The Competitive Advantage of Working with your Manufacturers' Rep

by Jason Housel, The Enright Company

Jason Housel

A note about lesser known brands: If your rep can show you value in our products, then we should capitalize on this. If there is improved quality, ease of install, more margin, or any other competitive advantage we want you to act on that. Yes, it may be different from the routine or take a bite out of a key vendor but value is calling. It’s saying that we have some better products over what you may be using. A few hear that message, and use that leverage to be more competitive. Most other react later with the sting of losing a job they thought they had. There really are benefits to early adoption.

We at The Enright Company are here to help you deliver value and be more competitive in your sales process. If you are promoting our lines and get them into the specification, we intend to protect you! Let’s get the registration paperwork in. This paperwork is the communication link to protect you for your efforts. Please involve us before this part of the process so we may document your involvement.

These are a few bullet points where creative integrators have leveraged their knowledge about our lines.

1. A Dealer substituted Crimson AV to save about 30% on 100k in mounts. That means their cost was 70k vs a typical 100k (they won the job by 30k). They had the courage to tell their customer there was a lower cost, but high quality option. It’s bent metal after all.
2. A customer sees an opening where the “C company” is overkill and the “E company” just too expensive. The customer here is just looking for a solution and we may have the ideal lower cost, high-quality, value solution that helps you win the job with Hall Research and the VSA-51.
3. We represent products that are market leaders. Take Vaddio and SunBrite TV for example. Allow these leading manufacturers to open doors for you. We have leads for you that will do exactly this.

Jason Housel is the Northern CA and Northern NV representative for The Enright Company

Steve McNeil Promoted to Regional Sales for Enright Company

Steve McNeil

Santa Ana, CA. Steve McNeil at The Enright Company was promoted to outside sales earlier this year. Handling dealers, consultants and their customers in the Southland, Steve has been our inside person for the eight years.

“Steve has been a big asset to our firm and has proven himself as our ace inside guy” said Principal, Logan Enright.

“I’m looking forward to solving people’s AV needs” said McNeil. Steve will be concentrating on clients in Orange County and San Diego. “My love of AV and IT is my strong suit and my main motivation for this move. I love to help people by steering them in the right direction with technology” he added.

Please congratulate Steve, stephen@enrightcompany.com, and welcome him into your business for all our fine manufacturers. Steve can be reached via cell at: 714-922-5286.

The New Paradigm for the AV Industry

We are no longer a cottage industry

In more than 25 years as a manufacturer’s representative in the AV industry, I have seen our market go from slide machines, to more complex display with control, to the present hybrid AV/IT systems our customers are currently demanding.  Those systems may begin as an AV project, but often demand some voice/data/network capabilities.  We are now playing in a much larger world, no longer a cottage industry, and we cannot act like it.

How can an integrator stay relevant in this new landscape?

• Utilize training. From manufacturers and their representatives to stay up with the latest products, and how they integrate into the larger ecosystem they will live – including networks, UC, cloud connections and videoconferencing.  Your manufacturer’s representative can train you on multiple synergistic lines of equipment, often on the cutting edge of new technology. Certify your people.  Variations of CTS are important, and videoconferencing and control companies offer a range of certifications.  The AV/IT courses at Infocomm this year are a perfect example, from basic networking and networked AV systems courses to a tough 3 day training and certification for network pro’s. 
• Verify your business.  The new ANSI/INFOCOMM 10-2013, Audiovisual Systems Performance Verification provides what InfoComm calls a comprehensive, systematic, and practical approach to verifying performance of AV systems.
• Inform yourself. When you begin to address a customer’s needs, are you aware of how they are using Collaboration?  Unified Communications?  Videoconferencing?  Cloud backup and storage?  Streaming video?   Talk to your rep, ask what they know.  All these items impact what customers want from their AV systems, and how future AV will be designed.  Some of the things we do every day will be obsolete in a few years, others we have never heard of will be our core business.

So, what will be your future model?  Stay in the boardroom?  Become a communication provider?  Both are acceptable choices, but taking a few minutes now to take focus on the future is better than just letting it happen.

We at the Enright Company can actually help there.  We are well trained in not only our products and their function, but in the market trends and systems with which they co-exist.  Among the products we carry are items that handle UC, voice/video, network and cloud streaming, wireless and networked collaboration, cloud based videoconferencing, and much more.  We are always happy to spend some time discussing how these  technologies will integrate into your future business.