Rob Stott: All right, we are back on the Connected Design Podcast, and a company and brand that struck me because of social media. First of all, I got to say congratulations, you guys, whoever’s on your social media marketing team, you know, they’re doing it well. So, you bet. No, that’s awesome to hear. And for sure, maybe something we’ll even dive into here in a little bit. But Mr. David Rosenberg, chief operating officer or director of operations, did I give you a promotion?
David Rosenberg: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. We’ve been, we’ve been trying a lot here to change things up, so I’m glad it’s working. And it’s all the same thing. Nobody calls me that anyway, right? I can’t say what they normally call me. You can imagine.
Rob Stott: Hey, I gotcha. cool. Well, it’s on a podcast now, so it’s official. So, the head of operations down there for Force AV, and you guys are located down a couple of locations inside or serve a couple of markets down there in South Florida. Correct.
David Rosenberg: That’s right. We’re out in West Palm Beach. serve Palm Beach County, Broward, and Martin counties.
Rob Stott: Awesome. So, is that Southeast Florida? All right. Before we dive into you, I just want to kind of throw out, know, how is business down there right now?
David Rosenberg: Southeast. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. It’s great. know, we’re very fortunate that our market here is the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. And so, the fluctuations don’t generally hit here the same way as they do other parts of the country. You know, we’re moving along fairly well. We’ve got some nice big projects, and our service work is still moving along as well. So, it’s been good so far.
Rob Stott: Yeah. What’s the market, just South Florida in general, whether you’re talking East coast, Gulf coast, West coast. You know, it’s one where integrators are looking to grow. Seems like they’re kind of, it’s like a magnet down there, man. So, it seems like a lot of great things, a lot of business to be had, whether its new homes going up or just, as you mentioned, right. The 1 percent homes, like that’s where they are. So, it seems like a really great market to be in.
David Rosenberg: Yeah, it’s interesting. I was in Denver for 10 years, and there’s a lot of oil and gas money and mining, things like that. The budgets for projects there are much more closely monitored than they are here. And so here it seems to be more of an emotional buy. So if they see something that makes them feel like that’s cool, or my buddy doesn’t have that, or whatever, right, they’re less likely to ask about the price before they think about how would it work for them, which is a fun way to sell because you don’t have to ask about budget in order to bring up something. You know, it’s always part of it, but it’s not the guiding factor in most of the conversations.
Rob Stott: That’s awesome. And you know, not that I feel like it, and correct me if I’m wrong, but being from Philly, I don’t know that market as well as the people actually being there, but you know, the, that area seems to be too. It’s like, especially where you guys are, you know, second homes, things like that. So, it’s like people that they have that. So, the budget is in that it’s a concern. Don’t get me wrong, at the end of the day, for anything, but like not a concern to most of your clients, or potential clients, I imagine.
David Rosenberg: No, that’s right. We have sort of smaller markets in our market, like Palm Beach Island. Those are second, third, and fourth homes, but they’re also estate homes. And so, you may have a house that in Philly might be $800,000, and it’s probably worth that much, but here it could be 40 million just because of where it’s at. And so, a lot of these homes are only occupied for a few months of the year, not even all at one chunk.
They’re here for weekends or whatever they may be. And so, it’s a getaway. And so, when they come here, what they want is to leave their issues and enjoy their outdoor time or their parties or whatever it may be. And so, we’re able to provide that service and support. And it works out well. We do their boats, we do their houses, we do their offices. So, it works out pretty well.
Rob Stott: that’s, that’s all I, I imagine too, not being there. They got to care about security, making sure, you know, properties are locked down, you know, everything else. So, a lot of opportunities, even if they’re not going to be there to be able to monitor and ensure that everything’s going well at that property.
David Rosenberg: Yeah?
David Rosenberg: Yeah, that’s right. And I’ve found that the better that we do at the service side, the more expanded work we get with them. So, we have plenty of people that we started just dealing with their basic infrastructure, you know, Wi-Fi network, security cameras, door locks that they’re now asking us to help interface with their AV people up North to try to get the same caliber of install or design philosophy.
And so, you know, we, we help them any way that they can. And we just try to be fair and honest. Honesty is my approach. You know, it’s not always perfect, but I have an idea that, you know, these are powerful executives, and what they don’t want is the fluff, right? If they say, I want the best, which we’ve all heard, the next thing they want to know is how much that is. And when can you do it?
And so, in other places I’ve worked, they say the best, and I say, in what price range, right? And they might say, ‘Well, what do you have for $7,000? And then, know, fine, I can find you the best for $7,000.’ But here it seems that what they want is what if there was no budget, you know, give me some ideas. Now they don’t always come through to final projects, but it’s nice to know that you can design with something like, you know, a direct-view LED video wall or K-array, you know, line array speakers for theater or a condo, right, where it disappears but sounds amazing. Just you don’t have that opportunity. I didn’t have that opportunity. It’s not fair to say it doesn’t happen in other places, but.
Rob Stott: Yeah, yeah. You mentioned something interesting. Now the work you do down there kind of gets their attention, and you are, do you guys go up north with them to like do projects out of there?
David Rosenberg: So, we, well, we just did a home in Annapolis, Maryland, for one of our clients here on Palm Beach. We have done their office, we’ve done their home, and then we finished up an AV portion of the remodel in Annapolis that they’re selling. But you know, it’s an estate-level house up there on the river. You know, it’s eight bedrooms or something like that. It’s a huge place. And so, they flew us up there and put us up for a week, and you know, they trust us. So, we tried to offer to make some recommendations for local companies, but they said it was less about the cost, more about the comfortability of knowing that, you know, they know what to expect when we do it. And so, it takes that off their brain, is it right? Is it going to be level? You know, do they know what they’re doing? Are they going to clean up? Are they going to answer when there’s a problem? So yeah.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Well, my head is spinning like a million ways to go off it. No, you’re good. In a good way, cause like that’s something I, I’m sure you know, other integrators, especially like multi location, multi state type integrators may have familiarity with that. for you, like you guys are based in South Florida. So, like to take a chunk of your team and go, you know, a couple thousand miles north. That’s gotta be a little different.
David Rosenberg: Yeah, and so we’re, it is, we’re picky on who we’ll do that for, right? We don’t market that we’ll go out of state, but you know, we have our clients that work solely with us, and so it’s a mutually beneficial, right? They’re willing to pay for us to go up there and walk the place, pay for the travel, and agree on a scope of work. Then, you know, why not? It seems great to be able to offer that. And we’re not a large company. There are 10 or 12 of us at any given time, including office staff. And so, we pride ourselves on scheduling and trying to keep things organized as well as possible. It’s still a small company. So, I may be in the warehouse one day and might be installing TVs the next, if necessary, but that’s all part of it to keep it going. Yeah, we try to help out anywhere that we can. And back to what I said earlier, the honesty part is important because if I don’t think we can do it, I will say that I would just say, Hey, it’s not really about the money. I just don’t think I can deliver what I know your expectation is. And it’s just going to create this issue of, well, you said you could, but you didn’t. And I don’t want that to start that way or finish that way.
Rob Stott: It’s awesome, and I think, you know, a great sort of mindset and probably culture that breeds it, I imagine, throughout the rest of the organization for sure. And before we dive too much deeper into it, I want to give people a chance to learn a little bit about you, too, and kind of your background. And so, tell us who David Rosenberg is, and kind of your path into this channel, and how you arrived at Force AV.
David Rosenberg: Sure. So, I was the kid, you know, back in the Washington DC area, was under the tables at restaurants tightening screws with butter knives, and you know, all that stuff, taking things apart. not always being able to put them back together. Yeah. Southern Maryland, Waldorf, Maryland, Charles County. I know. Yeah, for sure. Yes. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a beautiful area. I just needed to get out of my hometown. You know how that could be.
Rob Stott: Born and raised in DC? Yeah. Okay. was just not, don’t hear that too, you know, obviously a transplant area, right? I live there for a little bit myself. Yeah.
David Rosenberg: And so, you know, we moved to Denver in 2010, and I always knew that I loved AV or video or audio. Did the car stereo for a while. But I didn’t really know this industry cause I didn’t grow up in a world where this was something my friends did or my parents or their parents. So, I didn’t know, right? I always heard of home theaters, but like, what does that mean? It was just this thing people said, you know, it was nothing I got to experience.
And so, I worked for a Comcast contractor. I was like, that’s the closest–my idea was, well, those houses must have cable boxes. So maybe I’ll meet somebody. And that’s exactly what happened. So, I went to a brand-new install in Cherry Hills, Colorado, and Denver. And I met this integrator there, and I just asked for his information, and I kept calling until they agreed to meet me, you know, I went in and said, I have no idea the details of what you do, but I do understand how the technology is supposed to function. And I can learn very quickly. So, pay me whatever the minimum is that you can pay or you’re willing to pay, and I’ll prove myself. And then after, you know, six months, we’ll renegotiate. And they agreed, and I couldn’t believe it because I didn’t know if I could do anything that I said I could do, but you know, I was willing to try.
And so, it worked out very well. learned savant to begin with. And the guy who was training me left shortly after I started and handed me a 17-inch MacBook Pro with a sticky note with the password on it and said, ‘You’ve got my cell phone and here’s tech support. You can do it.’ And so that’s what I did. So, I took over, and we did pretty well there. I moved into the design side of it with Harrison Home Systems in Denver, and, you know, George and Casa and the team over there were great. You know, together we were able to, I believe I was the eighth employee, and, know, for almost five years, I guess, almost five years, maybe a little less, you know, we were able to grow really big. So, we did a lot of cool projects, and it opened my eyes up to the shortcomings of the industry. Everything is like a, you know, hang and bang, for lack of a better way to say it, from the manufacturer side, is how I saw it, right? They all had their high-end stuff, but it was missing the execution part. And so, we worked on a great condo project with Josh AI, called the Colorado, and George and Casa were wonderful enough to let me design the package system. And we did all that. So that just opened my eyes up to the other part of it, right? It wasn’t just installation, it wasn’t just doing drawings. It was like, can I develop a… I don’t know, a system, maybe, or just a philosophy, is what it turned out to be. You know, we moved here to South Florida in 2020. My dad was getting older, and so we moved here to be closer to them. And wonderfully enough, we ended up having two children shortly after that, after, you know, 19 years of marriage. That was a little bit of a change, but you know, that’s been wonderful.
And then, you know, Brian and Janne here have been wonderful, and we’ve grown it to what we are today.
Rob Stott: No, that’s awesome. And I love that. So, I say this probably pretty frequently for those that are serial listeners, listeners to connected design, but it’s always those origin stories that I find to be intriguing, right? Cause we kind of get to learn a little bit about who you are, everyone’s different. It’s so crazy to hear how different the stories are of how people got into the space and, someone might’ve been, you know, that kid that loved to tinker with radios or open up a computer and see what that CPU actually is and what it does and what it looks like on the inside to just having an interest in it and wanting to dive headfirst into it. There’s got to be some crazy things you learned early on, like, wow, I did not expect that out of this space.
David Rosenberg: Yeah. Well, my very first day on the job, an actual at a job site, I was handed a box full of audio extenders, audio balance, analog audio balance, and a box of IR emitters. And I had to say, I don’t know what an IR emitter is, right? Like, just tell me what it is. I’ll hook it up. I just don’t know what it is. And so, from that day, the guy was amazing at just saying, ‘This is what it is. This is what it’s used for.’ And then my imagination was able to take it over. Just have this. It’s not really explainable to be honest with you, but things just make sense to me. My brain can just see something and think of a hundred different possibilities for it pretty quickly. And so, I’ve been able to utilize that, right?
When I go in and see a problem with the system, I can pretty quickly find out what the potential issues are, and then it’s just a matter of what’s most likely. And I really enjoy that. It’s like a problem-solving puzzle sort of thing. And so that’s what drew me towards doing this more than just, hey, it’s a fun hobby, right? I got in there, and I could see that these are complex issues that more than likely are simple solutions, but it seemed like I was able to get to the bottom line quicker than people that I worked with, which is nothing against them. It’s just some ability that I had, and so, you know, obviously, you get that feedback loop, which makes you feel good when you solve a problem, and you know, your boss is like, Hey, that was great, man. I’m glad you figured that out. Or, Hey, we got this done. It was difficult. Or thank you for calming this client down, whatever it was. Right. and so as I’ve said to my friends and family, I don’t feel like I really have a job, you know, it’s not fun every day, but I would do this anyway, if I could on some level, you know, I would be helping people or helping guide people if I could, you know, I’ve have plenty of flaws like anybody. But I try to use compassion towards the entire process, right? Somebody says they don’t really care about being the best, and that’s fine. I won’t try to push that on you. Like, we’ll just go for something that solves your problem. And if a technician makes a mistake, I just say the same thing. Can you tell me why it happened?
And if you can give me an answer that makes sense, then we’re fine. We’re just going to learn from it. It’s okay. You don’t need to hide from me. If you drill through a roof or a pipe or something, just tell me, Hey, I was doing this, and this happened, and I missed that. Okay. Do you know where you messed up? Yes. Do you know what you could do differently next time? Yes. Okay. We’re fine. That’s it. There’s no reason for people to be scared or worried to talk to you or, you know, afraid.
We’re on the cutting edge of what we do, and you have to take risks. And if they’re afraid to take a risk because of the potential comeback, it doesn’t work in my opinion. And so, you know, I want the team to be happy to be here and feel like they can get the same stuff out of it that I have, you know, or I feel fulfilled in solving a problem or making somebody happy or, whatever it may be. It could just be, Hey, I can’t print from my phone.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Right. Well, there’s the thing I find that if there is a common thread, it’s that the puzzle solving, right? The ability amongst this, the people in this channel, the ones that get it, that just get it, and, you know, typically succeed at it and do well, or is it that there is a love for figuring out how to fix something, or just take a jumble of whatever it is, a different problem, whatever the problem might be in creating that solution or that experience. And, um, but then too, you mentioned you had a great trainer, uh, someone that was willing and patient, patient with you to like to get you through it. Right. And I’m sure that that probably left an imprint to the point where, I mean, I’m sure it sounds like it’s just everything you’re describing. It’s kind of how you carry yourself today and sort of pass that on to your team.
David Rosenberg: Let me show you how this works, right? And you’re like, my God, I can’t believe you did that so quickly. So yeah. Yeah, it worked out really well for me. And so, I just try not to forget that, you know, I know it’s kind of cheesy, I guess, in some regard, people say that all the time, but I think it really is the key. Just because I am, you know, I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years, I’m not better than you. I just have more experience than you. And so, I will impart all of my wisdom and knowledge to you if you want to hear it.
But I don’t want to force you to do it because I don’t think it works that way. So, you know, people, to go back to the problem-solving thing, they’ll say, can you do this or can you do that? And the answer is this: all the time, budget, and imagination. That’s the only limiting factor of anything that we do. I will put a TV on a flagpole. If you tell me that you’re okay paying for it, it’s totally fine.
Don’t think in with the restraints of like, has it been done before? Cause that’s unimportant to me. If you want it done and you’re willing to go through the process, we’ll make it happen. And that’s with anything training, you know, whatever it may be, right? Employees learning new stuff, or, you know, new tool bag layouts, van, whatever it is.
Rob Stott: Anything kind of reflects, just more reflecting than I intended it to be. It was kind of a fun conversation about how we’re going here. Looking back, anything you would have done differently about kind of your career or knowing, you know, knowing how you landed in the channel, you think back to pre-getting into this space, like anything you would have done differently to better prepare yourself?
David Rosenberg: I don’t think so because I think anything different could have changed at all. I think timing is pretty important. No, not really. I don’t think it’s fair to say that because if I could change anything, I would just buy Bitcoin in 2011. That’s what everybody says. Yeah, and so it’s like, I guess, everywhere that I’ve been is what I can do now. And so, you know, nobody died, nobody got arrested. So, you know, so far so good, right? I think, you know, I’ve got a couple of younger people around me and, you know, they’ll ask, you know, what do you think about this or that? And I just tell them that they should find something they like to do, right? My uncle said years and years ago that you have to find something you like, even if you hate your job, you’ve got to like you like the place you eat lunch or something during work. You have to find something that makes you okay with being there every day. And if you can’t find that where you are, then it’s not the right place. And there’s no reason to torture yourself in most situations, right? Sometimes it’s unavoidable.
Rob Stott: I feel like we’ve kind of been through everything we’ve been talking about so far. It gets to where the answer for this next question kind of goes, ultimately, but you know, the way you, but director of ops, you kind of sit in a seat where team building is your thing. Right. So, you know, making sure things run smoothly. So, what’s in you. Like in your prioritizing for you, what does that look like? You know, what are the important things as you look at whether it’s team building or, you know, kind of the areas you put your time and attention, like what’s most important to you in that regard?
David Rosenberg: Yeah, for sure. So, one of the most important things to me is making sure that people are on the same team and on the same page, right? So, I will bridge the gap between ownership and management and the installation guys. And the message needs to be broadcast, but maybe a little differently than it probably would come out. Because how things are set is very impactful. And sometimes the message gets ignored because you sound, however, right? Maybe you sound grumpy, mean, you other words, maybe. And so, you know, it’s important to keep people on the same path, right? Our goal, which I say, is that I want to be known or thought of as, you know, the best at what we do in our area. And that means everybody has to do that. And so, if there is an issue, we need to figure it out.
There’s no, ‘I’m riding with this guy whom I hate, or I can’t talk to him,’ or whatever it may be. And so, maintaining the quality of our work site and employee communication with each other is, you know, the foremost in my daily evaluation. Right. I’m like, how did it go yesterday? Are you guys having any issues? Right. And then if I get a little glimmer of hesitation, then, you know, I’ll maybe pull that guy aside and say like, all right, just, you know, what happened, right? Did he steal your lunch? Like, what is it? Whatever it is. And we’ll figure it out. You know, we’re all adults here, but it doesn’t mean we all can communicate with each other. So, a lot of it is that, but it’s with the goal of keeping everything working well. You know, if we’re selling a luxury product and our team is unable to focus on that because they don’t have the right tools or whatever, those are the sorts of things, right? Labor shortages, all that’s the same everywhere. That’s nothing. That’s a standard issue that may happen, but we’re pretty fortunate that we don’t have a high turnover here. And so, our core guys have been here for five, four, five, six years. You know, we have turnover like everybody for various reasons, but we try to learn from those. And so that’s where my focus is, is what went wrong, if anything, right? Not everything’s a problem.
Rob Stott: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
David Rosenberg: And how do we implement that with better results in the field?
Rob Stott : So then to follow that up, you know, it could be from an operations or team standpoint, or just kind of broad industry, trend-wise, you know, what, from a challenge perspective, what do you guys see or what do you see is like your biggest challenge for force AV right now?
David Rosenberg: I don’t see it as an individual challenge. I see it as a philosophical company direction challenge, right? We are doing a lot of social media marketing, you know, as we talked about at the beginning. And the idea there is to change how we’re known because the company’s been around for over 15 years. And for the first, I don’t know, seven or eight, were TVs and soundbars. That’s just what it was, right?
And now we’re way more than that. And so, we’re trying to get people who know our bands and see who we are to understand that we do all of it. We do indoor and outdoor lighting spaces. We do theater builds. can do, you know, cameras. Can do any of it, right? Lutron, Crestron, Savant, Control 4. But then we do it from our perspective of we’re just going to solve your problems, not tell you what you need. And so, it’s a challenge to keep that from becoming too corporate sounding because we’re anything but that. And get the message out to the right people. We don’t necessarily want all the TVs that Best Buy can’t do, but we don’t turn them down. We can do them, we do them.
Rob Stott: Right. I think you mentioned it, right? It’s, I think that’s a challenge that extends beyond just your four walls. right. And so, it’s more of an industry thing of getting people to understand there’s the, you know, the AV guy is kind of what traditionally the space has been defined by. Right. And that is, that is so short-sighted today. You know, AV is a lot of it, right? But like, it’s not the only thing. I, how are you guys addressing that? And trying to help your market make sense of it.
David Rosenberg: Mm-hmm. It is. Yeah, and that’s right. No, we have been following the drop hints sort of philosophy here, right? We’re at a job site with a designer, a decorator, a builder, or even a homeowner. We just say, hey, I’m not sure if you guys know this, but we just started really getting into X more, right? So, if we can help you, just let us know. We have a showroom here, our design center, where we did a beautiful couple of rooms, we have the video wall that we import ourselves directly, right? So, we can save, you know, budget on that, or we just import ourselves, design engineer it. So, there’s no, again, limitations on what that would be. We have a full catcher, lighting system here with, you know, Lutron QSX, of course. And so, when I bring people into the showroom, it’s a story, it’s not a product demonstration. You know, I just tell them like, ‘Hey, lighting is very important. And if you don’t think so, let me show you what it would look like in here if you just did standard bulbs,’ right? And so, it works really well because I’m not selling them the video wall. I’m not selling them the folk house speakers or the casual lights. I’m selling them the idea that it doesn’t have to just look like a hospital in here, right? And designers are very good at picking out furniture. And as a whole, the houses look amazing, but they don’t really seem livable from my perspective. And so, you know, at night, I don’t want to just dim the lights. Maybe I want them to be on it. They’re a hundred percent, but I want it to be a little candlelight color, right? Maybe I don’t want it to be dim in here. Like I can’t see the menu at a restaurant, but I don’t want it to be daylight bright. That seems to get lost sometimes. And my experience is that the people that are making these decisions aren’t aware of the impact. They think it’s overly complicated, and they don’t understand it. And so, to them, it’s not worth the time because they don’t want to get bogged down. So, we just explain that you don’t have to do any of that. All you have to say is you’re interested. Send me a plan set, and I’ll do everything for you, including talking to the electrician. Right. And that’s it. And then you can say, Hey, look at this beautiful space we did from top to bottom, not just look at this furniture and plants and art and whatever it may be.
Rob Stott: Circling back again, you’re a problem solver, right? You’re solving that, putting that puzzle together for them, finding the pieces, right? Is that, so that’s obviously not too different from how you got into the space, but the whole concept of having to be a storyteller, probably the biggest change from when you started in the industry, like what would you take? Is that sort of the biggest change you’ve had to adapt to, and kind of how’s that been?
David Rosenberg: Yeah, for sure. So, I worked with a couple of guys, I would use to, I used to make analogies all the time, right? I would try to compare something that was in my brain to something else that they may have seen, and it would work, but it wasn’t very clean and clear-cut because it would take a little bit to say, ‘Okay, now you know what I’m talking about here. Like, let’s talk about that.’ And as I mentioned earlier, my brain just works. I don’t know, I ADD of course, and my brain is always going. And so, I’ve had to find a way to be able to articulate what my vision is. And I am not a very good writer. So, talking is what works for me. And so, if anybody is able to have a conversation with me, then we can come up with some resolution, whether it is great, we’re finished, or thank you for the opportunity, and I don’t think we can help you. Then that’s okay, that’s all I ever ask for.
And so that’s the biggest difference as an installer. It’s just, Hey, I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith. I’m running 20 minutes late, or, you know, I, your TV’s done, right? That’s really what it was. I’m filling out your time sheets, right? Which nobody likes to do, but you know, those things are important. So, you know, I think it’s just about the responsibility as you grow of what is and isn’t working. And then, you know, what can you do to fix those things? You know, not back to the problem solver over and over again, but I found myself waiting for other people to fix problems without realizing that that’s what I was doing. And so, I just started speaking up with my ideas, and it, you know, some people liked it. Some people didn’t, but more, more did than did not. So, it’s worked out.
Rob Stott: No, that’s awesome. and a little bit of an on-the-spot question, but the idea of AV guy being sort of short-sighted today, if you had to come up with a term that you think better represents what this channel, what you, what the industry does, what do you think that is to you? Like, what does that look like?
David Rosenberg: I don’t want to beat on the industry too much, but what I think from the installer side is that they are too. They take everything too personally, in my opinion. So, if a customer doesn’t like their recommendation or another company decides to do it slightly differently, they are quick to say, God, they don’t know what they’re doing. Or that’s a horrible thing. Look at this. It’s crazy.
And I don’t think that is true. First of all, I think some people are really not good at the details, and that’s obvious. It’s true. We’ve all seen horrible wire management. You know, it is what it is, right? There’s always the exception, but you have no idea if that was done because, hey, my daughter’s getting married in two hours, and the cat knocked over something that blew up this, and I need it to work. Then somebody took a picture, right?
Sometimes you have to fix things the way you can fix them. And so, people are getting mad at manufacturers for the same reason. Why are you changing this? This rack-mount thing is stupid. This one doesn’t work. Why don’t you go back to this? And it’s a very narrow-minded outlook. If you have a better solution or an idea, build it. Nothing is stopping you from building it.
I don’t like the excuses of money and manufacturing. You don’t have to actually build a thing that works to build something that works. You have AI, you can build 3d printed models, you can use Upwork and all that stuff to have somebody else print it, right? You can literally just have a conversation with your AI bot, and have it spit out a set of directions that you could pay somebody probably a hundred bucks to make for you to see if it functions.
And so, I’d like to see people take more ownership of what is happening and be helpful, right? That’s what I’d like to see happen.
Rob Stott: Yeah. So, what then, if we’re not, I don’t even know if you can get to this point, but like, if we’re not calling it an AV guy, like what would you call the work that you do? If you had to…
David Rosenberg: So, it’s a hard thing to do because I would like to say that we’re like technology consultants, but on one hand, what does that mean? On the other hand, it does what I want, which is to get that question right. What does that mean? Hey, well, this is what we can do. So that’s kind of the way that I go with it, right? If I’m on the golf course or something and I meet somebody and, hey, what do you do?
You know, I don’t just say consulting because that’s nothing, right? That’s, I don’t want to talk about it. So, I say I’m in smart homes. Do you know, technology consulting for home theaters, right? I kind of throw out whatever I think the biggest buzzword is to get somebody engaged if they want. So, AV guy is what it’s called, right? Some people call us IT guys and my computer guy, but it’s so much more than that that there isn’t really a widely used term.
Right, and you could say, you know, HTA certified, but nobody knows what that is outside of the industry. And so, it doesn’t help with the general conversation. Smart Home seems to work pretty well, but it doesn’t encompass it for anybody who knows, right? So, it’s like a double-edged sword there. Like you need something to make them flip the card over and get the rest of it.
Rob Stott: Exactly. It’s kind of interesting, right? Because it, you know, AV still applies, but so does smart home. But in my head, it’s like a smart home. Everyone immediately goes to like DIY stuff. Like, right. Exactly. Like me, is it about my ring? You can put my Ring doorbell on, like, yeah, but no, so it’s just, there’s so much, right?
David Rosenberg: Alexa? Yes, of course. Yeah. It’s building your environment to be livable, right, and comfortable. The things that we’ve seen in movies about lights turning on when you walk down hallways and stairs, lighten up, all that is accessible. And it’s absurdly priced, right? Now, it might cost you $10,000 to make your lights or your stairs light up when you step on them. But if it’s in an $8 million house, that’s doable, right? 10 years ago, it’s just like, no, that would be an $8 million staircase, right? In a $200 million house. And so, it’s just getting people to understand that the limitation isn’t the money as much as it used to be. It’s just the imagination side.
Rob Stott: Yeah. Well, and you guys are doing, we haven’t even touched on, you know, some of the incredible work you guys are doing from an in-home perspective. You mentioned, I can only imagine what the house up in Annapolis looks like, to, um, some really cool things too, in a commercial setting. Like, I know you got it just recently. The thing that actually caught my eye, going all the way back to the beginning, that caught my eye was the U.S. Polo Association, their store. You guys have that 360-degree video LED wall essentially right where you installed it and kind of hanging in the middle of their space.
David Rosenberg: Yeah, that’s right. It’s above the cash wrap. It’s a transparent LED screen. So, from the inside, you can’t see the outside of it, or you can’t see the display, right? And so, the idea was designed originally that type of display is for a window, a storefront. So, in the store, you’re not getting bombarded with a flashing display, you know, your people in their shop and your customers are not getting, you know, overwhelmed with all these flashing lights.
But the outside can still get attention drawn, and it looks like a screen from the right distance. And so, we just took that with a, you know, a request from a USPA and said, what can you do hang from a ceiling? It’s not a big space, but we want to do something eye-catching, and what can you do? And so like, well, I we can make this thing rounded, and you know, we can have it, it all come in together as one display, and your content you can format, you know, this way and that way.
And it all works seamlessly through cloud connection. So, they want to upload changes. They just do it from their web browser, wherever they are. And next time it gets powered up, it gets it within a minute, and it’s done.
Rob Stott: Maybe problem solvers is just the name of what it needs to be, right? It’s incredible. Yeah.
David Rosenberg: I know, right? Technology problem solvers, yeah. Yeah, we have played around with like taglines of like, you know, more solutions, less headaches, right? Those sorts of things. Again, it’s catchy, but it doesn’t; it’s not enough to say it’s too complicated a situation or of an industry to just have one thing that makes sense. You know, Amazon, right? From A to Z, that makes sense, right? Anything you want, but it doesn’t really work in my opinion, what we do. We’re not a theater company, we’re not an AV company, we’re not a landscape company, we do all of it, right?
Rob Stott: Yeah, it’s, and it’s incredible. And again, you know, it goes to show the importance of not only being able to tell the story to the client that you’re talking to, but everything, you know, you said you guys have been building from a marketing and social standpoint to be able to, that’s the best way, get the story out there and share it and show off. Don’t be afraid to show off and get your face out there and your projects out there. And, so, mean, David, I mean, really, kudos to you guys for everything you’ve been doing.
David Rosenberg: Well, thank you.
Rob Stott: Personally, you know, in terms of building a career and a really unique path to, specifically, there at force AV and, you know, the awesome projects and, the work you’ve been showing off online recently, it’s just, it’s cool to see, man.
David Rosenberg: Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, we’ve been working hard, and so we decided to put it out there and let everybody else see it. It’s had pretty good feedback so far.
Rob Stott: Awesome noble work for sure, and, you know, a story that I imagine will continue to follow up on without a shadow of a doubt. So, I appreciate your time and willingness to hop on
David Rosenberg: Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.
