After 3 long years, InfoComm finally returned as the Pro AV industry descended upon the Las Vegas Convention Center June 8th through the 10th. Having experienced a cancellation in 2020 and a scaled-back version in 2021, you could instantly feel the excitement surrounding the show and the joy of being around colleagues again in-person. Although the temperatures outside routinely reached 110+ degrees, the buzz inside of the Convention Center was far hotter! To add to this excitement, this event marked the official launch of the new Exertis Almo Pro AV, as the two companies have integrated into one. We have traded our Almo blue shirts in exchange for Exertis Almo red, and dare I say, our booth could be seen from one side of the North Hall to the other. Never been to InfoComm before? Allow me to describe why it remains a must-see industry event for Pro AV.
The week started off very quickly with the Exertis Almo-sponsored Opening Reception on Tuesday evening, which was held at the Hard Rock Café. Complete with cigar rolling, giveaways, and our always-famous Bourbon and Bacon tasting, the evening was definitely the kick-off to the entire show! We had multiple vendor sponsors in attendance, including Samsung, Legrand, LG, Sharp NEC, Absen, BrightSign, Yamaha, Epson, and Jabra, along with a bustling crowd of customers so large that wait times grew just to get in! Later in the week, a vendor informed me that he overheard people in the elevator talking about how excited they were to attend, so it sounds like our marketing team knocked it out of the park, as usual!
Fast-forward to the opening of the trade show floor. The expo ran from the 8th through the 10th, and all 3 days offered the kind of value that you can only find at InfoComm. When walking in for our morning booth tour, you immediately noticed the registration line wrapping around corners, and attendees were excited to be out amongst their colleagues and partners. Remember how I said our booth could be seen from one end to the next? Well, when your logo is bright red and your booth is multiple stories, it definitely stands out! Featuring multiple private meeting spaces as well as several featured vendors and additional meeting tables on the show floor, the Exertis Almo booth had something for everyone. You cannot attend an AV event without featuring a little “A” and a little “V”. To help achieve this, we had displays from Samsung, Sony, Absen, LG, and Avocor, along with various audio solutions
from Yamaha UC, Nureva, Jabra, and others, all present in our booth demoing the latest and greatest in their product lineups. In fact, several other vendors made sure to come by to visit and offer their feedback on the impressive attendance at our booth. What really differentiated us from others was very clear – our team. Quite frankly, the sight of 25+ red shirts was impressive, but once you realize that our team came from throughout the US, Canada, and even Europe, it showed just how powerful the new Exertis Almo will be moving forward.
The crux of any InfoComm has always been the meetings. Getting to sit face-to-face with customers, vendors, rep firms, end users, or even colleagues of past and present offers the most value for any attendee. You cannot normally find all of these folks under one roof, so it’s always imperative to take advantage of everyone’s presence. My meetings certainly fell into this spectrum, and each one provided me the chance to either learn or educate. One minute I was sitting with a customer from the northeast, describing our service offerings to uncover new opportunities, and the next minute I was walking through the West Hall, meeting with the VP of Audio from Harman Professional Solutions and learning about their strategy for the next few years. The ability to have these varying level of discussions will always be beneficial to all attendees.
Not to be outdone, we have to talk about the products and technology. After all, it is a technology showcase, right? Any chance you have to get up close and personal should always be seized, because that is how the real learning is done! You can attend launch calls, webinars, and multiple PowerPoint Zooms, OR you can stand in a demo room while an audio engineer demonstrates why their product outshines the rest, all while cranking the volume to 10. Talk about an “a-ha moment”! Not only were there two halls filled with vendors, but there were also multiple private demo rooms dedicated to some of the best in the audio field. Harman’s space was filled with AMX collaboration tools, installed audio products like ceiling speakers and amplifiers, as well as a small showcase of their latest product introductions. However, the real eye catcher was the large truss at the front of the room, containing the new SRX900 series powered arrays. This new product has been very well-received since its recent launch, so to see it and experience it live was definitely a perk of the week. Other impressive booths I saw were from Legrand, BrightSign, Sharp NEC, and Panasonic. While I wasn’t able to dive too deeply into each, you could tell there was a great deal of planning that went into the designs of each booth, on top of the products being featured.
I love about product discussions at InfoComm happen organically. These aren’t your typical trade-show-level sales pitches where the vendor is trying to close a deal. This is someone who is there to educate you on what their products with a legitimate interest in you receiving value. I experienced this personally with Tom Roberts, Channel Manager from Jabra. Tom spent the week in the Exertis Almo booth, and as crowds started to wind down on Thursday, I approached him to strike up a conversation about their consumer products with which I was familiar. By the time we were done with the 35-minute talk, I had learned more about their line of conferencing cameras, like the Panacast and Panacast 50, than I had previously known. That is where the value lies!
And of course, we can’t forget the parties! The opening reception was only the tip of the iceberg to the Peerless AV–sponsored “Glow Up the Night” party on Wednesday. Held at the Zouk Night Club, the preferred attire was bright colors which matched the venue’s bright lights and glow-sticks, necklaces, and more. Exertis Almo had their own private VIP section, and the night lived up to all expectations amongst the attendees! While I will be the first to admit I am no longer the “late nighter” I used to be, everyone who closed the party down certainly didn’t regret a thing. Everyone had a tremendous time indeed.
If you aren’t already impressed by all that InfoComm has to
offer, I saved the best for last. As the now-combined Exertis Almo Pro AV, our team took home the rAVe award for Favorite Distributor for a 10th consecutive year…YES, I said 10th! When we say Best in Class, we mean it! For all the work our collective teams do day-in and day-out, this was the icing on the cake.
After traveling to Las Vegas for my 10th time and attending my 3rd InfoComm, this one was the best. The past couple of years were certainly a challenge, but the second you step off the plane and see the InfoComm banner hanging in the airport, you know you are ready for the exciting events to come! I look forward to InfoComm 2023 in Orlando, FL, and hope to see even more first-timers attending the experience!
The human body has roughly 5 million sensory nerve receptors inside. The receptors help trigger the sensations of heat, cold, pain, and so many others that we have grown accustomed to. Being that I just turned 41 in March, it is quite easy to overlook these sensations outside of the frequent times I would yell “I CAN’T STAND THE COLD WEATHER ANYMORE!” Having just returned from a trip out to California while attending Almo Pro AV’s award-winning E4 Experience, it really dawned on me of the importance that the sense of touch has on all of us. It had been 3 long years since I last had gotten on a plane and roughly 2 ½ years since I last attended an E4 or any other industry events. It is absolutely true that you don’t know what you have ‘til it’s gone and having the Pro AV industry (and the world for that matter) shut down the past couple of years really caused me to miss being on the road and interacting with all of you. With that being said, I found myself immersed in the opportunity to be around the product that we all sell, train, manage, and communicate on the daily.
Dating back to my days selling the first consumer Plasma TV’s and 500lb console televisions (slight exaggeration!) in retail, I have always had a belief that to be successful in sales, you had to be a customer yourself. How could I honestly and accurately sell products if I didn’t use those products myself? There is something to be said about taking a new audio receiver home, connecting it yourself, and spending hours, days, or weeks adjusting the settings to your preferred listening levels. This practice dates back to the late 1990’s for me and holds true to this very day. I am a visual, hands-on learner. I enjoy the art of “trying to break something,” meaning I like to test the product, possibly disassemble it, and try to understand how and why it functions the way it does. Looking around my office right now, I can count a minimum of 10 products that are available through Almo Pro AV. If I look around my house even further, I see internet, cable TV, security, and even solar services, which I had sold previously in my career. Again, if I don’t use the product, how can I accurately sell it?
How many times a week do we find ourselves quoting out product specs for a particular item? Half a dozen? 10-12? I’d venture to guess quite a bit. Let’s take a portable loudspeaker as an example. All week long I can be on email, zoom, and phone calls and recite the following to a customer: “Yes, this speaker has a vertical array containing 12 2.5” drivers with copper-capped pole pieces to minimize distortion. This model contains a 2000-watt fully-bridged amplifier and a 7-channel digital mixer. Each speaker weighs roughly 55lbs and measures 33x19x25” in size.” Ultimately, reciting those specs to a customer is probably going to be good enough to close the deal, especially if it is a speaker the customer has previously used, or maybe they need an upgrade to a more current model, etc.
However, imagine being able to attend an event like E4 Experience, where you walk up to a manufacturers booth, you see this particular loudspeaker on display, and you are ENCOURAGED to be HANDS-ON! The E4 Experience is hardly your 5th grade trip to the Museum. These manufacturers want you to touch the product, examine at your own speed, and ask questions about how to best utilize those products! There is a lot to be said for the ability to do this and immediately earns you a layer of credibility with your customers when you can speak from personal experiences.
During this most recent E4 Experience, held in sunny Anaheim, CA, I had the opportunity to talk with Cassidy Alley, Account Manager from Almo’s National Business Team. Cassidy is newer to the Almo Family, having just started in the fall of 2021, and this was her first ever E4 Experience. In our show floor discussion, she said, “Being able to attend the E4 tour is a great experience as it provided the opportunity to learn about products through a live demonstration, build relationships with the vendors, and interact with end-users. This opportunity has helped with driving business as relationships and knowledge grew. The E4 tour is an invaluable way for dealers and end users to connect with key players in the industry. Going to an E4 presents an amazing opportunity to really dive deep and have a personalized interaction with the newest in AV technology.” The two things she said that really struck a chord with me were learning about products through live demonstration and also how attending an E4 presented an opportunity to dive deeper. Cassidy, like the rest of us, can only go so far reciting specs from online data sheets. She took the opportunity and ran with it like so many others and I find that extremely commendable.
For those of you who are familiar with past blogs and articles I have written, you will know that I am a big proponent of seeking out ways to educate ourselves in order to move further in the comfort model. The E4 Experience is an excellent example of this, and it is a way for us to get our hands on the latest and greatest in technology that the Pro AV industry has to offer. As the country continues to open back up to pre-2020 normalcy, it is imperative that we all seek out these opportunities to not only get in front of the manufacturers we all know and love, but also get in front of the products we have been talking about for years and really gain a physical understanding of how the products work, how they tie together to complete a project, and even pick up some tips and tricks on how we can better sell them to our customers through live demos.
I hope to see you all in Chicago on May 3rd at the next E4 Experience, and don’t be afraid to walk up to a booth and get hands-on with everything that Pro AV has to offer in 2022!
In any given career, you will find opportunities that present themselves and your job is to take that opportunity and run with it. In past blog posts I have written about my opportunities like being offered the role of Business Development Manager for Harman, being asked to visit the Harman Experience Center in Northridge, CA, and utilizing Almo’s Tuition Program to further my education and development. In a year full of challenges and obstacles, the latest opportunity came in the form of sadness turned to generosity and happiness. Allow me to explain.
My wife’s grandmother had been experiencing failing health for quite some time and sadly, she passed away in the beginning of 2020. Her services were held at Groveville United Methodist Church in NJ where she had been a longtime and very active member. After a few days had gone by, my mother-in-law approached me to mention that her mom had always wanted to update the sound system at the church because during the sermons and choir concerts she had a hard time hearing everything. Apparently, it was always a thorn in her side! Certainly, I was glad to help and began looking for someone who could not only install the needed hardware, but also handle the situation with the care, understanding, and delicacy it warranted. Through a recommendation from our Regional Sales Director, I was brought to Jak Daragjati and DARA AV from Staten Island, NY. Jak was more than willing to help us and offered to make the drive from NY to conduct a site visit. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to not only help my mother-in-law and the church, but also attend the site visit myself to gain a better understanding of what it entails and to learn more about the House of Worship vertical. What we found that day was an antiquated system that certainly lacked the technology, not to mention organization that this house of worship deserved. There were some items we found that were not even plugged in and functional, not to mention switches and cords that younger members had easy access to. What I learned from attending this site visit was not only was Jak very thorough with his questions and with surveying even the tiny basement of the church, but he was knowledgeable to boot. Jak knew about different forms of religion from all over the world and could tell us what type of system would work best for the types of sermons they held on Sundays. He was thoughtful enough to ask about the members who might have trouble hearing and what they would want. It all blew me away to be quite honest.
Thanks to many generous donations from family, friends, and the congregation, the church was able to move forward with the entire set up that Jak had recommended. No thanks to the Covid-related delays we experienced this year, the church reopened recently and Jak wasted no time in scheduling the install. Now, when members show up on Sundays they will be greeted by two Samsung UN75RU7100F displays hanging on Chief RLT2 mounts with a pair of JBL CBT70J arrays, so not only can the members see what is being presented but also they will certainly hear it from all corners of the church. Additionally, there is a Crown DCI2x1250 amplifier powering this and a BSS Blu-100 for the control functionality. All of this is sitting in a Middle Atlantic rack with a Middle Atlantic PDS-615R Power Sequencer for organization and safety. As I was writing this, my mother-in-law received a call from the minister simply telling her how thrilled he was the amazing outcome. He could not wait for Sunday!
In the end, this opportunity was unlike any others I had been presented with. We were able to honor the wishes of my wife’s grandmother while at the same time I was able to experience what our integrators are capable of when presented with a project. Jak and the team from DARA AV went above and beyond in our time of need and left all of us thoroughly impressed. I would ask all of you look for opportunities similar to this in which we have a chance to help someone solve a long-term issue while at the same time continue to further our own education and development by learning something new every day. A special “THANK YOU” goes out to everyone at Groveville United Methodist Church and DARA AV for being the best choice when it comes to any house of worship project!
One way or another, school is coming this fall. Tips for being prepared. Written by Rob Voorhees, Business Development Manager, ALMO
We find ourselves smack in the middle of July when days are getting hotter and in years past, we might find ourselves looking forward to August vacations or days by the pool. However, 2020 has continuously thrown curveball after curveball, and we continue to adapt as best as we can. If your house is anything like mine, one of the biggest topics has been “what is happening when schools open in September?” Considering my wife is an elementary teacher and my daughters will be entering 7th and 4thgrades respectively, I multiply that same question by 3 every day. My home state of NJ is fortunate in that we have begun to reopen in phases, and it was recently announced that our schools could reopen although with a very large “IF” attached to it. School districts nationwide are being advised to space out desks, close cafeteria lunches, and ban recess time in order to protect our children, our teachers, and our communities as a whole. Some schools have already announced the continuation of remote schooling or even a hybrid model for the upcoming year. This is where the term “Distance Learning” really resonates with us all.
Distance Learning is not as simple as just recording a lesson and emailing it to your students. I certainly learned that earlier this year as I saw the hours that my wife was spending on lesson plans, zoom calls, and videos to help her students as best as possible. Not to mention the frustration she would have with managing the shrinking attention spans of children and ensuring her video calls did not crash on a daily basis. A close friend of mine, who is also a teacher, has told me “distance learning was challenging. I worked more hours than I did while in the classroom and nearly everything had to be created from scratch to best accommodate each of her students. The technology component was also a challenge because teachers were expected to learn each of these new platforms with little to no preparation or background.” As most can attest, one particular challenge in distance learning is the need to now rely on the internet and technology more than ever. Simply put, if you cannot access the internet, you cannot access the day’s lesson. Comcast, amongst other internet service providers, took the initiative early on and made affordable internet available to everyone while others managed their nationwide networks to prevent from congestion or outages. You then also need to ensure you have the proper tools to access the internet. Several districts across the country will supply students with Chromebooks each year, which is a great start.Internet Bandwidth Service remains an essential service and if schools are debating on hybrid schedules or full remote learning models, they will need to ensure the bandwidth is available for the lessons to be streamed each day. Hybrid models will mean every teacher has a smaller class during the day while simultaneously being recorded so their remote students at home can learn at the same time. Now imagine 20+ teachers all doing this at the same time and you can see where network congestion and outages will become a headache. It becomes important to team with an A/V integrator and solution partner like ALMOwho can provide an analysis of the current bandwidth at the school and then make recommendations for improvements based on the number of employees and the number of devices. In several cases, this type of analysis could also lead to larger cost savings over an annual basis, which is one thing most school districts would love to see! “What about the students at home?” you might be asking. School districts can now supply mobile hotspots or tablets with built in access to students in need to ensure that everyone can access the same material. There is also a reporting and device management layer to this, which the schools would find essential. Administrators can have access to deactivate lost or stolen devices, escalate issues due to improper usage, or even identify cost saving measures by using the account analysis features. All of this becomes a necessity if we are truly looking to embrace a new norm for our children and educators. I think my closest friends and I are in agreement in that virtual schooling has become a necessity. While currently imperfect, there is definitely a bigger opportunity in September for improved engagement between teacher/student as well as some much needed social interaction between student/student.
In closing, I commend our school districts for navigating these difficult times and my hope is with the above suggestions and by partnering with the right integration firms and AV distributors they can alleviate some of the technological stress our students, teachers, and parents are facing and will face moving forward. To help, ALMO Pro AV will be hosting a special Distance Learning Preparedness webinaron July 31st at noon ET to share ideas and insights on pivotal technology equipment for a smoother and more effective hybrid learning environment when school is back in session. Lastly, let us all continue to stay safe and do our small part to make the learning experience easier this fall and beyond.
The year is 2020 and by now the word is out that ALMO Professional A/V offers Business Communication Services as a value-add to our partners and their customers. What is rapidly evolving are the specific services that fall under the “business communications” category and just how they can impact our daily routines.
Whenever a discussion about Business Communication Services begins, most think of Internet, Voice, and TV services as the traditional “triple play bundle” and stop the conversation there. Do not get me wrong, Internet connectivity is still an absolute essential and with the number of home-based workers drastically increasing; that will not change any time soon. In fact, in the past 3 months alone, ALMO has assisted two top-10 integrators save between $11,000 and $54,000 a year on their internet connectivity, all because they wanted an analysis on their current spend and found that their current service was not nearly as efficient as it could be.
I am here to tell you that there is so much more value to be gained by analyzing the other essential communication services and not to be scared by outside the box thinking and questioning. With that in mind, I present to you my new bundle: Mobility and Marketing.
Mobility might be the easier of the two to comprehend to the
average customer. Gone are the days
where you have to drive to the local phone store, pick out a device and stand
there for over an hour waiting for the process to be completed. Through ALMO, our customers can source
wireless phone service, devices, and accessories for the same cost as if they
were to walk into a store directly. The
difference is that ALMO has partnered with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and
T-Mobile so we are able to provide you full transparency on the best pricing,
calling service, and terms for your needs.
Competitive information, in the wireless world, is a very powerful
commodity. Our customers can expect the same device lineups, same pricing, and
same service…just more information at their fingertips!
Marketing, while some feel is not a form of communication, is actually one of my favorites. Without necessities like SEO (search engine optimization) and social media our customers would be in a black hole while trying to find new opportunities and thus not able to “communicate” with their customers. ALMO has recently begun working with one of the top providers in the country, Vivial, to provide that benefit. Vivial specializes in offering a fully integrated online+social+mobile solution to customers. The foundation of what they offer through ALMO is Vivial’s award-winning Marketing Platform which helps customers with tactics such as Facebook Advertising, Content Marketing, Directory Optimization, Review Generation, and Improving Google Rankings. Consider all of this PLUS our customers have a dedicated account manager to hold their hands through the entire process. Use the information I provided to help your own business flourish this year. My challenge to each of you is to take at least ONE of your current services and contact ALMO Professional A/V for a FREE analysis and quote on how we can pass on the same savings to you as we have for so many others.
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