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EHX Keynote Reveals 49 Gutsy Survival Tips
Former CEDIA president Steve Hayes, VP of Dealer Profitability for SnapAV, talks labor, compensation, and manufacturer discounts
Dealers need to use every creative business practice at their disposal to survive right now, and EHX Spring keynote speaker Steve Hayes, vice president of dealer profitability at SnapAV, rolled out 49 of them during his presentation.
“Things have changed,” Hayes says wryly during the session, which also included some light-hearted interplay with Mel the Robot who joined him on stage. The robot acted as Hayes’ timer, issuing one-minute beeps and automatically turning his slides.
Among Hayes's tips are:
“Things have changed,” Hayes says wryly during the session, which also included some light-hearted interplay with Mel the Robot who joined him on stage. The robot acted as Hayes’ timer, issuing one-minute beeps and automatically turning his slides.
Among Hayes's tips are:
- Review your P&L weekly. Know your business metrics and don’t be afraid to ask for help from other integrators or from a local SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) group.
- “Don’t be afraid to fire someone. One of the biggest mistakes we make is to keep people too long,” says Hayes.
- Check out new market opportunities. During a recession, Hayes says, business at bars and churches goes up because people are depressed. Those niche markets can be good ones to investigate. He also recommended that dealers let their warehouse become a drop-ship location for UPS. He cited one integration company that earns $30,000 per year by allowing UPS to use its location. Another idea… if you lease space in an office building, try to get the contract to handle all the IT service for the entire building.
- Switch to four-day-per-week/10-hour days. At Hayes’ former company, Custom Electronics in Maine, he says the switch resulted in a 30 percent increase in productivity. “Right away, we cut out 20 percent of time paying installers for loading and unloading the trucks and traveling to the job,” he recalls.
- Offer increased compensation opportunities for all employees. For example, at his company Hayes made sure every van had extra new cables and a DVD player inside. He incentivized the installation tech to upsell the customer on the job site. He also paid a purchasing clerk 25 percent of every dollar she saved the company.
- Offer surprise incentives. Hayes used to carry $100 bills to reward employees very publicly for a job well done. To make his point, he gave an attendee at the keynote a $10 bill.
- Maintain cash flow. Among his tips are to liquidate stale inventory, discount video to get a steady stream of sales, make deposits daily and pay bills at the last minute.
- Pre-pay discounts are a great way to boost cash flow, especially if your client has paid you upfront for the equipment. Often, manufacturers will offer between 2 percent and 10 percent discounts.
- Check into light commercial work, such as doctor’s offices, hair salons and day spas.
- Charge for travel time. Hayes says the average cost of a van roll is $47 per person, per hour. That equates to more than $12,000 a year.
- Make installers purchase their own hand tools.
- Pack a lunch. A paid lunch is about $7, while a brown-bag lunch is only $2. A savings of $5 per day equals $1300 per year.
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About the Author
Jason Knott, Editor, CE Pro
Jason has covered low-voltage electronics as an editor since 1990. He joined EH Publishing in 2000, and before that served as publisher and editor of Security Sales, a leading magazine for the security industry. He served as chairman of the Security Industry Association’s Education Committee from 2000-2004 and sat on the board of that association from 1998-2002. He is also a former board member of the Alarm Industry Research and Educational Foundation. He is currently a member of the CEDIA Education Action Team for Electronic Systems Business. Jason graduated from the University of Southern California.
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