Navigating Uncertainty Part II: Expert Insights for Growth in a Volatile CI Market

Episode 331 is part II of a panel series. We hosted this session live and recorded in August 2025. In this session with seven industry experts, we cover dealer-submitted questions about navigating economic fluctuations, opportunities in the industry.

This week's episode of Automation Unplugged we’re bringing you Part II of our panel series “Navigating Uncertainty: An Open Forum for Dealers on the State of the Industry.” recorded in August of 2025.

In May of 2025, we convened a group of industry leaders for Part I of this discussion — sharing real-world advice on tariffs, pricing strategies, growth opportunities, and operational resilience. The response was overwhelming, and you asked us to go deeper. That’s what we set out to do in Part II.

In this follow-up session, the panel explored late-2025 dealer priorities, from hiring and retaining new talent to winning in the lighting category, leveraging HTA certification and storytelling for luxury differentiation, and addressing operations, exit planning, and AI adoption.

About this episode:

During this panel, you’ll hear from:

Myself — Ron Callis, CEO of One Firefly
Matt Bernath, President of VITAL, LLC
Joseph Kolchinsky, CEO of OneVision Resources
David Warfel, Founding Designer of Light Can Help You
Mark Langston, Partner & Chief Lighting Advisor of Light Can Help You
Jason Sayen, Founder of I Am Sayen
Josh Christian, CEO of Home Technology Association
And Rebecca Sternlicht, Corporate Marketing Lead at One Firefly, panel moderator

Transcript

Rebecca:

Yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and get started. Welcome everyone. If you joined us for part one of this panel back in May, welcome back and if you're joining us for the first time, we hope you enjoy. This is part two of our Navigating Uncertainty panel. We did host part one back in May where we brought together these industry experts to talk about the uncertainty facing the industry and the economy at the time, and help get your most pressing questions around tariffs, pricing, growth, and all sorts of other great topics covered. So we are here to do that again. Since webinar one, we've sent out some surveys and taken some polls from you guys to hear what matters most to you right now in August of 2025. And, we've compiled another great list of questions based on your most pressing topics. Once again, I'm so grateful so many of you submitted questions and so we're not gonna be able to get to everything. But we did gather your most requested topics for us to cover. You can see up on this screen here, there's a little QR code. This QR code goes to a landing page. Here is where you can find all of our panelist bios as well as a form to reach out to any of them directly. Just wanna direct your attention there. If you wanna take a snapshot of that now, and then I will show it again at the end of this panel. So I'm gonna go ahead and do some really quick introductions and housekeeping and then we'll get into the questions. So first of all, just basic housekeeping. The chat and q and a are both open. Please drop your thoughts, your questions in there. Our panelists will be monitoring that throughout the panel as well as some other One Firefly, um, crew members who are there to help moderate the, the chat. Um, and everyone who is on this, as well as everyone who registered but couldn't attend live will receive a copy of this recording after the panel. So you should see that in your inbox tomorrow. My name is Rebecca Sternlicht. I'm the Corporate Marketing Lead at One Firefly. One Firefly is a full service marketing agency. We serve exclusively in the custom integration space. We also have a hiring division, Amplify People, which also serves the AV and custom integration space, finding great talent. I'm gonna go ahead and stop sharing my screen now so that I can introduce our other panelists. On today's panel, uh, first up we have Ron Callis, CEO, and Founder of One Firefly and Amplify People, again, marketing and hiring, as I just mentioned. We have Matt Bernath, who's President of Vital LLC. Vital is a group of business advisors dedicated to helping integrators build businesses that they love, that provide freedom of time, money, and greater impact. We have Joey Kolchinsky, Founder and CEO of OneVision Resources, who is working to build scalable, smart home service platforms that help integrators turn their service departments into recurring revenue machines. We have Josh Christian, CEO of Home Technology Association, HTA, the creator of the HTA Certified Integrator Program, which out sets industry standards to elevate the best integrators, uh, increase their sales closing ratio and help them get into projects with architects, designers, and builders faster. Jason Sayen, Founder of I Am Sayen, a process architect who helps CI businesses document workflows and eliminate operational bot bottlenecks to make their businesses run more efficiently. And then last but not least, we have David Warfel, Founding Designer and Mark Langston, Partner and Chief Lighting Advisor, both at Light Can Help You, which is a lighting firm creating beautiful lighting design for residential and commercial projects. So, welcome everybody. That was a mouthful, but I'm glad you're all here. We have so much expertise and experience on this panel. So, uh, let's go ahead and dive in. I am gonna get started with the people side of the business. Challenges around recruiting and retaining top talent was the most asked question for this panel. Matt, you have always recommended that dealers always be recruiting, and you've personally advocated for integrators to hire green techs or green talent from outside the industry. Is this a smart direction for integrators, and if so, what advice for success do you have?

Matt:

Yeah, absolutely. It, so the way that we've talked about this in the past is what we call feeding the bottom, because it's not just about getting people, you know, from outside of the industry, but making sure that we're not, you know, getting somebody else's, challenging employee, right. But that we're developing them from the ground up. And ultimately that allows you to hire also for culture fit, personality and attitude, which cannot be trained. So you have the trainable aspects of somebody, and then you have the untrainable aspects. Oftentimes, if we're hiring based on urgency, uh, we're usually looking for the trainable aspects and we're willing to compromise on the untrainable aspects. We recommend flipping that. And just real quick, I'll give, you know, what, what we've seen is the reason integrators don't, um, have an always on hiring process is because it takes a lot of time and work, and there's three quick things that all suggest that can alleviate some of that. Um, one is a first level filter. So if you, if you're always hiring. You can have a first level filter, such as a video or an audio recording that requires them to follow some instructions and answer some questions. Uh, and of course that filters out many, many, many unqualified people who just won't do that. Uh, and then also there's a lot of power in a group interview process. So if they made it through the first level filter, uh, you can have their first interview actually be a group interview, which is a great way to, uh, to test their untrainable aspects, uh, in a group environment and how they'll work as a team. So those two things alone can save a ton of time for integrators who are really weary of just spending a whole bunch of, uh, their hours reviewing nonsense, honestly, from what we see in, the world out there.

Rebecca:

Thank you, Matt. Ron, I'm gonna ask you the same question. Uh, your advice for bringing green talent from outside the industry into this space.

Ron:

Yeah, I would step. You know, step up a level and look across the industry. And if we identify some of the best of the best in our industry, they have, uh, often figured out how to hire the green tech or the non-industry person. They've learned how to bring others from other industries. Uh, into their business and train them up. And so I, I think it's, it's worthy of, uh, something to figure out. And I, and I say that, and I say this from the perspective of Amp People at One Firefly, we see often that the requirement or constraint comes to us. They need to have so many years of experience, right? Regardless of what role they are in the business, they need to have this many years of AV industry experience. And if you engineer or figure out the way to bring in the person that doesn't have the AV industry experience, your pool of candidates opens up greatly. And so I'd say it's a worthy problem to figure out. And then if you say, well, tactically, what should you look at? We would recommend, I would recommend focusing on the balance of skills and culture and really prioritizing finding those culture fits for your organization. And then that means you need to teach them the skills in some, some cases, which puts the onus or focus on how do you train or onboard your persons that you bring into the organization. And for many businesses, particularly small businesses, that's lacking. And so if you refine the, the methodology, whether that's creating training or curriculum, or mentorship programs, or apprenticeship programs with other leaders in your organization, um, there's an opportunity for you to have more confidence as a business leader, bringing in the, the people that may not have AV industry experience, but they might be wonderful human beings that would be great contributors to your business. I'll just give a quick example. He doesn't know I'm gonna name him here. But a couple of weeks ago, our team, uh, One Firefly, we were out in Indy, Indianapolis for our all staff event, and we stopped by and visited Robert Haecker at TriPhase. Uh, both Robert spoke to our entire company, but he also spoke to a smaller group of us that went toward his facilities. And he showed us his training facilities, which are fantastic. Uh, and he made a point that most of their hiring and promotion, most of their promotions happen from within, and most of their hiring is from outside of the industry. And they have grown a tremendous, successful, profitable, multi-decade business. So it's just, I'm a big believer in looking up, finding those people that have done it right and trying to model or emulate them. And I think that the world opens up in terms of opportunity, uh, when you, when you really refine your hiring method to find other sources of talent.

Matt:

If I could add one thing from what I just heard, Ron is uh, deal with one constraint at a time, I think is what you're saying. You know, one piece that's sort of overly focused on is the hiring piece. And you know, when you solve for that constraint in a meaningful way, then, then it illustrates the constraint that you have in the training side. And the, the challenge is, of course, trying to solve all of them at once. And so picking one constraint to solve for at a time is what I heard you say.

Ron:

Yeah, I would challenge that any business leader, you know, within a sprint we follow EOS at One Firefly, so we operate in 13 week sprints and quarters. And that we, we try as leaders to hold ourselves, uh, to take on two or three big projects within that timeframe. So it's, you know, to your point, if you try to solve all of the pains in the world, you're gonna be overwhelmed and you're often gonna quit. But if you just focus on one thing or two things, uh, you have a much higher probability of getting that thing at least moved forward. Maybe not completed, but moved forward and then we just inch forward. That's the game of business is just, you know, making movement and inches sometimes.

Mark:

Yeah, that's been our experience too.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Great. Thank you both. Those were both great answers. I'm gonna switch gears now and move into talking about lighting growth and specifically education around lighting. So I think most people here would say that lighting is one of the most, if not the most fastest growing categories in this space. But right now a lot of dealers are just scratching the surface when it comes to getting into lighting. Uh, David, you were actually recently on Automation Unplugged podcast with Ron, and you made a comment that a lot of dealers are in, are leaving billions on the table when it comes to lighting. Mark, in panel number one, you've also talked about how fixtures can be a strong margin booster when presented correctly. So my question, I'm gonna pose this to both of you and start with you, David. You also said on Automation Unplugged that most homeowners never experience great lighting, so they don't know how to ask for it. How can integrators close that gap? How should they approach the way that they are demonstrating, educating and communicating about lighting so that clients can see the value and are willing to invest more in it?

David:

That is the billion dollar question, Rebecca. Um, and I, I think people need to experience great lighting. Perhaps, maybe even more importantly, they need to experience the difference between great lighting and what they're going to have otherwise. Um, if we really want to close that knowledge gap that exists and is our biggest obstacle, and there's a number of different ways to get that done, to show the difference and to illustrate the difference and have people experience it. Showrooms is an obvious first answer. Many integrators have showrooms, uh, and experiencing that lighting is a game changer. Um, I don't know, mark, we've done what, 20, 30 showrooms over the last few years, and one of the tools that we keep coming back to is putting in four cans in a fan using whatever recess, lighting or disc lights are typical in your market, and then doing good lighting on top of that, not just better fixtures in those same four positions, but. Better fixtures in the right places and linear and all of the other components. So you can really do that AB switch and show good, uh, and bad 'cause. It's not just about a good fixture versus a bad fixture. It's about whether the fixture is doing the right thing. Of course, showrooms are really expensive. Tens of thousands of dollars probably, um, to get your lighting upgraded to something that's, that's really rock and roll and not everybody has that cash laying around. So I think it's important to think of other solutions as well. And there are a lot of showrooms out there. Um, you know, you think of, um, places like, Ketra has the Lutron Experience Centers those or those places. If you're a ProSource member, check out 1010 and Golden. It's got an awesome lighting experience space that that does exactly that A lot of rep agencies are investing in their spaces, um, and would love to have, you know, their integrators utilize those spaces to convince clients of the, of the value. Um, and manufacturers are somebody you can tap to of, you know, Dallas is a short hop from a lot of different places. Uh, you can check out the WAC AiSPIRE showroom, which they redid this year. It's a phenomenal multi, multi-story showroom in the Dallas Market Center. Um, so, you know, talk to your regionals about that. We, and you know, we keep trying to figure out how can we make this conversation smaller and faster? And, and at Lightapalooza this year we had a little model light lab. It was a little house. You can set scenes in it, the lighting all works and all that kind of stuff. And, and we just did it for education purposes. But one of the things I love about the CI industry is the dealers here are entrepreneurial. They're creative. And so they, they, they kept asking us, can we buy that? And we said, it's just a demo tool. Well we wanna buy it. I'm like, what do you want this for to play with? They said, no, this is small. I can take it to an architect's office and demonstrate lighting right in front of them. Or I can take it to a client's house or I can put it in my showroom and they're all gonna wanna see it 'cause it looks cool. Uh, so we did a limited production run of that and that took up, you know, that takes up two feet of table space. We also use analogies a lot. Um, you know, talk about something the client does know, um, et cetera. And I think Mark has the hardest job. So I wanna pass this off to you, Mark, 'cause he has to answer that question without a showroom, without taking people to a rep agency, without, you know, any of that. He has to do it on a Zoom call every day. So Mark, any advice on how integrators can help clients understand that difference, um, and, and, you know, invest in lighting?

Mark:

Yeah, that's a great question and I think what you know really comes down to is what we're talking about really here, is how do you leverage yourself and, you know, a showroom is expensive and getting started. Maybe you don't know your marketplace, you don't know all that. And so why invest in something you don't know? It's gonna be a great tool till you really understand the business where it fits in. And that's the resources David's talking about. Those that's leverage. It's also being able to show people images, and it's not just about the hardware. As a matter of fact, you're not selling widgets, you're selling the experience, right? So it's the language that you use to be able to talk about lighting and that it's supported with imagery. It's understanding who that client is, because most clients don't know anything about lighting, so we have to give them an understanding of what that is, and so it's really getting people to think beyond what they already know. And it's, uh, many of people that we've talked to that have showrooms, it's like, I got a bunch of fixtures, but I don't have a story. And so it's multiple stories depending on that person that you're talking with to be able to help understand what goes in. It's much like audio, right? It's, it's energy also,but it's visible energy. And so it's really a lot of those same kind of things. And so it's really, you know, if you're new to lighting and you wanna get involved in this, you don't have to invest huge upfront, get started first. Figure out little mistakes instead of big mistakes as you're going through, and then you can really refine it to be, uh, successful in it and make a lot of money. Don't sell the widgets, sell the experience. You don't get tied into anything in particular. I know that's kind of high level. That's the way that I would think about it.

Rebecca:

That's awesome. Sell the experience. Josh, I know you mentioned that you had, uh, something to add to this question as well.

Josh:

Yeah, I know a lot of integrators of course are into the lighting fixture category right now, but some are still on the fence. Done some polling on that. So if you're out there and you're like, this is, I know this is the hot topic, but I'm not sure if it's gonna play out in my market a tip that you might want to try. We have pretty famous for this budget calculator we have on the HTA website. You could use it as a litmus test I guess because the seventh question on there asked about do you want high quality architectural lighting? And it's a consumer facing question and it's a consumer facing calculator. So as you go through that with the client and they start answering yes to that, and then it kind of explains what this means and uh, David here on our panel is one of the smart folks that helped create this part of the calculator, then you realize you're le leaving money on the table. So that's a good way to know, like, should I jump into this lighting category? There's a way to find out.

Rebecca:

Thank you so much, Josh. I'm gonna stay on you as we move into our next question. Uh, so talking about the luxury market, uh, which is where all of our, our dealers wanna be positioning themselves in differentiation is everything. There's stiff competition out there, and, uh, high-end projects like this. It's really not coming down to price. It's coming down to the unique value that dealers can provide to homeowners and, and users. So one of the keys to making sales and standing out as different and better is, HTA certification. So, Josh, can you share an example, um, or a couple of how an HTA integrator has won a luxury part project against tough competition while leveraging their certification?

Josh:

Yes. Thanks. It's a, yeah. A big question to ask. And you want to compete out there on these luxury projects based on your qualifications and your expertise and not on price, right? Because a good integrator is not gonna be the low price proposal. So yes, the certification is a way to differentiate yourself and to share a couple examples, um, of some integrators. I got many, but just a, a few, um, that some out of you out there might know. Uh, JW Anderson, I know he is of The Integrated Home is a, a client of both ours, of One Firefly and ours. And he shared an experience where he won the proposal and he was the more expensive company. Charges a design fee. And at the end, the client, you know, when he asked, well, why did you hire us? That's great. You know, what was your deciding factor? And he says, well, you're certified. The other company wasn't. I don't want to gamble. And that tells you something, right? Clients especially, you go up into the luxury mode, we're talking multi hundred thousand dollars, if not seven figures on a project. Clients are afraid of making a bad decision. So you wanna make yourself the easiest way to get them to say yes and to feel comfortable with you as possible. So that's kind of why HTA was invented, that kind of it is to give them that trust factor. So that's one way to really differentiate yourself. And, um, another focus, and he is also in Florida, and this is Mike Berry, Millennium Systems Design. He shared a client that, uh, prospective client interviewed him and two others. And he says he decided he wanted a recognized company to build their theater, and that was a $300,000 theater. So it does work. And the way you do that is every company should have an elevator pitch. If you're not certified, you're not. But find out what is going to different. Differentiate yourself so you can elevate yourself above the rest and make it defensible. Because here's a challenge for all of you, is you worked hard to become an amazing company, yet the worst trunk slammer in your market still says, I'm the best and have the best service and the best brands, right? So it's not true, but that's what they're saying. So figure out a solid elevator pitch to back it up to make yourself a comfortable, easy choice.

Rebecca:

Thank you Josh. Ron, I wanna stay on this question, but zooming back out from a marketing and branding perspective, what should dealers be doing to differentiate themselves and, uh, just provide value as the premium choice?

Ron:

Yeah, I mean, I would add when you're, when you're selling to a luxury consumer, you know, you've heard the adage, the devil is in the details. Uh, I think that. The details, the dealers that focus on the details, that becomes the definition of their brand, and that is the expectation of the luxury consumer. And so I'll just, I, I'll, I'll just, I'll touch on what Josh just said, and that is the idea of an elevator pitch or a script or a way that your, your team talks about your company. I'm a strong believer that that should be defined. It should be designed, uh, and, and written down and trained across your team. Now all of your people can say it their own way. They can add their own flair to it, if you will. But there needs to be a company way of talking about your company and what makes you different. And it is your job to toot your own horn. It is your job to talk about what makes you special and different. So whether that's an HTA certification or that's CDS certifications or that's tenure of your employees, or that's, uh, certain limited brands that you're authorized to sell. Uh, if it's certain status, uh, projects that you've worked on that are known, maybe they're published or award-winning, you want a unified way that your team talks about those things and you want them talked about every single time. So now that's in the human to human interaction. But then when you talk about the formats of communication with your, your prospect, it's not all face-to-face. Ideally, it,you get to the point where it's face-to-face, but you also have to acknowledge that the customer journey, and I won't, you know, I won't get too nerdy and marketing speak, but I'll just say that the journey is not a straight line. That people are, are navigating, they're going to Google and they're searching. Maybe they're going to their chat, GPT or their perplexity in their searching. Maybe they're checking out their Instagram or fill in the blank with social media. And they're ultimately being influenced, uh, through all of those different touchpoints. And so it is your opportunity as a business, whatever your business is, is to know what makes you different. Know what makes you special, and unify u uniformly, present that to the world. On your website communication, that's in your social media, that's in your sales interactions of your staff. Now, I'll go deeper and say that it's also about putting out, you know, there's this concept called social proof. Social proof is when people go online and read testimonials, or if they read reviews, or if you have beautiful pictures of your projects or video of your projects, right? These are things that you should be capturing and leading with consistently over time. Not doing it one time every five years, I'm afraid that doesn't count, but doing it, making a mandated effort to consistently do this. And if you're bold enough and brave enough, that's how you stand out and that's how you're perceived as different and often better. And I'll just close on, if you're different and better, it means you likely close that sale more quickly. It means you likely close that sale with less friction. It likely means you close that sale at a higher dollar value because you're perceived as different and better than your competition and anyone tuning in, that's what you should want for your business.

Matt:

If you don't mind, I'll underscore something there that I think Ron says, which allows the work or effort you put into that marketing piece to play double duty. The hiring issue in our industry in many industries is actually a leadership and a marketing problem. Many people don't even know you exist and they don't know why they should come and work for you. Um, and what Ron just described is going to provide value to your customer base and also provide value to your hiring process because when people know that you have great leadership and you actually do have great leadership and know that you do great work and you actually do great work and are a great company, those two things will be attractive to customers and potential employees. So love that Ron.

Rebecca:

Great, great answers from all of you. Thank you, Jason. I wanna turn to you now. Um, another big frustration that dealers highlighted in the feedback survey that we sent out was, um, operations and workload bottlenecks, really at all stages of the process from scheduling to proposals to installs. Um, so from your perspective and your expertise, what are the top two or three process changes that integrators can make immediately to help really smooth out project flow without simply just throwing more people and adding headcount?

Jason:

Yeah, yeah. A lot of times people will throw bodies at process problems. Um, and really if we boil it down, what we're talking about is changing a habit, right? We've built our company, maybe we started as a single person operation. We started hiring people to. Pick up on the workload. And so as you grow processes and systems break, and regardless if it's scheduling, change orders, whatever the process is that's broken, you have to change the habit. You have to change what you've been doing. That requires time taking time to do the work, which I, a lot of people will say, well, I don't have time. That's the whole point. But you do, when you have time to roll trucks multiple times and reorder products, right, and fix these mistakes, you are making the time. And so slowing down before you speed up, um, to fix those things, change those habits and put process or rebuild your process, we'll then actually create a flywheel and give you your time back. Um, it does take unintended time, um, but you know, you just need to have that time to reset As it relates to the common challenges that I see, and this is all in service-based businesses. I was with a private security firm last week and their biggest problem was. Passing the baton, they'll sign up a client and they have to hand it over to the team that has to execute the work. And the leadership team admitted they fail at passing that baton. So if I were gonna do one thing and change one habit in my business as an integrator, it would be how I manage. Passing a project from being sold to production, right? Clearly handing over all the project documentation, scope of work, making sure that team has everything they need or the opportunity to ask questions about the project before they go and execute, right? That's probably one of the, uh, the biggest ones. And then weekly meetings to stay on top of that, right? Um, where you're finding out what the status is of, are the projects, what are the outstanding items, where have things broken down, which become training opportunities. Um, so you're, you're shifting from firefighter mode to being proactive, which then allows you to schedule properly and assign all your resources properly. And again, identify areas to, to train. If you're seeing these reoccurring themes in these weekly meetings, that's a sign you need to define a standard or you need to get your team trained on said procedures. Uh, but it all comes down to kind of changing that habit.

Ron:

Sorry. Uh, Joey, I just hearing Jason talk about baton handoffs, I so relate with that pain and I found it facet. We've had so many of those discussions even inside our business about that same topic. I was curious, Jason, when, when you're working with the businesses you're consulting for and they pinpoint this or you help them identify this as an area, how often does, how long time with focus does it typically take for that to be rectified or improved inside of the businesses you've worked with?

Jason:

Uh, I mean, it can probably take 30 days. I gave, you know, it kind of depends how many, like in this case, how many projects are you signing up a month where you have to then put that new habit into place of doing the proper handoff. But even if you have projects that are in play, like stop and reset, where are we at on this project? What are we missing? What do we screw up on? Like how can we, you know, rectify those situations? But it takes, you know, 30 days, sometimes 60 days to just build a habit. But it's just, it's, you have to stay on top of it. Um, a lot of times companies will say, all right, we're gonna meet every Tuesday and then Monday comes, we're gonna have to reschedule that Tuesday meeting. No, pick the day, pick the time, set it reoccurring to infinity, and you have to show up. And I'm sure all of you know that 'cause you do the same thing in your business.

Joey:

That's great. I was gonna connect what we're talking about here on managing bottlenecks with the first topic of hiring. And, you know, as we've scaled our business, something that, um, I've come to appreciate is, you know, the more you can establish a process where you identify bottlenecks, which get highlighted through volume, right? When you have a high volume thing, whether you're managing a lot of prospects or managing a lot of service requests, or doing a lot of project handoffs, wherever your high volume area is in your business today, that's probably where you're going to highlight pretty quickly where the bottleneck is. And if you don't have a great process for that, and by process I mean you throw a lead into the hopper and outcomes, a 40% conversion rate sale, that's a, that's a process. Or client calls in with a service request and it results in either a solve or a scheduled appointment, just a process that gets you there. Um, then it requires you to hire people who are more skilled and more of a unicorn. Then you might otherwise need. Because now instead of having a documented process with clear handoffs and software that's handling it all, or whatever it might be, that defines that process for you, you're reliant on a really smart and capable human who is capable of making all the judgment calls that need to be made. And basically in their head, doing that process on the fly, trying to figure it out. And, uh, you know, when you establish that process now, you really just need the person who can handle the output or the input of that process, or maybe in the middle of that process, um, and starts to address hiring problems. So just something to consider, you know, as this topic and that topic maybe, uh, converge, you know, within your business.

Rebecca:

Yeah, I love that Joey. Great. I love how they're all connected. Matt, I, I was gonna turn to you. I know you have a lot of experience handling, uh, processes and process changes as well. Would love to get your thoughts on this topic.

Matt:

Yeah, I, I'll just add to what Joey said, 'cause I think that's super important. Um, when, you know, when you're paying for that higher, more, you know, higher end, more capable person, if you will, instead of having the processes, you become beholden to that, which is, I think one of the points that Gordon brought up in chat, right? It's like you have these rockstar, um, unicorns. You might feel really good about that, but that could be actually an indicator of a massive, um, you know, potential risk in your company, right? Um, that you've, you've, you've relied on that person instead of process, uh, and, you know, rather than balancing those things. So love, love that Joey. Um, so for, for us, what we've witnessed, um, you know, Jason's doing amazing work out there. Um, and you know, I think what he mentioned is, is spot on. In our industry, what we've witnessed is some very clear chasms to cross in growth throughout an organization. And it ties to what Jason mentioned, which is when your processes start to break down. Um, and so, you know, without getting too much into detail, what we tend to see is the run up to a million dollars in revenue. Uh, there's a whole bunch of things that you need to focus on there, uh, that would then allow you to cross the chasm to 2 million. Uh, then there's another very clear chasm from two to four. It's almost doubling, right? You go from two to four, four to eight, and then, you know, eight to 14 is what we see. But when, when I talk about the chasm, having a plan to cross that chasm so that you're. Uh, the, the processes that break, uh, are like, they're well known to certain people. They're known to me, they're known to Jason. There's no, there's, you know, the, there's no, um, guess as to what you're going to feel through that, that chasm crossing, having a plan to cross that chasm, uh, will help you to identify when things are going to break and what to do about it. And I think what, well, I don't think what we've actually witnessed is without that plan, uh, many businesses will be stuck in the valley between, let's say two to four or, you know, one to two. Um, and really feeling the pain and not knowing what to do about it. And, uh, it rely, it, it relates directly to what Jason was saying, which is that's where your processes are broken, right? The processes that got you to a million are not gonna get you to two. The processes that got you to two are not gonna get you to four. Uh, happily. Right? Um, and so that's the only piece that I would add to, to what Jason covered, which I think was very complete, is a forward look, not just a, like, right now I'm in the mess. But like, okay, once, once I solve these challenges and get to that next, what we call landing on the staircase, um, what am I gonna do about it? And then what, you know, what, what's, uh, the look ahead plan.

Rebecca:

Thank you everyone. Okay. I wanna, uh, zoom back out now and talk about, uh, a big picture topic, the long-term value of your business. And it's gonna focus around something that there's been a lot of activity in, in this space, which is m and a activity. Um, so for integrators who are sitting in that sweet spot of between one to 10 million in that range, um, many are starting to look at how to build a long-term plan to add value to their business. So I wanna start with Joey. Um, especially from your perspective, uh, with recurring service. How does building those types of recurring services and recurring revenue into a business, um, help help integrators build enterprise value, even if they're not looking to sell soon or immediately?

Joey:

Yeah, I think the number one way that it helps, probably actually counterintuitive to most, um, many think it's the recurring revenue in RMR and, um, I think that's certainly attractive and that's a phenomenal byproduct. And for sure, you know, before I'm done talking, I'll mention, you know, what some of the recurring revenue benefits are, but the number one benefit from, or the number one value and really focusing on your service department as it relates to exiting growth planning. That it actually addresses the prior topic, which is, uh, bottlenecks and key person dependency. Um, usually the owner of the firm or key people in the firm are responsible for two key things. One is bringing in new sales, um, which is generally a problem that I think everybody is trying to solve for. And it's well understood, but it's also on the service side, um, that keeping up client relationships and ensuring that clients get what they expect and that they can call or email at any time and get the kind of response that they expect. That comes from super committed and devoted key operators within the business. Um, and that's actually the harder one for an acquirer to stomach. The sales component. Usually if somebody's acquiring your business, they probably actually have the marketing and demand generation and sales sort of figured out, right? The reason why they're acquiring is because they want more capacity to go handle more, and they believe in their ability to develop a pipeline and push that through the additional capacity that you're gonna bring them with your installers, your vehicles, and your coverage and all that stuff. But it's the service side that's the scariest, because if that's not systematized, then they're now key person dependent on whichever key operators you have in your business that are responsible for handling service. So, you know, usually we have, uh, integrators come to us thinking recurring revenue is, it's like what they want. Um, and within 30 to 60 days, I would say the, the first comments that we usually get are, oh my God, I can't believe, like, like, forget about the recurring revenue. I can't believe I was living without this. Because they experience what it's like to now have this process and this machine and this hopper for just pushing service requests in, funneling them into one spot and out you get clean, organized, uh, you know, less chaotic, uh, service delivery, which translates to happier clients 'cause they're getting a consistent experience every time. Uh, happier employees because they don't have to deal with as much chaos. And then ultimately a revenue generating opportunity for you, which is where the recurring revenue comes from. Um, now because you can deliver a consistent experience that you can stand behind, you can market and sell that. Uh, the average monthly value of a membership that we see in our platform is about $120 a month. The, uh, lifetime value, uh, of that is, uh, around five or six years, generates several thousand dollars in gross margin. Um, you know, I think it's interesting to consider, like if you were selling a $4,000 speaker system on the proposal with a, you know, a hundred dollars membership for tech support and the client wanted to value engineer it, which one should you actually get rid of? I would argue get rid of the speaker system because at 50 points of margin, that's only two grand, but the a hundred dollars membership will likely drive four or $5,000 in gross margin over the next several years, plus a happier client. So just, you know, some of these things are counterintuitive, but there's real revenue there. Um, and, uh, and that's just the recurring revenue. Then there's all the billable revenue that comes from it with hourly billings and project upgrades and things like that. Um, but as it relates to exit and growth planning, it almost instantly when you focus on the service department and solve that problem with software and services, uh, and process, you remove that key person dependency and immediately it makes your business more attractive. Um, or at least something worth considering because if you don't have that problem solved, an acquirer will basically write you off right off the bat. Um, and that's what you want to avoid. You want to open those doors

Ron:

Or they'll try to thoroughly discount you

Joey:

That yes, or thoroughly or force you into staying and doing all of the things they. You know, I mean key, key man risk is a huge component of due diligence

Jason:

Joey said it very well. I'll just add to Joey's point. I was literally in a meeting this morning with someone who is about to implement a third party service plan. It is your company, Joey, but, um, he is excited because he goes, it's gonna reduce x number of calls and bring back so much time to my day as the owner. He's in that kind of early stage that Matt mentioned, where he is got four to five employees. He's trying to grow and scale and he's seen it as like, yeah, I'm gonna get some time back to go do. These weekly meetings and all these things we talk about. So again, you know, freeing up time, like the revenue's great, but just giving that time back to then plan for your growth and scale.

Joey:

Yeah. And for some confidence, inspiration to everyone. Let's call some, some interesting data that we uncovered recently. Um, is the, uh, is that 68% of your active clients and let's define active clients as a client who's been with you or, or a client who calls in once aquarter. Right? And every integrator probably has a sense for their customer base and how many customers that is. 68% of them. I can tell you, I can tell you confidently will, will buy a, a support subscription and the more likely, the more they call in, the more they email in for support, that number can go as high as 80 or 90% If they're reaching out 8, 10, 12 times a year, more like once a month. And, uh, you know, but down at like four XA year or once a quarter, that number might be like 50%. Your average is 68%. So for anybody who's got, you know, doubt around this of like, oh, can I actually sell this stuff? The proof's in the pudding. The data's really there. Uh, you know, there, there's a lot of value, but it's not just the revenue, it's actually the removal of key person dependency to Jason's point, um, thank you Jason and Joey.

Rebecca:

Everyone please if you have further follow up questions about this question or any of the topics we've already covered, um, please use our chat. All of our panelists are here to answer anything on that side if they're not speaking. Matt, I wanna ask you a similar question. Your day-to-day is helping integrators build great businesses. So what are their exit options?

Matt:

Yeah, great question. Uh, so we tend to find really three, um. Like main exit paths. Uh, two are very traditional. One is, you know, one that people forget is even a possibility for them. Uh, you have of course an external exit, which means you sell to some third party. Um, you have an internal succession, so that's maybe an employee or family member, somebody takes over the business from you internally. Um, and then you have the third, which is the one that people sort of forget is an option, which absolutely is. Uh, which you can build a sustainable lifestyle business where you are optional in that business day to day. And, and while you, you know, you might maintain ownership full or partial of that business, um, that that's an option. Like that could be considered an exit strategy. And, um, and there's ways to do, you know, all three of them. Essentially the path is the same. Um, the business in order to get max valuation, of course there's lots of businesses that transact at low valuations in order to get to get max valuation. The business has to run essentially, you know, on its own without the owner, which sounds like light years from where many integrators are. So when, when I say that to an integrator, they're like, they just dismiss me like I'm, I'm from outer space. Um, but it's totally possible and it's real. And it's, it's, it's doable. But it takes a long-term plan, which is something that, um, is challenging for many. Uh, you know, you've probably heard Tony Robbins or many other people say that, you know, and I say it frequently as a reminder to myself that we often overestimate what we can get done in a year. Uh, and we underestimate what we can get done in three years. And so the planning process really for anyone who's going to exit at a meaningful valuation, it starts today with the goal of. Some exit, you know, three plus years down the road. Um, and it, it addresses all of the things that you've heard everyone here talk about. Um, because, you know, there's, there's really three main components to building that perfect business. It's, uh, making sure you've built in some level of sales certainty into your company. Uh, you have to know where your leads are coming from, how to, you know, how to get them from lead to close in a, you know, meaningful way. Um, you have to have a trusted team. So we need to be able to hire, uh, train and lead properly. And then the third piece is profitable production. We need to be, you know, managing our business with a level of financial confidence. We need to have all the processes in place that, you know, everybody's talked about here today. And then we need to eliminate the owner and any other bottlenecks that are in your organization. And that's a, like a big, like a big puzzle to solve. Um, but those things absolutely can and will be solved through, um, you know, a three year planning process and execution.

Rebecca:

Thank you. All right guys, we're coming up on the last major topic that was requested for this panel. It's gonna be a big one. I know. I love some chat input on it. Um, I'm also gonna ask, oh, Jason beat me to it. I saw someone had a question about all of our panelists. Jason went ahead and dropped a link to our landing page in the chat that does list everybody's name, company, bio, and a form to directly get in contact with them. Alright, final topic. AI. I think it's on everyone's mind. Um, and I'm sure everyone here is hearing about it. Uh, again, would love to get, uh, all of the attendees in this panel. What are you hearing and seeing with AI out in the space and in your own businesses? And then I'm gonna turn to Ron here and say, how do you see AI impacting integrators businesses now in a year, in a year and a half? And what should all of the business leaders on this meeting be doing to best position themselves to benefit?

Ron:

I think it's worth noting that, you know, the, the CEO of Google and Alphabet, uh, what is his name? Sai. Uh, he just restated a quote he made like two or three years ago and he just restated it and he said he still believes this and that AI and where we're at today with ai, it's the biggest invention in humanity. It's bigger than fire and it's bigger than electricity, and it's like a very big, bold, crazy statement. Um, the reality is, uh, whether you listening and watching, uh, are, are paying attention or not. AI is, uh, slowly, steadily being integrated into all of our lives every day. It's in your email, it's in your CRM, it's in Google Maps, it's in your staff is likely using free perplexity accounts or free free chat, GPT accounts. And so it's, it's here and it's, it's gonna continue to proliferate through society. So it's, it's like gravity. Joey, uh, uh, Martin, the former CEO of C4 always says you can't fight gravity. Uh, this is something you can't fight. It's here and it's not going away. And so what does that mean? It really is an opportunity for business owners of all industries, uh, including integrators. So not selectively only for integrators, but it's the whole planet. And it's an opportunity to leverage these technologies to help your business run a little bit better, improve the quality of product, help your business potentially run a little smoother or more efficient. And, uh, at a high level, I recommend businesses of all types take a leadership role in this, a status where they define how they're gonna be using AI in their company. Because of the risks of not taking that role of leadership, and that is if your team is randomly using this or not in undefined ways that are outside of what a, a company's mandate or set of rules or guidelines are. You could potentially be putting your company at risk. Your team could potentially be putting customer, uh, information, business information into data into LLM training sets that are being shared and, and trained on, which means that information is going out into the ether and it can't be pulled back. And so just the idea that. You might, for example, I'll just say it here at one Firefly we operate, we're a Google workplace, so that means we have a company-wide team, Gemini account. That means it's protected and any use of that is not shared into the master training set. The same for OpenAI. We have a team-wide chat GPT account that protects us in a sandbox so that, uh, that information isn't, uh, any private information company, IP customer information, any use cases aren't going out and potentially putting the company at risk. Um, but at a, at a high level, for those that are very, very early adopters, and you haven't even really mindfully dipped your toe into this, I think the key is just starting to experiment. Like, so I'd say the days of just reading about it or watching the random YouTube video, like we're past that. Like you need to start digging in. You need to start finding use cases. I'll just, I'll give everyone just an exercise we've done here at One Firefly, and this is client work, internal work. Think of all operational activities within the business. You can identify what type of activities are repetitive in nature. Meaning if I used a software tool, by the way, it doesn't even mean it's AI. It's just incorporating better tools into your workflows of which that could be automations or AI. But by finding opportunities where you can do that, it allows you to take the humans on your team, not replace them with AI, but support them with AI so that the, the, the software is being far more efficient, handling the repetitive tasks and the human can do the things that only the humans can do, which is add their own experience, their own style, their own opinions, uh, to uh, better focus their time. It means that the humans on your team are doing better quality work, which often means better employee happiness, and they're using tools and software to take care of some of the other, um, repetitive work, which is often, you know, some of the lower level work or the work that's less fun. Those are very quick thoughts. I could talk on this topic for hours. Everyone here on the panel knows that was that, but I'm keeping it brief.

Matt:

I wanna add one quick thing to that, um, which is a bit of a cautionary tale we've experienced, uh, because I've been, you know, I've been an AI pusher, uh, in my organization for a while and we've adopted it. Uh, what I've noticed in some cases is, is that we sometimes end up with a hammer looking for a nail also. And so I think what, what Ron just described as a really thoughtful way to approach AI, uh, from the perspective of. The, the, uh, the low hanging fruit. What, what I think is really important also is to put some rules in place to say what AI should not be used for. Um, and in many cases, to Ron's point, it's the value add that humans bring. Um, and so while it might be, it might feel useful to have AI create a bunch of marketing content, uh, we're now kind of past that I think in the world. And of course, you know, Ron is a marketer like very quickly, uh, that ends up in the trash can. So, you know, we're back to real human content being, um, most critical. But also I think it comes down to, you know, hey, you can use AI to summarize something, but is it summarizing it in the way that you would want it to be summarized? And are you getting out of it what you had hoped? So I think just being careful not to use AI as. This hammer that you're, you know, a, a, a solution looking for a problem. I think doing it the opposite and working away from the bottom up would be my recommendation.

Ron:

I would give two quick tips, just real actionable takeaways, Rebecca, for the audience. Go for it. Uh, I, I gained this tip from an integrator and now I practice it myself. There's a really neat tool, uh, it'll pro, there'll probably be something much better very soon on the market, but this tool is called pla, P-L-A-U-D, and, uh, they have a card version and a clip-on version and integrators. You can take this into your, your site visits and it will, uh, record your meeting and it'll give you a chat GT summary of the meeting, which you then immediately. Could deliver internally to your team through your messaging, maybe Slack or teams, and, or you could, um, uh, repurpose that back out to the client with actions and takeaways. Uh, it is, it feels like a superpower when you gain that, uh, when you use the tool in that way. Uh, if you see me at CEDIA, I'll have my Plaud. So if you and I talk, I'll probably be plotting our meeting. So I have my actions and takeaways, uh, from the, that discussion. And then the other version is the, the meeting recorders here at One Firefly, we use Fathom. Uh, there's a lot of software out there. Uh, Google now has native recording and Gemini. There's Firefly, there's Otter, uh, there's lots of really neat tools out there, but they allow for a really cool trans, you know, transcript, gather, gathering, and summaries, which again, you can immediately talk about handoffs between sales and your delivery team. It allows for i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed 'cause you're able to capture those details without requiring, um. A translation. Uh, and that is because you can look at the actual transcripts and then Gordon here asked about robots in the home. Gordon will have to nerd out about that at CEDIA. But yes, I think CEDIA is gonna be the industry, the channel that brings robots to the home. I think that happens in the next three to five years. So curious what everyone thinks.

Rebecca:

David, I saw you holding up your Plaud. How are you using it?

David:

Yeah, um, I love it. Um, for a couple of different things and one that surprised me that I didn't, this is not why I bought it, but, um, if I'm in the car for a while by myself, my brain doesn't stop. Like it keeps working on problems and it keeps trying to solve problems or whatever. And if I have, if I'm wearing plot, I can just tap it, start recording, and then when I get back to the office, I got a summary of what I was talking about and I can dig into it deeper. So like some of those, uh, little things are useful. But, um, also, um, when I, you know, we do a lot of teaching, we do a lot of training, we do a lot of sessions. Um, I can hand the attendees a summary of the session moments after it ends. Um, if I'm walking around using, using plot and it's so unobtrusive, I think you have to be careful. Like you wanna let people know you're, you're recording because otherwise. You know, I, I think that's bad form and probably illegal. Um, but, um, when, when we, when I use it, I love it. And then I can actually go back if I, if I have a day of conversation on a CEDIA of show floor, for example, um, I can go in and I can just ask it, Hey, who was that person who was talking about this? And it will give me the answer because it's. Connected to the LLM. So it's, it's far more than just recording and taking notes. There's an interaction that's, um, possible that is really opening my eyes.

Ron:

I'll just add one other this, I'm gonna go down the rabbit trail for 30 seconds. Let's say that you're talking to internal team members and maybe you're addressing a problem. Maybe it's a process problem. Maybe you've worked with Jason and or you've been inspired by Jason's coaching and you're trying to improve a process. If you capture that in meeting software, you now can take your transcript from that, from whatever that interaction is. You can post process that in a chat GPT or LLM, and quickly get actionable takeaways that you now could add into your training set or your LMS or your training materials to take that across your other PMs or your other technicians or whoever those other members of your team are. I do that all the time at One Firefly, if I'm talking to a member of my team and we're solving a problem. 'em, I take the transcript, post-process it, what are the actionable takeaways, and now it goes into my data vault. So I'm always increasing those teachable moments. 'cause otherwise we're all stuck, always doing one-offs and we just, we're a little better if we think about how to scale ourselves past just the finite out of minutes or hours we get to spend with our team.

Rebecca:

All right. Thank you guys. We are at time here. Um, if anyone on this panel wants to give any final thoughts around AI or any of the other topics we covered, go for it. While you do that, I'm going to share a slide. Um, I know that a lot of you are going to be at CEDIA next week, and if you are, we would love to connect there. So here's everybody's CEDIA uh, information and oh, what am I, am I screen sharing the, yeah. Yep. Okay, perfect. Um. Uh, this is everybody's CEDIA information where there'll be education that, uh, One Firefly Amplify People, and HTA are doing, uh, Jason sadly will not be at CEDIA, but please, you can use the form on the landing page to get in contact with him directly.

Matt:

Uh, I just wanted to add, uh, or close, if you will. Thank you to, uh, to everybody, all of the panelists. Uh, also One Firefly staff for, um, putting this together, specifically you, Rebecca, uh, superstar, but also, um, to the, you know, a hundred people essentially that showed up today, uh, standing for something in their business, learning about what's new, what's unique, really having no idea what we're gonna talk about. And, uh, and then the incredible questions that were in the chat, I think added a ton of value to the experience. So thank you to everybody. I'm just feeling super grateful.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Thank you so much guys. I will be sending out a copy of this tomorrow. Thank you all for joining us. Please take the survey on the, the landing page. Let us know what you liked, what you didn't like, what you want this group to cover. Um, they're happy, I think, to come on and share all of their wisdom and expertise with you. These are really fun and engaging panels for everyone here. So thank you and I hope everybody has a great day. Great job, everybody.

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.