This week's episode of Automation Unplugged we’re bringing Jim Pearse, CEO of ProSource.

About this episode:

Jim Pearse currently serves as the CEO of ProSource, the largest electronics-focused buying group in the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry.

Jim joined ProSource in early 2022, bringing over 30 years of extensive retail experience. His roots in consumer electronics were established at just 14 years old, when he began working at his family’s Ultimate Electronics stores in Denver. Prior to joining ProSource, Jim held several key leadership roles at Wireless Advocates, including President and CMO until 2021, and later served as an executive advisor to the company. He also held senior positions at Sears Holdings Corporation, where he was COO and Vice President of Consumer Electronics, and at Ultimate Electronics, where he held various executive roles from 1998, including President from 2007 to 2011.

Jim has built a reputation in the CE industry for his integrity, leadership, and commitment to fostering strong partnerships.

He resides in Golden, Colorado with his wife, three children, and their dog, Bodhi. Outside of work, Jim enjoys golfing and supporting Denver’s sports teams.

In the episode, we’ll cover:

• How ProSource has grown into a leading group with nearly 600 members.
• Jim’s lessons from scaling businesses and navigating challenges.
• Tips for integrators to stay competitive with smart power and controlled lighting.

SEE ALSO: Show #292: Marketing That Sells- How Life Events Shape AV Success with Kat Wheeler

Transcript

Ron:

Hello there. Ron Callis with another episode of Automation Unplugged. Hope you're all having a great morning. This is dropping on Wednesday morning and I hope you’re having a great week, hopefully a great month. We are now well into 2025 and I have an awesome guest. I've actually gotten to know this individual over the last several years.

Ron:

And I'm super excited that I was able to carve out some time in my schedule and his schedule to make this interview happen. And that is the one and only Jim Pearse. He is the CEO of ProSource. Let's go ahead and bring Jim in. Let's learn about him , the person behind the group. Let's learn about the group and all of his thoughts and opinions on what's going on here in 2025. Jim. Hello, sir. How are you?

Jim:

What's up, Ron? How are you doing?

Ron:

Another day in paradise, Where are you coming to us from Jim?

Jim:

Yeah. So I'm in Golden, Colorado, , at our experience center in golden, in this experience center, we have an office here.

Jim:

And then we also have some of the best consumer electronics equipment in the country. So we've been here for about a year and it's fantastic.

Ron:

Do you live there in Golden?

Jim:

I do live in Golden. Yes, I do. Yeah, I grew up here in Golden. So , I'm happy to be back here. It's a beautiful town.

Jim:

If you've never been here, swing by. It's, , it's worth the time to stop by, for sure.

Ron:

Give people a general geographic reference. Like, a lot of people know Denver. So, where is it related to Denver?

Jim:

Yeah. So if you come straight west towards the mountains from Denver, about probably 25 minutes, , if you've ever been to Denver, you, you recognize what we call the front range, , which is, you know, really the first mountain range for hundreds and hundreds of miles, , coming off the plains and, , golden is a mining town.

Jim:

, that sits right up against, , where you enter into the, you know, Rocky mountains. And so literally there's mountains all around us and, , it's a little valley that, , golden sits in. So it's pretty cool.

Ron:

Oh, it sounds beautiful. Have you spent a lot of your life there or is this a newer place or? Yeah.

Jim:

So I grew up, , you know, in the consumer electronics business and a family business, and it was based in golden Colorado. So I grew up here. And go and kind of extends up into the mountains just like a little bit. So I grew up in, you know, kind of in the foothills and, ,

Ron:

So you grew up as a kid, like you'd be the kid, like I'm from Virginia.

Ron:

So we'd like to go into the park and go fish. You, you and your friends would go up into the mountains and disappear.

Jim:

Yeah, that's exactly right. So are we, you know, where I lived, our houses, you couldn't see other houses, you know, you're sitting in the middle of a mountain meadow. And so we would march around up there and, , you know, such a difference.

Jim:

Time back then, and we would spend all day marks around the mountains. You know, probably getting in a little trouble here or there, but, , but it was, it, you know, it was an incredible, incredible place to grow up. And I moved to, you know, Seattle for a bit and , just two and a half years ago, moved back to Golden and, , I could be happier.

Jim:

It's really great.

Ron:

That's awesome. All right. Now for anyone that has been living in a hole in the ground and does not know who ProSource is or what ProSource is, can you give us the quick download? What, what is ProSource?

Jim:

Yeah. I'm proud to talk about this group. So we're a group of just under 600 consumer electronics, what I call retailers, and it's a very unique group.

Jim:

It's very diverse. , we have anywhere from large companies like Nebraska Furniture Mart and apt and Crutchfield, , all the way down to, you know, 2 million custom integrators. And so, , so it's very diverse, , you know, from the go to market strategies that we kind of, you know, work with. And, you know, my role in this, you know, in this group is to not only work with the vendors to present, you know, the value profit that our members bring to the table, work out special deals for our membership that, you know, allows them to increase their profitability.

Jim:

, maybe even just as important or more important. We also spent a lot of time and effort and resources, you know, really trying to coach, teach and train. business leaders in a pretty chaotic business model, you know, how to make their businesses more profitable, more successful, , and, you know, have long term success, you know, in this business.

Jim:

And so it's, , it's a fantastic group. We have a great team of people. , and you know, many, many, many strong relationships like this one. And so it's, , I would say it's certainly the biggest group in, in, you know, in the United States, , which is great, but that's not the intention. The goals have the best , quality group, you know, in the United States.

Jim:

And I think that's important because there's a lot of companies out there that would love to be in pro source. , and you know, what we try to do is to be very particular about who we bring in, because as they begin to collaborate. You know, we want the best of the best, you know, kind of collaborating in, you know, and talking with each other.

Jim:

And so, yeah, I feel blessed. I've been coming back after about two years. Interestingly, , I grew up at the pro group 35 years ago, which is where this group started with nine retailers in the United States, and now it's grown to where it is today and, , to see that come

Ron:

full circle and for you to now be in that leadership position, that's gotta be pretty surreal.

Jim:

It is, , I would say more than surreal, you know, there's a lot of serendipity, you know, in, you know, coming back to this group. And when I got that phone call, , it was, it was almost one of those things where I hung up the phone. I told my wife, you know, cause I was going to go do something completely different, , and go and work in the venture capital world and all that kind of stuff.

Jim:

But, you know, I've always had a love for. you know, this industry, not necessarily the products as much as the business model. And , you know, I've got a lot in this business. And so now I think it's maybe time to You know, for me to really just enjoy giving back and really representing all these guys,, , in the industry.

Jim:

It's great.

Ron:

In my time getting to know you, Jim, what I've learned is that you, you obviously have an extensive background in business in running and operating, running one of the larger operations in the country. .

Ron:

And that adventure had ups and downs and we're going to go there. So I want you to tell us some of that, that background.

Jim:

Yeah, it's an, it's an interesting background. And frankly, I've been telling the story more and more because I think that, you know, that our, certainly our membership and just people I know in the industry are very interested in, you know, kind of what I've learned, you know, over the years. And so I grew up in a consumer electronics business, as I said, based here in Golden, Colorado, and we had retail stores.

Jim:

It was before. You know, the internet and, you know, custom integration didn't exist. And retail was the way that you went to, , you know, went to market. And so I started selling car audio when I was 14 years old and, , you know, knew very early on, , once I started to do that, that I just really love the business model.

Jim:

I love the challenge of retail. I love the speed of retail and, , you know, the culture of retail. And so, , so for many years, I know, as I was going through high school, you know, I didn't take spring breaks or, you know, summer vacations. I was working and, , and frankly learning with the intention, you know, someday of, you know, hopefully leading the business.

Jim:

And so, , so when I came back to the business, I had to go work for other companies, , for three years in order to kind of get experience to kind of prove myself. , And, and that was a really good thing cause it kind of grounded me a little bit. And when I came back to the business, you know, , we were growing very, very quickly and it was back in the days when circuit city was growing and best buy was growing.

Jim:

And, , you know, there were a variety of companies that, you know, really on this kind of hyper growth path is, you know, TVs became, you know, a big deal. And, you know, VCR, it would

Ron:

have been the year timeframe approximately. Where are you reentered that business after three years away?

Jim:

Yeah. So that would have been a 95, 96 that I came back to the business.

Jim:

And , and so coming back into the business, you know, I started to, you know, I was really lucky to get involved in the marketing end of the business and the merchandising and the operations end of the business and really trying to kind of learn everything about it too. One day, you know, take it over. So we were on this really crazy growth trajectory and we ended up taking the company public, , you know, to capitalize this kind of growth that we were in.

Jim:

And, , and one of the big learnings in my, , you know, my career is that our culture was very cherished. We managed our culture very tight. , it was a culture of, you know, trust. And matter of fact , our operations manual was a single business card that said, treat others like you want to be treated and you flip it over and say, use your best judgment at all times.

Jim:

And, you know, frankly, only one of the only ways you get fired is not having that card in your pocket. And so, , we had built the company almost like a family type, you know, business, even though we were growing rapidly. , And when we went public, , you know, I think we got maybe a little bit arrogant, you know, when you get, when you go public, there's a lot of capital involved and, you know, and all of a sudden you have other people that are very interested in your business and, you know, start to push you.

Jim:

And so. We started to, you know, kind of settle on really simple things. You know, we cut back our training a little bit and, you know, our management team. Then all the

Ron:

maximized profitability, like making. Yeah. Yeah. Because,

Jim:

you know, margin, you know, when you're public, there's visibility. If your margin drops a little bit.

Jim:

You, you have to solve that problem. It's not like an option to solve it.

Ron:

Well, I want to dig into that. Why is that? Just because a lot of people listening are small business owners and they don't have to worry about those other voices. Like if you, if you're, you know, we have all heard of like, you know, quarterly calls for whatever Tesla or whatever the stock is that you own and you hear those announcements.

Ron:

But if your business was a little less profitable in a quarter, because frankly, all of us that run businesses know we make decisions that I might need to, to, to take in a little pain this quarter. So that I have a better end of year.

Jim:

Yes, that's right.

Ron:

But that's just running a business, but that's less acceptable when you're public, right?

Ron:

Or it's harder to manage what

Jim:

happens when you're growing a business, , when you have, you know, a margin problem or, , you know, a people problem or whatever the issue, you know, inventory problem in a business when you're, when you're not public and you're growing very quickly, you can move that problem down.

Jim:

The road a little bit. We'll fix that next quarter or when you're very profitable, which many of our members are in the consumer, or particularly the custom integration space , those problems just get covered up and you don't have to address it. If your margin goes down a little bit, it's like, okay, you know, no problem.

Jim:

We're still making plenty of money. 10, 000 people have a small, tiny ownership of your business and all those 10, 000 people. , or your boss and you don't have the option to push those problems. That problem needs to be solved.

Ron:

It sounds like a nightmare right

Jim:

now. I've got to tell you , Ron, I, I learned a lot going through it.

Jim:

I can tell you, it definitely matures in terms of your business. Ascend and, and speed to, to solve things. But, , What was

Ron:

your role in the business when you went public? Were you the big cheese? Were you the boss? No, I

Jim:

wasn't the top guy at that point. That came a little bit later. , I was running merchandising and, , and marketing for the business.

Jim:

But, you know, I sat on the management team, so I was real involved in all that stuff. And, , you know, it, it, what it taught me was the value of particularly when you're having a lot of success of really Disciplining yourself to look in the mirror and make sure that you're doing all the little things in your business that got you to where you are, you know, and you know, I'm sure you have an excellent culture in your business and it's easy to say I'm busy.

Jim:

I'm not going to have a monthly meeting with our employees. You know what I mean? We'll push it to next month. You know what I mean? And, and in reality, that. Meeting everybody looks forward to, and it's how you keep the, you know, the culture alive in your business. And as it begins to expand, you have more people and, you know, in a lot of our guys case, more trucks and, you know, you know, buy a new building and put in a new paper

Ron:

might look like success.

Ron:

If you look deep, could be the thinning out of your culture. And if your culture isn't strong, then

Jim:

it's so subtle, like I'm telling you, it happens so subtly. And so what I challenge owners on quite often is. To maintain this ability as you look at, you know, your business, because with growth comes, you know, arrogance gets connected much easier than ability, right?

Jim:

It's like, well, I'm just going to roll, you know, I'm kicking ass right now. And the vendors are patting me on the back and, you know, well,

Ron:

in our industry, the CI dealers rubbing elbows with the billionaires and the millionaires and billionaires. And yeah, I've seen it more than once that suddenly they start to act as if they are that.

Ron:

Yeah.

Jim:

And I think that, , you know, the other thing I realized is we had a responsibility for, you know, over a thousand employees, you know, and their families and their kids and, you know, putting food on the table and giving them a great place to work. And so I tell me more

Ron:

thousand employees. How many locations was that?

Jim:

64 locations.

Ron:

Holy moly.

Jim:

Yeah. It was a big company.

Ron:

How did you manage to, I'll just say your role at that time for at least this point in the story where you're at you were running marketing And whatever responsibilities you could clarify. How do you how do you do that for 64 locations? That sounds well

Jim:

Well, what happens is I think we were in 12 different markets.

Jim:

And so this is a good example. So when you run a marketing Back then, I'm going to sound very old right now, but there was no social media and that kind of thing. It was newspapers and radio and TV ads, right? And so, you know, we, we used to have, you know, we, for a long time, our radio ads were very focused on the market.

Jim:

We would connect to Denver, Colorado or Colorado Springs, Colorado, Fort Collins, Colorado. And we would try and have a personality. And so we cut different spots for the different markets. And when you get into 12 markets, you quit doing that and you make a decision. Okay. We don't have to be quite as personable We're still getting our meshes out out there and it doesn't work quite as good, you know, , you know, we used to run like a lot of ads in the newspapers and back then, as crazy as it sounds, it worked great when everybody read newspapers, but then you start to say, okay, well, instead of running 12 pages, we'll run six pages because it gets more expensive as you get, you know, out of your market.

Jim:

And so my point is that the discipline of success that got you to where you're at today. Okay. It's easy to justify, you know, , you know , trying to save a little bit of money. For example, you know, a lot of our guys go from, you know, four years ago, they had eight employees and now they have 20. Don't underestimate how complicated that is because, you know, you all said your healthcare goes up and your expenses go up and all these different things.

Jim:

And so suddenly you, you know, You don't upgrade your truck. So when you pull up in front of a house, you know, you have a beater band sitting out in front of the house and it affects your brand as silly as that sounds, it matters. And, , and so, you know, as we went through that period, when we got to 64 stores, , you know, we did a variety of things.

Jim:

We put in a new computer system with which many of our guys are doing. And we underestimated the negative impact of distraction in our business. It's

Ron:

always harder. Isn't it always like two to four times harder than you ever predict?

Jim:

And, and 10 times more expensive. Right. And so we should have had that discipline to, you know, to kind of see that we only focused on what was going to be great as opposed to, okay, what are the hurdles we have to get over?

Jim:

And so. So at any rate, we're, we're going along, going along. And then suddenly the market slowed down a little bit. We were spread too thin that the culture of the company and the foundation was cracked. And so suddenly we, the company began to wobble and, , it was really. Crazy time. And so then you do more of the cost cutting and all these different things.

Jim:

And eventually what happens is, you know, your company in our case ended up going, you know, we had to do a, , pre packaged bankruptcy with, you know, got any more models out of, , Seattle. He's the founder of Hollywood video, , to try and save the business. And it was. You know, it, it just became a different culture.

Jim:

It wasn't about the people anymore. It was about making, you know, only making

Ron:

money. What, what year would that have been? What year did the bankruptcy happen.

Jim:

So I think it's 2006. I have a selective memory of that. Just like, yeah, no, I'm sure you

Ron:

blacked out or blocked out some of that. Right.

Jim:

Just,

Ron:

just to marinate in that pain for a second.

Ron:

Yeah. What, what was life like for you in that specific time?

Jim:

You know, it was, , I was kind of hiding a lot of my, you know, frankly grief, you know, it's like, you know, you've lost a family member in just working harder and harder. And I think that, you know, that also happens where you hide this pain that you have, , you know, in your work and, you know, you just try and keep going and going and going, and I run into guys like that all the time in the industry where.

Jim:

You know, I asked him, are you happy, you know, and so the, you know, the result was, , you know, I ended up leaving that business and I did a lot of work on myself, you know, and I, and I found humility too late, you know, and I realized, golly, you know, I'm not, you know. I do have to work on myself and I'll never forget, you know, , and, and, and really being self reflective, you know, it's hard to do for us because we're all a plus personalities.

Jim:

We're leading people. Feels good. Great. Everything's going good. And I met this lady and she did all these tests. She said, Jim, you go do whatever you want to do. She goes, you got one problem. And I said, what's that problem? She goes, you're not happy. And, , frankly, that one comment led me back to, , you know, to ProSource, , because, you know, I've, I found after all this, you know, craziness that I needed to find a place where I could, you know, take these learnings from my life and, and, and bring it back.

Jim:

And so I ended up going to Seattle for eight years to run a company called Wireless Advocates, which was a national. Wireless company. , we sold cell phones at Costco and military bases. And then that's when I moved over to ProSource and I, and I got to tell you with that perspective, , I really promote, you know, when I see people that are struggling, I spent a lot of time with them and I, and I try and get them to talk to me.

Jim:

And it's one of the principles that I'm bringing to ProSource that this business collaboration personally and professionally. It's critical to for for leaders to be, you know, successful because it's lonely, you know, the drill run. I mean, running a business, you know, there's nobody else doing what you're doing.

Jim:

You can't call it. You can't walk down the street and talk to your buddy and go. Hey, man, you know, we're having, you know, I'm having I have 20 employees and, you know. SEO is changing and AI is screwing everything up and I'm not sure how to deal with it, you know You can't talk to

Ron:

your best friend. They don't know you can't agree You can't necessarily talk to your spouse and them be able to know all of the pain and struggles I I know we all love to have wonderful relationships with our spouses, but everything doesn't directly translate

Jim:

Yeah, I mean if anything they're like why are you talking to me about business all the time?

Jim:

Exactly.

Ron:

You're all business What about our kids or you know? Yeah, and

Jim:

so, you know, I think as it relates to pro source You know, one of the principles that I'm working really hard at is this concept of, you know, making collaboration okay and bringing down the barriers and creating a vulnerability amongst leaders so that they're able to really talk about the problems in their business.

Jim:

, and talk about any problems even in their life. Maybe they're stressed out or, you know, whatever it might be and, and, , you know, in the, in the way I'm doing it is taking a principle of why young presidents organization, which I was involved in at a young age and really, you know, creating groups of 10 guys and working very hard.

Jim:

to put them in uncomfortable situations to talk about themselves, you know, and it takes time, but now I'm on calls and guys are really talking about their business problems and not feeling as if they have to brag about how great businesses, but they can do the opposite and say, Hey, look, I need help with this.

Jim:

And it's really starting to take hold. So, You know, that all of that kind of has led to this kind of perspective that I have now. And it's, it's really exciting.

Ron:

I want to go more into those groups and how you're going about that. But I do want to inquire when you decided, made the decision to come back to ProSource.

Ron:

What did you do? And on day one, like what was your approach to like, figure out how to be valuable or helpful to the membership? Yeah.

Jim:

So the very first thing I did is got on an airplane and, , and I flew all over this country and I went and saw 60, , of our members. And, , I spent time with them. I took him to dinner and, , and it was a grueling year because I was on basically a plane every week.

Jim:

, but I didn't do anything other than. I mean, I did other stuff. Don't get me wrong, but my primary focus was to really understand, , you know, the, particularly the CI portion of our business and also understanding the, you know, the challenges of, you know, retail and. com, which is, you know, a huge part of our business also.

Jim:

And, and really. I would say kind of reengaging myself with, , you know, the, the different go to market strategies, which are much more complicated than they were when I was, you know, younger. , and then also really understanding the challenges that ProSource could potentially, you know, help solve. And so that was a long process, but, you know, I, I came out of that and it was almost like I was on a sabbatical or something.

Jim:

I came out of that. Put together a strategy for the, you know, for the things that I felt that ProSource could implement to, you know, help solve some of these problems. And, , and that was smartest thing I ever did because it really, you know, gave me not only relationships with everybody. But it grounded me very quickly on, you know, what I had to focus on to help out

Ron:

as leaders of organizations and peoples and those people have families and there's lots of people relying on you and I and the people Listening running good businesses You know One of our responsibilities is to figure out what to start doing what to stop doing and what to change that we're currently doing What were those?

Ron:

From that through that lens what what? What did you decide to do or what would you be game to share in terms of ProSource?

Jim:

Well, I think that, , you know, I'm a, I'm the kind of leader that tries to surround myself with people that tell me what, you know, stop me from doing too many things because, you know, I have more ideas than I do.

Ron:

You're an idea guy.

Jim:

I'm an execution, right? And so, , so the first thing I did is really looked at the team and, and just, you know, kind of evaluated, you know, how do I get a team that, , not only can I support, but they can also, they also match my personality and support me. And so. I really worked hard at, , ensuring that team was right.

Jim:

And so it was difficult in some cases, but, , but overall over the last two and a half years, I think we built one of the best teams in all of consumer electronics. I introduce you to Stephanie Kehoe

Ron:

at the smart cookie

Jim:

show this week. And so, , and they're a team that, you know, and I also really wanted to make the culture of mine had been run by another leader for many, many years.

Jim:

And, you know, there were some cultural things that I felt like we needed to do to really focus on all of our membership. We were very focused on just the big guys. And now we're, you know, I've built a structure and organization that allows us to focus individually on. Custom integration. com and retail and adjust our strategies to, you know, to, to best.

Jim:

You know, serve them. And so I felt like we're, you know, maybe single minded and then, you know, I would say the third thing was just getting our infrastructure, our back end infrastructure, you know, solid as crazy as that sounds. A lot of people don't know that. But, , but the back end of the business was, you know, we're sitting on just aged, you know, things.

Jim:

And so, Because I got it all back

Ron:

software, things like that. Yeah.

Jim:

And, and create efficiency and, you know, just deliver, you know, quicker data and, you know, more insights and, you know, than we used to have. And so, you know, it's. The final thing is just increasing our internal accountability to, you know, who we serve, which is the membership and then our vendor partners and ensuring our vendor partners know that, , that I'm an accountability guy and I have no problem, you know, .

Jim:

Having straight conversations about what the group, you know, doing for our vendor partners, I take that seriously. And I think the vendors appreciated that. And, , I still think to this day, understand that, you know, I take this seriously. I'm not here to, you know, ProSource doesn't, it's a nonprofit organization.

Jim:

We're not here to make money. , You know, , you know, we're here to, you know, to really support this, you know, really cool collaboration between our vendors, members, and members of members.

Ron:

Well, so through that lens of vendors and members, what, what defines your approach to, I'll just start with vendors, like how many vendors you have, you know, that's just, how do you think about how many vendors to have and what type of vendors to have in the group?

Ron:

And I think it's a good question.

Jim:

The framework that I think about it is, , in, , I would say category buckets, you know, so just to keep it very simple TV. You know, home audio, custom home audio, , you know, control shades, lighting, and all these different things. And then really looking at who is in those various categories and ensuring that you have excellent partners in those, you know, in each one of those categories, and you try not to have very much conflict between them.

Jim:

You try and really be precise about, you know, picking one or two guys that are serving that particular, you know, area to give them breathing room to, you know, to lean in. And then I think about services, you know, we, , I think we've done an okay job. I think it's an area of opportunity for ProSource to lean in as part of our relationship as we've gotten to know each other, , you know, really making sure that we are covering.

Jim:

, the needs of our members on the services side of the business, whether it be I. T. or project planning or marketing or, you know, whatever the, you know, you know. Healthcare, all these different things and getting that really organized to pick the best of the best. One of the fun things that I get to do is I get to pick the, and vet, you know, all of these different, you know, , either services or, or, you know, , product vendors, , to ensure that we have, you know, a really good quality offering that, that I'm confident in.

Jim:

And, you know, and that they're, they're good leaders and they have the kind of same culture that we have of, you know, kind of collaboration and. And really working together to, you know, to, to deliver things. And so the hard, one of the hard part of my job is to make sure I stay disciplined. Cause a lot of people want to be in

Ron:

probably hard.

Ron:

How do you say no to people? You probably get your, you know, people knocking on your door or giving you a call, Jim, I really want to break in. How do you, how do you handle that? Or I do

Jim:

the conversation usually goes something like, look at, I appreciate it. I would love to get to know you. I do want to tell you that I'm very, very loyal to our existing, whatever existing partner that we have.

Jim:

, and I'm frankly very honest with them. You know, if we have a partner that I feel is in that spot that, , it would just create conflict or just split the pie up in that particular area. , I'm very cautious to, you know, to, to bring somebody, you know, else in. And so, you know, it's tough, like, you know, I'm not always the most popular. , but

Ron:

sometimes it's kind to say no and to say no quick. So I agree with you, you can do,

Jim:

you know, in, , and not waste anybody's time. I don't want to be respectful of

Ron:

everyone's time and state of mind and just say, you know, not right now.

Jim:

Sorry, you know, we'll figure it out. But, you know, I've always felt that the network that you have in this industry is really important.

Jim:

So. You know, it's important not to burn any bridges. Always tell our members. When you're picking your assortment, you should take every single phone call from every single vendor that's willing to take the time to talk to you, whether you tell bring them on or not, you never know when you might need, you know, support in that area of your business.

Jim:

And so, , you know, I think establishing that network can be in, you know, , I would say, consider it of everybody's, you know, efforts. You know, it was important.

Ron:

Yeah. Years ago, , at ProSource, ProSource had partnered or collaborated with a service company that was, I, I wanna, I might use the words incorrectly, but a healthcare broker.

Ron:

Yeah. And they ended up, , because of the mass and size of ProSource they had negotiated, you know, they had a great partner in the group. And they were new and you know, at one firefly, we were just at that point of starting to pursue healthcare coverage for our teams, our team. And, , we ended up partnering with them and we, we, we, we cast a wide net, looked at options and that partner at ProSource was the one, and today we're still partnered with them and they've actually moved with us through different, , healthcare partners.

Ron:

I even want to say last year we were with Blue Cross and this year we had to switch to United for whatever reason. And, , And they were great and they've been a great partner and ProSource actually brought to that, to the table too.

Jim:

It's interesting, you know, like that's a great example of making sure you're picking the right person.

Jim:

What I like about those guys is. You know, I know Mia, you know, and and she's great and she, you know, if a vendor has a proper member has a problem because health care is not perfect is, you know, it's scary, frankly, to offer it because it's, you know, there's so many moving pieces, but, you know, you're able to make sure that they get supported properly.

Jim:

And so, you know, that's a, you know, it's an excellent example of the kind of things that you can bring to them. It's pretty cool because, you know, folks. vendors usually enjoy quite a bit of growth when they come into pro source. And so it's just really odd win, win, win situation because the, you know, the member always wins because they make more money or they're more efficient or they're taking advantage of a service they never even thought they would.

Jim:

, and certainly the vendor, you know, wins because they just get more attention and then You know, , in, you know, pro source, I'm not looking to win, but you know, it, you know, it helps you overall, you know, there's

Ron:

nothing wrong with winning Jim. Like it's, it's okay to say, I want to be the best.

Jim:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jim:

Well we do. I take it probably more seriously than I, you know, I need to, , but I, you know, I do, I am very passionate that I do want to have a group that has, you know, the kind of integrity and accountability to it that people are like, now, that's the best group in this, you know, in this industry for sure.

Ron:

So focusing on the dealer side, I'm just going to put out maybe just a general comment or, or public statement, like as recent as, , the other day I was talking to one of my good customers in Texas, actually out of Dallas, ran into them at the light of Palooza event and they. , they're doing about somewhere between two and 3 million a year in revenue and lovely person, lovely business, you know, he's, he's newer at it last five or six years is when he spun this thing up and, , and I just.

Ron:

I said, what group are you in? He's like, what do you mean? What group? What's a group didn't even know what a group was. And, , so I'm just, I'm, what's your percent before we go into your exact nbers, how, how widespread do you think the lack of awareness is that businesses of a certain size or status probably should be somewhere?

Jim:

Yeah. So, you know, the industry, , the nber I hear quite often as 20, 000, you know, kind of. Dealers in it, let's say, and so that's very unique and there's not very many industries where there's, you know, 20, 000 people, you know, selling product. And so, , there's a lot of chaos in that. And a lot of people who are just pure, you know, startups.

Jim:

, and I think in order to really value a group. , in our model, you need to be above 2 million and you need to have a, , a commercial location. It doesn't necessarily have to be a showroom, but you have to, you know, have matured to the point where you're signing a lease and, you know, you have a location and, and

Ron:

something beyond your, your home garage.

Jim:

Yeah. Some, but beyond your house. Right. And, and, and the reason for that is, is that, , as you come into pro source, , it's really important to have the profiles matched. And so if we have a half a million dollar guy, not that I don't care about those guys, I've thought quite often, should we expand down to that?

Jim:

But that half million dollar guy is going to get trampled by a 2 million guy. Cause that's a meaningfully. I mean, that's a very difficult process to get through that, you know, The first step

Ron:

function increase in status to go from half a million. That's right.

Jim:

And then the next step function is to go from 2 million to 5 million.

Jim:

And that's a whole nother set of problems and more employees. Now you

Ron:

have some middle management. Now you have some more overhead. You got to make sure you're consistently printing profit. Yeah. And you're not

Jim:

able to go out and install the stuff yourself anymore. And, you know, You don't know every single customer and, you know, it's just a totally different thing, you know, and I think that, , you know, as you get above, you know, this 5 million mark, that's, you know, our power group.

Jim:

We have 100 of those guys and they're really have figured out how to operationalize their business. So they have. You know, culture foundation and they pay attention to it. They're inventorying their product correctly. They understand their P& L and their balance sheet. You know, they're probably marketing the business correctly and doing follow ups with their customers.

Jim:

And, you know, they're, they're able to kind of get to that point where they can really start to strategize, you know, , you know, their business. And, you know, the challenge. Is you know for a lot of guys in the business they're in the business because they love the product and they're really good At it. I mean, it's incredible down at light of palooza.

Jim:

I went to I think three or four sessions, you know, like these trainings, right? You did a couple of them down there yourself. I'm, sorry I didn't get by , that's

Ron:

your your team did it's all good. Yeah, so that's good. Yeah.

Jim:

, And so I went to dmx 101 and I figured okay You know, maybe I don't quite understand this.

Jim:

I sit in that in there for an hour and I didn't get it, you know, like, you know, it's not that I'm not a smart guy,

Ron:

I'm a smart guy. I should be able to get it a little bit.

Jim:

It's just incredible how complicated they do what they do. And so many of the successful business owners came, you know, they're technical guys, you know?

Jim:

And I think that when you look at, , you know, their businesses, you know, every day, it's the biggest business they've ever run. You know what I mean? And. It's amazing what they've done. God, it, it, you know, again, it comes to my passion for the group because it's so awesome. Like I understand I grew up in a small business that, you know, we're seven days a week is the only option, you know?

Jim:

And, , and so I have this really deep respect, , you know, for those guys. And I think one of the challenges in the industry is, you know, running a business has much more, as much complication is installing a really complicated. million dollar system business as it scales begins to have the exact same complication in a different way.

Jim:

And so how do you. get these guys in a spot where, you know, they can begin to learn those principles, you know, and what is really important. And that, you know, things like marketing, it's not an option when, you know, cause competition, as you get bigger, everybody wants to compete with you and you have to work harder, you know, when, you know, the owner suddenly can't be the brand anymore and your company has to be the brand.

Jim:

I mean, it's like these steps like that, that, you know, I inherently know cause I've been through it, , to set them up to be able to learn how to, , you know, to continue to scale the business, the exciting thing is that part of the industry is growing rapidly. , the scary thing is, is it, my hope is it grows responsibly as it grows rapidly.

Ron:

Do you, looking ahead, just kind of that big picture, you know, looking over the horizon, , it's 2025 right now and, you know, looking out the next five years, what, what do you see for the industry at large? And for integrator CI businesses When I think

Jim:

about the CI portion of our group One of the things that i'm talking about quite a bit is really understanding Protecting your business from competition and what I mean by that is you you want to have a strategy To put a moat around your business if that makes sense a moat meaning You know, protection,

Ron:

protective differentiation.

Jim:

Yeah. Differentiation. And so when you think about like a simple thing, like your assortment, you know, if, if a brand is going to home Depot and selling their products at home Depot, then you need to think about that because then you're competing with home Depot all of a sudden, you know, , if, you know, somebody new is coming into your market and you've totally relied on your own personal relationships to grow your business, well, you better.

Jim:

Be thinking about how do I protect my brand and how do I protect my business and make sure that people. Outside of my little circle of customers and referrals, you know, and how, you know, how do I, you know, how do I grow it, making sure that you have the proper culture within your business, , and that you're rewarding your employees for things like training and, and really investing in themselves and taking that time to invest in themselves and rewarding them for that.

Jim:

So that your, your top guys don't get stolen that have been with you for, you know, 20 years that you've, you know, and there's a lot of turnover and discussion about that. Well, all of that, if you think strategically and look around the corner, how do I, you know, like a good example would be like a sewn house or an Apple TV.

Jim:

Every time you put that into a home, you're competing with Best Buy, you know, and Amazon, right? Every single time you put a Sonos soundbar in a house, you're competing with Amazon and you're competing with Sonos because they market directly. So that's a good example where guys take the easy route as their business grows because Sonos usually works, customers usually happy.

Jim:

But, you know, if you put a product like Bluesound in their house, it's maybe not, you might actually have to sell it to the customer and explain to them it's better and why it's better, but nobody else sells it, right? And so that would be an example of, you know, really kind of bulletproofing that home so that nobody else, you know, can kind of, , you know, get to them.

Jim:

Making sure that your, , sales process is truly a process, you know, because your sales guy has to fight, you know, competitively. , to make sure. And in the lighting where we just were down in Dallas this week, there's a lot of electricians walking around that show, you know, and curious about the growth because the way the business works is CEOs across all these different businesses, you know, let's just take lighting, for example, let's say, you know, linear lighting, there's multi billion dollar companies that do that.

Jim:

And if there's a pop in the industry, And that bar is bigger than all of the other bars. The CEO says, I want to get into that. How do I do that? Right. And so our industry right now is in a growth phase. And so that attracts, you know, competition. And so being very, very smart about who you choose to do business with and being very thoughtful about.

Jim:

Your culture being very thoughtful about how you're running your business is incredibly important because competition will come and you want to be, you want to be in a position where you can fend off competition and you're not just running at the ragged edge and all of a sudden, you know, what happened to ultimate, you know, happens to you.

Jim:

I mean, I'll just give you an example with ultimate. I'll tell you what really was the nail on the coffin was we didn't look around the corner and realize that Best Buy. was going to buy one of the big regional retailers. And they did, they bought Magnolia hi fi. And so for many years, we built our company on exclusive brands.

Jim:

You couldn't buy, you know, Macintosh at any other dealer, except for our store. You know, you couldn't buy, you know, definitive technology, any other store except our store, you couldn't buy Focal anywhere except our store. ,

Jim:

and so when Best Buy, , bought Magnolia, they got all the brands 60 days later, all the brands that we built our company on were discounted 10 percent in the newspaper.

Jim:

So that's just a good example. Now I'll tell you, Ron, we could have seen that. If we were hbly looking at our business, does that make sense?

Ron:

Well, one of our responsibilities as CEOs or founders is to ultimately try to and as a leadership team is to constantly have some sort of practice of predicting the future, predicting what might go right and predicting what might go wrong.

Ron:

And then in either case, what do we do about it?

Jim:

And I think our relationship, your and I's relationship tightened up. , a lot of it was, I was so impressed that you had a handle on this AI content you know, on the web in a different way than anybody else around this industry had. You're able to really articulate and say, look, this is what I see.

Jim:

This is what we're doing about it. We're not perfect in getting there, but I'm certainly highly aware that AI is changing the Google. You know, search rules or I don't, I don't have it. It's going to

Ron:

change the way we play online, which strongly affects the way our referrals and our industry are checking us out and doing their homework.

Ron:

But

Jim:

that's a good example of having the ability to, you know, look around, you know, look around the corner. And so I'm really, I really believe that, you know, all of our members, frankly, all the industry, cause I, you know, the industry is. and total needs to look at this is really making sure that you're truly putting into people's homes the products that are so complicated that nobody else can do it.

Jim:

Does that make sense? So does any, like I might even be able to hook up with someone else.

Ron:

Well, I, I, I mean, that said, and I gotta, I want to be politically correct here, but so knows kinda, , Made it harder. They did it to themselves, but that's

Jim:

they did So I don't mean to come across like that i'm You know think about it more like where is that product being sold and distributed and if you carry that product Are you creating your own competition?

Ron:

Well, you know the integrator gets to go to the conser and ultimately learn about their needs And design a solution for them. And it is helpful if the solution is comprised of pieces and parts and methods that the homeowner wouldn't think twice and maybe say, Hey, I could go do it myself.

Jim:

Well,

Ron:

it's a good idea.

Jim:

And the great thing, Ron, you know, it gets back to the principle I talked about earlier. It's always better for the customer always, every single time. Every time that customer spends a little bit more money on something, almost a hundred percent of the time, it's better for them. You know, they might tell you Sonos is better for them today, but in reality, is it doesn't sound as good, you know?

Ron:

Well, what would you predict for 2025? And I'm going to, I'm going to step back. Tell me if you agree with this, or maybe, I don't know what you can share. , don't feel compelled to share anything you can't, but I'd say for many manufacturers, 2024 was a relatively flat year. Yes. There were some brands that were up a little bit, many that were down, some were down a lot.

Ron:

, when you're looking out to 2025, we now have a new president says a new administration. We're in year one of that administration. , what do you see happening for, you know, you, you practicing your prediction skills, again, not holding you to it, but what, what seems at least reasonably appropriate as a hypothesis for how this year plays out?

Ron:

Yeah.

Jim:

So, you know, I think probably the biggest mechanism for growth or, , Or going backwards in this industry is the housing market. And it always has been and probably always will be. And the good thing is the housing market's largely been stuck for two or three years now. And so what that would indicate to me is that there is pent up demand.

Jim:

People want to move, they just can't because of interest rates, right? And, , and they just have the inability. But over the last three years, people have, you know, increased their wealth and I'm sure increased their family sizes and so on and so forth. And they wanna move. So I feel like that's gonna come, , at some

Ron:

point, that's gonna, that's like a tightly wound rubber band is how I envision.

Ron:

It's getting pulled back. It's getting pulled back. At some point it's gonna snap back. Yeah.

Jim:

It's like those little propeller planes that you used to have and let that thing go. And this industry will start flying again. And so the good thing is when I look out on the future. There's this huge trigger that's going to happen.

Jim:

The question is when, and so, you know, what I see now, you know, I watch all this stuff very closely and, and, you know, I think that the challenge that we have, I, I think the fed held on rates today. , I was reading the fed moved too soon when they dropped 50 basis points in September. When inflation was not yet headed down, what that does is boxes the Fed in to reduce interest rates further.

Jim:

Now, I think with the, you know, new administration, you know, what you're seeing is hyper aggressive strategies to You know, reduce prices into, you know, hopefully force the fed to begin reducing these interest rates and allowing this economy to start to fly. Now there's a million moving pieces in that, but my sense is energy is another big trigger and that will begin to, you know, to come down and that will have a huge impact, you know, on, you know, on these inflationary, you know, , Drivers that we have right now.

Jim:

And so my view on 2025, I get asked quite a bit. I think it's up low single digits. And so it feels very much to me like. You know, this year, , you know, maybe a little bit better. , the other dynamic that is, , is interesting is that people have created a lot of things in their homes during COVID and is there this, you know, kind of upgrade cycle coming?

Jim:

, and that certainly is possible when you look at big TV, I think is a really nice upgrade cycle. We're hitting

Ron:

that five year replacement cycle time, right? If people did those purchases in 2020. Theoretically 2025, 2026, people start to replace that gear in their house. At least that's what that's the big, that's what the big manufacturers say, right?

Jim:

That's the timeframe. Everybody says it's five years. So we're right in the heart of that. , and so that could potentially, you know, generate customer interest. I will say that, you know, the evolution of the lighting category evolution is shading category. And frankly, the evolution of, you know, the control category, , is.

Jim:

You know, it's that there are many, many reasons to either upgrade or, you know, expand on, you know, your current system. And so one of the beauties of this industry that will drive growth and for our members that have engaged these ancillary category, , that nobody ever thought that lighting and shading, we would have a show for that.

Jim:

I mean, really, you know, five years ago, if I was to say that people would go, you know, maybe you need to find something else to do, bud. , you know, but you start to see smart power, you know, and that's like a real thing, you know, and how do you adjust your business model to, you know, that helps to create that differentiation.

Jim:

And so I do think you can grow your business, but you can't keep doing it the exact same way that you've been doing it. You know, , prior, , and so I, you know, I think it's kind of like this three to 5%, you know, next year growth, just kind of naturally, if you are able to engage additional businesses that you're not in today, then that's where you're going to get your 20, 25,

Ron:

30%.

Ron:

Let's zoom in on that. What, what do you think businesses listening, what could they do to maybe put themselves in a further leveraged position to grow or expand in here in 2025?

Jim:

Yeah, I think, , the areas that are pretty defensible now, , you know, we'll see in the, in the future, but today controlled lighting is highly defensible, , and highly engaging for the customer, you know, I just did a remodel on my house.

Jim:

I've never had control lighting. I have it in there. Just had a Christmas party. And I guarantee you four of those guys are, you know, going back and where their wives are and saying, look, we got to get that in our house. And so I love that category because it's visible, , and it shows real, real value and it's harder than hell to do.

Jim:

, and so, you know, I think that, you know, that's an important category. I think smart power. Is, , , unbelievably complicated. , but for our members that are engaging in that, the upside is incredible. Like they're literally putting 35,000, $40,000 systems in every home that they're doing. Because it makes it the customer value proposition is so strong, you know, like the world's not like it used to be, I mean, especially, you know, whether you're texas or, you know, california brownouts or, you know, I mean, everybody's starting to have challenges with this kind of, you know, electricity, unstable power.

Jim:

And so, you know, I think that that's a, you know, a great category to look at. , I think outdoor is in our group, growing category. Great. , aggressively growing part of our business and it used to be looked down upon by the CI guys because, you know, I don't, I'm not gonna go dig a trench and I don't really need to deal with that.

Jim:

, for the guys that, , you know, are in it, , it's the best marketing tool that you possibly, well, maybe not outside of, you know, , websites or whatever, but, , but it's a great marketing tool because people are walking down the street and your house looks great, you know, and what's going on and how's that work and, you know, and so.

Jim:

, you know, I think that really being great at large format TV, you know, you can't go to Costco and buy a hundred inch TV and hang that thing. The things weigh 200 pounds. So being very, very good at that and making sure that people know that you know how to install that and, you know, and execute, you know, that business.

Jim:

, you know, I think things like frame TV, , that's a good example of a category that now is in mass. Retail, you know what I'm saying? And so that was a great category two years ago. And now not so

Ron:

much ubiquitous now it's everywhere. Yeah, you

Jim:

got it. And so, , so it's those kinds of categories that I'd really, , promote the industry to kind of.

Jim:

Get very, very serious about, , I think it's, at this point of my mind, mandatory, not like, you know, an option to, you know, engage these categories that are more defensible.

Ron:

Jim, maybe let's close out what, , what's upcoming this year for pro source, what, what sort of events and activities, and if you just, I know you've got a lot, you've got your, your spring stuff, your fall stuff, you've got your.

Ron:

Your events there in Golden, you've got your V11 event, like walk us through what's going on in ProSourceLand.

Jim:

Yeah, I think strategically what I've been thinking about as we prepare for, you know, 2025 is a couple principles that we're trying to solve. I want to increase collaboration within the group.

Jim:

like real collaboration within the group. , I want to respect the investments that vendors are making into the membership, you know, whether it shows or whatever it might, you know, , whatever investments that they make that we respect those investments in and really work hard to ROI those investments.

Jim:

And so a few of the things we've done to reduce expenses for our vendors is we have gone to a single show in the spring, whereas we used to have two. And so that, you know, reduces the expense of coming to two separate shows. And so that's very exciting. And then the other thing that, you know, I'm very passionate about, I talked about 1010 a little bit earlier, which is the facility on and now, , is a way to really showcase the very best technology in the industry.

Jim:

If you really think about it, Ron, there's no place in the country where you can see. All of the categories I just discussed in one spot, you can see it. How do

Ron:

you want dealers leveraging that space? So, I mean, I, I love it. We're all familiar with, I'm saying I'm in here in Fort Lauderdale, there's a, an interior design center called the Dakota.

Ron:

And if you're an interior designer anywhere, probably in the Southeast or in the Caribbean or in South America, you're bringing your customers up to walk the. The Dakota center. So you can see all the best brands, all the best this is, and that's to make selections for the home. It is a, it's something like that, what you're thinking to do with 10, 10 or what's your, what's your vision there?

Jim:

Yeah, there's, so there's maybe three pillars. The first pillar is bringing our small groups to go and to learn from each other. So that's called at the 11 meeting here, which I discussed earlier and getting the leadership to take a break out of their. You know, really busy schedule and they could come here and very efficiently see every single product that they sell.

Jim:

And so, , and, and really take two and a half days to sit down and, and, and spend time together. The second thing is training under, you know, many times we, you and I talked to leaders of the business, right? Who's chaos and we discussed like how crazy their lives are, but how do we dig down into their business and help them support?

Jim:

The people who work for them, the sales training, the installer training, the project manager training, you know, all of these areas of the business and we will be doing face to face training in 1010, you know, lighting training, , and I'm passionate about that because I've come to the conclusion that I was talking with all the leaders and they go back to their businesses and everybody says, well, they don't do anything when they get back to the business.

Jim:

And I, I've concluded the reason why is we don't properly support them to say, okay. To give them a playbook. Hey, you, you know, I just, I'm passionate about sales and process. Here's your playbook. Here's how you train it, and you need to go to go, , to 10, 10 to, to train on it. , you know, the third pillar is, , the vendors and customers, right?

Jim:

And so, . The vendor trainings here. , it's very, very efficient cause we can help them coordinate where vendors can bring in 50 people, showcase their product. It's actually live. It's not at a Hampton Inn or something like that. You know, you know, the drill we've all been, you know, you've been in as many trade shows as I have.

Jim:

It's uncomfortable like you can't particularly in audio and lighting. You can't show it. You know, it's hard to see in a booth. Whereas here you can see it, you know, , you know, see it live. So those are kind of the three pillars that we're thinking about. We've had 70 members through here already. And the meetings are some of the most powerful, like, In my job, I get a lot of negative feedback, , you know, just about stuff going on.

Jim:

, I, I, I have never ever had so much positive feedback from our, from the vendor community, , a couple of them sent us plants. I couldn't believe it because the engagement level is totally different.

Ron:

So that's awesome, Jim, congrats on, on all the exciting things that you're doing at ProSource folks that want to get in touch with you directly, learn more about ProSource, but where are we going to send people?

Jim:

Yeah. So, , you can do it two ways. ProSourceinfo. com is you can, , if you put your info in there, we'll get back to you. , we have a team of people that will, you know, contact you, , always, you know, my, , email and phone nber will come up in the bottom of this. I am always available. , a lot of it's my retail routes.

Jim:

I kind of find myself constantly available for either a membership or somebody who's interested in joining ProSource. Please, you know, send me a note and I'll, . Email you back and get you connected with the right people to get you hooked up.

Ron:

Awesome. For folks that are tuned in via audio only, it's This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Ron:

And then Jim's, is this your office, Jim? Is this your cell phone? Yeah. Wow. All right. Jim's putting his cell phone out there. , three Oh three, eight one five 83 zero five. , give Jim a call.

Jim:

I gotta go take a call. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.

Ron:

They're coming in rapid fire.

Ron:

That's funny.

Jim:

Hey, Ron. I want to congratulate you on your business real quick. You've done a great job , it's cool to talk with people that are as passionate about, you know, kind of making this industry great as is I am So congratulations

Ron:

Jim, you and I are very, very similar. , our stories and backgrounds are different, but we're very like minded and how we pour ourselves in with a singular focus to help the people in this industry and it, it feels good to help people.

Ron:

It's fun to help people. It's. Challenging and hard to problem solve, to find ways to help people. Cause we got to build organizations behind us that then are able to do those things. It can't just be, it can only be our time and energy because that's fairly finite. But if we get a lot of people motivated around us to do the same, then we can really move mountains.

Ron:

So, , I'm , I'm, I'm enjoying our friendship and getting to know you and obviously watching your success over there at ProSource. So, , thank you, sir. Thanks for joining me on another episode of Automation Unplugged. And , for those, , folks still with us, stay tuned. You know, we are dropping new shows every single Wednesday.

Ron:

, of course, Jim's on our industry experts show, but we're also dropping shows. , and by the way the show with jim and integrators and such that you'll know that on the audio podcast with the orange icon And then where I'm interviewing members of the one firefly team about various marketing topics.

Ron:

That is the green icon and then where we're also pushing out all of our various webinar and education content that we do. That's the blue icon. So now if you're watching a video, you're like what the hell is what i'm talking about with icons Don't worry about it unless you want to also listen when you're on the go Maybe you're morning walk or morning run.

Ron:

You're on the treadmill then you can always listen. So again, we'll sign off. Thank you so much. Jim for being my awesome guest today and for everyone out there tuned in. Thank you so much. We'll see you on the next show.

Jim:

See you guys.

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

Resources and links from the interview:

• ProSource Staff
• ProSource LinkedIn Profile
• Jim Pearse LinkedIn Profile