media, what other platform? If you're still still doing mailers in 2025, you're crazy because we have a technology company. If you're not leveraging technology to promote your company, you're, you're, I don't, you're kind of lost in my opinion.
Ron:
Alright, so to focus on the social media, and I'm gonna get a bit technical for just a moment. So you're, you're creating content, you're posting it on the platform. Are you also doing running ads to push those pieces of content out to, , larger audiences or, or at least to your followers on those platforms?
Chris:
Well, the post will automatically go to the followers if we think we have something really fun or if it gets a lot of engagement from our, , from our, , organic followers. Okay. Then we might pay to promote the video a little bit more. Um, just because if it's engaging for this group of people, we'd like to maybe send it out and show it to more people. And it's, and we're not talking a lot about, you know, it's a couple dollars to promote a via, , video on Instagram or Yeah. TikTok or YouTube or fill in the blank. And it reaches a tremendous amount more people. And when it gets into that algorithm as everyone's watching it, the sites themselves will start promoting the video a bit more. So spending a couple bucks on what we feel is a really good video that's already gotten engagement has always been painting off for us.
Ron:
Okay. What, what's your process? How do you come up with all these ideas, all this cool content.
Chris:
, so Aisha, um, our social media girl ish, this photography, she is our social media coordinator. She's been a friend of ours for years. , her Amanda and I will collaborate on ideas for scripts when she comes to town and she comes to town, like I said, every six to eight weeks, we shoot for three days and we'll run through maybe those 10 ideas or plan to run through those 10 ideas while we're working on, like I said, even one of those ideas you can walk, I mean, anyone watching this can walk through their house and look at their TV or their speakers or their remote or whatever it is, and talk about it in a way that you can teach somebody watching that video, something they didn't already know. And that's how we approach it. How do we create content that's fun and funny, but also educational and something that someone might wanna listen to? And if you don't, you just cruise by it and watch the next thing.
Ron:
So from a three day session. How much content will be created? Six weeks. Six. And how many, I mean, is it designed or premeditated? Like that'll be six pieces of content, or it's kind of however she ultimately slices and dices that into pieces of content?
Chris:
Well, think about we, we've been doing this for years now, so we also have years of B roll and information and everything that we have very well categorized for. If it's something around lighting or control, or remote or savant or control four, or Crestron, whatever it might be, we have all of those, that content we've shot in the past, all really well organized so that if we go out and shoot something today for, let's say Crestron, we have years of additional video footage and everything that we can add into that. So if we just start with an idea, we know kind of the content that we have from the past that can be used for B roll or something to make the video a little more engaging.
Ron:
How do you, I of curiosity, again, detailed question, how do you keep all that organized?
Chris:
, that's a very high level question that I do not for Amanda. Um, that's Amanda and I. Amanda is the, Amanda is the vice president of our company. She's also my wifey, my best friend, my everything in this world. , her, she, her attention to detail, her level of, um, , what is the word? , her level of, , organization for everything that we do makes us the company that we are. I'm a bit of a knucklehead and I just like to have fun every day and do silly things. She's the one that kind of reins me in and keeps me on a straight line and sets up all of those things to make sure we're successful as we move forward.
Ron:
You see, as a second primary role, again, this is what you communicated to me in advance, is culture. Yeah. Right. So there's marketing and culture. And you, you've touched on culture in a lot of different ways in terms of highlighting your people on social media, but I guess at a high level, like why is culture so critically important to you in that It's, it's one of the main things that you think about every day.
Chris:
I mean, I don't wanna sound cliche, but if we take care of our people, our people will take care of the customers. They're the ones that are facing the customers. If they're unhappy about showing up to work every day, how do you think they're gonna be when they knock on someone's door, they're not gonna be happy. So my whole role is trying to figure out ways to make sure that everyone has a voice. Everyone is heard. I created an advisory board inside of our company to regularly meet with all of the team members on our team in different segments and groups to be able to get their feedback. And the nice thing is, is we're a small enough company that it's not like turning a battleship when we hear a good idea, we will try that good idea and we will make it successful. Or sometimes it doesn't work or it gives the employees a voice directly to me. And maybe it's something that they just don't understand that once they understand or I get to explain to 'em why we do something, maybe they've had turmoil over for some time or a reason we're not doing a thing, it makes sense to them. Or they come up with a good idea that we never thought of and we just try it. And then they're really proud that their good idea has made our company a better place.
Ron:
What, what are some of the meeting cadences that you have within your company? Daily, weekly, monthly, across leaders, managers, and your team that you've really zeroed in on as it makes sense and it works.
Chris:
, so for me, so I sit in on. , department head meetings where the departments present numbers, profitability, all the metrics, the KPIs that we've indicated for each of the different departments for them to report back to us on. , I sit in some of those meetings and just listen. I want everyone to have their own voice and to be strong and to be a leader in our company. I don't want to be an answer owner where you've gotta call me to figure anything out. I just don't want people to call me to solve a problem that they have the capability of solving on their own. I want them to call me 'cause they got a great idea and they're happy and they wanna share something positive with me. Um, and then I, we have a bimonthly, does that mean twice a month? Words. Yeah. Yeah. Twice a month. , yeah. Twice a month we do an executive meeting with, , myself, Amanda, the vice president, and our internal o and external operations managers to just talk about direction of the company, where we want to go, the things we wanna work on and focus on for the next two weeks or the next month. And then we review that every two weeks where we stand, what we talked about last meeting, what got accomplished, what didn't get accomplished, what we're still working on. , if, if we have a really good structure and then we have a really good, our managers have autonomy to solve their own problems because we've given them the tools to feel successful and feel, I mean, like they're capable of solving their own stuff. We, we don't wanna hire smart people and then micromanage them.
Ron:
I, I, just to pull a thread on that, where are the, the limits or are there any limits to how, to what extent they can go to solve a problem? Right. I mean, that follows a bit of the adage. , actually have it here on my desk. , so I'll just hold it up. Um. The gold standard from the Ritz Carlton called a book called The New Gold Standard. So one of the Ritz Carlton philosophies was Empower, ladies and gentlemen to serve ladies and gentlemen, right. The staff of the Ritz Carlton, to do what's necessary to serve the client. I'm wondering, within your company, like what does that mean or where, where, when do they need to go to a boss or a leader, or to you or Amanda? Or is it they have carte blanche to do whatever ever needs to happen, whenever to, to make the client happy?
Chris:
No, I think a good thing with what comes with a positive culture is having team members that have the company's best interest in mind with the decisions they're making, but also trying to, we have a big philosophy of being of service to our clients. We want our team to be of service, meaning that if. The family gets home with groceries, grab, drop what you're doing and help 'em with their groceries. Like really simple things to just be a real human being to other people. So there isn't anything that comes up so often that like Ritz Carlton, they don't have the ability to spend $2,000 on any customer to make them happy. Right. But that is a really cool rule that Ritz has, that they've had around for what, like 50 years now? I think It's super neat. Yep. Um, but they have the autonomy to do what's in the best interest of the customer. That falls in guidelines with what we've determined is acceptable as a company as far as needing to come to like Amanda and I or Eric or Sean, or those are our two operations guys. I'm not there day-to-day to say what gets brought to them on a day-to-day basis. And it has never become such a problem that it has made it to me.
Ron:
I love it. You look forward to closing out 2025 and into 2026, and you pull out your magic eight ball and you're looking at what's ahead for the business, your business, um, what are you seeing? What, what are the environmental factors, economic factors? I mean that you're, that you're keeping in balance is, do you think the road ahead is just up and to the right or is there, um,
Chris:
friction ahead? I mean, we have, , a really, really solid accounting team and department. We have years of metrics of, , what the pipe looks like, what our monthly revenue is, , anything that's, um, on the horizon. And we have seen no change whatsoever over the last couple years. We've continuously had a bit of bump of growth all the time. For me and everything we're seeing, it's just gonna be more of the same into 2026 for us, which is fantastic because 2024 was fantastic, 25 has been, and as we continue to refine our accounting practices, our leadership practices, everything else, we're getting more and more profitable, , on the net side of things, , as we drill down and understand which KPIs and which levers we can pull to squeeze out a little more profitability out of them. And our team is very focused on that as well. So even if nothing changes, we stay the same. I could say our net profitability should continue to go up because of our focus constantly on how to pull the right levers to make little changes, , have them more impactful to our business. What
Ron:
levels of profitability should integrators listening be aspiring towards? What would you call normal, maybe across peers, and what would you say is more aspirational but achievable?
Chris:
I think that, , the, a metric I've heard over the years is 10%. NOI is a great place to be as a company. I mean, if you're making 10% net on the revenue you're doing, I think you're doing pretty well. I think you should. Never accept doing okay or doing well enough as a, , end all be all. We're doing better than that. Um, and we're, and it's not good enough for us still, we're still constantly focusing on every aspect of our p and l to see where we can squeeze a little bit more so we can give back. I mean, this morning we did our first staff meeting in six months. I don't wanna derail, but I like this story, so I'm taking No, tell me. I I, I wanted to get there this morning. We had a, , staff meeting, um, , for the first time in six months because there's been a bunch of construction happening around my building, so we wouldn't, weren't able to have all of our employees. We have 45 employees, 38 trucks. It's, it's a lot. And we have a very small, like you've been to our office before I've been to your space. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a giant space, but we make it work really, really well. Um, so we were finally able to have that staff meeting this morning where because of us focusing on that net number all the time, focusing on those lever. Levers and getting everyone else to buy into a more of a pro profitability focused culture. We were able today to, for the first time ever, give away mid-year bonuses to every single person on our team. We built swag bags for everyone in the company, backpacks, water bottles, sunglasses, slug bug, t-shirts, all this fun stuff that without that net income and without focusing on profitability of the company, those kind of things aren't going to happen. No one on the team expected it. We got a lot of hugs. We got, there were some tears from me because I'm a bit of a bitch. I like to cry if I, something means something to me. , but everyone was in a great mood. It was a kind of a kick in the ass for everybody today too. Like reminding them of who they are or who we are, why they work there, and why we all care so much about one another.
Ron:
Um, there's an interesting trend. , you and I have been in the industry for enough decades to where we've seen this trend ebb and flow, but I'd say it's at a, , an accelerating trend and that there's a lot of m and a activity happening across the country.
Chris:
Yes. A lot, um, conversations around it as well,
Ron:
lots of conversations happening, um, maybe at a high level. Why do you think that's, that appears to be happening at a, a bit of a feverish pace right now in 2025?
Chris:
, because we're on, I believe our industry is right on kind of the edge of being a true service industry. Whereas you look at m and a has really focused the last several years on hvac, plumbing, electrical, those businesses that are not rooted in new project style work, they're rooted in service work. And when you're rooted in service work and you have a history of month after month revenue, you expect that revenue to continue. So you're then able to create the correct multiple around it based on their ebitda, and you can kind of expect what the long-term payout is gonna be. Whereas with a service business, like most of the ones in our industry, we're all, I'm sorry, with a project-based business, like the ones in our industry, if the projects dry up, the revenue dry up. Yeah, it, the service side of things. I mean, if, if everyone is really caring or looking to grow their business or make their business appealing to m and a, if you can focus on trying to get 30% of your revenue to be service revenue, something that you can expect month after month after month. If you can get your RMR up on alarm contracts or service contracts or any of those kind of things. Then m and a, an m and a play in our industry is very, very exciting and interesting as project-based businesses. The multiples are a bit lower. They're somewhere, I think right now of like three to six x on EBITDA or adjusted ebitda, um, for a buyout price. But we as integrators should be rooting like hell for Bravas and A VDG and Daisy and all of these m and a groups that are looking in our industry because if they're successful, if they can come into our industry, buy up smaller players and try to nationalize a service, it makes all the rest of our businesses more, more successful, more valuable.
Ron:
It's like the, the house in your neighborhood that sells for a high price, your, it means your, your house is now worth more because the neighbor was successful at selling their business.
Chris:
Yeah. But the standoff right now, like the kind of, I think, um, I don't know, don't wanna speak outta school, but I think a, a big problem is most companies in our industry rely on the owner. I mean, the owner is the company. They're doing most of the work, most of the jobs, they know the customers, they know everything. So for m and a to come in and buy and put some CEO or some manager in place, that it's only focused on the numbers. That, that's where I think they're suffering a little bit because they're losing some of the identity of who it was as an owner operator type of a business while trying to nationalize it. So I think that if anyone could, if you could grow your business to 30% service, if you can try to processize as much as you can, make sure the business isn't reliant on any one person, or especially you as the owner if you're looking to sell the company. These m and a firms, as they buy them up, are gonna find a lot more success long term with the companies themselves.
Ron:
Awesome advice for those tuned in. I, I'm gonna ask, , last question about a tech trend. , lighting has been a really big trend, I'd say for a number of years as I've been talking to folks on this show, , across all the different disciplines. I, I have an opinion, maybe the trend that's, I don't know if it competes, but it certainly seems like it's coming on fast and strong, is video walls residentially. I'm seeing more and more integrators across the country put video walls in their showrooms and talking about projects. Um, certainly at C Dia, just, , in the recent past that was a, a lot of conversation. But is, is lighting still as we look into 2026, is that still one of the hottest trends?
Chris:
I think it's the best. I think it's the fastest growing trend for our industry for sure. But I'd like to, you said that you have a, , you have your own take on it for lighting. I'd love to hear.
Ron:
Well, well, in terms, my take is that I have these conversations every single week with not only my clients, and we have hundreds of clients, but also all my guests. And I see lighting as an awesome opportunity for integrators to get embedded with architects and tier designers and get started earlier in projects and become very necessary. One of the main reasons is that the technology and lighting is changing. You now have IP addressable fixtures, right? The days of there being incandescent lights and, , fluorescent lights and centralized panel and localized lighting. I mean, that was when I entered the industry in 2000 with Lutron. That was the architecture I went to market with.
Chris:
Yeah,
Ron:
well, the, the architecture's very different today, and I think the design community is desperately behind and desperately hungry for knowledge and partners. I think from my position, it's just very interesting and strategic for the integrator to become very necessary in those design circles. And then they can bring all the other technology and bag of tricks that they have up their sleeve. The lighting's a very strategically, um, convenient technology to lead with that I think opens the door for lots of other opportunities.
Chris:
I very, very much agree with everything you said. I don't know that I could say it even close to articulately as you. It is the fastest growing sector of our business and if you're a low voltage integrator and not also focused on high voltage and developing a high voltage department of your company, I think you're gonna be left a bit in the dust. Um, a lot of time on a lot of these big projects. The gc, the owner, the designer doesn't want to work with a electrician and a low voltage contractor because every electrician is licensed to do everything that we do. So we need to do it the other way. But they're also used to just installing dumb devices, right? I call it section eight lighting. Like the cheapest lighting goes into the most expensive house. It's the same house, it's the same lighting that's in an apartment. 'cause going into these mansions, and I think it's the most impactful thing you can do in your home, is lighting and lighting control. With all of the new stuff from Lutron, from DMF, there's circadian rhythm, , mimicking of the lighting, color temperature in the home, the brightest home lighting scenes in the home. There is no. My personal opinion, lighting control is the best part of everything that we do. To be able to hit one button and light your house the way you wanna light it every day is the coolest thing we do. Yes. I also wanna listen to music. Yes. I also wanna watch tv, but you're gonna interact with your lighting every single day and it's gonna set a mood in your house every single day, every single event, and it's the most impactful thing you can do for your home.
Ron:
Amen. Well said. I think it's more than just the margin of the fixtures and hardware. I've heard people complain about that.
Chris:
Yeah. The margin's. The margin's great, but it like it. It is. It is impactful in the design of the home. Yeah. It look, makes a piece of art look different. It makes your car look different. It brightens up the furniture. It does everything that you're spending all of this other money on to make your home look nice. It makes it 10 times nicer. Love it.
Ron:
Chris, thank you for joining me on Automation Unplugged. , can we share some handles and people can go check your business out and check you out?
Chris:
Sure. My, , website's always ad slv.com and then, , Instagram's the big one I focus on, but we're on everything. Acoustic design systems is just about our handle on everything that we're on. Just Google us. My email's on there. It's
Ron:
Likewise.
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.