Azione’s 2024 plan is built with four pillars: Connected Coaching, Skills Seminars, World-Class Webinars, and CEDIA Partnerships.
Most custom integrators who are serious about their business are also in one of the industry’s three largest buying groups, each of which provides both education and training resources and collective buying power and influence with larger manufacturers who typically would only sell direct to mass-market retailers or distributors.
After watching at least a couple of the buying groups work to establish themselves with increased membership in an ongoing arms race of sorts, it’s been refreshing to witness the groups turning more of their attention toward providing visionary leadership, education, and services that help both their dealer and manufacturer partners evolve and grow.
This particular focus was on full display this week during the Azione Unlimited Fall Conference in Nashville, TN, where the group’s president Richard Glikes noted that, at 293 dealer members, the group had nearly reached capacity. But, more importantly, he told the 277 dealers and manufacturers in attendance that Azione would be rolling out a new plan to help provide the group with new educational offerings so that integration company employees can improve within their current roles as well as level up in their career paths. Azione’s goal is to provide more connected and coherent opportunities than ever before.
Azione’s Director of Business Development and New Member Services Patrick McCarthy noted that these new initiatives are an evolution from what continues to work well for the group and insights from its new education committee, which consists of members one level down from integration firm owners, who are “rolling up their sleeves, working with their technicians, and looking at education to make sure they’re well versed and well trained in everything they do,” he said.
Required Reading: Azione Education Committee Features Non-Owner Perspective
The committee will be asked to review ideas for small group meeting topics at in-person Azione Unlimited conferences, reviewing potential keynote speakers. Azione also wants to create what it is calling a Technician Skill Rating System to help members better train and pay their technicians as well as providing them with a runway for their careers with proper guardrails.
In what McCarthy has dubbed Azione’s Education Ecosystem, the group is acknowledging the variety of ways that people prefer to learn, whether through hands-on and in-person events, or in front of a computer at their own pace and on their own time, or even through a webinar or via a real-time chat with an instructor on a video conference call.
Azione’s Education Ecosystem is built with four pillars: Connected Coaching, Skills Seminars, World-Class Webinars, and CEDIA Partnerships.
The group’s Connected Coaching program has evolved to help an integration company’s “next-generation leaders” learn a new skill — lighting, operations, etc. — in a “connected cluster” of peers with similar titles as their own and with an agenda from a business coach.
“We want our dealer members to identify the next leaders on their team,” McCarthy said. “We want them to talk with other leaders, so that they can learn from each other, ask questions, celebrate victories, and have a business coach with them to guide those discussions.”
The small groups of eight to 10 people will meet for two hours every month and have a private Slack channel with their group for follow-up questions and on-going dialogue. The initial group of coaches consists of Chris Smith, principal of TheCoTeam, who will provide guidance to owners as well as focusing on operations and next-gen leaders. Randy Stearns, CEO of D-Tools, will lead owners and sales professional groups. Bruce Clark, founding lighting designer for Kaleidolight, will guide the Lighting Pioneers group. Stacey McKibbin, CEO of Consilio, will work with owners, leaders, and managers. Patrick Britton, senior consultant for Navigate Consulting, will advise the Emerging Leaders group, including how to work in the commercial integration channel.
“We asked these leaders what they wanted to focus on, and they said, “Let’s talk about EOS KPIs, managers versus leaders or leadership fundamentals, your pipeline, your forecasting, ideal clients, and things that owners might want to talk about versus salespeople.”
Next, Azione’s Skill Seminars are designed for bigger groups (10-25 dealers), with a shorter time commitment (six weeks), more hyper focused with certificates for learning a new skill.
“Skills Seminars are like if you were to take a woodworking class and you get to leave at the end with a bird house,” McCarthy explained. “They’re focused, they’re six weeks, and you’re learning a new skill. You come out smarter, and you have a group of people you can talk to.
The Skills Seminars, led by lighting designer Bruce Clark, and business consultants Stacey McKibbin and Jason Sayen, will be held twice a month for 60-90 minutes each time. Clark will guide dealers in the lighting category from the perspective of a seasoned lighting designer, McKibbin will offer a course on group sales training and another on leadership, while Sayen’s class will focus on eliminating waste from your business and improving profit based on his qualification as a Lead Six Sigma Blackbelt.
When it comes to the new World-Class Webinars “pillar” of Azione’s Education Ecosystem, McCarthy acknowledged that “everybody hates webinars,” so the plan is to “keep ’em short, keep ’em tight, keep ’em interesting,” he said. “We’re thinking that if we can find the right people in the industry, that you can justify sitting with us for 30 to 40 minutes. There’s value there… insights… things you might want to ask people.”
Initial commitments include HR expert Kathleen Brenk and CEDIA CEO Daryl Friedman.
Speaking of CEDIA, Azione has paid to provide its dealers with free access to the trade association’s full online educational library.
“This is FREE for your whole team,” McCarthy emphasized to Fall Conference attendees. “You have a new hire? Guess how much CEDIA’s ‘new hire package’ costs? It’s free! All this education is available. Please take advantage of that.”
CEDIA is also offering in-person trainings on Networking Fundamentals, CIT Jumpstart, and Jobsite Ready through the end of the year at various locations that will be discounted for Azione members.
Commenting on the group’s education plans for 2024, Azione Unlimited President Richard Glikes said, “It’s really going to blossom next year. We’re throwing a lot more resources into this and expecting a lot more involvement and participation from our dealers, because this is what they’ve said that they want.”
