An AV and integration-focused podcast broadcast weekly

This week's episode of Automation Unplugged features Corby Vickers, the founder of 21st Century Audio Video in North Texas. Corby is a seasoned expert in luxury home theater design and smart home automation with over two decades of hands-on experience.

Starting his journey in the late 80s with custom car audio, Corby eventually rose to lead installation teams for major retailers like Ultimate Electronics and Best Buy’s Magnolia brand. In 2008, he launched his own firm to provide the kind of specialized craftsmanship and personalized service that only a dedicated independent integrator can offer.

About this episode:

We cover:

• Why trying to handle your own marketing and web design is often the worst business decision an integrator can make, especially when trying to scale.
• How shifting from "free courtesy support" to tiered recurring service contracts can transform your cash flow and strengthen client satisfaction.
• Why Micro LED technology is the most significant advancement since plasma and how sophisticated, integrated lighting is now a primary driver for generating "awe" with clients.

SEE ALSO: #350: The Big Screen Experience for Big Profits: Why Projectors Belong in Your Lineup

Transcript

Ron:

Hello. Hello there. Ron Callis here with another episode of Automation Unplugged. Today's show, I brought I wore my Amplified People shirt. Amplified People is our hiring business at One Firefly, where we help integrators with their placements. Pretty much all of the roles inside of the business, from technicians at all levels, entry level through experienced sales positions, project managers, system designers, office staff, warehouse staff. We're helping integrators across the country at Amplify People with all of those roles. So today's show is brought to you by Amplify People. I hope you all are having a great spring so far. I know I've personally just done a bunch of travel for spring break and I had no idea it was still zero degrees in certain parts of the country. I was traveling in mid March and oh my goodness, some parts of the country are very cold. But hopefully by the time the show comes out in April, it's warmed up where you're at and you are well into the spring season and God willing, you're having a great start to your year. I know, as we talk to Integrators here at One Firefly, some Integrators are having a banner year. They think this is going to be a breakout year for them. Others, not so much. So I would say the story is a bit mixed. We're going to hear from our guests today and see how how business is going there in East Texas. So without further ado, I'm very happy to bring you a good friend and client, Corby Vickers. He is the founder of twenty first Century Audio Video out of Sherman, Texas. And I'm going to bring Corby on and see how he's doing. Corby, how are you, sir?

Corby:

Good. How's it going?

Ron:

Man, another day in paradise. How about you? How's how's life there in Sherman, Texas?

Corby:

It's good. It's good. And you know, hearing about your story about the zero degree weather. Well, you can see, I got a little bit of a sunburn from, some tournament baseball over the weekend here in Texas. So it was actually up to almost ninety four degrees here. So, I don't miss the zero degree stuff or the below thirty two at all. So I hate to hear that, but it's it's almost summertime here.

Ron:

Oh my goodness. That's crazy. It's in the nineties there already. I've been in Florida. I'm not from Florida, but I've been in Florida for a couple of decades now. So let's just say my blood has thinned out. So when I headed north and, we were traveling with my wife and son over spring break, visiting some colleges and, just super surprised at how gosh darn cold certain parts of this country are, even in what seems like spring. But I'm sure many can relate that are tuned in. But let's talk about you, Corby. Give our audience maybe just a high level. What is twenty first Century Audio Video? What type of projects do you guys do and where do you do those projects?

Corby:

So we are a custom integration company founded here in North Texas in two thousand and eight. I've got some background with some bigger companies earlier on, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. We basically are client focused, you know, much like a lot of the customer or other custom integration companies. And we just we take care of our people that choose to do work with us. It's something that's been very fruitful for us in the past. And We've kind of had our peaks and valleys like most integrators have. We've had some great years and we've had some, they weren't so hot. One thing that makes us a little different, I guess, from anybody else is when, when you call, we we come and we we do what we need to do and we take care of you, whether it's remotely or it's, you know, in person. We we get there and get it solved and, reduce that downtime for anyone with a system and, you know, it it seems to work for us.

Ron:

Are you primarily or entirely residentially focused, Corby?

Corby:

No, we do. We do commercial and residential. Our commercial percentage isn't quite where we want it to be yet, but that's something that we're focusing on more. We've done several pretty large scale projects in the commercial space. We enjoy that work. It's really great. It's a little bit different perspective and a little bit different needs for the client, but it's fun. I like the commercial side of things.

Ron:

You do. Awesome. And are you looking as you go forward into twenty six, mid and towards the end of twenty six and beyond? Are you trying to grow the commercial side of the business? Or do you have a game plan? I want fifty percent this and fifty percent that. Or how you think about it out of curiosity?

Corby:

Yeah, I think our percentage in commercial needs to come up a little bit. I mean, we're probably in the single percentage range now. We're probably ninety five percent residential, not five percent commercial. I think we we want to be more around the twenty percent commercial moving towards the end of the year. We'll we'll see. There's a ton of growth that's going on in Texas and North Texas particularly. It never slowed down here like it did in some other places in the country. You can't drive anywhere here without seeing construction going on. It's unbelievable.

Ron:

That's amazing. Generally is the geographic area? Do you stay there in North Texas or do you travel out of the

Corby:

try to. I've had clients in the past that I've traveled to Florida and Virginia and some other states. And I like doing that to a certain extent, but it just that distance sometimes can be an issue, right? Because if it's not something that can be fixed remotely, well, then there's a there's a time difference, right, for that travel to get there to get that fixed. Whereas, you know, if you're within an hour or two here in North Texas, you know, people can kind of they can kind of get by for a little while with with that but when you're, you know, a four hour flight plus, you know, drive time to the airports and you know, all the time that it takes to get to the airports to get to there and you're at a eight hour, eight hours just to get there. You know, sometimes that can be an issue. I've got some clients though that have moved from Texas and I've taken them to Virginia and taken all their stuff with them through the moving process and then reinstalled it for them there. And, I mean, I've been back once for an issue that was outside the scope for the most part. It's been able to I've been able to remote in and say, you know, this is what's going on and we can usually fix it right then and there. So, that's that's been the cool thing with that but we try to stay close.

Ron:

Just so our our audience has an understanding of the type of products you're working with. What are some of the bigger, you know, bigger brands or the vendors that are kind of your bread and butter type mix in your projects?

Corby:

So historically, we've been URC. We've done a ton of stuff with URC since its inception. That goes back to my days at some of the bigger companies. I got in with them at a very early stage of the, control game and just kind of stuck with it a little bit. Done some control four stuff. Recently I picked up Savant, which is going to be our go to. It just is going to add an even better customer experience than anything that I've been able to see. They got some things that are coming down the pipe that I can't really talk about here but once it's released, it's it's going to be a game changer. It really is.

Ron:

Wow. All right. Well, I'll, I'll try to folks that are tuned in and leaning forward. I'll, I'll try to extract from Corby what we're able to learn from him about what that, that news is.

Corby:

I just don't want to jump the shark. Like, like I told you a little bit earlier when we were talking, I don't want to be the guy that lets some cat out of the bag and I wasn't supposed to.

Ron:

Yeah, no, that's fair. I don't want to get you or me in any trouble. Corby, let's go back. Help us understand where you come from. What's your background? You mentioned you started, you know, what do say the business around? Just give us the whole story as far back as you're willing to go.

Corby:

Well, I basically grew up in the electronics business. My dad was a service manager for National Cash Register. All through my childhood, I remember being in banks. I mean, he put in the first online ATMs in Northwest Arkansas where I grew up, and I'd been in I'd been in bank computer rooms that were the size of most people's garage that now they wouldn't even have a third or an eighth of what computing power our phones do, right? You're talking disc drives over twenty four inches in diameter. So I was immersed in, you know, technology and those kinds of systems at a very young age. And, you know, I can remember at probably six or seven years old having a cable tied to my belt loop and saying, hey, crawl under this bank and let's get that cable to the other side and I was like, wow, that's, I, I didn't know any better. I was a kid, right? So, those kind of things kind of stuck with me and then, you know, as I got into high school and got out on my own, you know, that was, I don't want to date myself, but you know, that was the late eighties, early nineties. That was the, the heyday of car audio and mini trucks. And I mean, I was right there. I was involved in all that. I still have my mini truck that I had when I was sixteen. It's sitting out here waiting to, waiting to be redone one of these days if I ever get to it. And, so I kind of got into the hobby of car audio in high school. I was the guy that would, I was lowering people's trucks and, you know, we were doing crazy stuff from the garage. I could tell you stories about that for all You're making like than this podcast. The

Ron:

competition trucks with like, you know, the biggest base and things like that?

Corby:

Biggest base. The beds were tilted like dump trucks. Right? We, I was doing that kind of stuff in my garage and a real quick story. One day we were some friends were over and my buddy goes, I want to make my truck a convertible. It's like, okay. I have all the tools. My dad had all the tools for that kind of stuff. And my mom came outside the garage and saw me with a sawzall cutting this guy's roof off his truck and I thought she was going to lose her mind right and we were six we got it done it you know it leaked obviously it was it was going to leak. You cut the top off of something that's not meant to be convertible in that timeframe, but it was cool. Cause he was running around town without the top of his truck on. Everybody thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And his bed was tilted up and my bed was tilted up and we had big booming systems in the back. It was just a fun time and I turned that hobby into kind of a career. After a short stint with my family's construction business, after my dad left NCR. He went into building and my brother was a builder and we were building houses. We were building metal structures. We were building all kinds of things. So, I I gained a ton of construction experience, which I didn't know how valuable that was going to be for me later on. But once I left that, I went into Car Audio and I worked for several of the shops up there. And I kind of reached the pinnacle up there and worked for pretty much everybody in Northwest Arkansas. You know, Fayetteville back then was, you know, thirty six thousand people. It wasn't very big. I had the opportunity to come to North Texas and I went to work for CarToys and they were launching a ton of stores. I think they opened twelve or fifteen stores down here. And I got in, you know, in kind of the middle of that, and I opened the Frisco store as one of their assistant install managers and was doing that for a little while. And I was met one day with a gentleman that came in the back of the store. His name was Dan Olsen from Ultimate Electronics, and he's like, hey. Have you ever thought about doing a lot of home stuff? And I was like, you know, that's just it it was at its infancy, right? It was two thousand one, two thousand two. It wasn't at its infancy, but it wasn't mainstream like it is now. There were specialized guys that had done that for a long time before that, but

Ron:

maybe car audio was still bigger at that point than home automation and home technology.

Corby:

Flat panel TVs weren't there yet. They were coming out. It was still just the smaller ones that were flat panels in the cars. Then we were in the

Ron:

bunch of ridiculously priced plasmas.

Corby:

Dollars fifty thousand plasma TVs. Right. And he came on and said, hey, why don't you come to work for us? And I said, well, I'm an assistant install manager now. I'd want to come on as an install manager for you. He's like, I think I can make that happen. So I was the only person that was recruited from outside the company that came in as an install manager for the Frisco store. We took off and we had great salespeople and we became one of the number one stores in the country. We had five trucks and about fifteen installers that I was managing at the time and you know, it was that, you know, everybody was wanting the flat panel TVs. They didn't care if it was fifty dollars zero or whatever and I can remember vividly to this day, the first one we put up was a fifty dollars zero Zenith fifty inch plasma TV and there was eight install guys standing around going, is this thing going to stay on the wall?

Ron:

Holy cow.

Corby:

And the mounts were gigantic, right? They were heavy. The TVs were heavy. We we were happy to see the TVs getting smaller because we had gone away from what we used to call the old Sony Vegas that were hernia makers because it took, you know, three or four people to lift those things and and get them in place and we were glad to see them kind of condensing down to a more modular on wall type television than the big, you know, cabinet, big screen TVs from Mitsubishi that, you know, were huge. They were great, right? We sold a ton of them. You know, we installed a ton of them and then, just to be involved in that and the growth of the industry back then, don't want say it was the best time in the industry, but it was a really good time in the industry. The TV technology was changing. Then you had the invention of HD net and the high definition television came along, which was I used to tell people it was like from going from black and white to color for the first time. Right. It was like from going from color to high definition was such a big jump. It was like, once you saw it, you couldn't hardly go back. Right. And yeah. And so that sort of become mainstream and Ultimate ran into some issues with some things they were doing and they parted the world as far as an entity goes. And I went to Best Buy and launched Magnolia in Plano with some of the guys from Ultimate. We we all kind of just went right from there to the to to Best Buy and you know that was for Best Buy that was a huge thing right because they didn't have the the higher end equipment that they were able to get with Magnolia that came along and then the experience of the guys that had been installing the things that were higher end from like a Ultima Electronics or a Tweeter or some of the other places that all kind of met their demise at the same time. It was a really a really cool thing because what Best Buy did very well at around two thousand five time frame was they were able to bring in a lot of people and do a lot of business and we hit the ground running and I was I was teaching, training people how to install and you know, there was a huge lack of, I don't want to say talent but there was a huge lack of experience for people to know how to install things and houses and things back then. It was a challenge that we had to work to get through. It was fun, but it was, man, it was demanding.

Ron:

You probably had to create, Best Buy, I would imagine, was up there with sound advice in Florida and Twitter and Ultimate where you really had to develop the training curriculum to bring in the greener people into the business so that you'd have enough bandwidth to get all this work done. I mean, that's

Corby:

the side things

Ron:

for industry.

Corby:

Yeah, the training side of things for can say for Best Buy when we went, I mean, we've everybody that went to work for them flew to Minneapolis, right? We went to the corporate headquarters and the guys that were running the install training for home theater were MACP certified car guys, which in my experience, you could take a really good car guy and make him a really awesome home guy, but you couldn't take a really good home guy and make him a car guy. You could, but it took a lot longer. Right. And so the training side of things, it had its hiccups in the beginning, but we worked through it and it went from being kind of a corporate centralized thing to them. We kind of took it to the guys that had the most experience in the regions and said, alright, these are going be the go to guys. If you guys aren't sure what's going on, we'll get with them and their management team and we'll figure out the solutions. And that's kind of one of the positions I was in when I left in two thousand and eight and was able to start my own company. Man, I tell you that was I never have looked back. It was

Ron:

what led you to that decision in eight? I mean, was right in the financial crisis. That was right when I started this business. I started in November of seven before the financial crisis was announced.

Corby:

I don't want to say I shot myself in the foot, but for me, felt like I was in a glass ceiling environment where I couldn't move on. I couldn't move up. I was one of the best installers in the market, right? But I was being passed over by guys that were, you know, maybe a little more management experience, a little more sales experience, and I was like, I think I need to go a different direction. And I I was single at the time. I hadn't my wife and I hadn't got together yet. So I was you know, we talked a little bit earlier about me being a lone wolf. Right? And that was kind of the the thing that really started the whole gelling process of twenty first century audio video coming together. I had a really good client at the time that, he happened to come in in the store, and I was working in the store at Best Buy at the end. Right? They'd moved They'd moved me into the store and it was miserable. I was an outside install guy in the field all the time. You know, that freedom of being able to go to the job sites and do what I needed to do and I felt like I was a cage dog at that point and it was okay. I was still doing well financially and, but my client came in and he said, why don't we just do your own thing? And I was like, what?

Ron:

Excuse me. You hadn't even thought of that. Yeah.

Corby:

I mean, I hadn't at the time he was like, let's just do your own thing. And, you know, he came along and gave me a jump, a jumpstart. And, he was a very well seasoned businessman that kind of said, Hey, this is what you should and shouldn't do. And you're going to have growing pains in the first little bit. And unfortunately we lost him. I think it was about a year later He he succumbed to cancer. So, we, I just kept the ball and just kept running with it, right? And the first five years were pretty tough like everybody says, right? The first five years of business is is pretty hard. Met some milestones in there. Did some really big things close to after that five year mark. And you know, I like everybody else that's in this industry, you got, you got some really great. Oh my gosh, that was the best thing ever. Well, put your skis on because you're going downhill for a little while. Right.

Ron:

It goes up goes down and

Corby:

you know, you, you, you try to brace for impact and hope you don't hit any of the pine trees on the way down the slopes and, try to get back on and go back to the top again. Right. And that's, I think that's been us in a nutshell.

Ron:

Think that's the encapsulation of being an entrepreneur right there. Just in that statement.

Corby:

Yeah. So it's it's definitely had its it's definitely had its moments that was I was like, man, why? Why? Why did I decide to do this again? And then it's had its moments of, yeah, this is exactly why I decided to do this. And, you know, it going out on my own in two thousand eight was the biggest life changing decision aside from what we talked about in November, for my business and my company and my personal life and my soon to be married life and family. It was the biggest, positive decision that I've ever done.

Ron:

That's amazing. Now two thousand and eight, so you've got some time under your belt running the business. How are things going right now? What's the current state of the business? Are you on up trajectory, a down trajectory, a flat trajectory? If you just like look in the rearview mirror at the last say year or two, what do you now cast vision ahead? What does it look like?

Corby:

So the last, so twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, I had some challenges. I moved away from you guys for a little while, which was not a smart decision on marketing, thinking I could, again, lone wolf it and do it on my own. Yeah. Don't try it if you're anybody listening just just do what you're supposed to do and let these guys do the marketing for you because you'll be bunny ahead in the end. So you know I tried to do my own website and I thought I could you know I'm tech savvy. I'm an AV integrator. Can I work with computers all the time? No problem, right? No. It while you can do things out there that are you know and that was really before chat GBT and some of the other AIs had come online to help with coding. But you you get a cookie cutter site, you get that look, and somebody goes to your site. They're like, what in the world is this guy thinking with this website? He would have been better off just giving me a handwritten business card than trying to send me to that website to sell me something.

Ron:

So let's pull a thread on this. And as everyone that listens or watches the show, they know we don't make this show about marketing. And so I don't want to make it about marketing, but I do want to make it about being a small business owner. You and I are both small business owners. A lot of the people listening in are small business owners. And one of the challenges we have in business is understanding what are we best at and what do we best enjoy doing. I believe in being a little bit selfish and doing things that you enjoy and you're good at delegating everything else.

Corby:

Right.

Ron:

But that's hard to it's easy to say hard to learn, especially when you see like hiring that person on your team. You got to now got to pay a salary or hiring a consultant or a contractor or an agency. You got to see money go out. Hurts. You see that money go out. You're like, that could be going into my kid's college savings account. Why am I going to send it over there to those folks? You made a common decision. I would say that almost every single person listening has made at some point, which is they had engaged somebody for whatever that thing was. In this case, it was marketing. And then you were looking at the expense every month and you said, well, hey, I think if I stop paying them, I could do it. How hard is it? And I could keep that money in my bank account. Is that approximately the thought process you went through? This was a number of years ago.

Corby:

I mean, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of the hardest things for me has always been the marketing side of it because it's just, like you said, it's you want to see a tangible amount come back to what you're putting out. Sometimes, you know, marketing depending on what you're doing can be like owning a boat, right? You're taking money and you're just dumping it out in the water and hoping you get to back to shore. So, for me, that was always a challenge and it it took really I don't want to say a divine intervention but I have another really good client who's a very successful businessman that he was with me as a client when when all this started happening, right? And I've done a system for his house and he met me through the previous website that we had through One Firefly and he's when I migrated away from that, there was a a big story that's behind that which may not be for now but long story short, we kinda moved from where we were to a little further up north. And in that time frame, when that move happened, Google marked my business closed. Through an email, which I didn't see, it went into the spam folder. Once I finally saw it, it was two months after it had happened. I had people that were calling me asking me, Is your business closed? I'm like, No, what is that? Once I finally found that, one, you can't talk to anyone at Google. You can, but it's it's really a daunting process. Right? You have to send a number of emails and finally get somebody back in line. And I lost all the traction from the marketing that we'd had in place along with the website that, you know, we'd had previously and all the SEO. All your online search visibility. Oh, it was gone.

Ron:

Was gone.

Corby:

Gone. And that was, I don't want to say it was no mistake of mine because it probably was a mistake of mine because I didn't catch the email. But, you know I was in the middle of trying to build where we're at and you know keep the business going and and do a lot of the things and I was spread so thin at that point that if I picked up with the computer in a week that was a miracle right and once I got back through all that storm and landed my feet back on the ground from the the tornadic tornadic experience that it caused, I was like, man, what what was that? What what happened? Right? So I went back to basics. Right? I went back to spending an x amount of time on this part of the business and that part of the business and then focusing on the customer and getting their projects finished and all of that. And that turned things around, but it was a long process. Right? And then I don't know if you want me to talk about November or whatever, but

Ron:

Yeah. Sure. Continue as you were. Yeah.

Corby:

I went to see you in September and visited with people out there like we always like we do in the industry and I met with Origin Acoustics and decided that I was going to pick them up as a line and I went to Origin Acoustics in November to their new vendor training or new dealer training and sitting there on the first day and Ron Callis walks out and I'm like, man, what in the world? And we actually sat down and had lunch together and I said, I told you that day, I said, you know, moving away from one firefly was probably the worst business decision that I ever made as as a business owner That was a heartfelt truth that there was nothing that I wanted to gain from that. Was going to let you know that man I dug a hole and I was burying my own self with a shovel until I finally stood up and said enough is enough. Went back to the relationships that I'd established in in the past and relied on and decided to put that back in place. And the meantime, I kept working on my own on the on the back end of things and I'd had my website redone again with the help of you know, the client that I mentioned. It was under his mentorship. They said, he said, man, you gotta get that website out of there that's there because it was the most, I mean, it was elementary, right? In a, in a collegiate world, it was very elementary and, know, I know not to ever do that again.

Ron:

Corby, why does that matter? Right? Because I, you and I have both heard, but I'll say I've probably heard it more often, that so many business owners, particularly in the category that you're in, which is like you're providing services to people in your community, people will tell me and or they thoroughly believe I get all my work through referral and my website really doesn't matter. In fact, air quotes marketing or branding or positioning don't matter. And I obviously feel differently. But like from your perspective, you've had like this experience where it sounds like you now believe it does matter.

Corby:

It absolutely matters. And referrals are huge, right? Referrals are the only reason that I'm sitting here today talking to you that kept me going enough to be able to sit here and say, hey. We've turned a corner, and we're doing things back like we were again. If it hadn't been for that referral business, like I said, we I would have gone back to work for somebody else at this point because I couldn't have kept going. That and my wife being who she is and what she does. Without the website telling people who you are and getting the word out of you can be a guy that's going, hey, I'm here doing what I want to do but if you don't have that website that says, let's investigate this guy a little bit further. Let's see if there's any truth to what he's saying, and let's see if he can actually do what he mentions he can do and provide what services he says he can provide. Without that, yes, you can stay in business. Yes, you can have referral. You can do great economically and and do all the things that you wanna do, but you're never gonna get to the next step that you might wanna get to without having that marketing and without having that plan in place that says, hey. I've done x, y, and z through the years through this method. But in order to scale and to go to the next level, I'm gonna have to take a step back a little bit and let go of some of that and put people in place that actually know what works and what doesn't, because that's what they do every day. Of a guy like me, and it's like, oh, yeah, I can figure that out. Right.

Ron:

I know you're smart and you probably could. The sad thing is just not the only thing on your plate.

Corby:

Right. And then you get into it and you're like, wow, there's way more facets to this than I realized. It's not just a matter of getting some keywords on your website and then Google finds you and does all the crawling for you and does all those wonderful things that is SEO. Which, you know, anybody who's got a website and is SEO is a long process. It's not something that you can just turn on. If anybody tells you you can get SEO results in a month, I'd run as far away from them as I could because there's no way. I've done it myself on my own side of things and it took almost six months of every week, almost every day of trying to do something, whether it was a blog or whatever, changing and tweaking and it just got to be I was spending more time with that than I was out taking care of the people that are taking care of me. Right? And you just have to make that decision if you want to get to the level that you want to get to. If you have a goal that you want to get to, well, yes, you can get there with referrals. But if those referrals don't have residuals attached to them, you're going to be a long, long time getting there.

Ron:

I appreciate that perspective. And I imagine that's going to be helpful. So to even one person that's listening to understand that journey you've been on, that process that sounds like you've been on over the last six months has even gone beyond marketing. You're evaluating your business processes, your products that you sell. Take us through some of those other decisions and or analysis that you're going through as you've made this decision that you want to grow your business, you want to scale your business.

Corby:

So one of the things that I mean, lot of the other integrators that are out there to listen to this will think I'm crazy for saying this. But through a lot of the years of me doing this, I always just took care of people. I never charged extra. I never did service plans. I never did things like that, which I didn't realize how big that could be, right? And through the the mentorship of my client, again, he's like, you know, he's in the service plan type business and he's like, you you really need to push yourself into service plans. So, after we met in November, I really started focusing in December on getting those put in place and I put it out on the website and I I did some just real quick mailchimp marketing just to see what there was a feel for it. And I started getting all these responses back going, yeah, we wanna do this one. Yeah, we wanna do that one. I was like, wow.

Ron:

Mind blown. How

Corby:

big of an idiot have I been? I don't want to say I was leaving money on the table because it's kept me it's kept a good client base. There's been some that I've lost over the way that you didn't offer in the beginning. You're like, hey, remoted in. I got a charge for that. And they're like, oh, we'll just get somebody else. I was like, well, that doesn't make sense. But okay. So that that kinda sparked the whole thing of you can give things away for a really long time. And as soon as you try to charge for it after the fact, if it's not done in the right way, it can be kind of a deterrent from your business model. But when you offer it and you speak to it and you you're you build that confidence with your client that says, you know, depending on what tier you're on, and and tiered services, you can do a basic one, which we're still going to cover you. All that's doing is basically covering our time to remote into your system once a year or whatever it is. Then we'll discount your labor rate. They think it's the greatest thing in the world, and it is because it covers if you have to roll the truck. Covers the things that you may have done for free like I did, which most people probably didn't do.

Ron:

Many listening probably have been doing service for free and

Corby:

and have

Ron:

similar opinions that they're taking care of their customer and that's their idea of customer service. I think that's true. It is customer service, but you are better positioned as an entrepreneur to build a team capable of serving the volume of your customers if you have the right revenue flow and cash flow in your business.

Corby:

That's been one of the other things, too. I've always been relatively small. I've had up to three guys at one point and COVID happened and I went back to just myself again. Well, COVID for for us was great. I mean, it was ridiculous. One, the whole thing around COVID was a tragedy for everybody that was involved and the people that affected. But from an integrator standpoint, all the people at home wanted us to come in, make their systems work and their outdoor audio. I did more outdoor audio in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one than I'd done in the previous three years combined. Wow. And it was just the simple fact that people were stuck at home and you know, we were able to, we were deemed essential. We could go because we provided network services and things like that. And I always back to the service side of things, I think it goes back to my time at Best Buy and Ultimate. I mean, we didn't offer those service plans then. I mean, I don't know what Best Buy does now, but in two thousand and eight when I left, service plans weren't weren't a thing and if there was an issue, we got in the truck and we went and did it. Right? We wish we went and took care of it. Make sure their systems were working and I just always did that as a courtesy as a as a kind of a thank you. And yeah, there's probably been a couple of those jobs that I probably lost my shorts on because I didn't charge for those service calls, but the people were happy. Sometimes a happy person can bring a way bigger impact to your business than someone that says, Man, you try to charge me to come out here and I'll never use him again. I fought with that for a little while and I finally made a decision. All right, we're going to go for it. I'm going to publish it. I'm going to send out some emails. There's going be people that fall off that unsubscribe, whatever. That's fine. You have to develop that thick skin of it's kind of like door to door sales, right? If you don't have a thick skin, you're going door to door sales. You're never going to make it past the second door. You're going to get that no and you're going like, this isn't for me. People may not want to do that. You've already told them now through the marketing email that says, hey, we're still here. We're still going to take care of you. But if we have to come out or if we have to come work on your system remotely, we reserve the right to charge for that. I haven't had a single person that said, that's ridiculous. I'm not doing that. Sold in the first month. I sold over twelve service plans with one email. Wow. And then I sold another six with a follow-up email. And then I've sold some on-site, person to person when I've gone for a service or gear replacement or whatever. I couldn't believe

Ron:

the response.

Corby:

Couldn't believe the impact. It's a huge thing. So if you guys aren't doing service plans or you've been scared to get into it figure it out.

Ron:

What's one one tip a site? I mean, the tip to do it is already a brilliant tip. But for those that are now very much on the edge of their seat, what's one of the things you said or the way you've designed these service plans, the way you presented them? Like, what's one tip that you think perhaps led to your success rate?

Corby:

Well, for me, was the mentorship of my client that's in the you know, his company provides software for dealers car dealerships to write service contracts for people. And, you know, he's he's got a multifaceted business structure where he's he's in several different businesses. But he said if you're not doing service plans, you're missing the boat for your residual income that can pay for that marketing or that next truck or that new tech or whatever it happens to be. And for me, like we spoke about a little earlier, trying to go to the next tier and the next level, which you know when you're a young guy, you're in your 20s and 30s and some of your 40s and you're doing install work and you're know you're making sick figures, you're doing great stuff and At some point, you're going to come to the realization, just as I did, that I've done everything I need to do as far as integration goes. I have nothing left to prove outside of some brand new technology that we may not have on board yet. I've done every install that I could possibly do. Now it's time for me to grow the company to something that I can leave to my kids or that I could sell or to build on the time that I've already invested in the company of some things that I should have been doing. But that stuff now is neither here nor there. It's today forward, right? So you have to residual clients and word-of-mouth is great. But how much better can it be when you put people in place that can take you to the second, third, fourth, fifth tier from where you are now? And there's people that are doing it every day. I've listened to some of your podcasts of some of the guys that are, you know, are very successful at doing what they do and it just amazes me to hear their perspective and and what they do and you know, like I was talking to you earlier, I listened to that one and he he told the story of how much it cost to add a tech, how much that tech needs to add to the bottom line of the company and that's something that while I know I needed to add a tech, I never had a dollar amount put to it until I heard that from him and I was like, wow, that really makes a lot of sense. And it changes a lot of perspectives because sometimes when you're a small guy and you you're the integrator, you're the sales guy, you do all the things. Like I said, you can stay busy and you can do a lot of things, but you're the bottleneck that's holding everything back because you can only do so much.

Ron:

So true.

Corby:

And and as you get older, if you don't learn to start letting go of some of that and letting some of the people, not necessarily that are younger, but are more experienced in doing some of those things like marketing or social media or some of those things that you may struggle with, you may not, I don't know. If you don't start putting some of the stuff in place and stepping out of your own way, you're always going to get the same result from my experience because I've been in business since two thousand eight. Yeah, the first five years were slow but after that, I mean, we've I've been able to do everything I wanted to do with my family. We built a brand new house and in that time frame we lived in it for a while. Sold it. We moved to a farm. We homeschool our kids. And that's all because of being able to do the things that I've been able to do with the company. And I know that there's a bigger picture out there because I see the companies out there. They're doing, you know, tens of millions of dollars a year. I don't know that I'll ever get to that point, but I want to be above where I'm at now and where I've been in the past.

Ron:

Two or three X your business pretty reasonably in the next three to five years. That's very attainable. And if you do it right, that all tracks right to the bottom line and should increase your net that or even more.

Corby:

If you're not going for two X, three X, you're not a business per se. You're, you're, yes, you're a business because you're your own boss. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Ron:

You're self employed.

Corby:

You're self employed. You don't, you don't really have a boss that you report to but you do. It's your client. But in order to get that to, like we said, the the two and three X, you gotta step back and you gotta put, you gotta put the things in place and the people in place through marketing, through taxes, through, I mean, there's a there's a big group, right? And sometimes when you back up and you look at it, it can be scary. But if you don't, you're delaying. And that's the best analogy I can I can put out there? The more you push back on that, the further out you're getting it. Because Amen. It's scary, right? It's scary for everybody who's in business because, you know, you're in business for yourself. It's all on your shoulders. And the thing about getting other people in place is yes, you still have those things on your shoulders, but you're taking some of that responsibility and you're placing it in someone else's job description. Then you can take that

Ron:

off your putting it on somebody else's back and holding you accountable.

Corby:

You can take that off your plate and make it a reportable, task versus a tangible task that you have to do. So for me, that's, that's where I'm at. That's where we're trying to go. And I have goals in mind and I have ideas of where I want to be and we're on a good track this year. This is probably the best start of a year that we've had probably since inception. I mean, I've had some big years, but this one's on track to be probably the biggest if we keep going the way we're going.

Ron:

Congratulations. It's well Super

Corby:

thankful for that. And I don't take that lightly and I don't take anything for granted. I can safely say that this year is because of the things that I dug into mid last year and said I've got to do something different. I've got to figure something out that I can get the revenue coming back and that was part of the service plans and part of some of the other things. We're getting ready to launch a newsletter that's a subscription thing. For people that don't know about home theater, that's something that we may look at doing as well. Or, hey, for X amount of dollar subscription, we'll be glad to consult with you and show you the right path and get you in the right direction.

Ron:

Courtney, I'm mindful of time and I want to rapid fire some topics. Get your take. Hot takes, we'll call it. Micro LEDs. What does it mean for you and what does it mean for this industry?

Corby:

Micro LED is going be the biggest thing since plasma television. Anybody who was at CEDA this last year in October, you know, there's been micro LEDs there in the past. You know, there's a few manufacturers, but this year, this last year at CEDA, there was seven. And they're big. And they're residential focused which it's always been a commercial thing, When you go to the stadiums and you see the big LED boards or go to Las Vegas and you see the sphere, well, that's a billion dollar project, first of all, but when you can scale that down now and you can put a micro LED in someone's home theater that's got one hundred thousand hours versus a projector that's got a four thousand hour bulb that before it's replaced and then probably another two or three times that you do that, the color wheel's gone and you replace the projector. Well, some people have a pretty sizable investment in projection systems in their house. Dollars fifty thousand projector is not unheard of and up, right? And when you can come in and have a micro LED system that not only is modular, alright? So, you can you got certain mini sections and well, one went out. Well, that came with ten percent extra. So if one goes out, you plug it in. But the cool thing about some of the micro LEDs that I've seen is the software and hardware inside those systems will match the new one that you put in to the old used ones. You've got a complete system that still looks the same as it did when you first put it in. It may not be as bright, but you know, it's, it's going to be a game changer. The more affordable those become the more obsolete the plasma, well, plasmas are obsolete anyway, but the led LCD screens that we've all been putting in for so long.

Ron:

Are you designing these into your projects now, or you're planning to design them into your projects? Where do they sit for you?

Corby:

We are, we've offered some, on a couple of projects and that's just not where they want it to be yet. We've got some projects that are upcoming that are gonna be some very large commercial, which we talked a little bit about earlier. That's going to be an ongoing thing for us. It's multifaceted facility that has a ton of people that come through it. So that's something that we'll be looking at getting done. You guys have

Ron:

any favorite brand?

Corby:

I mean, right now,

Ron:

any favorites here in this, this, semi confidential forum with, you know,

Corby:

the folks doing Feasibility for the client AWOL right now has probably got the market corner as far as affordability goes, but there's others that are out there. I mean, I saw some at CD that were just unbelievable. Right?

Ron:

And The demos, the booths now are just so fun.

Corby:

Yeah. And there's so many different ones. It it it's almost gonna be one of those things that it's gonna be a client preference on which one they saw that they like the most. Right? And Yeah. That's the other cool aspect about the micro LED. You can go, well, I've got a, b, and c in one panel right here, and you can compare them without having to take them to a a showroom somewhere, which we've never had a showroom. I don't know that we ever will and that maybe, you know, I've been advised that we probably shouldn't go that way with the world of the internet and another reason to have a good website because that's your storefront. But to have that ability to open up a case and you've got three or four different examples of the same type of technology with different manufacturers and say, one do you like the most? And they go, This one. Well, it's going to be X, Y, Z. Right?

Ron:

All right. Another hot take. Lightapalooza. I ran into you there. I know you were buzzing around that show. What were any big takeaways for you here at the beginning of twenty twenty six?

Corby:

Well, first of all, I'm probably late to the game on that as well, but I had no idea that that segment was coming along as much as it is with AV integrators, right? Because now we're able to get into the landscape lighting, the external, permanent lighting space, which may be something that we look at doing in the future. You know, along the lines of the permanent lighting, when I flew to Acedia in December, I was sitting next to, a CEO of an external lighting company and we talked and we visited and I was like, man, you know, there's sometimes that things happen that you just shouldn't try to explain. Right. You just say, thank you. Yep. Right? And, you know, that's like our our encounter in November and then, there's been some other ones that I mentioned to you and Lightapalooza was another one. I sat down with Steven, one of your one of your guys and we started talking. I told you at Origin that it was a huge mistake. The thing that struck me the most, you do a ton of this stuff for a lot of big companies. Right? And the only words that came out of your mouth were, we'll come back. That's exactly what you said. And I was like, you know, most most people in the position that you're in would have either either snickered or been like, idiot. Why did you leave in the first place? But your words were,

Ron:

well, come back.

Corby:

And I was like, I came home and I told my wife and I'm not trying to get away from what you're talking about with Loneypalooza but I was like, there's something that is happening here that is exactly what it's supposed to be, and I'm just gonna sit back and I'm gonna let it happen. And I found out that Lightapalooza was was going on and it wound up being where not only it was going be a trip for me, but I was able to bring my family. My wife was off. She's a nurse, which she works twelve hour shifts and she was off in that time frame. So we were able to take our kids and go to Kalahari and I was

Ron:

able to

Corby:

do their thing. I first walked through the doors at Lightapalooza and the first booth I saw was you guys to my right. And I was like, I get it. It. I I get it. And I sat down with Steven and we hatched a plan and I was like, this feels so right. And then to understand the aspect of lighting with Lightapalooza and some of the connections that I reestablished with some people that I was connected to in the past at Lightapalooza and to see what we can offer and what we can do and you know like

Ron:

what'd you think of the education at Lightapalooza?

Corby:

I mean, it was fantastic.

Ron:

It's really wonderful, isn't it? I mean, it's such an education rich environment.

Corby:

Was a lot of it was hands on, which being an integrator, being a guy that's been in the field, putting things in for a living for so long was right up my alley. Right. And LED light strips are not the most amazing thing in the world, but they're a game changer if you know how to put them in the system and to make it work as part of the system and change someone's lifestyle through those kind of things. That was some of the things that I took away from training. I'd worked with LEDs in the past. I put it in our stuff that we that I built here. But this project that I'm working on that was the biggest one of the biggest ones we've done is got integrated LEDs in the walls and around the screen and around the sitting platform and all the things that we're doing. We added some little two inch lighting that are RGBW and it's all going to work together and the guy can go in and say, watch movie and it all goes to whatever.

Ron:

When done well, it absolutely generates awe. Like the customer is in awe of a space when lighting is integrated well.

Corby:

I posted a video the other day on Instagram of our we're we're about done with the first phase and I've got more views off of that first phase video than any other videos I've ever done in the past. Wow. I've done some pretty cool stuff. I mean, did

Ron:

an outdoor You posted on, Instagram.

Corby:

Wow. Last week.

Ron:

That's, that's a great shout out. When did you start shooting your own stuff and putting it out there? Cause I've

Corby:

After I visited with Steven at Lightabalooza.

Ron:

Steven was, was rattling you and say, you gotta start posting this stuff?

Corby:

Well, you know, I like to think that if I could have been filming this stuff back in the day when I started this, I'd have been a pioneer. Right. But, obviously we didn't take the time to do that. I've always been mission focused on getting the project done and getting the client happy and making sure they got everything they wanted. To realize that there's a huge avenue there that I could take advantage of, I mean, I acquired this guy, know the little gimbal.

Ron:

Oh you got a gimbal.

Corby:

So to be able to take care of stuff and to film that and the video I posted was one take. I did it in one take. I edited a little bit of the front, a little bit of the back and it was gone. And it's the traction of it was unbelievable. Was like, wow, thing like service plans. Why haven't you been doing this before? And it's just one of those. You don't know it till you try it really. And social media is such a hard, it's an easy thing, but it's a hard thing. Right. And it's got this caveat around it that like, oh, you shouldn't, shouldn't try to do this or you shouldn't try to do organic stuff or you should do paid. You get into that whole paid versus organic thing and I just walk away from it at that point. I'm just like, I got things to I'll worry about that later.

Ron:

I give up. Give up. It makes sense.

Corby:

And to see the traction it's received. And I see some of the guys that I'm around outside of of work and I see some of the things that they're posting and the kind of traction that they're getting on my, I got to keep doing this. This is, I mean, out of your way again. I mean, everybody's got that self conscious thing of, oh, I don't want to be on camera. I don't, I don't look right. Or I don't whatever. Just do it. Just, you know, Gary, Gary Vernichek is very well versed. He's like, if you can get on TikTok and post a video every day for a year, you'll never have to worry about things again. And I don't know how true that is, but to hear that perspective and. And for him to just say, just go for it. What do you have to lose? You're not doing anything now. What difference does it make? Just go. Just do it.

Ron:

Amen.

Corby:

So I've kind of taken that and run with it, but sorry if I got off topic there.

Ron:

No, I love it. We're gonna wrap up there. I'm even gonna go ahead and put on screen because you were just telling us you posted, this fantastic video that you're going to be posting even more of. So I just put your Instagram handle for everyone watching or listening. You can find Corby and twenty first Century Audio Video on Instagram at twenty the number twenty one ST Century Audio Video. So twenty first Century Audio Video. Corby, I wanted to thank you for coming on the show, man. It was awesome running into you again in November and then again at Leidah And now to connect with you here on the show and let you share your story with our audience. I'm delighted at your success. I'm delighted for you that this is the best start to a year you've had in your entrepreneurial adventures so far. I'm confident you're just getting started.

Corby:

Well, I know with our renewed partnership, we're going to go to the moon. Right. So, and I appreciate you guys and your hospitality and, you know, you guys have always, always had time. You know, I'm not a big guy. I'm not a big, big company. I've got aspirations to be a big company, but I'm not there yet. And I've never been treated otherwise. Right? You guys have always, just like you said, come back. That's that's huge. And for anybody who's ever been on the fence about, you know, coming to work, and let Ron do your stuff, man, don't. He's top notch, top tier, and you guys will get everything you need and more because these guys are the best. So I appreciate your time and

Ron:

thank you for having me on that. That's amazing. Heartfelt. Thank you. It's very kind. You didn't need to say those things, but thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Corby:

Well, I'm looking forward to a lot of big things with you guys. So we're just getting started again and I'm ready to rock and roll with it.

Ron:

All right. How can people that want to talk to you directly, Corby, they want to connect with you. Where can we send them and whatever you rattle off, I'm going to put on screen so people can follow along if they're watching us.

Corby:

Well, is first way nine seven two seven five seven four zero zero two. If I don't pick up, I'm with a client, just leave me a message. I'll get back with you or shoot me a text. The other is email corbytwentyfirstav dot com. The website's got a form on there. You can contact us that way as well. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, some X. I don't, I'm not on there very much. I probably should be more, but

Ron:

I don't post on X. Well, actually I'm about to start, but, I I I'm on X personally because it's such a great news source. But yeah, sorry.

Corby:

I just jumped onto it. Right. So I probably should do more of that. Hopefully in the future, I'll have more time on my hands where I can actually do some new things like that. You know, between.

Ron:

So my tip for X is I'm not sure for you, Corby or the folks listening, it's going to do much to drive business. So I'm not advocating that at all. But if you're interested in any subject, maybe it's news for me. I've got some hobbies like cryptocurrency, A. I, know, futurist type technologies, some categories where I like to know what's happening in the world. X is really wonderful to give you real time feeds of that information, like up to the minute, up to the second news that's happening somewhere in the world.

Corby:

A crypto question on exchange or off exchange in a cold wallet.

Ron:

Oh, no, everything. I keep a nominal. I'm a target. I keep everything in a cold wallet, cold storage. Sorry, you can't get me. Please stop trying. But a nominal amount on exchange. I mean, I acquire on exchanges, but no, I swipe it. Maybe one day it'll be worth zero and maybe one day it'll be worth a lot of money. I have no idea. I've been playing the game for a little bit and it's fun. Fun

Corby:

to learn

Ron:

to try to learn how to read macro and learn finance and then interpret that through what's happening in the world of blockchain technologies. I think a lot of things are changing in this world

Corby:

for sure.

Ron:

And it's fun and interesting to follow it and to at least try to follow along. I'm ninety nine percent of it's way over my head. I like that one percent I get. Yeah. So, all right, buddy. Corby, thank you so much, my friend, for coming on the show and, we'll see you soon. Thanks everybody.

 

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

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Resources and links from the interview:

 

• 21st Century Audio Video Website
• 21st Century Audio Video LinkedIn
• Corby Vickers LinkedIn