Architecture, acquisitions, and accounting… is vocabulary the second biggest problem in AV?

As an industry, we all seem to have agreed that “finding the next generation of audiovisual professionals” is the biggest problem in commercial AV. I’m going to suggest that vocabulary is the second biggest challenge. It’s simple: when people use different vocabulary to describe similar things, it can create a lot of confusion.

Or maybe the third after awareness.

For a $332 billion industry expected to grow like it’s on steroids to $400 billion by 2030, I’m paraphrasing AVIXA, we seem to think nobody knows we exist. Maybe AV has self-esteem issues.

Joking aside, we definitely have vocabulary issues.

UC? UCC? Videoconference? Teams? Zoom?

Take a moment to consider the meetings between employees or clients sitting in conference rooms and those working from home or at their offices. Or any combination of the three. Is it videoconferencing? Unified communications in a hybrid workspace? A Teams meeting? Zooming?

We hear it called Teams in Microsoft shops, a Zoom call, or Zooming in other places. “Our conferences sound awful.”

There’s a reason we spend a LOT of time at CTI coaching our design consultants to listen. To determine the problem the client needs to solve. Because it’s not unusual for two clients with similar challenges to use vastly different words to describe them, you have to listen closely and educate gently to get everyone on the same page.

What is a Senior Technologist?

CTI has acquired several companies over the years. When we onboard the team, we spend a lot of time training them in our systems and processes. There’s a fair amount of learning vocabulary in there, too.

We all pretty much agree on what AV/IP is, or what constitutes a Videowall. Things get fuzzier in other areas: what defines a Tech 1, Tech 2, or Tech 3? Compensation? Seniority by years? Experience? Certifications? Do they imply a leadership role on a site? Are programmers evaluated by the certifications they hold, or the projects they’ve completed successfully? Is a closer the heavy you bring in to finish a sale, or the person who verifies every aspect of an integration is operating flawlessly before we turn it over to the customer? (It’s the latter at CTI.)

I’m not saying how we do things is perfect; we tell our people to get 1% better every day. (And a lot more than 1% is just fine, too.) But we work hard to ensure that everyone on the team uses our vocabulary, titles, processes, and systems. Otherwise, too much time and momentum are lost.

What does bid mean to you?

When people say, "I had to bid on that project?” do you mean you had to design it and compete for it? Was the bid to integrate a design by a client or a third-party consultant? Was it a ‘lowest cost takes the job’ bid, where maybe you were cutting corners that you usually wouldn’t to try and win the job? Will that bid stand despite the change orders, ongoing problems, or price increases it might expose the client to?

Are You Sure That’s Recurring Revenue?

One of the things that continues to frustrate me is how AV companies define recurring revenue. Tallying the dollars is easy, but after acquiring a few companies, you learn that you have to dig to find the margin. CTI’s system is pretty clean. We generate data around the brutal facts of what it is, not what we wish it were, and verify the actual profit on a contract.

I've been to conference after conference where an exec claims their recurring revenue is HUGE! But until you ask them questions, they don’t realize they’re losing revenue. Let’s say the contract is for $100K, and the person on site costs $60K. That’s 40% profit, right?

Wrong.

In the case I’m thinking of, the person embedded on-site had 4 weeks of vacation. They had to bring in a substitute a week early to train them. That was at least $5K. Education and benefits for the full-time employee were another $16K a year. Clearing $19K a year isn’t that bad. Except that the employee was entitled to mileage and expenses. That ‘40% margin’ was quickly starting to close in on single-digits.

And that was if everything went right. That HUGE recurring revenue? It just wasn’t.

I’m not even factoring in that the client required a single end-of-month invoice, had a 60-day payment policy, and was constantly late, so an accountant had to spend a couple of hours a month to get the company paid. Too many contracts like that can bring an entire business down.

Common Language Moves Faster

I might be a little obsessed with revenue; it's a CEO thing. Cash flow is a big part of the job when you’ve got twelve hundred people working on thousands of projects in the course of a year. Our goals and KPIs reflect that. And if I’ve done my job right, everybody in the company understands why and makes every effort to meet them. And if they change, we can communicate them to the entire organization incredibly quickly. 

The only way to do that is to have a common vocabulary. Here’s hoping you have one with whoever you choose for your next AV integration. It makes all the difference.