#336: Lessons in Expansion — Steve Weber on Acquisitions, Systems, and Leadership
In episode #336, Steve Weber shares how he transformed Liaison Technology Group from a 4-person startup into a nationwide integration powerhouse. Hear his lessons on leadership, acquisitions, and the systems that make scaling possible.
This week's episode of Automation Unplugged our returning guest today is Steve Weber, CEO and President of Liaison Technology Group.
Steve founded Liaison in 2014 and has grown it from one location and four people to eight locations and more than 50 team members nationwide. His company delivers high-end residential and commercial integration solutions — and under his leadership, Liaison has become a model for sustainable, scalable growth in our industry.
Steve is also helping to shape the future of lighting education through the new Lighting Excellence Dojo, a hands-on training facility created in partnership with leading industry experts to help integrators master the art and science of lighting installation.
About this episode:
In this episode, Steve and I discussed:
- How Liaison scaled from a single market to a national presence
- Lessons learned from acquisitions and building strong company culture
- And how the Lighting Dojo is empowering integrators to elevate their craft
SEE ALSO: Home Automation Podcast Episode #55: An Industry Q&A With Steven Weber
Transcript
Ron:
Hello. Hello there. Ron Callis with another episode of Automation Unplugged. , today's a special day. Today is, I think we're gonna be dropping the show here on Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas to all of you out there. , happy Hanukkah if you're out there and, , happy, happy Festivus if that's what you celebrate. So whatever, , might be your cup of tea. I hope you're spending quality time, , with friends and family. And, , I'm honored because you're either watching us here. , some of you, a few of you super loyal listeners are gonna be listening to this on, on Christmas Eve. , but maybe, hopefully not. Maybe you're watching, watching or listening, , when the dust has settled a bit and maybe over this long holiday break. , today's show is brought to you as always by when Firefly, our day job here, my day job at When Firefly, but I'm, I'm wearing my Amplify People shirt today, which, , as you can see right there, is Powered by One Firefly. This is our, our brand where we help integrators with their hiring needs. So if you haven't checked out Amp People, you can go to amp people.com, learn all about, , our, our team and our services. And we are, , actively right now, , helping many, many integrators probably in the neighborhood of actively hiring for three or four dozen integrators across North America. All the various types of roles that you need filled. , whether that's technician roles, project management, sales, office management, programmers, service and maintenance teams, warehouse people, , office managers, you name it. We're, we're helping, , our clients place, all of those people. So definitely check us out if you have a chance. , and without further ado, I get to bring you today a return guest. , but this individual has not been on the show for seven years, so this is gonna be an awesome opportunity, , to, , bring him back, see how he's doing. , his business is so different today than it was when we interviewed him, , seven years ago. So I, I am very fortunate. We are all very fortunate here that we're gonna learn, , from. The one and only Steve Weber. He's a CEO and President of Liaison Technology Group. , he's, he's coming to us today, I think, from Naples. But, , as you'll learn quickly, he has locations all across the country and, , his business is just on a, a really amazing trajectory of growth. And, , but you don't need to take my word for it. Let's bring in Steve and let's, let's see how he's doing. Steve, how are you sir?
Steve:
Good afternoon, Ron. Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure. And boy, seven years. , where's the time gone? It's, it's incredible. I would never, why,
Ron:
why did it take, why did it take, , seven years? Steve did it. Did I scare you so much in that first interview that you're like, man, I need a seven year break.
Steve:
Yeah. Before I come
Ron:
back,
Steve:
I don't think I was invited back, so,
Ron:
okay. Maybe that was it. Well, even if you weren't invited, you were in my thoughts. How was that?
Steve:
Yeah. Well, you got so many in the, in so many people in the industry to talk to and, and give that, you know, that's you. It was probably easier for you to fill the, the, the time with all those people and knowledge and experience than, than to ask me to come back. So, but I, I appreciate coming. Well, I, we had fun last time. Threw up on today.
Ron:
We, we have fun. We, we see each other at all the industry events. We always find time. I appreciate that and always value that time. We always find time to catch up. And, , oh, first of all, let's cover the basics where I, I said you're coming to us today from Naples. This is one of your locations, one of your many locations.
Steve:
Yeah, it's one of our relatively new locations, two and a half years ago. Um, but um, yeah, we've been down here and of course, , um, you know, certain times of the year it's better to be down in Florida than than other places. But I appreciate the wintery background
Ron:
for our listeners. You, you do have, looks like maybe the Swiss Alps or something behind you. Yeah. So you're, you're not in Switzerland.
Steve:
No. I want it to feel a little bit more Christmasy for you. So merry Christmas to everyone out there and, , have a joyous time, um, during your holidays. So
Ron:
yeah, liaison. What is liaison? , you, , I mean, I say what, you're an integrator of course, but you are, , moving across the country and you're expanding. Maybe give everybody, , the listeners just a quick kinda update. What's the state of the business today? What type of work are you doing and where are you doing it?
Steve:
Sure, yeah. Um, we do high-end integration, um, mostly, um, and we do commercial as well. So we took on a commercial integrator about a year ago down in Florida, , to really kind of widen our spectrum. So that company does a lot of, um, schools, school districts, house of worship and , membership clubs, golf clubs, country clubs, , that sort of stuff. Um. So that's been an interesting, , integration per se into, um, into our business. But yeah, we're, we're just an average integrator like everybody else, you know, looking for good solid projects where people want good audio, good video, lighting control. Um, and, , all that comes with that.
Ron:
I am, , for the sake of our viewers, I'm gonna attempt to see if technology behaves here, and I'm gonna try to share your website. , and maybe, , you could take us through, , I, I just see a list here. So I'm gonna read off a list of these locations and maybe, um, if you could then add a, a little bit of context, , to how you operate with all of these locations, Steve, but I see Aspen, Denver, Chicago. Decatur, Illinois, Northfield, Illinois, Nashville, Naples, Fort Myers, and Tampa. Um, yeah, I mean, our
Steve:
headquarters up in, , in Decatur, Illinois. Not a big, huge place. It's about three hours south of Chicago. Um, don't have a lot of big projects there. Um, but it's a great place to run a business, right? Good MidCountry, Midwestern values, good, hardworking people. Um, and their job is to be the support line for all the, , other group groups or locations. They do all our hr, our finance, our purchasing, um, vendor relations, and, um, and then the sites actually do sales, install and service. That's what their focus is. We don't do hr, you know, and purchasing in those locations. Of course, they do have vendor relations, you know, with their local rep firms and stuff, but really the, the locals. Locations, focus in on doing the sales, bringing the projects in, um, installing the project, and then servicing and taking care of 'em. So we started in Denver, been building, we started the company. Um, I had the vision of, you know, building this, trying to figure out how you scale it. , 'cause now we're seeing several other companies out there that are attempting to scale it. But back 11 years ago, um, there had been a couple of fail attempts with, , bringing multiple companies together. And, um, I'm a, , builder and a fixer by nature. So I like to build things. So in this case, building it by, um, having multiple locations, multiple states. So it was, my goal is to figure out how you do that in an industry that really hadn't done it yet. And, . And, , how you fix those things. So that's, , that's how we started and why we started and what we've been doing. And, you know, over the last 11 years, it's always been two steps forward, one step back, you know, you do really well, you get something, then you realize, oh, we probably should have done that a little differently. So you fix that and you go forward a little more. And um, and that's just what we keep reminding ourself is, yeah, we took a step back on that one. That was stupid to do, but learn from it and, and get better from it.
Ron:
Take us through maybe a couple of mile markers where, where you founded the company. Like what was your, what was the company like then? And then, I know we had, we did the interview in 2018. I think that's what we established. , I actually, you know what, just for fun, Steve, I'm gonna share this, I'm gonna share this on the screen here. We'll see if I can get my. My technology to behave. I know you're so excited for this. , let's see here. So there you are. That was the, , shot of a Yeah, that was
Ron:
shot of a younger Steve and, , , episode 55. And, , we recorded You're on
Steve:
which one's this one now?
Ron:
This was, , this was Automation Unplugged, episode 55. And this, we, we recorded this October 17th, 2018.
Steve:
Wow. Same month. Same month, yeah. And you're on what number now?
Ron:
Oh goodness. Oh, now you're gonna put me in the hot seat. , we're, we're, we're in the mid three fifties, you know, something like that. So it's been about 300 interviews that have, , occurred, , since we had you on the show. Um. So what, what, what, how has the company evolved? Maybe just in looking at those, those timestamps. Where we're at inception and where are we at in 18 and where are you at today?
Steve:
Yeah. Um, I don't remember exactly where we were at in 18, but we started with Denver. We moved the headquarters to Decatur, Illinois. And then, , we just kept growing work and new locations and really most of our initial growth was all organically, meaning we would plant somebody in a location there or hire somebody locally. We'd usually be doing one or two off projects there. It's like when we get to a critical point where instead of traveling guys, we hire somebody locally and then, , build a team around them, um, as the, the demand. I mean, we use, um, we use a lot of the statistics at Vital Shares. I mean, they're great. Matt, for math is, um, is a great guy and, , you know, the guys before him, Steve and Paul, um, really gave us some good, um. Benchmarks. And one of those is gross revenue per tech, right? And that's somewhere around 300,000 to 500,000 gross revenue per tech. And we use that as our guidance for, okay, you're, you know, you got two guys and you're at $700,000. Okay, well we gotta hire somebody. It's, , you know, you're getting close to maxing out at that. And it depends on the market too. Some markets are much more labor intensive, , than than other markets. And, um, so, um. Yeah, we, we grow the different markets and we grow organically. Um, but in the last year we've been more in the acquisition, um, phase. So we, as I mentioned, the commercial one, we took on a company that way, existing company, existing techs, existing CU customers and clients, and then rolled that into our company. It's a faster way of doing it. Um, when you do it organically, it's, it's slow. You gotta build reputation and relationships, and everybody that's listening to this understands that because we're a very much relationship, um, based, based business, you know, um, people trust us with a lot of money and trust us with a lot of personal information, and they're gonna look skeptical at you until you prove yourself. And that takes time. That doesn't happen overnight.
Ron:
, maybe a, a, a, a super specific question, but when you do an acquisition, Steve, do you rebrand right away to liaison, or is there a transition period?
Steve:
No, there's gotta be a transition, you know, because, you know, they've got the reputation by their name. Right? Unless it's a bad reputation, but then we're probably not gonna take 'em on, so, right.
Steve:
Um, you know, we, we want that reputation. So, you know, it's, I like to equate it with our team when we talk about it. You know, you see the Comcast and Xfinity, right? I mean, how many years did that take to go from Comcast to Xfinity and even Comcast is still there, but it's mostly Xfinity. But that's been going on for. Man, I guessed 10 years. So it, it doesn't happen overnight. Um, of course in the Comcast case, they had such a bad reputation. It's like, get rid of that, you know, that baggage and, and, and go with the, the, the better, the newer one. So that might've been a little bit slower in my. My opinion, but, um, but yeah, no, you, you gotta keep the branding there and, and just slowly, so what we do is, you know, like with, , with Commercial Pro audio, it's , you know, it's almost like Intel inside, you know, it's, it's Dell, but they have Intel computer chips. This is, you know, pro audio services with liaison inside, right? So, um, a lot of our stuff will say on, it will say powered by Liaison technology group or an associate of, , of, of liaison technology group. And you just kind of build that until people are kinda used to using the same thing. So, um, our commercials liaison technology, commercial services, but everybody knows it as Pro Audio Services as A DBA.
Ron:
That's interesting. On the commercial side, can you describe what, and, and you mentioned a little bit of it, so just maybe a, a little bit more depth in terms of what are typical projects, not only the customer type, but the technology deployment type. And then the same on the resi side. Like what's a, I always like to ask what's a small, what's a medium and what's a large project for you, for you guys? In terms of how you would describe it?
Steve:
Yeah, I mean, for the most part, well, I don't, in the commercial world, most of the projects are a bit bigger, but you know, a lot of the guys in the resi doing the resi, they're not necessarily big, huge projects, right? You do a conference room, 30,000 bucks, 40,000 bucks, right? It's maybe equivalent to doing an audio or a video system in, in the residential world. So, um, but there are some really big, huge projects, right? Um, you know, um, you know, you we're not doing stadiums, we're not doing hospitals and, you know, and hospitality we're, we're getting into that. So, um, the mix is probably, it just depends on, you know, your type, you know, the type of commercial that you're into. Um, and there's a lot of different, there's probably more variants in the commercial world than there is in the residential world.
Ron:
Um, I, I agree with that sentiment. We, we, maybe three, four years ago started to, to, for one firefly to market more towards commercial integrators, and we naively called them commercial integrators as if that was a singular identity. And it, , Pandora's Box opened once we realized the complexity. Of depth of, , these businesses, not only in the size of their businesses, but in the verticals they serve, and the complexities and layers to the vertical served. It was, , it struck us. Maybe it's 'cause I was new, personally, newer to commercial, , air quotes, commercial or pro. , it it it struck me as being extremely more complex, , than residential, which I, I think I could describe with less words in terms of, , the, the spectrum of customers and solution types.
Steve:
Yeah. But the, the one thing that's consistent is relationships. You know, between the two. Um, relationships are very, very important in the commercial world. 'cause, um, the, the gc, the whoever is controlling the project, um, wants the easy button, you know, and when they have somebody who's reliable, it's gonna show up, it's gonna get it done on time, going to be at cost or under cost and not be change, ordering 'em to death. Um, that's the guy they're gonna go to time and time again, and they're gonna, even though it might need to be out bid, um, a lot of times it's, well, we just have to get two other bids to satisfy everybody that's involved, but really we're going with you and that's what we need to do until you screw up. Yeah. So it's, you know, you wanna be in that position with those, , with those companies and prove yourself so that they, they do feel like, you know, yeah, you're the go-to. We're. W we know you're the real deal and you're gonna do that. So that takes a long time. That's um, yeah, to try to build that up to Novo, it's gonna take you years and years.
Ron:
That's where acquiring comes in. If you're able to acquire that, those people that have those relationships, that that is the fast track to doing that.
Steve:
Yeah. But you need to, um, it's really important to maintain that, um, that trust throughout that time. And there's numerous things that, you know, a couple things that we kind of, oh, we should have done that a little bit differently. But for the most part, yeah, you've got to prove yourself kind of again. 'cause they start looking at you micro minimizing, okay, you're taking over, we've seen problems with takeovers before. Are you gonna be consistent with what you did? Or are you gonna change the culture and change what it is? And now we're gonna look for somebody else. So you have to reassure them. You have to make sure. You know, you're proving yourself quickly. Upfront. Mm-hmm. The other thing is residential seems much more emotional than commercial because residential, that's their personal home. That's their, their identity, that's who they are. Right. Commercial, it's, here's the bid, here's the functionality, stay in budget, get it done, and, and move on. But residential, it's, um, yeah, a lot more emotion into it, which makes it hard. It makes a lot of guys, you know, I, I hear part of those discussions all the time when people say, oh, you're doing commercial now. What's the difference? And Oh yeah, I can see that. I understand that. So, yeah, it's, um, it, it's a different, that's one of the big differences way you bid, the way you bid projects is big difference too.
Ron:
I would think you'd have to, I mean. I'm making an assumption here that because of that difference in the customer and the way those projects are won, and those relationships are, I don't want to put words in your mouth. So you just said relationships are critically important on commercial, they're also important in resi, so relationships are always important. Um, but I'm curious if the way you, as a leader, Steve, manage your commercial company versus your residential divisions, is there some differences or are you able to have an umbrella methodology to your leadership approach? And it it works across both divisions, or is that challenging for you?
Steve:
Um, I think I'm still figuring that out. Um, you know, the commercial company is, is in some respects further along. They're, I wanna say more mature, not mature as in acting like a child, but, you know, along that process because, um, they've been doing it for 25 years and most of the techs there have been doing it, and I'm not gonna, you know, disrupt that, that, that rhythm. What's working and what's working, right? Yeah. Um, so where, whereas our residential, in some respects, some of these are very young. I mean, Naples, we've been in here for two and a half years, right? We don't have that 25 year history. We have to build that relationships and so forth. So, yeah. Um, you know, sometimes people expect to see me as the CEO and feel more in, you know, feel better about it when, oh, the C-O-C-E-O is, you know, taking interest in, in my house, in, in what's going on. The commercial stuff. I don't, I mean. Yeah, they wanna know that there's somebody there backing it up and making decisions, but they're not looking at me and being on the project and seeing it.
Ron:
In my years working with business owners, you know, I've observed, there's the businesses that, , stay a certain size and they, you know, I could talk to them today, or I could have talked to them 10 years ago or 20 years ago, and they'll always talk about this ambition for growth, but yet they stay the same. And then, , there are business owners that successfully grow and, and that's grow revenue often, that often that means growing personnel. Often that can also mean growing locations. And, and with all of that, , complexity, increases complexity of what's needed to run the business, increases. And so I'm just, I'm setting that stage. I, I stated personal observations, you know, in what I've observed. From your perspective, what's your philosophy on, as you're, you know, you now have eight locations, 50, 60, 50 to 60 staff. What's your, um, philosophy on what gets delegated versus what you retain, you, Steve Weber retain control and, and decision making on,
Steve:
yeah, no, that's, , that's a good question. And it is a, it's a struggle not only for me, but for the staff, , because, you know, we started as basically four individuals plus myself, right? And, um, and when you're doing that, you're wearing a lot of the hats, right? Um. Doing a lot of stuff. I mean, I came from outside the industry, so I had to, I, I wanted to learn everything about that. I was out pulling wire and terminating and building racks and, you know, doing all the things that, you know, obviously I joined it at a later time in my life. But those were things that I would've learned way earlier in my life. I needed to learn. There. So I'm wearing all these hats, and as you grow, you have to take hats off and hand it off to people, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, um, you know, like one big thing this year is we went from a bookkeeper to a controller. Um, so somebody much more equipped with handling our books, making financial decisions, running reports, analyzing stuff, getting it back to me. Um, that was a hat that I had to take off. Um, I'm still very involved in the finances. I still know what's going on, but I'm not creating my, my spreadsheets, right? It's coming to me already created with the information I need. Um. So as you hand off hats, well, number one, you gotta get yourself to hand off the hats and realize when you have to hand 'em off. Okay? But also you have to get your team to realize that you've handed off that hat, right? And, um, you know, there's a different person you need to, um, be chatting with about that when you have an issue, right? Um, like today, an issue came up and somebody sending me an email about, because there was a payroll mix up, and it's like. I don't get involved in the payroll. Right. If it's a big decision about payroll, yes. But if, because somebody didn't get overtime on it, that's Christine, she's the HR expert, she's the payroll expert. You need to go to her to do it. It's not that I don't wanna help you do it, but if I stay in the weeds of that stuff, I never do what I need to do. And what I need to be doing is looking at the bigger picture, the vision, the 30,000 foot view, um, helping to, you know, um, create solutions for, for bigger pro problems that are, are backing our people up. So it's, it's two things. It's one, helping the team to realize that I'm not wearing that hat anymore. Yes, ultimately I am responsible, but there's somebody else who's doing the day to day on that. And then me getting used to handing it off. 'cause the easy thing would be when somebody comes to you with a problem is give 'em an answer and tell 'em, okay, that's taken care of. But there's gonna be two problems with that. Number one, um, that person's gonna be continuing to come to me with that more problems 'cause I answered it, and that's their easy street. The other one is the person who's really should have been responsible is now feeling like, oh, he didn't think I was capable enough to handle that. And so he handled that right. And they're getting a little, , tiffy or, you know, so, um, yeah. So it's, there's a lot of dynamics in there and um, that's been a real big learning experience this year and trying to get myself to, 'cause I'm a doer, right? I just, I'll do, I work long hours. I like doing it and the easy thing for me is give an answer, but I have to step back and say, Nope.
Ron:
That's interesting. What led to you getting to that place? Sounds like, I mean, you've been, you've been in business, you started this business in 14, and you're talking about that epiphany or breakthrough happening here in 2025. What, what, what occurred? Did you go to a seminar? Did you listen to a podcast? Did you have a conversation with someone?
Steve:
No. I mean, it is over the last year we've gone from 30 to 50 employees, so, you know, there's a lot more hats that got handed off. And so I don't know that it's an epiphany. It's just a, a, a, a more frequent occurrence. Hmm.
Steve:
Um, I've always known that to scale a business. Right. Um, and, and with the limits, so you, you mentioned there are some, there are some milestones and clearly in the business literature it talks about different points. And that's both economic or, or, or, um. Revenue, um, milestones and also it's milestones of, of people, how many people you have. And they seem to be around, like, 10 is a, is a step getting above 10. And then, you know, there's another one somewhere in 20 that's a little bit, but another big one is at 50 and then you start going, getting up into the hundreds and so forth. So, um, yeah, I think that, um, you know, as we grow and add people, um, there, there are struggling points and, and I saw that as we grew, you know, I saw that, you know, we hit 3 million markets just kind of stall out for a while. Why are we stalling out? Well, because of, you know, number of personnel, it's, it's, it's communication gets more difficult and then you start hitting the other ones at, you know, 10 million's, a big one, 15 million's, a big one. Um, and then, and then just like with the number of personnel, it gets a little bit farther apart, um, on those dollar amounts. Um, but, , but yeah, there, there's definitely places you hit plateaus and the business books are, are, are full of talking about those and be prepared. 'cause it could be a software issue problem at that point could be, um, you know, , taxing. You know, there's a, there's, , we could get into a whole different discussion on, , you know, , how your taxes and filing taxes change at certain amounts. , and when you have
Ron:
staff in different states all over the country,
Steve:
in different countries
Ron:
and different countries. All right. That was, we, we we encountered lots of those op opportunities to learn Yeah. In the last, , five to 10 years. , that's, that's interesting. As you're building out your team, , and, and you now have lots of folks in lots of places, I'm curious, I'm gonna get a little granular. What, what do you have in terms of systems. , to just keep communication across the company. Going like, I mean, I'll just reference at one Firefly we use Slack. I've had PE people all over the country and in four or five countries, and we kind of operate as one, you know, most of the time, maybe not all the time, but most of the time, , we do some other things. What, what are some of the things that you, you guys do?
Steve:
Yeah. No communication is the utmost importance. I like to tell our team, I say, you know, if you look at all the problems in the world. 99% of 'em are gonna be due to communication, whether parent to child, employee to employer, you know, husband to wife or boyfriend or girlfriend, if there's a disagreement or something. It's usually comes down to communication. And it's not that, um, you, not necessarily, you didn't have communication. We've got this thing right here that's a filter, right? We got this brain up here, right? The words coming out my mouth are the same words going in your ear. Right? But they're going through two different filters, right? And that filter is affected by a lot of things. Like, how did you grow up? Right? What happened to you five minutes ago? Right? Did you just come in and, and somebody just tried to run you off the road and so you only got road rage? Um, did your boss just, you know. Tick you off, and, and you know, so you've gotta remember that that other person may be hearing the same words that your mouth is speaking, right? But they're gonna filter it totally different. So you just have to remember that communication. It's not just passing on words, right? Then you add in all this stuff with, with, um, texts and, you know, they're very short and quick. And again, what happened to me right now, I'm gonna read a lot of emotion into that text. So, um, so all that to say is communication's really important. We started with what we call RingCentral collaboration. So everybody knows RingCentral as you know, A-V-O-I-P, you know, phone system that runs on on Zooms. But about eight years ago, they started this collaboration tool, which is very similar to Slack and Zoho and some of the other ones. Um. But it is become culture with us and it's really, really good with, you have multiple locations and the people in Denver need to know what's going on with the people in Decatur and in Florida real time. This helps. So we take RingCentral, they have what they have call US teams. Every project of ours is a team. And so any, any conversation about that project has to be on that team. You don't put it in an email. As soon as you know, those of us that have been with the team for a long time, see that's happening, we quickly. Proverbial slap the hand of no, stop that. You have to get that on the team because as you add new team members, if you want them to know about that project, which could be going on for two years, right? Um, they need to be able to go to one place to see the whole history of what's happened there. And otherwise you're going, okay, um, George, Fred, Steve, every email you have on such and such a project, please put it together and give it to our new project manager so-and-so, so they can see all it. Then they don't have it chronologically, it's a mess. So. You have to have a chronological way, whether it's Slack, whether it's RingCentral, whether it's the, I mean, there's, there's dozens of them out there. And everybody, it's just, you have to make it culture, you have to reinforce it, and you have to really force everybody to do it correctly. So that is the key for us. We've transitioned several times on the, you know, the other software, um, project management, PO POS creations and finance and, and inventory and so forth. Um, so I could, I'm not gonna bring up what they are, but we, we've changed within the industry three times now. , 'cause they can't keep up with our growth. They're not quote, um. You know, enterprise grade, you know, your enterprise, you need to have enterprise grade. Well, right.
Steve:
Talk about
Steve:
that. Why didn't we talk about, you know, why are we learning that now, kind of things. But, you know, you, you do need to have, um, some type of, um, software that can tie all that stuff together. And I've examined all of 'em within the industry. The one we're on right now is good. I, I will say that it's Eye point. We like it. It's not perfect. Okay. I get that. I'm, you know, somebody that's on it's frustrated with something I'll say. Yeah, that's a frustration for us. But it's the best one we've done out of all the ones we've looked at. And, , and I know there's some other new players that are trying to come into Market, SIM Spire or, um, not, um, simPRO and then, , jet Built and they're coming from outside the industry. Um, time will tell, but you, you need to have. A system like that. And for us, inventory is absolutely a must. Um, that was the main reason for us to look at that. 'cause I need to know where the inventory is
Ron:
all over the country.
Steve:
Yeah. And, , or do
Ron:
you centralize your equipment in one location or do you, because you build racks, do you build racks at all of your satellite locations or do you build them at your hq?
Steve:
It, it depends on the projects. So, um, yes we do. So when we can talk this about tunnels to Towers is a program that we're part of and we can come back to that one, but that we do all over the country and we build all those, most of those indicator. We get everything shipped there and we make sure it's all there. But, um, some of the local ones will build the racks Okay. Locally and take 'em out. So
Ron:
I, I wanted, , just because I'm mindful of, of your time and , I want to try to squeeze as much out of this as I can, Steve, um, again, and I find your growth fascinating and your exponential growth, , even more impressive, , you've done so much in, in, in so little time. Um, do you, do you guys at Liaison, do you follow any particular business systems like, , you know, we at one Firefly we're on EOS traction. , we've been doing that since 2019. We spoil ourselves by actually still having the implementer help us run our quarterlies every, every three months or six months in. They say You're supposed to graduate after a year. We're like, hell no. That's great. You can keep coming in and help us run these quarterly meetings.
Steve:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ron:
What do you guys do?
Steve:
I'm a, I'm a student of business. I love to read business books and, um, so there's really two main schools. There's EOS Traction, Gino Wickman stuff, and then there's Verne Harnish and Scaling Up. I use kind of a, a, , both. Um, I, there's things that I like about both of them. You know, Gino Wickman and Traction grew out of scaling up and they actually added a couple more key things to it. Um, and, , yeah, but there's, they're both really good. You're not wrong to go with either one of them, and as a team, we're going through the book Traction. , but there are plenty of things that I've learned from, from Vern and, , from scaling up that, that we're using, so really important Good stuff.
Ron:
What, what if you were to point out whether it's from scaling up or , EOS traction, I'll just say maybe systems or elements that you think are, are critically important to enabling your growth. What, what, what comes to mind?
Steve:
Um, having processes, you know, predictable processes that people know how to do stuff and to do it the same way at every location. Not these guys can do it this way and these guys can do it this way. No, it's, it's gotta be done the same way. Um, because otherwise the people at headquarters get all confused of why, why are we doing it that way? That's, that's one thing I'll get is they're doing it this way. Why are we doing it that way? Well, probably they shouldn't be doing it that way. Let's educate them and, and, and get them on the right path with that. So processes are really important.
Ron:
H how do you, how do you standardize those across so many locations and, , enforce or reinforce their use or correction or refinement of those processes? Do you have any sort of regular cadence, feedback loops or. Discussions with people across different departments Absolutely. That unify the team across, deploying certain processes and following them religiously.
Steve:
Yeah. So when, when a, when a location is birthed and brought on, you know, there's a lot of processes we already have. And so we teach 'em on that and we, we help them and then we learn. And, and you know, the best thing is the people in the trenches when they take ownership and they give feedback on better ways to do something. So I, I tell everybody, I go, look, if it hurts and it's that painful, there's gotta be a better way to do it. Don't keep grunting through it, struggling through it, um, you know, make a suggestion. And that, that's another principle of me is if you're gonna bring me a problem, bring me a suggestion, um, on, on a solution. Show me that you thought through it already. Don't just come to me and say, oh, you know, we keep having a problem with getting these prog pro um, products from this company and getting it shipped wrong or whatever. You know, do a little bit of homework, figure out what the problem is, and, , give a solution. We might say, no, that's not really doesn't work for all locations and so forth, but at least you thought about it. And sometimes it's like, wow, that's really good idea. Let's, let's implement that. Let's try it out and, and imp implement it. Um, so, um, you know, the, the locations that have run around longer, um, usually have more say because they, they helped institute it in the first place, but everybody's opinion is, is valued on
Ron:
that. We're here at the end of 2025. We're looking to the horizon. We're looking into 2026. What do you see ahead for liaison?
Steve:
Yeah, you know, I'm not a necessarily a futurist and I can't predict the economy. I'm very much an optimist. Um, I think we're gonna do fine in 2026. You know, there's a chance that we could take a step backwards, but, um, I, I'm not a cautious type person. Um, I am a risk taker and so, um, I'll continue to, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll be careful on my decisions, right? But, um, I'm not easily frightened because of the labor, you know, unemployment rates or, you know, whatever it's looking like and so forth. Um. You know, we'll, if there is a downturn, we'll gut through it just like, you know, everybody else, and we'll come out usually stronger on the other side. Um, but I do try to prepare, you know, the company so that if there is a downturn, um, you know, we can, we can make it through it. Um, it's really important to me to take care of all our team members too. I don't want a position where we have to lay people off, but I'm not seeing that as an issue. You know, we're, we're got extremely healthy growth this year. We've got lots of projects going into next year, and that will keep us going, you know, for. You know, unless we have something like 2008 meltdown where everybody's canceling their projects and so forth, you get it? That's an isolated, really call that a
Ron:
black swan. Let's just hope that a black swan does not show up. Only white swans, only good events.
Steve:
Yeah. So I'm optimistic. I think 2026 is gonna be another good year. Might not be as good as 25, but, um, but that's okay. You, you can step back, make some changes to improve yourself, make you stronger, and then maybe the next year will be even stronger.
Ron:
I, I like that you have been on this path of acquiring. Can we, , take a few minutes and, and kind of learn what you're looking for, Steve, or what makes for a good acquisition for liaison? Just, and, and there are some entrepreneurs, maybe many, that aspire to one day like that exit. , is there, it's a goal of theirs. Yeah. And maybe you're the, the, the person they want to receive that phone call from. So like, what is someone like you looking for in a potential acquisition target?
Steve:
Yeah. Um, great, great question. Um, I see a good fit for us is you've got an owner. Um, who does everything in the company, um, and, , is getting burned out, right? And he just doesn't wanna do all the business end of things anymore. Still loves the industry, still loves the, the challenge of the sales. I want them to stay on and do sales and business development. We'll take over everything else. We'll do all the business end of things. Finance, purchasing, vendor relationships, , operations. Um, you know, we're good at that and, um, we can take that on, um, at any scale. And, , but, , but you know, back to that earlier discussion, it's really important about relationships. Well, who has that relationships? Well, that owner, right? So we wanna preserve that, um, that portion of it, and, , take on the company, make sure the company's stable, make sure they do have a good reputation, make sure that their, their staff, not everybody is 59 and looking to retire next year. Um, those would be red flags. But for the most part, if somebody who just is like, you know what, I need an exit. Um, but I wanna stay in the industry for another, you know, three years. Um, but just do the sales and business development
Ron:
at a high level. What increases the value of a company and what, you know, , , inversely what decreases the value of a company? Whether they, they become part of liaison or maybe there's other paths or opportunities for them. Any just general coaching.
Steve:
Yeah. I mean, what are, what are their, what are their core values? Right? How do they, do they complete their projects? Do they walk away? If there's 5%, that's too hard to do, right? Or do they do everything that's possible to maintain that relationship, to get that project done? We all have those projects. They all come up. Right. Um, the unexpected, it's what you do and what's your reputation for doing that? That would probably be the key thing.
Ron:
Wow. So for you, it's their reputation. If once researched, if that comes up clean, that's worth more to you than if they come up with that reputation that they don't finish their projects all the way to the point that that may rule them out from an acquisition target for you guys.
Steve:
Sure.
Ron:
I, I was expecting an answer around revenue or use, , money per revenue per tech or profitability or, you know, any sort of criteria in those domain that are, I guess, interesting to you.
Steve:
Yeah, those things can be fixed. I mean, those are important, right? Those, those will help determine the valuation of the company, right? , but those things can be fixed. It's like when I go to hire, um, whether it's a tech or controller, whatever, you know, the first thing is that everybody does is what's their skillset? Can they do the job? Have they done that job before? Right? Right. That's important. That helps. But more importantly to me is what are their core values? Who are they? How are they raised? Um, you know, how, you know, are they ethical? Are they hardworking? Are they passionate about the industry? Is this a hobby for them? So that they just love doing what they do? Um. I can't train that, right? I can't, um, change people that don't have those things. Um, so, um, look for the things that you can't change in a person that, that are important to you. Um, and accept the things that maybe aren't as good, but you can, , you can change those, you know, I can, I can make 'em more efficient. Um, as long as the techs are hardworking and knowledgeable and, um, and then, you know, it's like with a, with a tech, right? If they've got the, the right, um, they got the ability to learn and they want to learn. We can tar teach 'em, right? But if they've got, I, I don't care. I just wanna work from nine to five, you know? Um, I'm not gonna spend any time learning, um, probably not what, what our industry needs or what we need.
Ron:
Yeah, no, that, that's fair. , I, I wanna pivot now to the dojo, the Lighting Dojo, and I, I, I don't know, are you there at the Lighting Dojo, even though it looks like you're in the Swiss Alps?
Steve:
I, I'm not right now. I'm, , you know, I'm in, , Naples right now in the Dojos up in Fort Myers, so, yeah. So every, everybody on here knows that one of the big pushes is lighting, , within our industry, and it's great. Right. , but there's a lot of things that come with that. We have, um, we work really closely and do a lot of projects with, , lighting, um, designers, illuminated lighting design. Some people know Bruce Clark Ly Alight, and then Lynn and, , Curtis. Um. Kind of got into, we introduced them to our industry and, , they do a lot of projects, not just for us, but for other integrators. And, um, through our relationship with them experience, we found that there are some pain points in that. One of it is installation of fixtures. Um, some of the big things that's been pushed is, um, you know, hey, just specify the, the, the fixtures and give 'em to the electrician. Right? Well, if you don't feel comfortable enough to know how those fixtures are installed, you can't hold them accountable, right? You don't feel confident in telling them, no, that's not the way you should do it. Or, Hey, lemme make a suggestion, or whatever the case may be. So, um, LightUp Blue is great, really filling a niche, right? Tom Doherty and the group is, is doing a great, but that's more about, um, lighting design. And, and maybe how to sell, but there's nothing about installation and how you install it. And lighting is way more than just, you know, putting a, putting one up in a, a, a can, a recess can in the ceiling. Um, like you would put in an a, um, a, a speaker, um, you know, linear lighting. There's so many different components and how to, how do you do that? And all the extrusions and drivers and, you know, run lengths and voltage drops and you know, soldering of that sort of stuff, right? Even if you're not gonna do it and you're gonna get the electrician, you need to know enough, because a lot of times your lighting designer is not gonna be on site. They're gonna be remotely and you need to be their eyes and ears. So we saw this as a problem and we came together and go, well, what can we do about it? Well, we can teach people how to do lighting installation. So, um, we've come up with, , and, , several. We've come together as a group integrated you, Henry Clifford and, um, Dante, and then liaison and then illuminated Lighting Design and Kaleida Light have all come together to design the center. And it's called the Lighting Excellence Dojo. LED. Right. And Dojo is the oriental art of um, um. Learning by doing. Right. And Bruce is the, is the big leader on that. And Bruce is, has put together the curriculum. But he likes to say, you know, if you're getting martial arts, how do you learn how to throw a punch? Right? Do you watch somebody on a video doing it? No. You, you, you might watch somebody else do it, but then you do it yourself, right? You, you, you practice that. It's the same thing with lighting. So our dojo center is, um, how do you install by actually installing. So we've come up with a lot of different, um, tools for, for teaching it. And you can see these pictures right here. So each one of these is a station we've come up with, um, these boxes up here. Where, um, we can put lights at different levels from the wall. We can show off different trims. You can, um, put in different optics. And how does it affect it? Right here, looking at that picture, you can see different color temp temperatures between the different stations. And how does it affect the lights? So it's, , it's three days of intense and we tried to get it down to two days. You can't, there's an example, we teach you how to solder. You know, there's, um, how do, how do you solder your wires to your linear lights? How do you put in two linear, how do you make corners? Um, you know, how, what, what, um, extrusion do you use to, um, fulfill the purpose?
Ron:
Who are the customer? Who are the people that are sitting in this dojo facility? Are, are these, this is entirely different business than the integrate. This is different than the resi and commercial pro business that you have. Pro av. This is a. Training facility.
Steve:
It is, it's a training facility. And so, um, the biggest target is the integrator. Um, the owner understanding it, the project managers and the techs, , be able to do it. So it depends on, you know, what you as an integrator want to do. Do you wanna be installer? Do you want to have an electrical division, um, and doing it or do you wanna hand it off? But you still need to know how to do it in order to hold them accountable for, for what they're doing. Because we find that a lot of electricians, some of 'em are very good and get it right, but there's a lot of electricians are only gonna care, right? They just throw up the light. Um, 'cause it's in the right proximity. Well, if, you know, if you're trying to highlight a piece of artwork, right? Um, and you don't put it exactly where it needs to be, then you're highlighting the corner of it and, , or you know, the bottom of it or just the top of it. And so, and then that's gonna, you know, the interior designer is going to be ticked. We've learned this, you know, you know, as lighting designers and, um, you know, as integrators. Um, and we do a fair amount of lighting. We've learned a lot of that the hard way. So, um, we want to educate people within the industry. So we've got rep firms sending people, we've got manufacturers that, that are, are sending, , people to it too because, , you know, might, might have a new, um, inside sales person, right? Yes. They can learn. We're, we're very. Um, manufacture agnostic. Obvious. Obvious. You have to learn, use some type of equipment to teach off of, but we really try to cover a lot of the industry and we give the, the, the basics to it. And, um, you know, some of our lighting designers have been doing this for 25 years and, , you know, have learned, um, a lot of the pitfalls, um, on it. So
Ron:
what is the, what is the website or what's the way that, that folks that are listening that would wanna investigate, learn more, maybe even register themselves or some of their team? Where would we send them?
Steve:
Yeah, so integrated you, um, I'll have to get that to you. Maybe before you air this, you can pop it in there. , but Integrated u um, has the, the, the infrastructure for doing that. So you just get on there and, um, it gives you all the details and, and what's included and, and so forth. , but we try to make it very inclu, you know. Um, comprehensive, so you're not having to go out and find lunch and, you know, dinner and, , and there's hotels close by and, , we're really close to the Fort Myers airport, so international airport, so people can get in and out. It's a great location, especially if you come in the wintertime. It's, , nice and warm and, , you can get outta your cold environment. And, um, so yeah, and we've, you know, like you saw in those pictures, we've put a lot of effort and thought into what we're doing. We've done, , two beta courses now, and, , so we learned, and we did this with people that aren't part of. Um, some aren't in our industry, right? Some are from other integrators and rep firms and manufacturers and, um, you know, given feedback. But everybody that's gone through it has been really excited. That's been encouraging to me to see the excitement and go, yeah, that's, I learned a lot. I really understand it better now, feel more equipped. So first one is, well, we're gonna have two of them before this airs, so I don't really need to give those dates, but, , we'll have dates that they'll be able to get in on for, , 2026 and, ,
Ron:
at a high level, how many do you at, at the moment? , forecast for 26.
Steve:
So there's 16 participants. We got eight stations, and we'll keep it no more than 16. And, , we'll schedule, um, you know, in 2026, we'll put one in January and February and we'll see what the demand is and there's a greater demand. But, you know, we probably five year, I would think we have a lot of interest to use the space, um, by others for education. Not necessarily lighting, but there's manufacturers who want, there's rep firms who want to use it for their type of education. 'cause it's really pretty, you know, it's a, like I said, it's a great location for it and, um, we've set it up so it's pretty versatile.
Ron:
I love it. Steve, as we, we wrap up the show here, there's a lot of listeners we have and, and people that watch and, , they're at varying stages of their entrepreneurial journey. And, , these people are located, , around the United States, Canada, south America. We have people in the uk, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, couple in, , Asia, , , quite a number in India that listen. What, , advice you, you've been at this entrepreneurship thing now for a while. What's, , , maybe just a single one or two piece of advice that you would give those that maybe aspire one day to be where you're at? Like, what, what should they focus on to try to, to build to that?
Steve:
Yeah. Um, if you don't like risk, don't do it. I mean, it's, there's, there's lots of risk, right? And, um, you can't be afraid of making decisions that you could, might not be the perfect decision. And so, um, you know, it's, we're risk takers. Entrepreneurs are risk takers. And, , if you don't like risk, don't, don't do it. But, you know, but if you love that and you love the industry, um, or whatever industry you're in, um, and you can see pain points and how to make things better, um, go for it.
Ron:
There you there, you hear it folks? Go for it. If you're a risk taker, maybe think twice. Or if you're not a risk taker, think twice. And if you are ready to take on I amen to the risk thing, . Yeah. I remember back in the day jumping off the clip and Cliff and hoping the, , parachute would open. That would only after I started sewing it on the way down, and then I packed it and then I hoped it would open. And, ,
Steve:
you're a risk taker. You totally understand. I mean, to build one fire fly. I mean, I remember in the early days when we first started meeting, I mean, there was probably four or five of you now you've got, what, 67 or a hundred maybe you've got a
Ron:
Yeah, we're, we're around somewhere between 60 and 70 staff today.
Steve:
Yeah. So you, you understand everything we've been talking about and probably could even teach more about it than, than I've been pontificating on. But, , no, they, they don't
Ron:
wanna hear from me, Steve. They want to hear from you and, and all of our awesome guests. That's the, . They'll hear from me in webinars and, and on stage at some conference. But, , this is, this is all about you and, , that's why automation unplugged us here so that we can share the, the lives and experiences and thoughts of all the, the fascinating folks that make up the space.
Steve:
Well, there are a lot of fascinating people in it. I mean, there is just, , success story after success story of people that saw a pain point or something and they come up with a solution for it. I mean, the numerous softwares, those, a lot of 'em are started by integrators. Um, you know, all, all the manufacturers, right? A lot of them were, I mean, you look at Snap Success story, those were integrators, right? Yeah. You look at just video walls now as the late latest, um, so you know, shiny object and that was an integrator seeing a, a. Pain point coming up with a solution and that list we could go on and on and on for an hour. Listing all those out. Just really smart people in this industry. And, um, seeing pain points and coming up with a solution and fighting through it, you know? Yeah. And it is, early on, you're fighting.
Ron:
Grit and determination are key. You're gonna get tattoos, get grit and determination.
Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Persistence,
Ron:
persistence. Without that, it's, it's, it's much harder. Well, Steve, it has been, , awesome having you back on Automation Unplugged. , my commitment to you is it will not be seven years before I invite you again. All right. And, , it's, I'm, , I'm proud of you and, and what you've accomplished and even through the Dojo and other activities, how you're giving back to the industry, it's really, um. Pretty awesome. And, , just congrats on your continued success.
Steve:
Thanks Ron. I appreciate it. It was enjoyable and, , you can probably get an idea. I'm pretty passionate about what I do and, um, I'm passionate about the industry. I was an outsider 11 years ago, but people welcome me and, um,
Ron:
you're no longer an outsider. Now you're one of those, now you're an insider. You're one of the guys people go to and ask the questions.
Steve:
Yeah. Well, thank you.
Ron:
I've got on the website scrolling across the bottom here. Liaison tech group.com. That's I-A-I-S-O-N-T-E-C-H-G-R-O-U p.com. , I also have, , maybe this is your, is this the office line, Steve?
Steve:
Yeah, it's our 800 number. Yeah,
Ron:
so that's, , 8 8 8 2 7 9 1 2 3 5. If you wanna get a hold of, , Steve, I don't know that you'll get Steve directly, but they probably could get you to Steve if you'd ask nicely. So, , there you go. Steve, thanks for coming on the show, my man. We'll see you. , I'm for pretty sure we'll see you around the corner here at, , maybe the next event is Light of Palooza. So we'll see you soon.
Steve:
Very good. And Merry Christmas and happy New Year's everyone.
Ron:
Happy New Year's. Merry Christmas.
Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.
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