ProSource members attending the annual Spring Meeting were encouraged to improve their displays, take opportunities to reinvent themselves and their messaging and to utilize the assets available to them through ProSource.
“We’re trying to help the dealers make that evolution in the message, both in their operation and then externally to the message that they put forward to their client base,” Dave Workman, CEO and president of the buying group for A/V and custom integrators, shared in a recent call after the event concluded. “How you get your message to the consumer has to be different, with much greater use of videos and things like that. It’s not in a product picture and a description that people read anymore; everybody wants a video.”
“We believe that our dealers have to invest more in their own operations, to not just talk to the customer, but to be able to show and demonstrate to the consumer,” he continued. “It’s one thing to talk about a lighting scheme with a home; it’s another within your showroom. The ability with a flip of a switch to show what can happen if you stage lighting correctly, or how power shades can be integrated in or a great audio system … it really misses the mark when all you’re trying to do is sell out of a conference room off of this set of blueprints.”
Elevating the consumer experience was just one of the messages of the ProSource Spring Meeting. Guest speakers Ben Arnold, senior director of innovation and trends at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), along with Sony president and COO Mike Fasulo presented insights to the group’s Pro-level members about upcoming technological advances involving AI and 5G, and how they could affect the industry.
Notable takeaways Workman pointed out from Arnold and Fasulo included how dealers could potentially monetize these technologies, what some of the noticeable disruptors were and what opportunities could be created because of the new technology.
“The future looks pretty good, really, from a technology roadmap for our type of dealership,” Workman commented, regarding the presentations. “It was encouraging to hear these technologies are coming. … There’s some hurdles still to overcome, but it looks like we’ve got a nice, robust trend, new technology transfer, or evolution coming.”
When asked how the group’s members felt about the recent holiday season, Workman acknowledged the difficult season but remained optimistic about the coming year. “We think we’re finally getting to whatever the new normal is, as far as the business is concerned. We did see a little bit of a pullback in the pipeline of projects that are custom integrators. We’re seeing that has also kind of returned to more normal conditions.”
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