Home Automation Podcast Episode #28: An Industry Q&A With Camila Ballario
A Chat With Leon Speakers' Camila Ballario
This week's home automation podcast features our host Ron Callis interviewing Camila Ballario. Recorded live on Wednesday, December 20th, 2017 at 12:30 p.m. EST.
About Camila Ballario
Born in Argentina, Camila grew up in Ann Arbor, MI and received a degree in music performance at the University of Michigan. After a few years of managing and recruiting in the retail industry post-graduation, it was music that brought her to Leon Speakers.
A recording artist, she came to Leon in 2013 to play music on the stage at Leon's on-site music venue, the Leon Loft, and shortly thereafter joined the Leon team. Since then, Camila has cultivated strong relationships with Leon and Media Décor dealers to help them understand Leon culture, and specify unique Leon solutions.
She has seen the sales team grow and change over the five years she has been with the company and currently travels to top-performing dealers across the US as Leon's Senior Account Manager.
Interview Recap
Here are some of the topics Ron had the opportunity to discuss with Camila:
- What Leon is all about and what sets it apart from other companies
- Managing work/life balance around the holidays
- Leon's plans for 2018
- How those interested can become a Leon dealer
SEE ALSO: Home Automation Podcast Episode #27: A Custom Integration Industry Q&A With George Tucker
Part One:
Part Two:
Transcript:
Ron: Hello everybody. Ron Callis here with another episode of Automation Unplugged. It is Episode 28 . I have an awesome guest for you guys have a bit of a Christmas present for those of you that are out and attend trade shows and attend buying groups you're going to know this person, maybe you've even seen this person perform live which is always a blast. It is today it is today. That's kind of an obvious statement right. It is. 12:30 on Wednesday , December 20th. My son's birthday was two days ago. Happy birthday Max. He just turned nine. He's actually sitting right over here to my left. He's doing some homework and we have Christmas right around the corner which is always fun. And I believe Hanukkah just wrapped up in the last couple of days. So hope those folks celebrating all these nice holidays are having a blast and enjoying their family and friends. I know that my family and I are actually heading out of town this weekend heading up to Virginia and I'm looking forward to that. But let's go ahead and jump right into it. So we have Camila Bellario from Leon on speakers. How are you Cami?
Camila: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me Ron.
Ron: It's a pleasure it's a pleasure. So first of all, you're up there in Ann Arbor , Michigan right now right?
Camila: Yeah yeah. The weather's a little different up here than I'm sure what you're used to.
Ron: You know I'm not going to do it. There's a palm tree right out my window.
Camila: Yeah , don't do that.
Ron: Don't do that don't go there?
Camila: I'm looking directly at a mound of snow right now. So at least it's sunny there.
Ron: Is there really snow on the ground already?
Camila: Oh yeah yeah. I mean it's been warm. It's been 42 degrees the last couple days. So we've had a lot of melt but there is about a foot of snow on the ground up until then.
Ron: Yes I won't tell you the temperature outside or that it's you know nice and pleasant because I just wouldn't be nice it wouldn't be appropriate right now.
Camila: The trees start budding here when it gets over 45. So I see some buds on the trees cause it's confused why it's sunny right now. But yeah we're used to the cold . That's why you wear long sleeves.
Ron: Now Camila, as I mentioned in my intro you are a bit of a road warrior and brand ambassador for Leon's speakers you are. It seems like you are everywhere. Sometimes you're going week to week to week to different events around the country. What officially is your title or your responsibility with Leon?
Camila: Yeah. I'm a Senior Account Manager. I do quite a lot. I do all of our regional travels so I work with our regional sales reps, train them, go visit all of our key dealers. I do all of our buying program travel. I deal with all of our buying program dealers and then I also train all of our incoming dealers. So everybody gets a taste before they start selling the product line.
Ron: OK understood. Now, what I what I'd want to go into here next is I always love to learn about people in our industry and where they came from and how they got into the industry. Before I do that I want to jump over to our Facebook page here. Let me just make sure our stream is actually live and that all the technology is cooperating. Sometimes I run under the assumption that it's working only to find out that it's not. So bear with me here is I just check out the page. OK. Yep it looks like we are. Looks like we are live. So if you're out there in Facebookland watching us live, thank you for watching us please like and share. Camila has given you the peace sign. Thanks for hanging out and watching and again how we share this content is by you guys liking it and sharing it because that helps your peers and your friends in the industry ultimately see this content and we want more people to see the content is what it's all about. So now the tech is where I am by the way. If you have any questions for Camila about Leon speakers or anything related to the CI space, please post the questions in the comments section and I will do. We'll try to be diligent about reading those as real-time as possible so that we can get her response on those matters. So Camila, how did you land in the CI industry and give us your backstory if you don't mind?
Camila: Yeah I know. Well, I grew up in Ann Arbor Michigan where Leon is located. Serendipity is what brought me here. I studied at the University of Michigan. I studied music. And so I received my bachelor's degree actually in classical music and opera. So I'm a singer and I hadn't heard of Leon ever before I actually met the President of the company, Noah, through a mutual friend who brought me to Leon because Leon has this fantastic music venue called The Leon Loft. I am a folk singer, I sang Americana music so I came here and I was one of the first people to try out the stage before it even became really The Leon Loft , really what it was , what it is today. So I came here to sing and at the time I had a different job I wasn't even looking for a job but I came here I sang and about three weeks later I sat down with Noah and Ethan just to see I came here for a tour after that, just of our awesome factory, we have a really interesting building, interesting campus. And they were like well we're not entirely sure you know we want you to do. I was managing retail stores and recruiting management for those stores prior so they were looking for someone to see if we could start this new concept of account management here at Leon and they asked me if I wanted to and you know, I kind of gravitate towards music-focused culture so to me it was kind of a no brainer and now five years later it's still going strong. So it's what brought me into the industry which I'm really happy to be a part of.
Ron: So tell me the Leon Loft. So there's a stage at Leon and this sounds very unique interesting. How many manufacturers also have performance artists regularly? So can you tell my audience and I'd love to learn more as well what is that and how does that work?
Camila: Yeah, you're going to probably learn a lot about Leon today that you're you know we have quite a few kind of side projects like the Leon Loft, all these different pieces that help us do our mission which is what we call balance by design. So not only just balancing the design of space , of our product line and how do we integrate into the design of a home because we're really a design-focused company but also balancing your passions and your life into the work environment so that it feels less like work and more like just your lives your purpose. That's kind of where the Leon Loft was born. But, so basically what the Leon Loft is , it's a really cool bespoke stage venue that's in our building it's upstairs we're actually above me right now and we manufactured and built our custom P.A. system with horn Tweeter. I mean it's just it's a beautiful space with a projector and screen. So we host a lot of events within this space as well. But the original intent we actually syndicate a national radio show called Acoustic Café. Acoustic Cafe is run by Ryan Reinhart right. Sorry, Rob Reinhart who if any of you were at our boat party at CEDIA, you saw him because he was interviewing the artists. But basically what he does, is any time a really cool artist comes to Michigan or comes to perform to Detroit or Royal Oak or Auburn Hills you know any of the big venues in Michigan, they'll come to Leon prior for a private performance and an interview that then gets syndicated on NPR. So and you can also watch them online they're also videotaped but we've had really top-shelf performances here at Leon. It's a small venue so we give away tickets on a radio show about one hundred and twenty people can fit like sardines in the space. So it's really cool it's actually, I don't think I said it actually . I'm a recording artist and I had my album release party here as well. So we had we've had some really awesome parties here.
Ron: Oh my alright. So I'm going to put in the comments section how people can buy your music or do you want to tell us now. What's the best way if someone wants to hear you Camila and purchase your music how would they do that?
Camila: Yeah, you can Google my name my actual name or you can look up my name on iTunes that's on Spotify. You can go to Camila Ballario.com and you can buy it on there too. Yeah. I also have a Youtube page, I have an Instagram account.
Ron: You're basically everywhere. Anyone that if people want to find you they just put your name and they're going to find you on any social platform.
Camila: Yeah and lucky thing is there's not very many Camila Ballarios in the world so I'm usually the first result.
Ron: Sure. By the way, Hagi from Access Networks says hello. He says go One Firefly. He goes posted a comment. So Camila tell my audience about Leon. What makes Leon different and special? I mean what I'm going to give my I'm not very educated in the world of speakers and speaker technologies and is it the technology is that the culture is it the way you treat your dealers? Is it all of the above?
Camila: Yeah. Well Leon as a company is a built to order speaker and TV concealment solutions company so everything that we build is made in America. Everything is built here in Ann Arbor. So that's a huge differentiator from a lot of manufacturers in the industry or just a lot of manufacturers in general. Manufacturing the US has always been a huge passion project for us. It's always been what we're all about. But what sets Leon apart in general or what's cool about Leon aside from all of the weird side projects that we do and all the music and art that we're into is that we're always innovating we're always changing. We have a really awesome facility here that allows us to be a design and performance company. We have one of the only anechoic chambers in the Midwest and we take a great deal of pride and focus on constantly upgrading and constantly building our campus out. This gives us the ability to constantly produce brand new products and improve all of our product line. It's also I don't know if you've ever been in anechoic chamber Ron, but it is well for people like me and Noah if you know Noah at all, you know that silence is not our greatest suit.
Ron: I've heard that being in an anechoic chamber can be very weird it can freak you out if you're in there for too long.
Camila: It even scares me to close the door because I mean you go in there and it's the silence is so loud.
Ron: You can hear your heartbeat. I've heard.
Camila: Yeah if you stand in there and it's really interesting. It's the quietest room within the loudest room in our building because it's in our shop. We release really awesome and massive manufacturing facility and the animal chamber is right where all the rest of the testing goes so every single product that goes down our line that's a speaker gets tested right on the line there and then all of our product development happens right next to it. So a lot of our product development our tweaks, we build all of our speakers in-house here , we develop all of our crossovers in-house as well. So everything is refined right there. So the anechoic chamber is really awesome but as a facility and as a company Leon has always been very visually and musically stimulating so there's speaker, custom speakers and custom projects all around. Right before we got on this call Noah started playing music. We're just you know , we start playing music loud through the hallway and we change it up. We have a really awesome system throughout the house and we sell so many speakers you know we sell so many awesome custom pieces that it makes sense for us to make sure that we feel like we're a big part of that , that we're a big part of the creativity that goes into that. So we have an awesome facility though.
Ron: Yeah. I hope one day to come up there and check that out. Maybe I can bring my team up there. That would be fun. Fantastic.
Camila: Yeah. Yeah. Well , some really bizarre stuff.
Ron: Go ahead.
Camila: What were you saying?
Ron: No , I was going to say, so all of the speakers that are ordered are custom orders?
Camila: Yeah. Every single thing is what we call built to order. So what a lot of people think , they think of custom is for us an everyday product. So there's no stocked items. We have very few products that we stock that don't require a ton of customization. But yeah every single on wall surrounds subwoofer everything's built by hand here. And we have a really lean what we call Kaizen so constant improvement. So we have a really lean manufacturing concept that we are constantly improving constantly striving to make our turnover really fast for these products so you could receive a fully custom piece within five days. So it's a really tight line that we have in our shop.
Ron: So we're now a couple of months post-CEDIA . But do you mind sharing, what were some of the exciting things that you guys were presenting at the CEDIA show in September?
Camila: Yeah. So CEDIA this year was massive for us. We celebrated our 20th year in business. So we had what we called a 20th-year birthday party and as a result of that we had. This was my fifth CEDIA. So as it was , I mean it was easily the best CEDIA I've ever seen, our booth was next level. And we brought our newest passion project to CEDIA. We drove our vintage 1950s Airstream from Ann Arbor across the country all the way to San Diego. And we had it at our booth. So , in the beginning, we were like should we even have a booth? Can we just live in this thing? Cause I don't know if anybody went in there but we were bumping our awesomely newly developed flagship speakers our sevens in there with a modified turntable. We had awesome kind of lifestyle branding within our Airstream just as a means because not everybody is able to come to Ann Arbor to see our space. So we're kind of this year wanted to show people what 20 means to us. Twenty years old isn't young for a company but you think about it as a person and how the person matures and develops. Twenty years old is actually quite young when you're a company like Leon that's just now starting to grow up, just now starting to realize and come to maturity and push the envelope even more so a big part for us this year as CEDIA was sharing our culture which you know not very many people know about unless you come here and you hang out with us or you see me on the road you don't really get to see our artistic side, our musical side. So we had instruments in the Airstream, we had our music our artwork. This year at CEDIA, we released more products than we ever had at CEDIA. So we have.
Ron: What were some of those products?
Camila: Yes, we have a really fantastic partnership with Audio Control and we released a modular amplifier so a small form factor amplifier that you can incorporate in a product that we call the high fit the horizon interactive fit that we also released at CEDIA. We won an award for this product release, it's a really unique product that allows you to incorporate the Leon custom sound, really high-end sound with a small form factor amplifier and give you a bunch of space within that same rack to place other forms of technology know your Roku your Apple TV your Echo Dot all within ones one chamber with the speakers and then cover it all with a custom grille so you have all your technology within one space which is what a lot of people are needing right now is a solution that doesn't force you to put all the technology behind the TV hard to access. So we released that product and then, of course, we released our brand new flagship series, The Seven Series, for just the highest-end Leon sound and that's what we're playing within the Airstream. When I mentioned earlier.
Ron: I'm very disappointed now because I didn't make it into the Airstream. I was busy running around doing stuff and teaching classes but I heard about it. I heard about this amazing Airstream experience and I was kicking myself I didn't make it over there to check it out.
Camila: Yeah, but you don't have to. You didn't miss out because this year is a huge year where we're going to be touring with the Airstream. So and actually Ron, we're going to be taking it down to Florida this year as well. As we have plans to create our own regional shows with our dealers to come in and hang out with us in areas that we don't normally get to hit as often. So you'll be able to see it this year.
Ron: Awesome. We'll definitely keep me in the loop so that we can make sure to see that. Now I have a question for you. From the list of your responsibilities there at Leon, you are traveling the country going to shows I want to say nonstop but any show there is maybe you're there and you're training all the dealers so it sounds like you from a work standpoint can be a very very busy person but then I also have this passion for music so how do you balance those two things? With music do you just sing or do you write and sing or how do you do that?
Camila: So most people at Leon are musicians as well. It's actually very rare to find a Leon who doesn't play an instrument seriously. It's very, it's interesting how all of us kind of came together because all of us are very similar in many ways work-life balance for me has really never been an issue. Granted now I don't have kids so you know, that's definitely another piece that I haven't had to tackle thus far in my life. But you know anyone that has seen me on the road especially with Noah, there's a couple that I definitely always even when I'm traveling alone I take my travel guitar with me so I'll post stuff on my Instagram account , my hotel room that I'm playing. I'm always writing stuff , over the last few years I've even taken to writing jokes and sketch comedy just because it's like everybody at Leon just likes to keep it lighthearted and funny and we try to find the humor and everything and let's be honest a lot in our industry is really funny. So you gotta write it all down. Otherwise , you never think of it again. So that's a huge part of it and if anybody's ever seen Noah and I at a show we don't advertise what we call our band. Noah and Cami but we call ourselves NoCamDo. If you've ever seen us performing, so we performed at Bravas Summit. We performed recently at one of our buying programs. So we like to take what we do and you've ever seen it before, Noah who is the President of the company is a speed painter . He's an artist. So he's a huge creator and a huge reason why our company is such a design-focused company. Every single aspect of our company is really creative because of that. So what we do is we'll bring our guitar. Noah will bring his easel his art his paint and we will perform for about 30 minutes even more sometimes last time we did it was at Azione. It's one of our buying programs kind of.
Ron: I was there to witness that when I was pretty sure that I was there. We streamed it. It's actually if you go to the One Firefly Facebook page, you're on it if you're watching this and if you scroll down, you have to find the date of that event. But I believe I did some live streaming. Whenever you perform Cami, I'm usually live streaming into our page.
Camila: Thank you for doing that. I totally forgot that you were there. Yeah. That's awesome. So that was right after the death of Tom Petty which for us was just mean for everyone, I'm not unique but Tom Petty was just such a huge loss and we were able to do a fantastic tribute to him. So for about 45 minutes, I sang with my guitar and Noah, you didn't know what he was painting so for 45 minutes he's painting away and then eventually he flips it over , finishes the painting and I sang some Tom Petty songs and he ended up painting Tom Petty. We were able to auction it off and we raised upwards close to ten thousand dollars that we donated to Puerto Rico. So we're able to use those moments where all we really want to do , Noah and I is just perform and share passion and artwork and creativity. So we're able to do that and also use it for good and provide a lot of our dealers with things that they're not used to. Which is the manufacturer coming and painting and singing for them.
Ron: It's definitely a very unique amazing experience to witness it. Now, in terms of your dealers, you're the account manager, so you're defining who's representing Leon and who's buying and selling your products. Is that correct?
Camila: Yeah. We have a really fantastic team of regional sales rep s throughout the country, some manufacturers reps that help us vet dealers. Definitely our buying programs also help us with that. I travel to a lot of our key accounts and for me when I go travel with our reps, they'll take me to the people that they think I should be meeting. Oftentimes people will reach out directly to me and say hey I met you at CEDIA or I saw you at a show. I'm interested in learning more. How can we do that? So I created a really robust training platform for them to get to know me. Get to know the company understand the product line and then also five years ago when I came on I was the only real kind of inside sales account rep person here. But over five years, I've been able to take on all of this outside training and development , and luckily we have a really cool strong inside sales rep team that I work very closely with and they're able to support me when I'm on the road. So when I'm unable to create a quote or after I've trained someone they want they want further sales support. I'm comfortably able to introduce them to our inside sales team if they're able to support with their knowledge and their assistance. So yeah, anybody who calls Leon knows we don't have an automated system. You call and you get a salesperson on the phone immediately. Whether it's me, David, or Mark who are inside sales reps. We're the ones that are always answering and helping with tech support. We have a really awesome tech support team. So yeah.
Ron: I have a question for you Cami. One that I think you could provide some interesting perspective to. By the way, I'm looking at my software here and it's blinking red at me . I hope we don't lose this feed.
Camila: No!
Ron: No! Everything looks good.
Camila: Does that just mean recording?
Ron: Yeah, no there's definitely maybe a problem. Although we've been good for twenty-five minutes. I don't know what this symbol means now. Yes.
Camila: Is the feed going fine?
Ron: I don't know. Like I said sometimes technology cooperates.
Camila: If someone could comment and just tell us.
Ron: Yeah. If someone could comment, that would be really helpful. So we know if this feed is still going live. I know I've got a red crossbar.
Camila: Oh that doesn't sound right.
Ron: Yeah. No. And it just showed up here so let's see if we get this resolved. No it definitely doesn't. When it is there it is solid yeah. It's a bit glitchy right now but you're still streaming.
Camila: Is it Facebook?
"There are so many men versus women. You know I'd say here at One Firefly we're nearly 50/50 in terms of people that work at One Firefly. In the CI space, I would say that's 90 percent 10 percent."
Ron: Yeah, there are some comments that just got posted. Yeah. We're going to keep going. Still live, a little in and out but we can still see you live, Samantha Somerville. Thank you. Hagi's still live. Dan Kaplan still there. George Tucker when it's there it's solid. I appreciate everyone's feedback. Well, we'll keep going. We'll see if we can capture this. So what is the reason that you think much of the CI industry is male-dominated in terms of percentage of people that you interact with or see at shows out there? There are so many men versus women. You know I'd say here at One Firefly we're nearly 50/50 in terms of people that work at One Firefly. In the CI space, I would say that's 90 percent 10 percent.
Camila: I don't know how to answer that exactly. I will say that the CI industry isn't unique in that, I will say a lot of manufacturing industries are showing similar patterns. What I can say, you know why do I think it is? You know I don't know. I think right now I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Over the last five years, I mean when I first came on at Leon, there were no women. There was one remote Controller. Who worked for a company that was a woman.
Ron: Alright. We're live again. Let me just verify that. You know what? Almost. Alright. Waiting, this is more of a science project than art. There we go. All right. We're live now, ladies and gentlemen. We were not done. We are still here. Technology cannot defeat us now. Right Cami?
Camila: Right. Got that right.
Ron: So one of the topics that I wanted to pick your brain around, was I have been in the CI space for 18 years now and I think that you know it has a track record of being maybe more of a male-dominated industry than some other industries. And you know I do see that changing some. I think you in this role and many of the other powerful women throughout the industry that I hope to have all on this show, are certainly part of that difference. But we try to be part of that difference here at One Firefly. You know I'd say you know our staff is at least 50/50 maybe 60/40 women to men. But my observation and you can tell me you have a different opinion is that the industry isn't 50/50. And so I'm wondering if you see that, if you see that changing, and then how you've managed to build such a successful career in you know my perception is more of a male-dominated industry . And is that tough or is it not tough and if there's walls or barriers you knock them down.
"I don't think it's necessarily that women haven't been in the industry. It's like failure to fully recognize and highlight their effect and their purpose within the industry and how they're impacting the future of the industry."
Camila: Yeah well you know I have a lot to say on that topic as I kind of probably alluded to you earlier . When I first started with Leon five years ago, I was the only woman at Leon. There was one remote female working for Leon who no longer is with the company. So for me and granted I came from a retail industry that is heavily female. So I wasn't used to it. I didn't understand, so that can be intimidating Don't quote me on that but I would say that's probably a pattern in a lot of manufacturing industries. But it doesn't mean that women never existed within the industry. Not only have I seen that grow, because Leon has well over 20 women and we're just over 50 employees. So we've definitely grown since I started and that's a lot of progress in five years. We have women in directorship roles at Leon. These roles didn't exist five years ago. So it's awesome to see them on both sides. Front of house, within our shop. We have women on the lines. So it's really cool to see what it's done just within our company. But , you know , what I always say is , it's not that women haven't always existed. I will say that there are very few women . I've seen more now, but certainly not a lot of women doing the account management side. Traveling with reps , going to trade shows , and training. There's definitely more than I've ever seen before. But for me definitely a little intimidating. I'm on the younger side of the females in our industry and definitely males and so taking that on is intimidating but it's not uncomfortable and you travel and you go in the field and you get to know why people are in the industry and they're in the industry for many of the same reasons that we are. You know for me I'm really passionate about music. A lot of people in the industry are passionate about music as well and performance and car audio and just audio in general. How did you get here? And so there's a lot of pieces that match together that you're able to really build out an industry that is more aware of the female involvement. So you know, there's a wonderful organization called Women in Consumer Technology that I'm really involved with. That helps shed light and recognize the women that are in the industry. You know I don't think it's necessarily that women haven't been in the industry. It's like failure to fully recognize and highlight their effect and their purpose within the industry and how they're impacting the future of the industry. But I will say that the industry, I mean I'm not the first to say this. I'm not a senior strategy for the industry. But I will say that the new generation is different and that the new generation is much more female than before so we're going to be seeing this trend continue on. So it's really exciting but definitely being involved in organizations like Women in Consumer Technology, builds a voice and a community for women. And then all it takes is having male support to understand the importance and the impact that having females involved in roles like account management, in directorship positions is very important and having the support definitely is half the battle.
Ron: What advice, if you're willing to share, would you have for any younger people that are getting into this industry? Any role within their company whether they're client-facing or not. What advice would you give them to be successful because my observation of you it appears you're on a bit of a rocket to success and although you've only been in the industry for what four years now. Four, maybe going on five years, you've really done a tremendous job of growing yourself and performing for your company which is pretty fantastic. So what advice would you give to others to maybe try to get on a similar track record?
"I'm a big part of Women in Consumer Technology and I would say that's the first step for me was when you go to CEDIA or when you go to a show see where the Women in Consumer Technology meeting and become a part of that community."
Camila: Yeah for sure and I'm a big part of Women in Consumer Technology and I would say that's the first step for me was when you go to CEDIA or when you go to a show see where the Women in Consumer Technology are meeting and become a part of that community. That's a huge part. We have what we call connect circles which are monthly calls that you can communicate with other women within the industry and really build an interesting bond so that when you go to these shows you know people and it helps make this industry seem smaller and more manageable. But we'll say on the other side so beyond just becoming a part of the community. Building a trusting relationship with allies, you know I couldn't be comfortable doing what I do if I didn't have team members like Noah, like Brenn, our Director at Leon, supporting me. So, bringing me into the conversation and treating it like a career and not just you know taking on a small role. So having people bring you into the conversation. Building alliances with your customer base. So every time that I go to a show, you know my dealers know I love them you know they're a part of my family they're the part of the Leon family. And so building a community of people around you that support you and respect you, it takes time. But that's a huge part of feeling comfortable and feeling and you know like you're making an impact in the industry. And I would say, just like anything else. Fake it until you make it.
"Fake it until you make it. I've lived by that rule my entire life."
Ron: Fake it until you make it. I've lived by that rule my entire life. So yeah I love that advice. Camila what would a dealer out there that's listening to this that maybe he's interested in learning more about Leon or becoming a dealer. What are the appropriate next steps they would follow?
Camila: Yeah well, there are several different avenues to becoming a dealer. You can definitely reach out directly to me. We also have an email address,
Ron: And I have a special request, next time we have you on. So you're getting plenty of notice, can you bring your guitar and sing a song?
Camila: Heck yeah, I can.
Ron: That would be awesome. We're not going to have thousands. We're going to have tens of thousands watching the feed to see Camila perform live on it. Awesome. And I think we're also gonna try to have Noah on someday soon so appreciate your cooperation and help with getting him booked and schedule that'll be great. So , Camila, it's been a pleasure having you on Automation Unplugged. You know there's so much that I can learn and the industry can learn from your passion and your work ethic and I think your art of really working hard and playing hard. I think it's really admirable.
Camila: Thank you. Thank you for having me on here. So happy to be here.
Ron: Awesome. Well , ladies and gentlemen thank you for watching another episode. I apologize for the technology glitches there but you know what? Cami persevered with me and we got it going. And we're back. So when we post this content up on our website, we'll make sure we put both of the videos so that you can see them in their entirety. And Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays. And I will see you on the flip side I think I'm off maybe for a couple of weeks in terms of recording. I'll be back in early January with a lot of new exciting guests. And you know 2017 was an amazing year for One Firefly and it was actually our 10 year anniversary and it was our most successful year of growth and profits. It was just all-around a great year. And I feel that 2018 is going to be even better. So on that note, I'm checking out. I'll see you next time and talk to you soon everyone. Be well.
Show Notes
Camila is a recording artist who came to Leon in 2013 to play music on the stage at Leon's on-site music venue, the Leon Loft, and shortly thereafter joined the Leon team. Camila has seen the sales team grow and change over the five years she has been with the company and currently travels to top-performing dealers across the US as Leon's Senior Account Manager.
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:
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