A Look Back At The Last 2 Years
At this point in January 2013 I was preparing to leave a job I greatly enjoyed for a manufacturer in order to jump to the other side of the table and begin working as an integrator. I was still in the manufacturer mindset as I sat at my desk building presentations that I would be delivering at the national sales meeting mere days before it would be announced that I was leaving. I had no idea what kind of challenges I would face and how the transition would alter the way that I thought about the industry, but I can honestly say it was one of the best career decisions I’ve made to date.
Working as the national trainer and consultant liaison for TOA Electronics, I was as well versed in the products that I represented as one could be while also keeping an open mind towards what the competitors were offering and why a consultant or dealer might not select the TOA solution for a given project. I didn’t take the mindset that TOA was the only option for each job, but that we were an option for each job where our products and their features were best suited, if only I could manage to inform people of the product offerings. I often times marveled that people were unaware of the solutions we had that they claimed to need and could never quite understand how it had slipped through their consciousness that the solutions they were looking for were out there without having to find an engineering back door.
It was a bit of a culture shock to move to the other side of the table. I had identified so closely as a brand representative for so long that I found I was still using it as a reference point when introducing myself to provide a background and demonstrate relevance. Manufacturer after manufacturer would come through our door to discuss their product offerings and it was then that I understood how TOA products had managed to slip the minds of so many – it is purely overwhelming the amount of information that comes through an integrator’s doors.
I knew this in my head while I was touring the country trying to educate the masses, but until I had actually experienced it I never truly understood it. There are so many similar products out there that without differentiating yourself in some way with a very unique feature that is commonly used, your product very well could end up forgotten. It isn’t to say it’s a bad product, but the mentality in the industry is often, ‘if you don’t have a reason to switch, why would you?’
While the flood of information from all the manufacturers definitely filled what space was still available in my brain, it was the recognition of all the other non-AV based factors that had never occurred to me before because I wasn’t dealing with them that have really made these two years such a growth experience. Things like conduit pathways, structural backing, the structure in general, and the partnerships with the construction trades. I had an extensive background in the technology and how things interconnected, but connecting them and putting them into a physical space were two entirely different things.
The part that I’ve enjoyed the most from all of this, though, is having the ability to see both sides of the coin. Looking at a product solution and understanding that a manufacturer made their decisions because of the market research that was returned and even being able to pin point which region of the country that information had come from, while now also seeing exactly how an integrator would use these solutions. I remember once last year getting into a debate with a fellow engineer about a product because he believed it should work in the way that he wanted, while I pointed out that the target for what the product was doing had little to nothing to do with that end goal. I could grasp where he wanted the product to end up, but the intentions from the manufacturers are often playing catch up to the desires from the integrators looking to push the envelope a little farther.
It’s been an education and a fun ride getting to work with the wide spread technological offerings that have been afforded me by my company. I’m in a great position to continue to develop and learn about the things in AV that aren’t the AV itself and I look forward to that. But most of all, I look forward to continuing to look out for the big picture – the why of it all.
