Hi,

I’m new to the industry but have personal experience in custom installation (basement home theatre and multiroom audio), and I’m trying to figure out which CEDIA course would be most suitable for my business. The Boot Camp will take me to Indianapolis but will end up costing me over $2000. Whereas the Level 1 Installer program is held “on the road” and so will be far cheaper. Given that I’ve pre-wired my home for whole house audio, installed a whole house audio system, and desigend, buyilt and finished my home theatre what do you guys feel would be most appropriate.

Cheers

John
Switched-On AV.

John, congratulations.  If you haven’t started your own business before, get ready for quite a ride.  And get ready to learn things you didn’t expect.

My recommendation about training, first figure out your business focus and priorities.  This may be difficult because often someone in your situation knows they like the opportunity to work with the technology, but doesn’t yet know where they want to go in the market.  Find your place, then focus your training on those areas.  In other words, it may not make sense to get the HAA audio calibration training or the ISF video calibration training if you don’t intend to service high end clients.  Of coarse, Magnolia is selling calibration to everyone, so some might argue with me here.  And that too, is a good example of how tough it can be to decide what YOUR priorities will be.

Also, this early on you can bet that cash is precious and that your direction will be very fluid.  So perhaps spending cash on training may be risky, then again, installing something you haven’t been trained on can be risky too.  But then you don’t have to spend any cash to take that risk. You just might eat it in the end.

Probably my best advice, hook up with something local… like a distributor or trade show and start off with some free training.  There is a lot out there.  At the same time, focus your business model.  Start selling to customers and see what you migrate towards, or what they migrate towards.  Be careful, because if you don’t steer the ship, it will go in circles and you wont get anywhere.  The manufacturers of the products you sell have free trainings too, whether through distribution or direct.

The good problem would be that you are so busy you don’t have time for training.  So how about we pray for that.

Your brother in CI,
Morgan

Morgan,

Thanks for your reply. Over and above your advice regarding training, you’ve hit the nail on the head when you say I don’t know yet where to focus in the market. I guess this is what they mean by business plans are fluid? I did wonder how to start (going round and round in my head and my plan and getting nowhere). I think the message is get myself out there and get ready for a bumpy ride.

Thanks for your advice. It’s very much appreciated.

John

John, with regard to CEDIA Expo if you intend to go next year, I’d have to say that my experience with CEDIA University courses is highly variable.  Some courses have been brilliant and full of meat, wheras others barely matched the syllabus and were very light on content.

After a few years, my former employer and I became pretty good at scrutinizing the course descriptions, looking for clues that a course might be a waste of time and money.  I didn’t attend any of the paid training this year, but feedback I got from from dealers I know was both hot and cold.

There’s a perception that most of the free training put on by vendors at Expo is just shameless cheerleading and brand whoring in an attempt to sell new dealers.  In truth, I’ve had better luck with vendor courses at Expo, especially with regard to technical subjects like networking and video setup.  Just my $0.02.