AVPro Crafts a Complete Story for Commercial and Residential Dealers

Rob Stott: Alright, we are back on the Connected Design podcast and coming to you right now from inside of a hustling and bustling ⁓ expo hall here, the Las Vegas Convention Center ahead of Infocom. We're one day early as we sit here, Mr. Tom Divine. That's right, it hasn't even started yet. I know. But the ⁓ it's with how crazy it is right now, it's even crazier to think what it's gonna be like over the next couple of days for you guys. I know, and it is it's wild how this whole entire place transforms in like twenty-four hours. By the time tomorrow it'll look completely different and everything looks ⁓ all professional. But if you guys could see right now, it's a madhouse around us right now. Having having seen the other like this side of it from other companies I've been with, ⁓ knowing it's like magic man. It it really is to see it like there's no carpet down and that you guys got carpet down. I I I imagine you did that for you knew I was coming, so you wanted the the carpet to be ready for for a podcast. ⁓ that we can't even see below our our hips. ⁓ but it's all right. I appreciate you doing that. But like to then know to your point, right? Like twenty four hours later, this is gonna be a completely put together trade show experience for the commercial A V industry. It's unbelievable. Exactly. ⁓ I it's so fun to be a part ⁓ you infocomment What I kind of think about, it's like the Super Bowl of commercial A V. So really exciting ⁓ leading up here. You know, I've been here for the last few days and we're excited to see all of these integrators who are, you know, putting through professional ⁓ systems throughout the whole world converge and start to, you know, mind meld and and and share ideas and share solutions and share technologies and what can happen. And so for me it's a really exciting time. So Tom Devine, VP marketing for AV Pro Global, ⁓ Talk me through that a little bit. What's what's life like? What's the job like? Yeah, thanks. ⁓ yeah, so ⁓ yeah, Tom Devine from ⁓ A V Pro. I've been here for over 10 years. and ⁓ we've changed a lot in those 10 years. But I'll tell you what, for right now, what we're what as ⁓ you know what I'm working on right now is getting out to the world that A V Pro is more than just A V Pro Edge and Extenders. That's what we've been known to, known for you know a long time. We have a 10-year warranty. It's what we sell the most of. It's what a lot of people say. ⁓ when you need it done right, you just grab the box, the green box, you know it's you don't have to worry about it. we're really proud of that, but we have a lot of other solutions. So we're excited to share those other solutions. ⁓ recently, or about one year ago, we acquired the control company RTI. Yep. ⁓ with that, that changes the landscape for how we want to go with our our our distribution of audio and video and how that can work alongside RTI. Well that's very important to us. And so that's what we've been really concentrating over the last year is marrying A V Pro with RTI. And having these converge so that if you're gonna use an A V Pro product and an RTI control system, they're gonna work together smoother. It's going to be an easier job for the integrator. Now, the other thing we're doing is we're trying to determine what is an RTI control job. And so as we have ⁓ A V Pro Edge, we work with all control manufacturers. We work with Prestron, we work with QCys. Those are some of our biggest partners. Well, we also want to show show that we have this control in RTI and we want to find those locations and those ⁓ types of installs that RTI is gonna be the perfect fit and we're excited to share that with you know all of our viewers here. Yeah it's ⁓ like you guys have a a complete story to tell right and that that's kind of I marketing storytelling that's kind of what you do. So I I have to imagine being able to you know kind of weave the ne the narrative ⁓ at a show like this and help the attendees or those those commercial integrators ⁓ and residential which we'll get to ⁓ you know, make sense of this kind of the crux of of what you're here doing at the sh a show like this. Exactly. So very exciting having everybody converge here and yeah, and then being able to show audio plus video plus control and how that equals A V pro. Yeah. And that's kind of what like you said, the story that we're trying to convey over this show. I I unintentional completely side note plug that ⁓ we're on sure microphones. I know they're a headline sponsor. We're gonna see how well they do it, cutting out background noise. Because if you didn't believe we were on the show floor a day early as things were being built and ⁓ I you probably can hear it, but we're gonna do our best to suppress that noise. Yeah, good luck because a guy has to be grinding metal, I think is the only that's the all I can think of. That's proof that like this show they do anything to make it come together, whatever they gotta do. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Yeah, no kidding. So I being at Infocom, ⁓ you know, I know we'll we'll get into it because I know in a few weeks crazy to say that, but in a few weeks we're gonna see you at another show that kind of covers a different part of this industry. but talk about your presence here. ⁓ I know obviously very commercial centric. Yeah. ⁓ so what you know what's the converse what are those conversations like or how do you guys present yourselves a little differently ⁓ you know than we will see in a couple of weeks. Totally. So yeah, I mean A V Pro we do residential and we do commercial. And we focus super focused on each one of those industries. So we have different solutions for each one of that integrator. And there are a lot of integrators that play that light commercial, that resie merchal, whatever buzzword you want to find out for it. ⁓ space. ⁓ especially sports bars, especially hospitality, hotels. Well, we're finding all of our customers do that in any segment. And we really want to show that. So what we're doing today is we are actually showcasing ⁓ what a casino would be like. We're taking advantage of the Las Vegas setting, and we at the Infocom booth were showing what a casino would be like. Well, a casino, it has a sports bar, you know, a casino has a lobby, has a hotel, it has these different spaces, has digital signage. And what we're trying to show is that all of those different things make up this one installation and can all be fed by AV Pro products, can be controlled through RTI. And even more so, each one of those individual individual sections They can also be harnessed into different types of installations. Say it's a dentist office or a university or a whatever kind of installation or vertical you're using. If it includes audio, video, or control, AV Pro has a place to fit in there. So for our commercial audience, that's what we really try to focus on. ⁓ and that's why ⁓ as we set up this ⁓ you know this this mock casino, you know, we have a fake slot machine to try to play around a little bit and we have you know, like a fake menu sports bar and ⁓ we'll be giving out beer a little ⁓ you a little bit. I was gonna say, ⁓ a dentist office if they were coming through here, I don't know how they feel about a slot machine and a sports bar, but ⁓ you I I'm all for it, man. But but it what it does and kinda what you're getting at is the fact that it shows the real world application for everything that you guys do. Grant I I mean, we're on a show floor, right? An expo hall, but like gives you the chance to put your products, put your message out there in a way that is very I Livable may not be the right word, but like usable, yes. Yes, you're exactly right. What you want to what we want to convey to our audience as they come in here is that an integrator can come to our booth and they can see with their own eyes and touch and hold with their hands the solutions that they can immediately take back to their own cities, their own towns, and start bidding jobs for these types of solu solutions. So maybe you don't have a casino, that's okay, you have a hotels. And hotel has a lobby and has a bar and has these things. Maybe you don't have the exact solution we're showing here as in a casino, but every commercial installation has these different elements and we want to show how with A V Pro, with RTI, you combine these solutions together to give you the full package. And so that's what we're s that's what we get to show today. Now This relates right into residential though. It's not like we're using some other type of solution, but with residential, we're gonna just be more concerned about multi-channel audio and HDR video. Where with our commercial audiences, we don't really care as much about that stuff. They're gonna do two-channel audio. They're not worried about the picture quality being, you know, some sort of eight million colors on screen. They need to be able to see the Excel sheet very clearly when they present it. To a hundred people or whatever. So it's a different type of audience, but a lot of the same things they're looking for are are the same. Yeah. So we try to harness our solutions for that. You know, we're not showing multi-channel audio, we're not showing HDR. What we're showing is the scalability and the interoperability of A V pro. So we are we are working with a bunch of different partners, whether it be control or cameras or you know, peripherals or ⁓ whatever. We have a whole bunch of different types of products around our booth and we're showing how you interact with those products like you would in a real world with our solutions. I and that may I mean you may have already done a great job at answering the follow-up here is like, right, we will be at CD Expo in just a couple of weeks. So the that I'm sure details pretty well how differently the presentation is, but talk about the conversations that you have. Do they are they drastically different or what or what really is different about, you know, your presence here versus what we'll see in Denver? Well The biggest presence is going to be here. We are not presenting our brand audio control in a major way at all. Because audio control is revolving around home theater and audio excellence and multi-channel audio and busting out 16 speakers with two subwoofers around your, you know, ⁓ amazing living space and and and that's what it does great. Here, we don't offer that element. What we offer is we offer Комерціл амплікація That doesn't need these massive wattage powers like you need in home theater. ⁓ but everybody inside AV Pro, we think home theater is pretty cool. And we actually know it's a bit. Yeah. And we're like all Cinephiles and Audiophiles. So ⁓ while yes, we're excited to show our commercial offerings, what we do in residential, ⁓ it powers what we do in commercial. Because commercial, while yes, they need more screens and they need much. More massive scalability. What they're not looking for are these very technical details of signaling that we have to be specialized in. And what that does for us is it allows us to specialize in those for residential so that when we get to commercial, everything is just more stable. Things work better. When you plug in this ⁓ you know a brand new MacBook that's gonna pump out a new signal off of your USB device that's that's giving you HDMI 2.1 capabilities or display port capabilities. Well You have to have a system that works with that. And maybe that's not out for a year. So the in the thing you're installing now has to be able to work with that. That's what we try to show at A V Pro as well, is that we are ⁓ ready for the future. By taking those technologies that are they're standard in residential and giving that to commercial, it allows the commercial more headroom on their installs. Yeah. Well and I know it's a year out, so you may not even have ⁓ put any thought to it yet, right? But you already heard and know about the rumblings of Reside coming to here and we you'll have the kind of the chance to merge those messages. ⁓ talk about that a little bit and and have you started to think about how, you know, does that impact the way you present yourself at a show like this? Well, yes, what you're talking about and to recap, I'm sure most of your listeners know, is that, you know, we're at a commercial focused trade show. But next year it is going to be a commercial trade show with Light of Palooza and a residential section. So, y we are A V Pro, we go to Light of Palooza. You know, we're no we don't do lights, but that's where all of our integrators are. ⁓ we are at Cedia, we're at these places where, you know, it's being headed by the buying groups or part of those buying groups. Yep. So We are definitely gonna be playing ball. AB Pro goes to where the integrators are. We don't try to tell people or force integrators to go to a specific show or find us here. We're gonna go wherever you are going. So yes, we're definitely gonna show that that at next year, but we'll do it in a different way. Commercial integrators and residential integrators are very different folks. They have different priorities, they have different install tech ⁓ techniques, they have different strategies for gaining business, they have different ways of modeling their business. A commercial ⁓ ⁓ a job may take 18 months before you install. A residential job sometimes can take less than 30 days before you're installing. ⁓ so these are different types of businesses. So what we will foresee us doing is keeping our entire commercial presence. We will not alter it at all, and we will have a minor Residential presence in the residential section for Light of Cluza showing how I I appreciate you ⁓ offering that bit of insight. Yeah, and and that's how we're gonna take it. But I can tell you we've talked to a lot of partners and it's gonna be very different. Yeah, everybody's gonna do something different. ⁓ kind of exciting, right? You know you don't know how it's gonna to manifest itself, but it'll be cool to experience it for sure. And I know a lot of people are ⁓ excited about that and and looking forward to it. So ⁓ I gotta ask too, you know, we're we're what, six ish months into I think I I might have seen ⁓ around here, Matt? You know, being at the helm, ⁓ you know kind of give you the chance to reverse ⁓ review or you know how's he doing? How's th how have things been at AV Pro since ⁓ you know Matt took the helm? Exactly. So Matt Murray, current CEO, taking over from Jeff Murray, his dad, who's a real you know, ⁓ had a very long legacy in A. V. ⁓ you know, in a great Infocom ⁓ person of the year two years ago, ⁓ Jeff Murray. So ⁓ you it w it's been a big change, but what What I can tell you is Matt is a young professional that's ready to grow a company, that's ready to push solutions, that's ready to give integrators what they want. And Jeff was ready to do that as well, but he has been working for 40 or 50 years in the industry. He's little tired. And so ⁓ he would he still is super involved in our day to day. I still talk to him all the time. But he also wants to be able to get on the fishing boat every once in a while. I understand. ⁓ in between those times where Matt doesn't get a fish anymore. Matt just has to do all business all the time. But it has it is a change, right? When you have somebody who comes from an old ⁓ an older style of business, the way that the business has been ran for ⁓ in the in A V since the beginning of A V distribution. Right. Well, you know, the way that Matt's running it as being a very young CEO is different. And he is looking at different ways. We are much more involved in AI, we are much more involved in clouds. We're looking at what can happen for connectivity. We're looking at where technology can go. Not what's happening right now, but what can go and we wanna usher that in and Matt has really great vision for all of these things. So ⁓ i he's a true leader. He el he you know he ⁓ motivates everybody in in our in our entire ⁓ company to work a little bit bet a little bit harder at what's next. And that's really a fun place to be because he allows us to make mistakes and try things that maybe isn't gonna be the future, but we get to put a little bit of R and D development into these things that allow us to do ⁓ you know things outside the box and develop our own technology. Well that's Matt Wants people to know that we are an RD firm. Yes, we manufacture products. A lot of people that manufacture products they work with a manufacturing plant and they, you know, have orders and they put in their order. Well, we're a little different. We have the manufacturing plant ourselves. We choose every resistor, every capacitor. ⁓ we have a lot of different lines, we choose our own cables. We're trying to develop technology. We developed our own lenses for fiber optic transmission of HDMI, and now we've ⁓ developed a new XS. C technology that allows for HDMI extension for even longer distance, even more stable, at a lower cost. We're constantly trying to push what's available, and that all comes from our leadership from Matt Murray. So it's really exciting to have him ⁓ be on board and at the top and a glowing review for sure. And I you know, I I'm sure I can only imagine the dinners ⁓ you know on Sundays at the Murrays, they're they're still talking shop. So ⁓ Jeff, ⁓ to your point, you as much time as he's spending on the fishing boat now, certainly is still ⁓ I'm sure, you know, ⁓ h having some influence. Exactly how things go. So he can't leave it behind, right? That's right. He's our chairman of the board. So I mean he is still a big ⁓ part of the A V pro family. And especially as we try to show people audio, video plus control, we need his leadership. We need what Jeff's experience has had through all the different things that he's done. And and in that is a great counteract, the yin to the yang for Matt, with all of the new things that Matt wants to push with technology. So it's a it's a it's a it's a great partner. Exciting times here for sure at A V Pro. So ⁓ Tom I appreciate you taking the time. I I I feel like they might have finished up since we like everything's looking great. I I I got you out of the work. Thank you so much, man. Rob, we gotta get you around. That's why we did this. No. That's awesome. Well I I appreciate you taking the time. ⁓ you know, best of luck throughout the show. I know this will publish after the show, so ⁓ you know, I hopefully it will have been a success. ⁓ and definitely look forward to catching up with you guys down the line. So this was a lot of fun. Yeah, thank you so much for coming, Robin yeah, for all the connected to designer viewers, you know, check out AV Pro. We have some really good solutions. You'll find that we are a young ⁓ company that is coming out with fresh solutions that are new and pushing boundaries. ⁓ we hope you check us out. And thanks so much for taking the time to ⁓ you know talk to me today. You bet, absolutely. All right.