While it’s easy to sell the end user on products, the reality is, an AV installation may take place years after initial conversations. John O’Brien looks at the importance of preaching patience in the integration industry.

“I want it all and I want it now. It’s gotta be done by Christmas.”

When you are under the weight of other’s expectations, it can be hard to stay calm and wait for everything to occur in some sort of logical order or acceptable timeline. The key to this is staying patient. This is easier said than done but comes down to trust – trust in the processes and trust in the people implementing those processes. You’ll also need trust in accepting situations for what they are (and not what they may have been) and getting on with achieving the desired goal or outcome that is satisfactory to all parties involved.

To dig into strategies for staying patient in the face of adversity, I spoke with InSight Systems director of technology Myke Ireland and Diversified managing director – APAC James Berry about how they implement patience in their daily dealings. As individuals, they have their approaches but, ultimately, they both agree on one fundamental thing – relationships with customers are crucial.

Many businesses – and AV is no exception – want everything delivered or complete by yesterday, will not accept delays and are unforgiving of human foibles. But we tend to forget (as a society) that these businesses are also comprised of people who have good and bad days, make mistakes and need time off at the most inconvenient moment (in any given project life cycle). These businesses also rely on other businesses to supply goods or services, on time and in good working order. Murphy’s law dictates that this rarely goes to plan.

James identifies that it is a two-way street: “One thing is patience with clients, but it’s also a client’s patience with us.”

For a neuro-spicy guy like Myke: “It’s always been a struggle for me to manage the expectations of things like deadlines and then commitments to other customers as well.”

His strategy for managing this is to make sure that he has key people in the teams that he’s managing who are looking after those sorts of activities.

Delivering jobs

Those of us who have been around the AV industry for any decent period, including James, realise that: “The nature of our business is that we often come in at the end (of a project). Therefore, we’re at the mercy of a bunch of other trades. Staying patient with so many factors out of your control is a key part of successful project delivery.”

Myke has an expanded take on this: “People still wanted to work during COVID. They wanted to get projects completed, but they couldn’t. You were forced during that period to have to think two and three years ahead because you weren’t getting stock for 12 or 18 months. So, you had to plan your project two years ahead and hope that the technology was the same when you got there.”

He also tried to tie this in with knowledge of working with big organisations: “You are often bound by big rebate structures and buying agreements and things that steer you down a particular path. So, you almost have to sacrifice some of the quality of the solution.”

Large roadblocks, like the pandemic, can be mitigated by staying flexible if you’re in an agile organisation, you’re always going to win.

Product or solution?

I asked both guys about the industry’s chicken or egg dilemma – is the badge on a piece of gear more important than the function that the gear performs? Their responses overlap.

“It’s solutions every day of the week. It’s strategy every day of the week, it’s roadmap every day of the week, it’s service every day of the week. And we do our best work with clients, where we can sit down and go, ‘talk to us about five years ahead, what are the things that you need to achieve?’,” Myke says.

Similarly, with James, it’s the solution always: “We pride ourselves on long-term relationships which are built on a focus on quality. And quality doesn’t mean most expensive.”

When the overall solution is the main driver, it’s all about quality and how well the product sets that you’re putting together and installing work together and fit together.

“A client might fall in love with something and say, ‘I want this product.’ Then, I’d rather have the unpopular discussion with the client of saying: ‘That’s actually not the right fit for you’,” James says.

“What you want is an overall value proposition and so long-term value. Choose the product that’s going to get you to the end of your intended period of usage, not something that is going to fail halfway or that doesn’t have a support that’s really robust.’”

Myke and InSight have a similar approach to timeframes. He puts it in a slightly different way: “As a business, we’re unique in the sense of, we always design solutions and if we have managed service contract at the end. So, we’re committing to a client that this solution is going to work for five years. Otherwise, it’s going to cost us money.

“When you think along those timelines, it actually makes hardware significantly less important and the service paramount.”

Delays

Project delays can come in many forms and from many inputs. The most obvious one from recent history is that of third-party equipment supply.

James and Diversified found that it certainly hit his company in COVID where a lot of equipment lead times were, literally, a piece of string. At InSight, Myke found similar but used this as an opening to promote communication.

“It’s always about honesty and open communication, transparency is the most important thing,” Myke says.

“The situation is this, but we have a couple of contingencies. The issue is, I can’t get this for six weeks, but I can get you this one. It’s going to cost you an extra $500 but I can get it in three days.”

He then throws the choice back to the client, asking what they want to do.

At InSight, Myke says that internally, they like to have a very narrow and deep company, as far as the products that they use: “Most categories that we work with, we’re never dealing with more than two or three main manufacturers as the principal. Standardisation of system design is our most important thing. So, we know that we’re designing systems based on hardware that’s always readily available.”

With all integration businesses being staffed by people and their inherent blemishes, delays often manifest internally. Different companies have different strategies to attenuate this.

Diversified is now a large international organisation. James relies on this bench depth: “We have the enviable position of having nationalised labour pools in most areas. Where travel budgets allow, we can take people from South Australia to Western Australia and ensure that the risks that we see in terms of the workforce are minimised, if not completely mitigated, by just having that flexibility.”

Its global presence is also an asset. According to James: “We’ve got an expert in control rooms out of the US. He will pick up the phone anytime, day or night, and have a conversation with the client and bring that expertise to bear. When clients feel they’re getting the best in the world, they feel good. It makes them feel like they’re getting a company that is going to go above and beyond, which is what we want to do.”

Most commonly, setbacks occur due to clients changing their minds or altering installation schedules to suit other goals that they may have.

“The key thing there is to get close to the client wherever possible because usually, the client is the most pragmatic and patient and flexible party in the whole process. If you get close to the client and have honest conversations, you invariably come to the dialogue that will lead to a solution,” James outlines.

Winning/losing jobs

No company can expect to win all of the jobs that they go for. Missing out on some jobs is inevitable. Learning from those losses is where companies and their people grow. Myke finds that it depends on the client: “So, we take all of that at face value. We are one of those organisations that’s very aware not every client is right for us.”

He plays a longer game and tries to convert a short-term loss into a long-term gain.

“If we do lose a client that we want back, it just comes down to consistency. You just have to be there consistently,” he says.

“And it’s all of the traditional business development stuff, it’s the personalisation of the relationship. People do business with people, that’s universal.”

James is equally philosophical: “You will lose things, and we do. The key thing is to understand why you have lost out.

“You just want to understand where you could have done better, where you were missing the trick, whether it be non-compliance in your proposal, whether it be the solution, the resources, or what have you. Having the detailed conversation about why we’ve missed out has turned some deals we had lost back around.”

Like Myke, James continues to focus on the relationship and things will eventually happen in a long-term perspective for the better.”

At that point, it is best to double down. Patience will get you there eventually.

Tech failure onsite?

I asked both gents how they deal with technical failures on jobs that they have already implemented. Both tend to play the long game. For Myke: “80% of the clients that we work with, we’re working with for five years or more. So, you can’t lie. You just can’t tell some porkies and just bounce; people have long memories. If you’re in it for the long term, that’ll come back and bite you on the bum eventually.”

James also focuses on truth and discovery: “First and foremost is to get a fact-based discussion going, to take the venom of emotion out of it and get to the truth of a matter.”

Managing this aftersales is an area where many AV integrators have traditionally struggled. InSight has recently put on two new managed service salespeople to help build out our offer nationally: “Neither of them were from the AV industry because you can’t get AV-managed service salespeople because it’s never happened before. When you’re selling service, the only thing you’re selling is efficiency and cost reduction,” Myke says.

As AV becomes much more of an ongoing service than a once-off box sale, this approach is critical.

Personal patience

I thoroughly enjoyed talking with both of these individuals. Although working for different companies their focus on people and treating them well is a common thread.

“It’s never the wrong time to say the right thing. Call out the truth and then wait for the dust to settle,” James says.

“And then have a proper conversation. The good news is that we’re seeing a lot of clients retreating from the race to the bottom scenario because they realise that it might give you a short-term gain, but it leads to long-term pain.”

In his time at Diversified, he has championed a focus on safety and making sure that is top of the agenda.

“Good planning and, patience in the process can lead to better outcomes because you’re not putting people’s lives at risk. You’re putting things in the right place at the right time and ensuring that you know your schedule is not going to be impacted by that,” he explains.

Myke is equally focused on people: “You always preserve your reputation, both as an individual and as a brand, first and foremost, and you always stand firm on your solutions, you know your client better than any manufacturer ever will.”

This also applies to vendors who have the pushy sales beyond anything else approach.

“InSight will curate vendors that believe a yearly ticket to the GP or tennis is what adds value to their clients. We make strict calls along those lines because, as a business, we want to make sure that anyone we’re working with is trying to add the same value to the client as we are,” Myke adds.

Over the course of many projects, I have built my own approaches to patience. Although it’s occasionally cathartic to have a dummy spit when things don’t work out, that does not solve any problems.

Starting with plan A, expecting at least plan B to be required, whilst preparing for plan Z is my way. When the inevitable delay occurs: a deep breath, occasionally a loud expletive and then acceptance of the new order are essential. Getting all hung up on what may have been will just make you miserable and stressed – something that neither of these patient and persistent visionaries seem to be.