SPEAKER_01 0:00

Most major decisions, you don't actually know the answer. What you do know is you had years of experience, possibly some education, whatever your biases are, and ultimately just do the best thing that you know how to do and don't attach your ego to it. And as soon as you learn something that says you should do it differently, then twist and do it differently immediately, and just keep working and improving, and that strategy will get you somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

John, welcome to the show. It's nice to see you. Thank you, Simon. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

It's fun to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Thank you. Good man. All right. So what we do every week is we start with whatever my wonderful guest has actually been up to recently. What do they do today? Um, and then we're going to get in the Wayback Machine and work out how they got there. So, John, why don't you introduce yourself to the ladies and gentlemen and give us a brief overview as to who you are and what you do today?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, I'm I'm actually a farm kid from Kansas. And when in college, I met a girl who took me to St. Louis. And while in St. Louis, I got so doggone lucky to find the audiovisual industry. Uh, I entered into the we were called conference technologies at the time, one one office in St. Louis. I came in as an accountant, and uh it was kind of a stepping stone job for me. Uh, but I absolutely fell in love with the industry. It was for me. We were building really cool things. Um, we were getting to use our hands and install things, and we were getting to use technology. It was significantly different at the time. It was 29, 30 years ago. Uh, but we were we were in into technology, we were into the cutting edge of technology. We were working with some of the best customers in the St. Louis market, some of the best companies. And I just absolutely fell in love in the industry. And I had a partner, I was actually just working for him at the time. I became his partner later. And I was lucky enough, I was the accountant, but I was kind of bored. So I got to become an install tech and I got to become a live events tech, and then I became a project manager, and then I was a crappy engineer. Uh, and they said you should go into sales, Mr. Laughlin. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, an accountant, I'm a tech. Uh, but turned out that I started learning about sales and I had some skills there too. And just just my love for the industry, my passion for the industry is has done well for me, and and I've been incredibly lucky and and and quite successful over the years, and and and little bit of luck falling into the industry, but just just really love it. All right.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

And what do you do today? What's your title?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I'm I'm the owner of CTI. And uh, but but my title is president and CEO, and I've been the I've been there for 30 years, but I've been the CEO for almost 25 years. Pretty good sized company today. We have you know 40 plus locations in the U.S. and three or four around the world. But when I took over as a CEO, it was one office and six employees in in uh St. Louis and maybe not all that impressive on that particular day.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

So we're gonna get into that. So let's go back a bit. So when you're a lad in Kansas, my assumption is at some point you wanted to be an astronaut or a fireman, because everyone wants to be an astronaut or a fireman at some point in their life, right? But then my guess is that you realize that fireman being a fireman is a horrible job, and NASA doesn't need that many astronauts. So you went to college and did what?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Uh well, I bounced around in in college, uh, but I started with a math degree and good with numbers. I enjoyed math. I was probably lazy, and math was probably the easiest thing for me. Uh, after a couple, three, four years, I woke up one day and said, What in the world are you gonna do with a math degree? I don't really want to be a teacher. I had a good friend that became an actuary. That wasn't interesting to me. I walked into the counselor's office and said, What is the fastest way out of school? And uh we did a little bit of looking and they said, You, you, you're eligible for an economics degree right now. I was like, Economics? That's for me. So finished finished working in economics and uh had a couple of jobs in my back pocket, and and I really enjoyed working more than I did going to school. I enjoyed working more than most anything else. So it was it was a quick transition and easy to do.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Interesting. It's funny, a little story about I asked the guy once when I was very young, I said to him, one of my early clients, a guy who had the name of Asquith Starglade. I'm not kidding, that was actually his name. A child of the 60s, and he's I asked him what he did, and he said he was an actuary, and I didn't know what an actuary was at the time. And I said to him, What is an actuary? He said, actuary is basically someone who's good at maths who who finds accountancy too exciting. Which I thought was a great line. Okay, so you joined so so what made you decide CTI or or the A V industry? How did you how did you get there?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, yeah, I think I think i it's a it's a handful of answers, but the simplistic answer is it was an accident. Okay, coming out of school, I had I'd been working in restaurants, uh uh waiting tables, managing restaurants, working in the kitchen, washing dishes, what whatever it was. I was I was a hardworking kid and I liked getting a paycheck. And and I had uh restaurants were a good fit for me because they'd work around your schedule. You could get there in the evenings or the mornings, whatever, and they'd work around your schedule. So you could get a lot of hours in at very unique times. And there was a restaurant in Kansas that offered me a job as a manager and paid me pretty good. And I was like, well, I I've hit the big time now. I think I was making, I don't know, $25,000 a year or something like that, uh, which was really good money in in uh you know 1992, something like that for a 22-year-old kid. And uh I I met a girl who wanted to move to St. Louis and I applied for a few jobs. I looked for ads in the newspaper and built-in resumes and and got a couple of interviews and got hired to a really unique chain of restaurants in the St. Louis market, and it was a good job. I think I was making $40,000 a year, something like that. Which, by the way, when I was 15 years old, that was like my lifetime goal was to make like 30 and then 40, something like that. Yeah. And uh moved to St. Louis and took over these restaurants, and I I was looking for a stepping stone job because I was gonna open my own restaurant, that kind of stuff. And I took a job as an accountant. I knew a guy, and I took a job as an accountant for Comfice Technologies in Dennis Woodhouse, and it was simply gonna be a stepping stone job for me. But it was a small little company. I I had the math skills, I was qualified, and I needed to be out of the restaurant business, working nice weekends, and holidays when you're trying to put a family together is is is somewhat challenging. And I took that job as a stepping stone job. I was only gonna work there six months, maybe, and then I was gonna open my own restaurant with some other partners. And during that six months, I just absolutely fell in love with the industry. I just woke up and said, this is for me. I like the accounting side of it, but it was really only four hours a week, maybe, maybe eight, and I was bored the rest. And but but I had skills, you know, growing up on a farm and and with a dad that was a remodel kind of guy, I had skills. I figured out very quickly how to pull cable, how to install things, how to make sure they were level, how to make sure they were secure. And this this is back when the industry really didn't have a lot of standards on those kind of issues. And I I had a pretty good grip on how to do these things. And my work and my work ethic made my installations look fantastic. And in a short period of time, I became an engineer to a certain extent, an A V industry engineer. I was probably a very poor engineer, but I knew what the right equipment was necessary to execute a project. And because I was in the accounting group, I learned how to, you know, I knew how to order it and I knew how to bill for it and take a down payment and make sure cash flow is is working in in the right trajectory. And in the industry just worked out for me. And and and one other thing I might add to it is working in the restaurant industry for as long as I did, which was only five or six years, I'm like 26 at the time, really set me up well for this industry because the the restaurant industry, you need a ton of different people that can do different things, which is similar to what we do in the A V industry. In the restaurant industry, you need a bunch of ingredients sitting in refrigerators or on the shelves or that kind of stuff. And you need the right ingredients to build things that need to fly out the window and go to servers and get to a table. And those ingredients, you got to have the right ones in the right place at the right time, and they go bad very quickly in the restaurant industry. Turns out they go bad kind of quickly in the technology industry. If you've got inventory sitting on your shelf too long, it you lose warranty. It no longer has the updated firmware, a new product comes out. It really goes bad damn near as fast as a plate of strawberries does. So leaving the restaurant industry and and moving into the technology industry, it it set me up pretty well for success, and I was very fortunate.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

So, what was the working world like? You're talking about what, 94, 95 by this point. So how how different to today is the kind of working environment and the and the business environment from when you started? Do you think things have changed much, or do you think they've fundamentally stayed similar?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I might be the old guy and the boomer, but I I I think the basics of what we do has changed very little. And in to be honest, I think the basics of what we do from an attitude point of view, from a culture point of view, from a get up in the morning and do something. I I think that's changed very little over the last 50 years. Now, what you actually do, that changes all the time. Like what I do today versus what I did 20 years ago, that's that's changed quite a bit. And how we install a space, the technology that we use, that's that's changed quite a bit. And the networks that we're attached to and the security requirements today are significantly different than they used to be. But but that doesn't change the basics, in my opinion. The basics, in my opinion, is you you get up in the morning with a good attitude and you make it to the office or or your your work destination five minutes early, right? If you're not five minutes early, you're late. And you bring your best attitude and you do your best and you roll up your sleeves and you do something valuable, and you do it for in the US, that's a 40-hour work week. And and and you and you give your company 40 hours, and that's what they sell to the customers and those kind of things. And if you show up with a good attitude and put in effort and create a trusted environment for your company and your customers and those kind of things, and you do that on a consistent basis, it's shocking how much you can learn in a week, a month, a year. And it's it's actually super impressive five or 10 years later, looking backwards, at all that you've accomplished and all that you've learned, and and the friends that you made and the environments that you've got to participate in. And that's all due to the fact that you just show up and do your best on a consistent basis. I don't really think that's any different today than it was 30 years ago when I got into this industry.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

It's interesting. Someone said the other day, one of my other guests said the other day that I said to him that you're famous for being very lucky. And he said, I get in luck's way. Would you how would you put that? Would you agree? Would you would that work ethic mean that you get in luck's way more often? What's your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, I I look at it opportunities and challenges, and I I use the word luck as well, but when you show up on a daily basis and do your best, then then other people gravitate towards you. And that that group of people and that group of relationships that you build over time, it creates opportunities. And are those opportunities, are they luck? They they they might be, but as those opportunities come to you, you you kind of get in their way. They they come to you because people want to be a part of what you're doing, right? They they want you to be a part of what they're doing. They see your success and they want to be a part of that success. Or they're hoping for success in their new environment, they want you to come help them be successful. But there's opportunities everywhere. You just have to, you just have to find a way to get them to gravitate towards you. If you're looking for overnight success stories, I just think that's virtually impossible. I don't think the world works that way, even though, even though it might have happened to one or two people out of eight billion people, and we tell the story over and over and over as if it's if it's real. I I think the successful people in this world all tell a similar story, which is I just got up and did my best on a very consistent basis. And over time I ran into many different opportunities. And one opportunity, whether it be a success or a f or a failure, set me up for the next opportunity. And over a long period of time, all of those opportunities combine and create really successful stories in all kinds of different trajectories.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, I think it's a I forget who it said there was a musician who said, Yeah, it took me 10 years to be an overnight success. You just keep the more often you roll the dice, the more likely you are to get the double sixes. So let's talk about you you joined the company as the accountant, you got bored and went off and did loads of other things within the organization. Um and then what you bought into the business? How did how did you how did you become a partner in it?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, so so my wife and I are you know financially responsible individuals, and it it at the time we just didn't have a we I wasn't real comp sensitive. I didn't need a raise every 10 days, but I was a very entrepreneurial spirited kind of guy. I was going to open my own restaurant. I already had the plans, the menu, the buildings, the partnerships. Like I was going to start running restaurants and opening restaurants. And uh because I fell in love with the industry, I went to my partner, Dennis Woodhouse, and said, Dennis, I told you up front it was a stepping stone job. Now I want to stay. But in order for me to stay, I I've got to become your partner. This this is who I am, this is who I want to be. And and I don't I don't need you to raise my comp. We can set goals, it can be sweat equity, we can we can set it up any way you want. And Dennis agreed to that, and I became a 5% partner immediately. And we set up an environment where I can become a 5% partner each and every year for hitting certain goals, which were mostly around generating profits, and we hit those goals. And you know, about about 10 years later, I was 49, 50, I was a 50%, I think it was 48, 49% partner. And Dennis and Gene, the owners, were 15, 20 years older than me, and they were getting ready for they they were headed towards retirement, and we worked out a deal for me to buy the rest of the company out in a way that was uh fair for both of us, but favorable to them from a tax point of view, from an income point of view, set them up for retirement. Uh and you know, I s I still talked to Dennis today. I ran into him last year, and they're they're good people, and and I was very fortunate about the timing, but that's that's how I ended up buying CTI.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Right. Interesting. Interesting that you did it in instalments. That would that's a what a clever way of doing it. And also great for Dennis because selling a company when you have to sell the company is a terrible time to sell the company. Interesting. Okay, so in the mid-90s, you were one business, six people, St. Louis, you weren't exactly setting the world alight. But CTI is one of the biggest players in the market today. I mean, you're a big company. So let's start with where did you what what was your decision process? Because you you could never have taken all of the St. Louis market, so at some point you would have said, right, we need to have a second office. Well, one why did you decide you wanted a second office? What was a second office like, and how did that how did that work? And what were the successes and failures like?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah, it's so been kind of opportunistic on that, more so than strategic. Although as you get bigger, you turns out you better pay attention to strategy. But but more opportunistic in the early days. And in in the early days, I was from Kansas, and uh St. Louis to Kansas City was an I-70 drive and uh about a about four hours apart, a little less, depending on what part of town you had to be in, and that kind of things. And we had customers in Kansas City, and it just made sense to take on customers and projects and execute in Kansas City as the easy growth strategy for us. You could drive it in the morning, the afternoon. And back then I had a big red Dodge truck. I could take materials back and forth. And and I was the main salesperson at the time, but I was also the main project manager, and and I was also attacked at times. And I had some other really amazing guys around me. One of them is still here today. Uh, but but Kansas City became the obvious location. And there was a company that needed to be bought there, and I met them through my relationship at NAC. We we didn't pay big bugs for it, but the acquisition gave us momentum, it gave us a few people, it gave us a few customers, and Kansas City became the first acquisition in in C for CTI and CTI's history. And then we just started growing in the two markets. And that was a successful strategy for us. So we decided, well, let's we can reach out to some other cities that we've got roots in and customers in, but let's make sure we keep them within a four-hour drive so that we can service them and and get the install there and get the equipment back and forth and do the things that we need to do. And uh quickly after Kansas City became Omaha, Nebraska, which was three hours from Kansas City and six hours from St. Louis, and not too long after that came Memphis, Tennessee. Um and and Memphis is about four hours from St. Louis. It stayed within that environment that I'm describing, and it was just opportunistic things, companies that needed to be bought. Memphis was an MCSI office. When MCSI ran into financial issues, there were really good people available. And because of some of the individuals we knew, they decided that CTI was a good fit for them. And in a lot of really good talent came our direction in that window. And you know, when I look back over the you know, 25 years in that conversation, 30 years from the beginning, but there's been just little moments in time where opportunities happened and it and it came our direction. It was the talent that came out of MCSI and and and other small companies that just needed to be bought, whether the owners were retiring and didn't have an exit strategy, or or they just just were more hobby businesses and and they needed to grow up. We've we've been in a spot where we could take where we could take advantage of those opportunities and and create new environments.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Now it's it's interesting to me. You you've always had all the time I've known CTI, which is probably 10 years, you've had a reputation of being not a family business, but but a but a solid Midwestern business. You're not a you're not a flashy coastal type organization. Was it deliberate did it just sort of because you signed in St. Louis and everything needed to be within four hours of the next office, was that kind of an accident, or did you deliberately avoid LA's, the San Francisco's, the Chicago's, the New York's?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, that completely deliberate. We were we we're pretty strong on East Coast and West Coast today, but that's fairly recent in the last 10 years. Back then, we were completely fine being a Midwest company. We we liked the Midwest culture. We we we liked the environment. Uh CTI as a culture by design organization, has been since the very early days. I got a lot of influence from a couple of books, a couple of writers. They're they were actually good friends of mine to today, but we were culture by design right out of the gate. And we created a kind of a work hard, play hard culture. And and we had people that you know showed up early, stayed late, and made sure the customer was taken care of. And then on the weekends, we race boats around and shoot each other with paintballs and and go to happy hour and whatever it is that you might think is is is a damn good time. We went and did that and come Monday morning, we were we were back in the game. And and man, I I I I personally enjoy working just as much as I enjoy playing. To me, there's very little difference. Between the two. But because of that, I've created an environment where I'm surrounded by those same kind of individuals. And to this day, we just kind of work a little harder and a little faster than most of our competitors. And that's not to say there's not some really good competitors. There are. But we've been really clear that you're going to fit our culture. And I even speak at our annual events and I say, you're going to fit our culture, or I will follow you around personally until you fit our culture or leave. And I'm okay with either one, but it's going to be fast, right? We're going to be a culture of people that show up and get things done and take care of our customers so that we're not worried all weekend long on how to make payroll or what's going to happen on Monday, that kind of stuff. We're going to get things done.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Right. So I guess the next question here is how do you I mean you got to 40 offices now, right? But you were and and a bunch of internationals as well. So how do you how do you get that culture into these, particularly when you're buying other companies, right? You know, you're buying a company off someone who's, let's say they're looking to retire, and they're looking to retire, and you're buying their business, and therefore there's staff who you're not technically buying the people, you're buying the payroll that pays them. So some of them will leave. How do you get your culture into these people? That seems like a very hard thing to do, particularly when they could be a long way from you.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, it it's probably one of the most challenging things we do. Blink blending cultures is is incredibly challenging, and that's that's why acquisitions are incredibly can be challenging. And you know, if you look at the statistics on acquisitions across all industries, most of them aren't all that successful. Um, but but we have a playbook on how we're gonna do it, and we follow the playbook pretty tightly. Now, one of the things I've learned over the years is every acquisition's different, and if you try to put that playbook over the top in a real hardcore environment, you'll make a mistake. You've you've got to have some flexibility there. But but we have some secret sauce, one one of which is CTI on the same page. It's a document that describes our culture and how we make decisions and who we are and what we do. And it's it's a one-page document. And and I I teach that. I used to teach it 10, 15 times a year. And now I've taught our executives and our leaders they're they're teaching it. And on the first day of an acquisition, I show up and I say, we're gonna spend the next three hours talking about CT on the same page, talking about culture, talking about vocabulary, and I need you guys to understand it because this is the new culture. And the the first acquisition I ever did, I was pretty soft about it and said, over time we're gonna get there. And I learned that was a mistake. Now, on the very first day and the very first minute, I start out with, I know you're great people. I know you've been successful a long time. The only reason I'm here is because I want to be a part of this team, but you're now a part of CTI. CTI has a very specific culture. I know how to articulate it. I have it in writing, and I'm going to explain it to you in detail right now. And when you walk out of this meeting, this is the culture of this new organization. And I do use vocabulary that I just said a second ago, which is you are going to assimilate to this culture, or I will follow you around personally until you make a decision to assimilate to this culture or leave. And I'm okay with either one. Our our culture is not for everybody. We expect you to show up and work hard, and some people don't want to. That's okay. It's just not okay at CTI.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Wow. That's really interesting. Tell me about, and you don't need to put any names into this, but of all the companies you bought, there must have been a couple of failures or or tricky situations. Can you can you talk to some of those? What did you, you know, what happened and or what did you learn?

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Uh well, there's there's there's things to be learned in every single acquisition. There is there's there's no doubt about that. And truth, truth be told, some of them are way more successful than others, but never actually had a failure, right? I I have had some pretty big mistakes, so I don't want to there there was there was a company that we bought in the Midwest and and uh you know had four or five salespeople in it, and and I interviewed them all deeply and and really knew what they were capable of and and knew what their revenue was, and and I was like, these three guys are are gonna be fantastic and and we're lucky to have them. The these two, I don't even know if they're gonna make it, I'm not even sure. And and 12 months later, the three guys that you thought were gonna be fantastic aren't even with you anymore because they didn't they were good at interviewing, they were good at talking, but they weren't very good at executing. And the two guys that you didn't even think might make it are you know in the top 10% of all your salespeople in the entire company, which which reinforces how difficult it is to interview people and and and know how good they're gonna be. So, so when you're evaluating companies, I've learned a lot about the interview process, is probably the least valuable strategy towards deciding who's gonna be good at what not. And and I you still gotta meet people and and you still gotta go through the process, but but that from a scientific point of view is is near the bottom of the conversation. But we're we're a little more opportunistic when it comes to acquisitions, right? You know, most when you do an acquisition, your your attorneys and your accountants come in and and start looking at contracts and details and balance sheets, and we do that kind of stuff, and I certainly know how to do it. And you know, I'm a math guy and economics guy. I certainly know what I'm doing, and I can certainly read it. But I find that to have very little to do with the long-term success, and I'm much more interested in the org chart. Who who works here? How long have they worked here? How do you compensate them? How do you bonus them? How successful have they been? What kind of individuals are they? Do they have significant others, children? What are their hobbies? And and creating an environment where people can be successful together, I am so much more focused on that than I am the customers and all those kind of things. Because the customers will stay with the groups of people that execute at a high level for them. So when we do an acquisition, I'm much more focused on will these people stay at CTI? Will they like CTI? When I walk out the door and they go home, will they go home to their significant other and say, good news, we got acquired by CTI and my life's a little bit better? Or will they go home and go, honey, this sucks. We got acquired by CTI and I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. And I'm just much more focused on helping people get what they want and trying to create an environment where they can win. Because if I can do that, then they stay at CTI long term. And if they stay at CTI long term, we we know that we can be successful if we stay together long enough.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

It's really interesting. One of the things I've experienced in my own career is leadership of organizations say things like salespeople aren't doing the right thing, and you then look at back at them and say, Well, how do you incentivize them? And they're like, Well, what's that to do with it? And I've I've always like everything, it's got everything to do with it. What's your thoughts on incentives? Do you do you look at incentivizing salespeople in a certain way? And then if if they're acting in the wrong way, is that their fault or your fault? Well, the second part of that question is easy.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

It's a hundred percent my fault. Most people get up in the morning and say, I want to be productive today, and I want to be valuable today, and and and I want to build friendships today, and I want to build rapport today, and I want, you know, what whatever my job is, I want to do it well. And and and most people just flat want to be successful in life. And and there's just a shortage of leadership uh across the board. That the the people that'll just that just truly say, we're not only going to do a fantastic job, but I'm gonna help the people around me also do a fantastic job. So, so when you have people that aren't succeeding, that's almost always a leadership issue. Now, maybe you've got them, and I'll come back to the incentive side of it here in just a couple seconds, but but it's a leadership issue. Maybe you don't have them in the right position, right? Maybe you set them up for failure. I I I've noticed over the years, a lot of times we say, you know, this this guy's just not good enough. And I was like, well, is he not good enough at the job that we've asked him to do, or is he just not good enough at life, right? Because most people want to be pretty good at life. And and if you put them in a job where they can be successful, they tend to excel. So I I've been, we I kind of CTI's culture is if a person's not really doing a great job, as long as their attitude's good and their efforts good and their and their trust is good. Effort, attitude, and trust, right? As long as they've got those things, if they're not doing a really good job, that's a leadership issue. You probably have them in the wrong job and or you haven't trained them. So at CTI, we've got a lot of employees that we've wiggled around with over the years trying to find the right role. And some they're some of the most talented people in the company, but but we hired them for the wrong role in the first place, and and we got that transitioned around, or or they needed more training, more education, more assistance, those kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, it's really it. I was talking to uh someone just yesterday about I think there's multiple types of people. Clearly, there are. One of the things that you have are thinkers and doers. And a lot of people are like, oh, well, you're just thinkers are clearly better. No, cle no, no, no. You need both. Uh I the analogy I used was trained train designers, the people who design a train and the guy who drives the train are very different types of people. You don't want the train driver designing the next train, but equally, you don't want train designers driving trains. And and I think some people look at that as as if there's a kind of a hierarchy, but I personally don't see it that way because you could design all the trains in the world, but if you don't have any drivers for them, they're worthless. And equally, if you have loads of people who could drive trains but no trains, what use are they? So what are your thoughts on on the on the doers versus thinkers? Because I rarely meet people who are very good at both.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Oh, you're you're a hundred percent correct and and and spot on. One of the things I love about our industry is it's pretty complicated. And in in order, yeah, you know, we're we're pretty niche and we do some pretty complicated work at CTI. And in to execute those jobs, you need pretty significant teams of people. And and you certainly need that engineer who can who can go out and find every piece of equipment and put it together in a drawing, in an environment that will work in the way that it's intended to work. And you needed a sales consultant, a visionary kind of person in the first place that could communicate to a customer, uh, you know, almost translate to a customer. The customer knows what they want, what their vision is, what they need it to do, but you got to translate to the technology side, right? They don't speak technology. Why would they? And that's why they need us. And and you not only got to translate it into a vision that they can see, but you got to create an environment that's truly reliable where the customer goes, Yep, I need CTI. They are the reliable choice. They're the least risky choice. These guys know what they're doing, they have the right teams that can execute. And then you need teams which are in that environment that you just described. You you need that sales consultant on the front end who has a much different skill set than the engineer who's gonna sit at his computer or at his desk and figure out every piece of gear and dot every I and and cross every T. And then that that slides over to a project manager who's got to see that vision and put a team together of the of install techs that can go out and execute that work. And those those install techs might have all kinds of skill sets, but today we need them to be a doer. We need to carry, we need equipment on site, we need cardboard to disappear, we need cable to be pulled, we need connectors to be added, we need things to be mounted. And then you got to bring a commissioner in who opens up his laptop and he probably did all that install work at some point in time, but he's got a different hat on today and a different set of thinking. And you need all these different individuals. And when the job's done and you're taking a deep look at how to be faster and more efficient in the future, you want all their opinions and you want all their intel and you want to learn as much as you possibly can. But the day you're executing the work, you want them to do their job as fast and efficiently as they possibly can. Because if you want the customer to say CTI was a good choice, you need to be done on time and on budget, and you need to create a system that's very reliable and one that the customer goes, I'm glad I chose CTI today. And that just takes a large chunk of people that can do all those things. And I left out the person that orders the equipment and bills for the equipment and does the banking work and those kind of things. There's just teams of people everywhere, and most of them need to execute work and not really put their thinking hat on. They just need to put their head down all up their sleeves and get things done.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Interesting. Now, it's very clear that you that culture is primary. It's it's everything at CTI comes out of the culture that you generated. I'll let you answer this question any way you like. Uh, vendors, manufacturers who supply technology to you. I've spent most of my career on that side of the fence rather than on the reseller. I I have done reseller a long time ago. I'm interested in how does that because every vendor that I've ever worked for certainly has a culture that it also wants to push into its end user customers and into its um into its partners, the the CTIs of the world. And there's also that interesting angle that most vendors are trying to steal steal, to move share of wallet, should we call it, within your business between them and their competitors that are working with you. How do you navigate that? And you've got a couple of examples of ones who do it specifically or or particularly well.

unknown 36:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah, we're we're pretty selective on our vendor partners, and and as you grow, you know, we we grow to a size that we're we're connected pretty tight with all the major vendors, all the ones that matter. Um and it it's kind of it's it's a little bit cracking, right? Because they have turnover and they have different people that come in and they have acquisitions and different leadership. And and I've found the manufacturing word world, I've found their cultures to be a little bit more fluent than maybe CTI's culture is. And I've changed my strategy over the years to well, I do a couple different things. Our strategic plan I was talking about, one of the things that we say on there is every experience involving me will be positive. And many of the examples that I use are directly with our vendors. They might let you down and you need to hold them accountable, but it can be done in a positive way. They you might need them to do something very special in your environment. It can certainly be done in a positive way. And the vendor relations, I uh I have a team of really qualified people, and we're we're very clear with our vendors up front. These are the things that we expect, these are the things that we need. And we're not we're not asking because we want to be special, and I don't care what our competitors do. We're asking because this is what we need in order to execute work at a really high level for our customers. And if we execute work at a really high level for our customers, we'll buy more of your product, and ultimately that's what you want us to do. So we we try to dig in in that environment right out of the gate. And then on top of that, we say some things to our vendors. If if you want to be really successful at CTI, you've got to dig in and you've got to be valuable in the reverse direction. And and having the best product with the best warranty that's the most reliable, that's just table stakes. If you don't have that, you're out anyways. You have to have that. But then on top of that, you you you've got to help educate our people and you've got to create environments where we find the customers. You've you got to you've got to help us sell more of your product. And and ultimately, that's what you want, and that's what we want too. So let's find alignment, let's focus on alignment. And we've created pretty strong and deep relationships with the best vendors over the last 30 years. We've been very consistent on it. 30 years ago, you know, we were a peon company and they barely cared. We were lucky to have access to those manufacturers. Today we can, you know, pick up the phone and get access to virtually anything we want, and almost any of the manufacturers want access to CTI. But the ones that excel at CTI, they they they they dig into our culture and they they step it up and help us be successful too.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Interesting. Okay. Now you've got four international offices now. What made you decide to go international? You know, you started in St. Louis, you're you're a Midwestern company, although you do now have offices all across the US. Why the international? And then how do you manage with that? Because there is cultural changes in different companies, different countries.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Yeah, good lord, there's cultural changes, and there's certainly legal differences and taxation differences, and it can be quite complicated. We're members of the PSNI organization, and PSNI has a hundred plus companies around the world. Virtually every major city in the world is is covered. We manage more than 5 billion in turnover. So through the PSNI network, I can reach anywhere in the world. In fact, it's the largest network in the world by far. In fact, I think it's larger than the three biggest competitors combined. So reach isn't the real issue. Uh that said, the reason that we have grown, it's it's it's twofold, a little bit opportunistic. Uh companies that that that wanted to be acquired or needed to be acquired, and in companies that we already had relationships with. We already liked the people. We we already knew that we fit well well together. Uh those companies came to us and said, hey, I think we'd like to be a part of CTI. I think it would help us grow. We're we're having a hard time competing with our customers against the big boys around the world. And if we were a part of CTI, we could do a better job and it would be safer for not only for ourselves personally, but for the rest of our organization. And we want to be a part of CTI. Would you be interested in doing that? And the answer is yes, because if you don't do it, then these amazing people are going to end up with one of your competitors. So you might as well say yes and partner up with people that you know are going to be successful. So from an opportunistic point of view, we've said yes to a couple of those types of environments. And we're lucky. We we have a lot of people come to us and say, I think our organization would be safer if we were just a part of CTI.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Can we put something on there? That's a remarkable testament to what you've built. Where where are your international offices?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Uh most mostly in the UK and then in Pune, India. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Uh, with a little more expansion coming, although rapid expansion isn't really our goal. The other side of it that drives it, though, is our customers. We have customers that we're doing international deployments with. We have more than 100 projects going on internationally today, right at this moment. And and those customers, through our PSNI network, there's no problem in the execution. The way that we have PSNI network set up, we get the A team and the best people. We execute it at the highest level. The customer experiences are fantastic. So that part's fine. But what the what the customers are saying is it is challenging to onboard a different partner in each country. It is challenging to cut multiple POs. It is challenging to deal with the taxation strategies. It is challenging to deal with, fill in the next five blanks. We would appreciate it, CTI, if you would solve some of these problems and make it easier and more efficient for us. So that's that's why we that's one of the reasons that we got legal in India. We still use our PSNI partners to execute throughout India, but you can cut us a purchase order. We can order the equipment, we can take care of the equipment, we can use, we we can hire our partners, we can handle the logistics, but you don't have multiple taxation strategies, multiple companies you got to pay to, multiple companies you got to onboard. The UK was step number one in that, and that solving that taxation strategy across the rest of Europe is also important. Probably need an answer or two in the Asia territory and APAC for the exact same reason. But to say that we're going to have offices in all of those locations, I think that's unlikely. I think the PSNI network is a superior strategy for getting the work executed. But for taking the order and cleaning up the taxes and simplifying it for our customers, that's something they're asking us to do.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Now, one of the things that's become very big within all of industry, but let's keep it to the A V space is private equity. Private equity has decided that the the A V space is interesting to them. I certainly have my own feelings on private equity, but I'm interested in what your thoughts are on both them getting involved, what the effect is and what the future looks like as far as private equity is concerned.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

You want my nice answer, my not nice answer, my canned answer?

SPEAKER_00 44:28

I would like the I would like the I would like you actually just to be honest and tell me what you really think. But you can give me two answers if you like, and if you don't want me to publish one, I won't. I've got no interest in getting you in trouble, John. But equally, I actually, and I think the audience deserves to hear what you really think. Yeah. But that's up to you.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Okay. It's it's it you you you do with it what you want. I don't have a problem with how you use it. I'll just let me let me say this. I actually consult with private equity in different environments because I enjoy it and I learn so much. I don't really make a lot of money doing it, but I enjoy it and I learn a ton. Okay. And private equity in general, from a philosophical point of view, I really like what they're doing. In fact, I consider CTI to be a mini private equity company. We're in the industry, we're out there looking for opportunities that fit in the way that we want them to fit. And uh and and we're trying to do something special. And we we are a mini private equity company from that point of view. And private equity wants into our industry because they they they see growth in our industry and they see the large revenue dollars in our industry. The gross profit is pretty strong in our industry. And even as in net profits, they're acceptable. They're not world class, but they're acceptable in our industry. And so private equity sees a lot of opportunity there. And private equity is mostly driven by accountants. But accountants, financial people, attorneys, that kind of stuff, and they are really smart people. And that's what I love learning from them and those kind of things. But but but I think they have a problem. I think they have a challenge. And and they they miss, they they see all the numbers and they see all the contracts. And some of these guys are MBAs from from Harvard or Yale or some other Abbey League school. So they're absolutely brilliant. There's there's no doubt about that, but they miss the relationship side of our industry. They think that the brand that they bought is driving the business, and it it it's it's a part of it, but it's not. And and they they think that that the process and the policies and the brand will hang on to those customers long term and that you can count that in the bank, and they're just not accurate. What's what's most important on our industry is the relationships. The the top customers know what it takes to execute work, and they get they they they're very reliant on um the best project managers, the best engineers, the top sales consultants, and and and the trickle-down effect, whether the tax and those kinds of those groups of people tend to stay together. And if you run off the best engineers or the best salespeople because you don't treat them right, you tend to lose the best customers at the same time. And I don't think private equity realizes how complicated this industry can be, and I don't think they understand how important the relationships in this industry are, and they miss that a little bit. And private equity buying up companies all around the world has really created an awful lot of opportunity for CTI and some of the other companies in the industry because they don't hang on to the talent the way that they should, and I think they kind of miss the window on it, so to speak. That's not to say they're doing anything wrong, it's just that they they they're kind of damaging the industry, and and I wish they'd grow up just a little bit and do a little bit better job because because for for CTI, it it's actually better to have quality competitors all around the world than it is to have people running around looking for jobs and changing hands rapidly.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Brilliant answer, by the way. Thank you. Um I'm trying to think which direction to go next. Let's go with this one. Consolidation. In I in IT, you look at the global service providers, right? The GSIs, I think they're called systems integrate global systems integrators, they're they're multiple tens of billions of dollar businesses these days. And AV and IT have are clearly well, at least from a customer's point of view, they're often merged or or close to it. But from a from a reseller's perspective, they're not there yet. I mean, even the even the biggest of the integrators are in the billion, multi-billion dollar class, only a small percentage of the overall market. Do you think that that's gonna change over the next few years? And and or what do you think that's gonna look like? Or do you think we're gonna continue to be somewhat more fragmented than say the IT world is?

SPEAKER_01 49:10

It's a really good question, and I reserve the right to be completely wrong, but I'll tell you what I think. Okay. Uh I think it's gonna stay fairly fragmented, and we've been looking at these at the clash of of IT and A B for many, many years. And the IT organizations, they're they're they're picking up huge amounts of revenue in the in the low-hanging fruit of A V, right? The the a monitor on a wall on the network that that works with a Teams bar or something like that. It's easy, easy to make sure that it's acceptable. And so that that side of the industry, the electrical contractors pick up a ton of that kind of work, the IT guys pick up a ton of that kind of work. And that's probably gonna continue to happen. No, no, without question. It's just easy to do. Uh, we do a ton of it too, and I I love doing it. It's profitable, it's fast, and it's a great place to educate new techs uh and give them give them something to do, that kind of stuff. So I like doing that kind of work, but you'll keep losing that. The real niche, complicated work, I don't think they're gonna be able to get their hands too deep into it. There there are certain groups that that will be able to, because they'll get the right people, do the right acquisition, that kind of stuff. But there's there's culturally a huge difference, in my opinion, between what the IT organizations are doing and what the A B organizations are doing. And the IT organizations, they get it wired up so they can see it and ping it and test it and say it's working, right? And then it works the way their software is designed to work, and it creates the experience it was designed to create, and and and it's very reliable and in and it protects the security issues and the value they bring to the customer is significant, and what they're doing is impressive. The A B industry is very similar to everything I just said, but it the A B industry is much noisier, it's much more subjective. The top presenters in the world know that that in the top executives in the world know that they got their job because they present slightly better than the rest of their organization, and they need their conference room or their auditorium to work slightly different than the rest of theirs do. And they need the reliability of that environment to be a hundred percent when they're at the podium, when they're working in in those environments. And the fact that everything sees each other is irrelevant. The fact that everything pings each other is irrelevant. The fact that the software works the way it was designed to is irrelevant. What matters is that it works to their expectation at their moment in time when they're using it, because they're the ones paying the bills, they're the ones deciding who's hired and fired. There's the ones that are selling airplanes or beer or pick, you, you, you pick out whatever the Fortune 500 companies are doing. They need it to work that day at that moment to their strata, to their success, their strategy, their environment. And it's just noisy and it's subjective. And the A B industry is really good at customer experience. They're really good at making it work the way that you want it to work. They're really good at creating reliable environments for you at the right time and at the right moments. And it's just different than what the IT groups are doing. And when you get to the real complicated niche stuff, it you you can't just hire three guys and start doing it. You got to have teams of people that are passionate about it and doing that. And that's why we have really good people at CTI because those teams are passionate about doing that kind of work because it gravitates towards CTI. I'm not losing those top-tier talented individuals, I'm not losing them to the IT industry. That's not where they're gone.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

It's really, uh I have to say, I wildly agree with you. Uh I was talking to a a gentleman the other day about a similar idea. And to me, AV, video conferencing is my bailey wick, really. But all of A V, it's a human experience. IT is a if if we were selling routers and switches, we could tell you two things. We could tell you last year's model isn't as good as this year's, and next year's will be better and cheaper than the present one. But you can't say that about A V because an A V experience is subjective between it's where the analogue human human world ends and the computer world starts. And the interface is the bit that really matters. I think it's personally it's made it a really fascinating, a fascinating career for me. [Off-record aside omitted.] Next, I want to explore education. So things like CTS and AVIX and all of that, you know, ongoing education, andor, or and I suppose, not all, and what about earlier education? I mean, you came out of university with a degree. What's your thoughts on education? Is it worth is it worth young people doing? Are things like CTS and other qualifications worth doing? Or do you feel practical experience is is really where it stands?

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh education is critical, but there's a difference in my opinion between education and high school and education and universities, right? I I'm I've got a little different opinion on what's valuable about those. I'm not saying don't do them. I'm just saying you need to be careful how much you spend on them, especially higher education. You you do need education. I I I personally read a book a week, and and I'm trying to read 50 books a year, and I've I've never quite hit that number. I've been in the low 40s on uh a couple of occasions, but but I I read a book book a week because I want that education, I want those new ideas, I want that influence, I want to know what others did in history, that kind of stuff. And and at this point, I'm just addicted to it, and it and it's interesting. I go to CTO or yeah, CEO boot camp. And their their goal is to give you an MBA in 72 hours, and and I've gone back year after year after year for more than a decade because it's some of the best education you could possibly get, mixed in with it's 10 people only, invite only, and the other 10 people, they're brilliant. And and what I've learned from them and the presenters and that kind of stuff is is is just so valuable. So that education is huge. When it comes to a Bixa, I've taken every class I ever had, maybe not so much in the last couple of years, but in my early days, I showed up early, stayed late, and went to as many classes as I could at Infocom, CTS, all of their certifications, I think, are all valuable. I don't have a problem with any of them, but I don't think it's enough, right? And at CTI, we one of the things we ask our vendors is to help us educate our teams. And one of the reasons we're pretty sticky with certain vendors is because I think it's impossible for your teams to be educated on 40 vendors well, but you can be highly educated on one or two, right? So that when you show up, you have the right tools, the right software, you know what to do, you're valuable. The customer doesn't say to you, have you ever seen this machine before while you're looking at a YouTube video? Right? You you've got to know what's going on. And that part of the industry changes rapidly. So you better have a system in place so that your staff is educating themselves rapidly to what's what's what's valid and what's needed and those kind of things. And to that point, I have a chief people officer. Her name is Kathy Kelly, and she runs our education program. Kathy and I have been working together the virtually the entire time at CTI. And she runs CTI University, and CTI University has more than 2,000 courses on it. And every person at CTI is assigned multiple, everybody at CTI is assigned a course every single month, and almost everybody has structure of the courses they're expected to take over the next six months. And I think that education is huge and important and valuable in in every way, shape, or form. When it comes to higher education, I don't actually have a degree. I left school and took a job that was like the job of my life with one semester to complete. And uh, I was gonna go complete that one semester in the next city, and then I got another, uh, I got a pay raise, and in the next city, I got another pay raise. And to this day, I'm 58 years old, and I might go back and complete, but at this point, it's it's almost a badge of honor that I never did. So uh so that part's a little probably a little bit different. But when it comes to but but when I went to college, you you know, I had scholarships in the early days, which certainly helped, but in the latter days, I I could work uh real hard in the summertime and part-time throughout the school year, and and I could pay my tuition in my room and board, and I I could get myself through school without taking loans or very little. That's just not true today. You you can't you can't work all summer long and pay a $40,000 tuition if you're a 20-year-old kid. And because of that, because of the economic difference, if you're if you're gonna go to the university and and you're gonna spend four years, and most kids spend five years, right? That is a that is financially a significant amount of dollars, but that five years is also a significant amount of time out of your life. And when you leave school, you should have that that piece of paper that you have should be quite valuable. And it should walk you in the door to a job or a career that is that is financially proportionate to the commitment that you just did, the four to five years of time and the dollars that you did. And I don't think that's what the universities are doing at the moment, and you need to be very careful in what kind of education you're getting at the university and what if if you walk out with an engineering degree, I think that's probably pretty valuable. And there's a whole bunch of degrees that that you can walk out with that are pretty valuable, and you need to be very careful to do that. And if you're not sure what to do, some of these BoTech schools that are 18 months or 12 months, much less expensive, much less amount of time. You can walk out and get a job immediately. You can you're so damn young, you can always go back to the university when you're prepared to. But I I think shoving these kids into programs that they're not ready for at huge expenses is just a touch unethical. And that's not to mention the fact that more than 50% of the kids uh don't even stay in the university past two years, and all of that money is just completely wasted. So, education, yes. Read books, yes, they're virtually free. Botex, yes, certifications, yes. But if you start throwing big dollars at it, you better pay real close attention to what you're getting from it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

So, John, it's been a remarkable journey, and thank you for sharing it with us. What's the next five years look like?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Uh, you know, that wow, that that that that's that's really actually a tough question. So a few years ago, I looked at myself and I was 6'4 and 275, 275 pounds and kind of chubby, and and I looked in the mirror and said, man, I love what I'm doing. I love running CTI. I love this company. And if I want to do it for another 10, 15 years, I better get myself in significantly better shape. And over the over the last three years, I've really focused on getting my weight down and getting my exercise up and and and and getting in better shape. And one of the motivators for that, like like all the obvious ones, you want to look better and and you want your wife to look at you and and and see a healthy you, and you want your you want to be a good example for your kids and that kind of stuff. But but one of the big motivators for me is I want to keep running CTI for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, right? As is as long as I possibly can because I'm having so damn much fun. And I like growing the company and I like helping people succeed. And I like it when customers say, I really appreciate you stepping in and helping us execute. We we just couldn't have got it done without you. And this was something that we needed to do. And and so I I I want the next five, 10, 15 years to be just as fun. But where the company has to go is it is it's more important to keep the culture real straight than it is to keep the strategy real straight. Like strategy, every time you get a new piece of intel, you change the strategy just a little bit. Every time you learn something or get a new piece of experience, you change the strategy just a little bit. But culture doesn't change. Not very much, right? And the culture is people that show up and care about each other and trust each other and work hard, people that show up and learn something every day, people that show up and share information every day, people that are trying to make the company better every day. And when you have a group of people that's sharing intel and education and trajectory and and and working forward, you get intel constantly and faster and more efficiently. So you're constantly tweaking your your strategy. Uh, and and it looks to me like, and this changes all the time, but it looks to me like the industry is going to keep growing for many, many years. It looks to me like the industry's, if you really look at it, the industry's been around 2,000 years. People have been coming together to the Coliseum, and they were trying to figure out how to hear the speaker at a better environment while they're watching boats banging to each other or or lions fight or whatever, gladiators or whatever, whatever it was. And and people come together for football games and basketball games, and they come together in in offices to hear presentations, and the best speakers in the world have huge audience show up in person to see them, and they might they might also be broadcasting to who knows where and and how and those kind of things. But people want to hear people talk and they want to see presentations and they want to be entertained, and that part of the industry is not going to go away. But what's going to drive it into the future are security strategies and AI strategies and 3D strategies and improving the quality of the presentation so that I just have more impact and more environment because we're ultimately fighting for audience, right? Not me personally. I don't really care if anybody shows up to hear me speak. I hope my staff does and I hope they're interested. But the NFL needs as many people as possible to come see them, and they're competing with all of the other things that are potentially available on that day. So they have to be special. Major League Baseball has shortened their game, right? Which is just purely they got intel that people are starting to get bored, so they changed their strategy, shortened the game, put rules in it and that kind of thing. But they still need millions of people to show up on an annual basis and 10 times that to watch them in whatever the format is that you're watching them. I just think human beings love that side of the experience. I don't think that's going anywhere, and I think that's going to give us a lot of opportunity into the future to find more ways to reach each other.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:09

What a brilliant place to close. John, thank you so much uh for coming on the show. It's been a real pleasure. Before we started this recording, John said, Well, I'm an accountant, I don't think I've got anything to say. I think it's fair to say he was lying. He had lots to say. And if you got this far, thank you. Obviously, do all the likes, subscribes. I really hate the whole attention economy thing and asking people to subscribe, but it does make a difference, as every other YouTube channel will tell you. So, with that, John, thank you very much for your time. And everyone, we will see you again next week.