Latest / Inside Integration / Episode 106: CES isn't our jam.

Transcript

Episode 106: CES isn't our jam. · Inside Integration

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Inside Integration Podcast.
• 0:01
  My name is Chris. I am joined, as always, by my
• 0:04
  partner Jason. What is up, everybody?
• 0:07
  And Jason, Jason is he's, he's back-to-back to home base.
• 0:11
  And we are, we're, we're, we're happy to have him.
• 0:14
  He survived the Equestrian Wiles of Ocala, FL.
• 0:19
  Yeah, You know, Florida has, Florida has a lot of ups and
• 0:23
  downs, I'll say. You know, there's a lot of INS
• 0:25
  and outs. There's a lot of, you know,
• 0:27
  nuance like. It's it's all.
• 0:28
  We went to Bucky's. In and out, yeah.
• 0:30
  Right. We, we went to, you know, we
• 0:33
  went to Bucky's last year when we were in Texas, right?
• 0:37
  It was, so it's. Yeah, we had to make a mad dash
• 0:40
  to get to the fucking airport and back and stop for gas along
• 0:44
  the way, even though we were going to a gas station.
• 0:46
  It's a fun podcast to listen to from a year or so ago.
• 0:51
  We're we're literally going to a gas station.
• 0:54
  Oh, and by the way, when we're at Bucky's, you're going to hang
• 0:57
  out in the parking lot and when we book another Uber, it's going
• 0:59
  to be you again. I can't do that so much yes.
• 1:01
  You can just turn around. Let's go.
• 1:04
  Yeah, that was a nightmare. But yeah, the.
• 1:07
  We'll just say the clientele at Bucky's in Daytona Beach, wildly
• 1:12
  different than the clientele that you might find at a Bucky's
• 1:17
  near a race track in Texas, in Dallas.
• 1:19
  Yeah, Yeah. You know, people come in all
• 1:22
  shapes and sizes and should probably cover themselves, but
• 1:26
  it's it's Florida, so you can infer from that what you will.
• 1:33
  But you know, my kids came out with, you know, a couple of
• 1:37
  tchotchkes, you know, cool T-shirts.
• 1:39
  Got to got to update the the T-shirt game and got to get a,
• 1:42
  you know, an iron on patch and AI love Bucky's charm necklace
• 1:46
  that looks like it's circa 1984, like Madonna era.
• 1:51
  Like I don't know what's going on.
• 1:53
  So and yeah, it's weird what kids key into right.
• 1:56
  So like my, my daughter was like when we were there for your
• 2:00
  birthday like 3 years ago, I saw this wow.
• 2:03
  I saw this charm necklace thing. And if I could get one of those
• 2:07
  that would be really cool. And I was like, I've.
• 2:08
  Dreamt about this Chuck. This Bucky's tchotchke for.
• 2:11
  Three years. That's a fifth of my life.
• 2:15
  It was kind of like my reaction to that honestly, but.
• 2:20
  Haven't you thought of anything else?
• 2:21
  Yeah, true to her, true to her vision and her memory.
• 2:24
  And you know, she's got a mind like a steel trap.
• 2:26
  So I got that going for me. She was right.
• 2:30
  And yeah, found the found the charms and grabbed the necklace
• 2:34
  and got the patch and got the T-shirts and some, I don't know,
• 2:38
  coconut covered chocolate almond things, which are, I'm not a
• 2:41
  coconut guy, but whatever. And yeah, you know, we got, we
• 2:45
  got some treats and, and got the heck out of there.
• 2:47
  But yeah, Florida's wild. The beach is great.
• 2:51
  It was pretty wild to be, you know, actually on the sand a
• 2:56
  couple of days ago and then come back to some, some 30°
• 3:01
  temperatures. So I feel for the people that
• 3:04
  are lucky enough to go to Hawaii or go to these places and then
• 3:06
  go back to the frozen tundra. So it's funny to mention that
• 3:10
  because after, after we recorded the last episode of this thing,
• 3:15
  immediately I was roped into going to Kansas City to, to
• 3:21
  cover for somebody else, which is, which is totally fine,
• 3:23
  totally great. I was actually looking forward
• 3:25
  to it. I've never been to Kansas City.
• 3:27
  However, as we got closer to the event, the weather forecast for
• 3:32
  Kansas City became worse and worse.
• 3:34
  It was already supposed to be, you know, like just looking at
• 3:36
  the weather when I was booking the tickets, it was supposed to
• 3:39
  be -5 and then it was -5 with ice and snow and all kinds of
• 3:43
  other stuff. So they they ended up canceling
• 3:45
  the event and, and, and whatever.
• 3:48
  So on Saturday, instead of sitting in Kansas City, I went
• 3:52
  to the beach with my kids and it was 75° and we threw the
• 3:55
  football around. So yeah.
• 3:57
  Well, there you go. I didn't know ICE was running
• 3:59
  operations in Kansas City. That's weird.
• 4:01
  Yeah, it was. It's they're everywhere, right?
• 4:03
  That's well, you know, where where else can you shoot people?
• 4:06
  It's let's go for it. It's true.
• 4:07
  I mean, if they do it here, just you just spray that bear Mace
• 4:10
  right on my Taco and it's hot sauce.
• 4:13
  So thank you. Thank you for the public
• 4:15
  service. We'll, we'll keep we'll keep the
• 4:17
  political commentary off of this podcast, but I had to make.
• 4:20
  A point? Sure.
• 4:21
  What are? We doing.
• 4:23
  But yeah, so we're we were, we were kind of kicking us around
• 4:27
  again pre show meeting happening right now as you're listening.
• 4:31
  We were we were both pretty struck and we brought this up a
• 4:35
  couple times, like the the absolute wet fart that CES was
• 4:42
  this year and the complete lack of anything relevant to any of
• 4:47
  us, right? Like, I mean, what was out?
• 4:51
  Like all the blogs, all the periodicals, all the, all the
• 4:55
  articles, all the whatever. There was just nothing.
• 5:00
  Like it doesn't feel like there was anything at all for, you
• 5:04
  know, the custom electronics business, right you.
• 5:07
  Know I will say that yeah, you had to look at least from, you
• 5:11
  know, from, you know, I'm obviously like to pour over the
• 5:14
  news and I like to look at new things and you know, I don't
• 5:17
  sleep sometimes all that well. So I'll, I'll, you know, I'll
• 5:20
  make sure that I'm not going to sleep by pouring a bunch of blue
• 5:22
  light into my eyes and read things and all that stuff.
• 5:26
  I need to get more into the 24 hour gym thing because that'll
• 5:29
  probably help with my my sleep pattern.
• 5:31
  But regardless of that, looking at, you know, news reports, even
• 5:38
  in twice magazine, which, you know, this week in consumer
• 5:40
  electronics, if you're not familiar with the the
• 5:43
  publication and their website, you know, they're, they're
• 5:46
  pretty good aggregate for all the things that are going on in
• 5:48
  consumer electronics. And there's a lot of talk about
• 5:52
  laptops, There's a lot of talk about, you know, AI, there's,
• 5:57
  you know, certainly some, some conversation about, you know,
• 6:01
  80th anniversary for Onkyo and the post post CES announcement
• 6:07
  of TCL and Sony doing their thing, which we talked about
• 6:09
  last week, right? Yep.
• 6:11
  I mean, a bunch of the majors were not on the floor with
• 6:15
  technology. I mean, Samsung had their
• 6:18
  experience at the Wynn. So you, I mean, you go to CES
• 6:22
  and you're going to Steve Wynn's hotel to go, you know, stand in
• 6:26
  line to get into, you know, a ballroom or whatever at the
• 6:30
  hotel. And it's not a knock, I don't
• 6:31
  think on Samsung by any means, but I'm sure it's them looking
• 6:35
  at the reality of what the market forces are are telling
• 6:38
  them and saying, you know what, if we spend our money this way,
• 6:41
  we're going to get a much better ROI and we can control exactly
• 6:45
  what's happening in our space and we can control who gets in
• 6:47
  and all that good stuff. But I'm with you, man.
• 6:50
  Like outside of actually having to look for what we saw at CES,
• 6:55
  I'm on TikTok, I look at some of those things.
• 6:59
  There was nothing that was relevant that I saw other than
• 7:02
  some audio announcements and that kind of stuff that was
• 7:05
  partial or relevant to our industry.
• 7:08
  And that was, I mean, I know it's been happening for a while,
• 7:12
  but unless you're gonna make a, you know, a drone personal
• 7:16
  helicopter or you're going to do a laptop that has the screen
• 7:22
  swell or stretch or, you know, and I think this isn't a joke,
• 7:26
  but there were some, you know, some mayoral aids and some
• 7:30
  things like that that were, you know what?
• 7:33
  I think it's personal health devices.
• 7:34
  Matter and threat enabled. Yeah, exactly.
• 7:37
  Right. You know, there there were some
• 7:40
  things where you know, I guess you can if you're traveling or
• 7:43
  something, you can reach out to your partner and make them feel
• 7:47
  a buzz or reach out closer. That works.
• 7:49
  Exactly. Hey, I was thinking about you.
• 7:54
  Why would you even announce that?
• 7:55
  Just make it a surprise. Am I having a stroke?
• 7:59
  What's going on? Whoa, whoa, wait a second.
• 8:01
  That was a weird choice of words anyways.
• 8:04
  You take that technology and you pair it with an air tag and
• 8:07
  you're you know, you can always find your spouse in a crowd.
• 8:09
  Yeah, I mean, I guess that's. The one screaming.
• 8:13
  The one that just collapsed in a puddle in the middle of.
• 8:18
  Slid right off the bus seat. Convention.
• 8:20
  Yeah, exactly, so sorry. Hey, yeah, that was very
• 8:23
  graphic. Chris, You're gonna have to,
• 8:24
  you're gonna have to delete that.
• 8:25
  But anyways, no listeners. That's yeah, it was, I have to
• 8:29
  agree, man. It was very obvious how like
• 8:35
  less, I guess less of a directed impact in our channel at least
• 8:40
  that CES has become. There's a lot of stuff about
• 8:42
  cars, There's a lot of stuff about personal tech, a lot of
• 8:44
  stuff about cell phones. Again, laptops to do, but what,
• 8:50
  what, what is CES going to morph into or what, what is it going
• 8:53
  to become? What, what does that really mean
• 8:55
  for, for our industry? And I think that the tech
• 8:58
  industry at large, as again, things become more DIY, yeah,
• 9:03
  and simpler to to engage with and operate.
• 9:05
  Well, I think all right, so, so let's let's kind of break this
• 9:08
  down a little bit, right? Like what is the very point of
• 9:12
  CES, right? It's for manufacturers to, to
• 9:16
  interact with, with who, right? With regular attendees, with the
• 9:20
  press, with, you know, whatever, right?
• 9:23
  So you know who's attending CES, you know people who want a trip
• 9:29
  to Vegas, right? Like, you know, the tech press
• 9:32
  or whatever. But when it's if you're trying
• 9:35
  to interact with the tech press like you are, you are just one
• 9:38
  tiny sand grain on a beach of other people, right?
• 9:44
  So it does, it needs to be, it needs to be more directed.
• 9:48
  And I think that's evident by the technology news that I've
• 9:52
  seen come out of it is a robo vacuum that goes upstairs.
• 9:56
  And again, you know, like you mentioned, like some marital
• 10:01
  aids that were, you know, they're, they're like goof
• 10:02
  stories, right? Like, you know, the, the the
• 10:05
  electronics press picks up on, you know, the goof stories.
• 10:08
  And I've seen more of course, you know, I've seen more top ten
• 10:10
  dumb products at CES videos than I can count, right.
• 10:13
  So like, you know, that's a contingent of it.
• 10:15
  But like for what we do, you know, if anything that
• 10:19
  strengthens the, you know, it strengthens the appeal of having
• 10:22
  CEDIA. Right.
• 10:23
  So it absolutely does, yeah. It gives CD a much stronger
• 10:27
  platform, absolutely to host, to host a show that's relevant to
• 10:31
  the to the game. Yep, absolutely.
• 10:33
  And I mean, you know that that kind of, you know, Vegas is
• 10:36
  having a tough time attracting people no matter what, right?
• 10:39
  So. Obviously I stay in a white.
• 10:41
  Oh, hey, whatever. I mean, if hey, if if that's the
• 10:44
  place, if you can just go watch a UFC fight and an athletics
• 10:47
  game in two years, you know, whatever and maybe see what the
• 10:50
  sphere is doing. Like, OK, maybe that's a reason
• 10:52
  to go to Vegas, but CES is less of a reason to go.
• 10:55
  And you know that for our industry.
• 10:57
  I think that that really does solidify CDA Expo's position of,
• 11:03
  OK, this is something that is directed to what we want.
• 11:06
  And, you know, we've talked about last year's show and the
• 11:09
  year before. Last year's show was great
• 11:11
  because it was compressed. It wasn't, you know, an insane
• 11:14
  thing, you know, made a couple of jokes about, you know, OK,
• 11:16
  why is Cutco Knives here? You know what the, you know,
• 11:20
  the, the borderline, you know, why are these folks attending
• 11:24
  this thing? You know, that kind of thing.
• 11:26
  But it was, I mean, I felt like last year's CD was was a good
• 11:30
  show. It was a very directed show.
• 11:32
  There were a lot of great conversations.
• 11:33
  It wasn't, you know, it wasn't completely overloaded, but at
• 11:39
  the same time, you know, it wasn't overloaded with
• 11:41
  attendees, right? So you can get that quality
• 11:42
  time, but it also wasn't overloaded with vendors so that
• 11:46
  you're trekking from, you know, one end to the other and maybe
• 11:50
  not seeing a lot of the stuff that you want to see.
• 11:52
  So I feel like if if CD goes forward and you know, Expo
• 11:56
  continues to be a thing like that's, that's something to keep
• 11:59
  in mind, right? Like that formula last year
• 12:00
  seemed to work and feedback. You know, I, I mean, this is
• 12:05
  just me saying this and I think you kind of feel the same way.
• 12:07
  But I mean there's, I heard that from a ton of manufacturers and
• 12:11
  a ton of attendees. Is that, wow, this is a really
• 12:13
  good one. I had, I had a great
• 12:14
  conversation with so and so I had an awesome interaction at
• 12:17
  the Blue Stream booth. Like I had this and that and the
• 12:19
  other thing. And, you know, that's again,
• 12:24
  when you put that in contrast with what CES is like, OK, this
• 12:28
  is it. It gives us a reason to exist,
• 12:31
  you know. I agree.
• 12:32
  You know, I think too, from having attended a, a home
• 12:36
  building show here recently, I feel like, you know, everybody
• 12:40
  kind of poo poos that currently because, you know, the builder
• 12:43
  wants to cut out who's going to service this stuff and all that.
• 12:47
  But I I don't think we should be turning up our noses at those
• 12:50
  opportunities, especially because if there's still people
• 12:52
  building houses, yeah, there's your there's your entree to
• 12:56
  making money. Like what?
• 12:57
  Why are you, why are you poo pooing this or why are you
• 12:59
  acting like a jerk about it? You know what?
• 13:00
  I. Mean well, that's a big, and
• 13:02
  that's a big reason like attending those shows like the
• 13:04
  kitchen and bath show and home builders shows and that kind of
• 13:06
  thing. Like as a vendor or an
• 13:09
  integrator, that's a great way to connect with normies, right?
• 13:12
  Like, you know. Civilians.
• 13:15
  Yeah, civilians, right, For, for.
• 13:16
  They're not made men right there, they're just.
• 13:20
  Low levels, yeah. Yeah, they're foot soldiers,
• 13:24
  but. The capo regime over here.
• 13:27
  Exactly. Yeah, right.
• 13:29
  But you know, you're not you're not going to see a lot of
• 13:30
  homeowners in CD and you know, you're going to see a couple of
• 13:33
  a couple of folks who were zealots, but mostly it's going
• 13:35
  to be integrators, people who work for integrators,
• 13:37
  manufacturers, industry people, that kind of thing.
• 13:39
  Right. Like, this is CD Expo is our
• 13:41
  show. CES is way more wide open, way
• 13:45
  more of a scattershot, right? But then you're into kitchen,
• 13:49
  bath shows, local shows, that kind of thing where, yeah,
• 13:52
  that's where you're going to interface with normies, right?
• 13:55
  Like here's here's somebody who's building a house, here's a
• 13:58
  builder who you may not be able to reach, right?
• 14:01
  Like they have no idea what distributed audio is or
• 14:05
  distributed video or that that's even a thing.
• 14:07
  So, yeah, like those are important too.
• 14:12
  You know, I think the I think the Expo format is something
• 14:15
  that can can really be unique, right?
• 14:17
  Like, you know, you've you've got, again, we've talked about
• 14:20
  this before where you've got a lot of things that are, you
• 14:24
  know, you have a lot of the same thing, right?
• 14:26
  So pro source has a show, you know, powerhouse has an Expo,
• 14:30
  right? There's there's a few of these
• 14:32
  things. Light a Palooza is now a thing,
• 14:34
  right? Like as you own is going to have
• 14:36
  whatever that's going to have an Expo component of it.
• 14:39
  I think if we all got smart and maybe pared down the Expo part
• 14:44
  of things into, you know, and funneled all of that into CEDIA
• 14:49
  or or something, right? And that's your every single
• 14:52
  year. CEDIA is your Expo show and all
• 14:55
  your other ones are. It's for meetings, it's for
• 14:58
  interface, it's for that kind of thing.
• 15:00
  You know, that might serve us well, right?
• 15:02
  Because you know, the, the old, the old saw is always that like
• 15:06
  you're looking at the count, you know, if you're, you're in CE
• 15:08
  and you're looking at the calendar and it's like, you
• 15:11
  know, this is, this is coming up right now because the season is
• 15:13
  about to get started, right? Like.
• 15:15
  Oh yeah, dude, Light up Blues is coming, Pro service is coming,
• 15:18
  Hazion's coming. Winter conferences, the Guild
• 15:20
  like, well, like everybody's banging out.
• 15:22
  The summit is in Nashville this year, right?
• 15:25
  For that's in March, right? So everybody's going to the
• 15:28
  Grand Ole Opry, which is pretty, pretty fun to think about.
• 15:31
  It's such a dope. Space Man, did that hold a
• 15:33
  Gaylord Hotel that's attached to it if you've ever been through
• 15:36
  there. Oh, you got to.
• 15:37
  See it? Well, it's, Yeah, I've been to a
• 15:38
  couple of Gaylord properties in my time.
• 15:40
  The big one in Orlando. Yeah, a few times.
• 15:42
  Yeah. Whoa.
• 15:45
  Sorry, that was a trap. That was a trap, but you know, I
• 15:50
  would make a counterpoint to that only because I think that
• 15:55
  with some of these groups, and we'll just say it specifically
• 15:58
  here with Pro Source, you know, there is such a large contingent
• 16:03
  of dealers nationally that are in that group.
• 16:06
  It's the biggest one. I think generally speaking,
• 16:09
  outside of the brands that aren't in the group, there's a
• 16:12
  pretty good ROI for members on on those trips, right?
• 16:16
  Because all the vendors are there, they're going to be able
• 16:18
  to see the showcase. They're going to be able to get
• 16:19
  that one-on-one time without the throngs of people that you deal
• 16:23
  with at a CD or something like that.
• 16:25
  So, you know, I think, you know, at the at the peak of the
• 16:28
  mountain, I think there's a lot of parity and a lot of value in
• 16:33
  shows like that. But I think some of the regional
• 16:36
  tech summits and some of those opportunities probably need
• 16:42
  maybe a little bit of rethinking only because it becomes
• 16:45
  repetitive. And it I think it to your point,
• 16:48
  I think it does diminish the value of making the investment
• 16:51
  to go to something like CEDIA in Denver or sure, wherever it's
• 16:54
  going to be the next time. I mean, I keep saying that like,
• 16:58
  New Orleans is like right on my list, but New Orleans in
• 17:01
  September is such a dice roll because it's going to be hot and
• 17:05
  it's still hurricane season. Oh yeah.
• 17:08
  I mean, they tried it once and it didn't go so well.
• 17:10
  So it's one of those things, but yeah, I think there's absolute
• 17:17
  value in the big, you know, marquee show.
• 17:21
  And I think CD it will continue to be that show in our industry
• 17:26
  for for a while to come. But I, I do think that for
• 17:30
  people that are very serious about the business and want to
• 17:33
  make sure that they're, you know, engaged with the things
• 17:37
  that they're paying for, like Pro Source or ASEAN or whatever
• 17:39
  the buying group situation is that, that, that, you know,
• 17:42
  they, you have to go to those shows to, to get the, to get
• 17:46
  your dollar back out of the business and make sure that
• 17:48
  you're connected to the, the people that you're doing
• 17:50
  business with. Well, I, I think, and, and I
• 17:53
  think that's a, that's an important thing to note.
• 17:55
  And we're, we're kind of glossing over, right?
• 17:57
  Like this is the Expo aspect of it.
• 17:58
  And this is, you know, seeing the parts, holding the parts,
• 18:01
  getting the exploration and that kind of thing.
• 18:02
  The fun stuff. Yeah.
• 18:03
  But the the bigger thing and the way to really extract value from
• 18:07
  these events is the training, right?
• 18:09
  Like, you know, we need to step it up.
• 18:11
  Like so, OK, if we're going to do all of these things, if we're
• 18:13
  going to have all these events on a calendar, like they need to
• 18:16
  be worth it, right? Like, you know, and there should
• 18:19
  be maybe a little coordination between, you know, how, you
• 18:25
  know, how these guys do things right, like what vendors are at
• 18:28
  what thing. And if a vendor is going to be
• 18:29
  at multiple things six months apart, that's great because OK,
• 18:34
  I can send half my team to this one and half my team to this one
• 18:36
  or or whatever. You know, that's, that is what a
• 18:41
  lot of value is, right? So, you know, you join, you join
• 18:44
  a group like pro source or as you own or whoever.
• 18:46
  And you get discounts, you get volume discounts, but that
• 18:51
  training, man, I mean, that is that is worth the price of
• 18:54
  admission right there. That's your whole key.
• 18:56
  And I mean, I would even extend that to say, OK, that's part of
• 19:00
  why you do business with a distributor, right?
• 19:02
  Like that's, you know, one of the reasons that you deal with
• 19:05
  Value Tone or Snap or Mountain West or Security Data Supply or
• 19:09
  whoever is because, OK, there's a, you know, there's, there's a,
• 19:13
  there's a thing around it where they're hosting trainings,
• 19:16
  they're doing open houses, they're bringing the people so
• 19:18
  that you don't have to fly your team to, to Denver or to do a
• 19:22
  training, whatever. You know, Like that's, that's a
• 19:25
  big part of it too. But that we have to get better
• 19:27
  at that as an industry, right? Like more, you know, yeah, it's
• 19:32
  great to focus on your product. And that's how we get
• 19:34
  manufacturers to buy in and, and do these trainings.
• 19:37
  But I think it needs to be a little bit broader, right?
• 19:40
  So, you know, maybe I'm not training somebody on
• 19:42
  specifically Blue Stream, but maybe I'm training them on Dante
• 19:47
  one O 1 and Blue Stream or video distribution one O 1.
• 19:51
  And that relates to Blue Stream in some way, right?
• 19:53
  Like that's it's part of a larger, it's got to be part of a
• 19:57
  larger focus for our community in general.
• 19:59
  And I think CEDIA, you know, is in the position to spearhead
• 20:03
  this where we don't have. People coming up in the ranks,
• 20:07
  right, like. That's, you know, that was
• 20:09
  exactly what I was thinking. You talk to everybody and
• 20:12
  everybody says I can't hire guys.
• 20:14
  I don't know if these guys don't exist.
• 20:15
  Like they're not around, you know?
• 20:17
  And yeah, you need, we need to help dealers get guys up to
• 20:23
  speed, you know, and dealers need to commit to like, all
• 20:26
  right, I got to pull this guy out of the field for two days
• 20:28
  and fly him somewhere. Well, yeah, OK.
• 20:30
  That's. Because yeah, I think it circles
• 20:33
  back to something that, you know, I was seeing as an
• 20:35
  initiative. I don't exactly remember when,
• 20:38
  but I know that a few of the guys from the buying groups, Jim
• 20:42
  Pierce specifically, was part of this where they went to Congress
• 20:46
  to talk about consumer electronics and to talk about
• 20:49
  codifying the industry and really making it more of a, you
• 20:54
  know, a thing like, you know, like electricians are right.
• 20:56
  They make it up like a trade that's recognized.
• 20:58
  Now that's the industry classification, right?
• 21:00
  Like being a, of course, you know, a technology expert versus
• 21:04
  a straight up electrician or whatever.
• 21:06
  Like, yeah, that's that's a helpful, I'm sorry, I didn't
• 21:09
  mean to totally derail you, but yeah.
• 21:10
  No, no, that's exactly Yeah, that's but that's exactly the
• 21:14
  that's exactly the point, right? Is we're we're kind of eating
• 21:18
  our young here to to, you know, come borrow Rodney Dangerfield
• 21:21
  quote. But because I know now I know
• 21:23
  why tigers eat them. But the, you know, that the end
• 21:27
  of the day, we, we do need more young blood and we need more
• 21:30
  people that are interested with working with their hands.
• 21:33
  You know, I hear ads and stuff on the, the News Radio station
• 21:37
  that I listen to with the kids and on the way to school in the
• 21:39
  morning where they talk about we need trades, We need people that
• 21:43
  are electricians. We need people, You know,
• 21:44
  there's a, there's a massive dearth of, you know, older
• 21:49
  people that are aging out of that industry and younger people
• 21:51
  that are gets probably more interested in making Tik Toks or
• 21:54
  being content creators. But, you know, there's a,
• 21:58
  there's an overabundance of supply and I would say, you
• 22:01
  know, marginal demand for, you know, new content that's
• 22:04
  basically a rewash of, of something else that somebody
• 22:07
  else has already done. But I'd love to see that become
• 22:13
  more of a focus in education publicly, privately, and to, you
• 22:19
  know, really, as I said before, codify exactly why we're here.
• 22:23
  Because if we don't do that, we're going to end up with homes
• 22:27
  that, you know, you know, people should would expect to have
• 22:30
  these fixtures or would expect to have this level of support or
• 22:34
  whatever it is. But you know, none of those
• 22:36
  luxury appointments were offered to them.
• 22:39
  The builder isn't aware, you know, that again circles back to
• 22:42
  the builder show thing where hey, you're Mr. and Misses
• 22:45
  Builder. Did you know that you could do
• 22:47
  walk up music out in front of your house?
• 22:49
  You can do landscape lighting, you can do music in the backyard
• 22:51
  that you don't have to see. You can do speakers in every
• 22:53
  room that nobody has to see under the drywall, you know,
• 22:56
  level 5 finish or any of that stuff, right?
• 22:59
  Like these things exist. Why aren't you offering these to
• 23:02
  clients? Why aren't you talking to or
• 23:04
  looking for partners? Or why aren't you building a
• 23:07
  part of your builder group that does nothing but do these
• 23:11
  installs and offer AV as a service?
• 23:14
  You know, I think that is a fantastic way to, to keep the
• 23:19
  business alive, keep, you know, keep yourself diversified and
• 23:22
  to, you know, grow. That's, that's what we're all
• 23:24
  here to do if we're pure capitalists, right?
• 23:26
  We need more and. And just like, just like CES
• 23:29
  exists to inform the public that matter and thread compatible
• 23:33
  dildos exist, these local shows like that is, you know, I think
• 23:38
  that's got to be a big part of it is that, you know, we need
• 23:41
  integrators to go to these local shows that the kitchen and bath
• 23:44
  show. You know, if you're an
• 23:46
  integrator and you've got your, you know, talk to your Sonance
• 23:49
  Rep, they will give you the finish.
• 23:51
  You know the finish. Board, get the finish board to
• 23:53
  show it demo products, talk to the local Rep, get your stuff so
• 23:56
  you can flex. It and, and it's not about the
• 23:58
  technology, it's about the design.
• 24:00
  It's about how this works with your thing, right?
• 24:03
  Like if you're, you know, if you want to do, if you want to do
• 24:07
  accent lighting and strip lighting and you want to make
• 24:08
  that part of your offering, like, yeah, go to these shows
• 24:11
  and show this off. Right?
• 24:13
  Like, hey, people don't know that this stuff exists in the
• 24:17
  world. I mean, I see, I see it all the
• 24:19
  time. Like, I live in a pretty nice
• 24:20
  area and, you know, nobody I know has any kind of integration
• 24:24
  in their home. I'm the only psychopath that
• 24:25
  has, you know, the same system I've had in four houses and, and
• 24:28
  whatever, you know, like the best you'll see is Sonas or
• 24:32
  Sonos, you know, like that's, that's it.
• 24:35
  That's. You're doing a voodoo dance
• 24:36
  around your old gear just to keep it alive kind of thing.
• 24:38
  I really. Am yeah my my raw 2 system
• 24:42
  again. This is the 4th house that it's
• 24:43
  been in. It's very old and man, God
• 24:47
  bless. Lutron keeps on kicking, right?
• 24:49
  You know what, son? Chugging.
• 24:50
  Baby, they invented the in wall dimmer.
• 24:52
  They should be able to figure out how to make some stuff work
• 24:55
  for a real long time. And you know, God bless them.
• 24:57
  Exactly so and we love that. Speaking of that, I did just see
• 25:01
  not to derail us here, I did just see that Sonos just came
• 25:05
  out with a four zone Sonos unit that's just literally just
• 25:09
  popped up as you were talking. It's weird that they finally
• 25:13
  listened to everybody else and were watching these dollars walk
• 25:18
  out the door to Blue Stream or not, Sorry to Blue Sound to nad
• 25:23
  to these other vendors that have had that space all to
• 25:26
  themselves. And guess what?
• 25:28
  Yep, yeah. I mean, my gosh, it's about
• 25:33
  time. 44 zones, huh? Okay, couldn't make it 8.
• 25:36
  I mean, really. Well, you can.
• 25:38
  They need you to buy 2. No, I sure just buy 2 right?
• 25:43
  Buy 2 for toys as much. Yeah, that's fine.
• 25:45
  Hey, listen, Sonos is the you know, the the cheeseburger to
• 25:50
  the masses for for AV and an entree into a world that most
• 25:53
  people don't know anything about.
• 25:55
  And I will, I'll take, I'll take that it.
• 25:57
  Doesn't look like just in the cursory research that I'm doing
• 26:00
  in, in the hour since this news came out, it doesn't look like
• 26:03
  they're going to sell this to end users, at least not right
• 26:07
  now. It's, you know, you go to their
• 26:09
  thing and the link is find a professional and it lists, I
• 26:13
  guess anybody who's a Sonos professional.
• 26:17
  So this doesn't seem like it's going to be massly distributed,
• 26:22
  at least not at this point, right?
• 26:23
  Like you won't be able to roll in the Best Buy and pick up your
• 26:25
  your four zone Sonos player. So.
• 26:29
  You know, maybe they've recovered from, you know, the
• 26:33
  we'll just say the the. App debacle.
• 26:35
  Well, app debacle, the headphone situation where you know, that
• 26:38
  was really, I mean, I'm not throwing rocks at them, but the
• 26:41
  marketing and the messaging around that was not.
• 26:44
  I'm throwing rocks. That shit was totally that was
• 26:47
  like the. Well, I think the expectation
• 26:50
  was that you're going to have your headphones as a separate
• 26:52
  zone and that was not clarified, right.
• 26:54
  So I think there was a lot of customers thinking, oh, cool,
• 26:56
  well, I'll be able to have my Sonos on in my head and then
• 27:00
  somebody else will have this other thing.
• 27:02
  And then you don't realize that that's not how headphones work
• 27:05
  because you're, you know, the last time you were worried about
• 27:09
  headphones that worked were, you know, they plugged into your
• 27:11
  phone or they plugged into your Walkman or something like that.
• 27:13
  So you're, you know, again, the messaging there was a little
• 27:16
  cloudy. So the expectations were not not
• 27:19
  met. So if they actually are re
• 27:21
  engaging with the CI space with a product like that, yeah, I
• 27:24
  think that's a pretty positive signal.
• 27:26
  And you know, I think if you're if you're a streaming platform
• 27:31
  products manufactured Azure like a Lynbrook or whoever, you
• 27:34
  probably looking at that going shit man, we've had this space
• 27:36
  all to ourselves for all this time and now Sonos is here.
• 27:40
  So what? What are we going to do?
• 27:41
  Now, I mean, you know, yeah, you can't really.
• 27:44
  Yeah. It's it's gatekeeping, like you
• 27:47
  open, it's up to more people. I don't know.
• 27:50
  That's that's my thought. But yeah, yeah, it's hey, man,
• 27:54
  it's it's good multi room audio getting in general public
• 27:57
  awareness is, is a good thing no matter what.
• 27:59
  And you know, hey. You still need speakers for all
• 28:02
  of that stuff. You need, you need speakers and
• 28:05
  those can be architectural speakers.
• 28:06
  And this is, yeah, this is an amplified unit, right?
• 28:08
  Like they don't make a, they don't make a port version that's
• 28:11
  4 zones. They make an amplified 8 output,
• 28:15
  you know whatever, 125 watts each or something.
• 28:18
  It'll. Be fine, yeah.
• 28:20
  You know, it'll be fine, just stack them up.
• 28:22
  That's why they only have professionals do it right?
• 28:24
  So it's like some chud can't just, you know, plug in a butt.
• 28:27
  I don't know. Just throw it out there.
• 28:30
  They're called civilians, Chris. I didn't.
• 28:32
  I wasn't saying, I wasn't saying all of them, but wow, yeah, you
• 28:38
  know. Whatever.
• 28:39
  What, what are you going to do? Yeah, I like the, you know, I
• 28:42
  like the fact that this channel is continuing to mature and
• 28:45
  maybe coalesce around some of the pillar brands that have, you
• 28:49
  know, kind of held it up. And I think it's going to
• 28:52
  continue to evolve, obviously, as the Ways and Means of
• 28:55
  technology shift. You know, when you think about
• 28:57
  where, you know, we talked about where TV's are at, where they're
• 29:00
  commoditized and you know, Sony's doing things with TCL and
• 29:04
  you know, left is right and up is down and cats and dogs are
• 29:06
  living together. The.
• 29:07
  World upside down. The, the, you know, the just
• 29:13
  the, the focus on audio for the home and bringing music into
• 29:18
  more places in the home that isn't a portable speaker, that
• 29:21
  isn't just good enough, it actually sounds good.
• 29:24
  Could be nothing but good things for for our industry, even if
• 29:27
  you have to and maybe make a little bit less or something
• 29:30
  like that on the amplified product or the solution itself.
• 29:34
  You think about the labor and the speakers and all that stuff
• 29:36
  that go into it. I mean, you know, I was just
• 29:38
  having a conversation with a dealer partner last night where
• 29:40
  we were trying to value engineer something.
• 29:42
  And you know, the speakers, you know, from from brand F were,
• 29:47
  you know, 1700 bucks a pair. And then you know, the speakers
• 29:50
  from brand S and similar size shape, all that stuff for like
• 29:54
  500 a pair. So, OK, well, let's let's talk
• 29:59
  about how we can get this down and still deliver the same level
• 30:03
  of of excitement for the customer.
• 30:06
  All that to say, you know that is bodes well for the audio
• 30:09
  business, that bodes well for the custom integration business
• 30:12
  because lighting audio shades are probably going to be the the
• 30:17
  main pillars that drive us forward until there's another
• 30:20
  innovation in video tech or you know, video walls become less
• 30:25
  than $50,000 for something that could be your wallpaper or
• 30:28
  something like that it. Keeps going down, right?
• 30:30
  Like it keeps going down. And yeah, that's gonna be the
• 30:36
  only way to make money, right, Is we need to be experts on this
• 30:40
  stuff. And sure, in order to do that,
• 30:43
  we need to, we need to educate the, the, you know, the, the
• 30:46
  general populace, not going to slur them this time.
• 30:51
  You know, we need to educate the general populace that like this
• 30:53
  stuff exists, right? Like you don't, you're, you're
• 30:55
  not limited to, you know, just a, you know, your, your cable
• 30:59
  company's wireless router combo, right?
• 31:02
  Like you're not just limited to a Bluetooth speaker that you
• 31:06
  bring from room to room. You know what they're?
• 31:08
  Exposing and exposing younger people to technology and
• 31:12
  opportunity where they are thinking about their career and
• 31:14
  they are thinking about what they're going to do to feed
• 31:16
  themselves after mom and dad booed them out of the house.
• 31:19
  That it that isn't a TikTok or isn't or whatever.
• 31:21
  Or maybe they want to mix TikTok and custom integration together.
• 31:24
  Do it. Let's get more younger people
• 31:26
  excited about swinging a hammer. What that's going to look like
• 31:29
  and sound like, you know, being able to build up their own
• 31:32
  personal wealth and personal well-being through hard work.
• 31:36
  I think those are those are all lessons that you know, we can
• 31:39
  all benefit from. I mean, everybody's chirping
• 31:41
  about, hey, learn a trade, learn a trade, learn a trade.
• 31:43
  This is a trade. It is, trust me.
• 31:47
  And I drove a van for 16 years. I know.
• 31:49
  And a pretty honest to God man, it's a pretty damn fun trade
• 31:52
  too. It really, you know you could,
• 31:54
  you could do a lot worse, right? Like dealing dealing with people
• 31:58
  shit pipes may pay really well, but you're dealing.
• 32:00
  With people still a turd Wrangler, right?
• 32:04
  Yeah, you know, drilling through the electrician stuff.
• 32:06
  I mean, hey, you know, you might be a plumber, but this is, this
• 32:10
  is a trade, man technology and knowing how it applies to
• 32:14
  people's homes and can make their lives easier and better.
• 32:18
  It's, it's, it's legit and we got to treat it that way.
• 32:21
  So. Agreed.
• 32:22
  So yeah, I don't know how we went from CES to let's get kids
• 32:25
  into custom integration, but I'm excited that that's where the
• 32:29
  road took us today. We need to.
• 32:30
  We're going. We need to get there.
• 32:31
  And the way that these things relate is that, you know, CES is
• 32:34
  kind of kind of not the show for us, right?
• 32:37
  Like we need our own thing. There's too much noise and not
• 32:40
  enough signal in in a CES style show and.
• 32:44
  You know, there's an entire hall that's dedicated to China's
• 32:47
  business only. Yeah, Right.
• 32:49
  Right. Which is.
• 32:50
  Wild. You could get every marital aid
• 32:53
  that's Wi-Fi enabled in every color or flavor from every
• 32:56
  factory in Shenzhen, and that's an entire haul of this stuff,
• 33:00
  right? Like that is a lot of noise.
• 33:02
  Such a red light masks and weird health devices and Oh my God,
• 33:06
  machines my. My wife got one of those and
• 33:09
  it's, it's genuinely freaky. And we, we got it because we
• 33:13
  had, we had FSA money to use before the end of the year.
• 33:16
  And she was like, I want to get this and try.
• 33:17
  I was like, all right, whatever red light mask.
• 33:20
  And I swear to God, the first time I walked into our bedroom
• 33:22
  and she was using it and I had, didn't know that it was coming.
• 33:24
  I, I, I jumped out of my skin. I literally, I don't know if
• 33:28
  you've ever seen this, but it's basically a light up luchador
• 33:31
  mask. You know your loved one applies
• 33:33
  to their face and if you're not prepared for it, it's, it's
• 33:37
  jarring to say the least. And I'm, I'm saying this because
• 33:40
  she doesn't listen to the show, nor will she ever if I can help
• 33:43
  it, but it is it is it is it's an experience.
• 33:48
  It's very. Freaking he didn't go from 6 to
• 33:50
  midnight immediately. No, no.
• 33:53
  But what I did do was after I jumped out of my skin, I, I
• 33:56
  turned around and walked out and I went to, I went to my 10 year
• 33:59
  old's room and I said, Oh yeah, mom wants to talk to you.
• 34:01
  And I sent him in there. And that was an even better.
• 34:04
  Oh yeah. Anyway, yeah, well, mom's
• 34:11
  actually talking to the demons, just having a a face to face
• 34:15
  with Beatles above right now, so you should go in there and.
• 34:18
  Chat her up. No, we, we, we, we can't.
• 34:20
  My, my, my parenting technique is no.
• 34:24
  Yeah, Mom has to wear that. Because you were not a good
• 34:26
  listener today, that's why. Oh my God man, are you Catholic
• 34:34
  or what? I mean, I draw on all the
• 34:37
  experiences I'm provided to try and be the best dad I can, but
• 34:40
  yeah. Well, it's.
• 34:42
  Certainly one of them. Tip of the hat to you Sir, a
• 34:45
  little you know self self-inflicted drama is always
• 34:50
  the best teacher. They could carry that with them
• 34:52
  forever. Like I'm not a good listener.
• 34:58
  I'm doing the work for their future spouse.
• 35:00
  OK, I'm. Trying.
• 35:01
  Well, there you go. I'm trying to get them married.
• 35:03
  I understand. Get them off of the payroll.
• 35:05
  That's all you got to do. Get them off of the payroll.
• 35:07
  Marry them out. Right on.
• 35:11
  You got your own family now, son.
• 35:13
  Sorry. I can't.
• 35:13
  I can't. I can't.
• 35:15
  I can't support you anymore. Good luck bro.
• 35:16
  Yeah, good luck. She's the.
• 35:18
  Dad shaped a puff of smoke and I'm out here.
• 35:21
  Just like a cardboard cut out of you, right?
• 35:25
  So it's, you know, my dad's here represented by just this flat 2
• 35:29
  dimensional. Hand it it.
• 35:30
  Would have to be if if it was a true representation of my son's
• 35:33
  dad, it would have to just yell at him randomly every once in a
• 35:36
  while just. Just oh.
• 35:39
  No, no, and and then just randomly like completely
• 35:42
  randomly like. What are you doing in the middle
• 35:44
  of the night? Just it's like one of those
• 35:46
  prank cards that continues to squawk until the battery runs
• 35:49
  out. I like that.
• 35:51
  I mean, there's, there's our opportunity.
• 35:53
  Here we go, giving away all of the all of the good ideas on the
• 35:56
  podcast. I'm I'm a good dad, I swear.
• 35:59
  I try. I really try hard.
• 36:01
  I'm sure you're a good dad. You took your kids to the beach
• 36:03
  and threw a football at and that sounds like pretty good dad
• 36:05
  stuff to me. It is.
• 36:06
  It is. I think that's enough for today.
• 36:09
  I agree. Wow, how?
• 36:10
  Did we get here? You know, and I, I will tell you
• 36:13
  I I did miss the 15 minute chimes that you're, that you're
• 36:18
  not providing anymore. I think that needs to be a part
• 36:22
  of the show. I, I, I met with a few, I met
• 36:24
  with a few people of, of, you know, elderly folks.
• 36:28
  I, I don't, you know, aged. I'm not sure the right word
• 36:30
  these days, but yeah, we, we had cuckoo clocks, we had chime
• 36:34
  clocks, Hummels, we so many chachkas.
• 36:39
  And I mean the legacy AV system du jour with the VCR DVD player
• 36:46
  combo and then CD player because DVDs, CDs never cross paths.
• 36:51
  Yes. And dual cassette deck and
• 36:53
  amplifier and equalizer. And I was like, Oh my God, can I
• 36:57
  put that? Don't just take that with me
• 36:59
  right now. Museum of Technology.
• 37:01
  Just amazing. So yeah.
• 37:03
  And then, yeah, paring down some of my parents, shall we say,
• 37:08
  collection was also an exciting opportunity for me.
• 37:11
  So hey, what can you do? Right on.
• 37:15
  That's going to do it for us folks.
• 37:16
  Thanks. Thanks so much for listening.
• 37:18
  Please, you know, if if you liked or didn't like what you
• 37:21
  heard, reach out to us, man. Hit us on Instagram inside under
• 37:24
  score integration or via Gmail. Shoot us an e-mail
• 37:28
  inside.integration@gmail.com and thanks for listening.
• 37:33
  Take care everybody. Bye bye.