ICING CAKE. on the. A Day in the Life PLUS: How a 2-man shop pays dues with repair work before landing a 6-figure celebrity job.

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1 integration audio/video networking control convergence August Ultimate Guide to Architectural Speakers page 52 PLUS: A Day in the Life of a High-End Installer Page 68 ICING on the CAKE How a 2-man shop pays dues with repair work before landing a 6-figure celebrity job. PAGE 46 TLC s Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro, stands with brothers Abiose (left) and Chima Gale, 360 Media Innovations, Maplewood, N.J.

2 Abiose (left) and Chima Gale of 360 Media Innovations, Maplewood, N.J., landed the job of a lifetime recently, outfitting the 9,000-squarefoot home of celebrity baker, Buddy Valastro, with a soup-to-nuts Elan g! system. (Below right) 360 Media Innovations equipped Valastro s man cave with twin 40-inch Samsung TVs (only one TV is pictured). Both are attached via an articulating mount from Chief. (Below left) Elan s ipad app for its g! system is one of the most convenient ways for the Valastro family to operate the lights, thermostats, and A/V equipment in their home. Live streams from video cameras can be viewed right on the screen of the ipad, as well as on the flat-panel TV. 46 CE Pro August

3 Hitting the BIG TIME Small integrators parlay small subcontract into landing the project of a lifetime for a celebrity client. by Lisa Montgomery, photography by Rich Russo It s common when starting a business to have visions of grandeur. All too often, eager entrepreneurs dive into their new endeavors expecting a rush of clientele to stampede their storefronts. In the custom electronics installation industry, these visions of greatness typically include working in huge, custom-built houses; installing elaborate, bells-and-whistles systems; and catering to customers who willingly give them carte blanche on the project. In reality, it usually takes years to achieve this sort of business nirvana. To expect it to happen overnight is a big, fat pipe dream. Even CE pros who have been fortunate enough to reach the big leagues have recently had to scale down their grand business plans to weather the finicky economy. Quick Stats Company: 360 Media Innovations Location: Maplewood, N.J. Principals: Chima Gale, president and Abiose Gale, managing partner Revenues (2010): $280,000 (As of June 2011, the Gales have already surpassed their 2010 revenue total) Years in Business: 3 Number of Employees: 2 Specialty: A/V, but quickly becoming home control Top 5 Brands: Elan, Onkyo, Samsung, Triad and Epson FYI (advice to other dealers): Decide early on where you will focus your energy: retrofit, control, commercial. Once you focus on a path you can build your brand around it. Sweating the Small Stuff Chima and Abiose Gale, brothers and co-owners of 360 Media Innovations, Maplewood, N.J., entered the wild and wily world of custom electronics design and installation in 2008, when the market was at one of its lowest points. New builds were way down in our area and everyone was scrambling for business, says Chima. Still, the intrepid duo thought they could make a name for themselves eventually. We fully expected to have a tough road ahead of us, says Abiose. He was right. While the jobs were rolling in, thanks to subcontract work from Zip Express Installation and online sites like Service Magic and Install It Today, the projects weren t exactly the type that most CE pros would drool over. Together, the duo logged in a slew of little, moderately profitable jobs, mostly hanging flat-panel TVs for $250 a pop (it s a far cry from the sixfigure system they installed recently into the home of Buddy Valastro, who stars as the Cake Boss on TLC; see below). Occasionally, they would set up a surround-sound system or a basic whole-house audio system. Paying Their Dues In its first year of business, 360 Media Innovations completed 200 jobs, most of which was generated by a contract with servicemagic.com. It was expensive to join, but it got our feet in the door, Chima says. As small as that door was, the Gale brothers were happy to be inside. Those little jobs were invaluable to the success of our business. As a former We put ourselves through boot camp so we d be ready when the big jobs did eventually come our way. Chima Gale, president, 360 Media Innovations August 2011 CE Pro 47

4 CE Profile regional sales manager for Nevo by Universal Electronics, I had seen many large installation jobs, and I knew we simply [weren t at that level of expertise] yet. We needed lots of practice, and those smaller sales gave us the experience and confidence we would need to move on to bigger and better things. We put ourselves through boot camp so we d be ready when the big jobs did eventually come our way. A Marketing Hook: Retrofit It also gave them the time to establish a hook, something that would set them apart from the legions of more-established CE pros. As they refined their installation techniques, Chima and Abiose developed a sense of what was missing in the market. We didn t think most CE pros were spending enough time exploring opportunities in the retrofit market, so we decided to make that our focus, says Chima. Sure, other CE pros were handling retrofit work, but many times only out of necessity. Chima and Abiose wanted to make it their specialty, to position themselves as retrofit experts. We took several training courses our first one being at EHX and studied up on the various types of home construction so that we d understand the best pathways for wiring in existing homes, says Abiose. Retrofit also appealed to Abiose s curious side. I graduated with a degree in accounting and have a love of forensic accounting, so it s in my blood to Why We Like Retrofit Chima and Abiose Gale of 360 Media Innovations, Maplewood, N.J., love retrofit jobs. Here are their five reasons why. 1. It lets us play detective, sleuthing out the best possible pathways for wiring. 2. It sets us apart from the competition, who have for years focused on new construction. 3. We like to pull wire; we ll gladly pull wire before we ll put in a wireless system. 4. We love a challenge. 5. It s an untapped market; there s lots of money to be made. look critically at situations and discover solutions, he says. Chima and I will spend a full day at a home playing detective to find the best route for the cabling. Landing the Mother Lode Another key differentiator between 360 Media Innovations and the other guys, they say, is their approach with clients. We follow the Nordstrom s philosophy on customer service, says Chima. Whatever our clients want, we ll do. No job is too small or too difficult. Education is a big part of the Gales business philosophy, too. We spend a lot of time teaching our clients about technology: what their options are, what would be best for their situation, and how we can best help them, says Abiose. We might be smaller than our competition, but we ve gone head-to-head with some big companies and ended up getting the job because we didn t let our A Sanus rack holds an assortment of Elan g! gear, including the HC 12 home controller, AM/ FM/Sirius receiver and two ipod docks. (Inset): Abiose Gale installs a single-point stereo speaker. They were the speaker of choice for the kids bedrooms. egos get in the way of truly connecting with our clients. It s this attitude and genuine commitment to their customers that recently pulled the Gales out of the TV-hanging trenches and into the limelight with a massive, six-figure retrofit job for a celebrity client. From Obscurity to Superstardom When the Gales got the call from an anonymous homeowner in East Hanover to hang a few flat-panel TVs and replace some old in-wall speakers, they never imagined the person on the other end of the line was the assistant for Buddy Valastro, the celebrity baker on the TLC series Cake Boss. We just figured it was another typical client, says Chima. The next day, Chima and Abiose visited the house to get the low-down. Built in 2004, the 9,000-square-foot home had inceiling speakers that rattled and a few TVs in boxes waiting to be mounted to the wall. They were surprised to learn in that initial meeting that their potential client could be a celebrity; even more shocking was that his assistant found their company via the local Yellow Pages. 48 CE Pro August

5 CE Profile The lower-level rec room is the Valastro family s favorite place to entertain. The space includes four TVs and four pairs of Elan Elios speakers, including the 55-inch Samsung 9000 (in the cabinet) and two LG TVs (wall-mounted) pictured here. The audio/video can be controlled either from a wireless Elan WT84 touchpanel or an Elan TS7 wall-mounted panel (inset). We hit it off immediately with Buddy, and learned that we d need to replace not one audio system but two, says Chima. The Gales ripped out the keypads and speakers of the two systems and replaced it with an Elan distribution system, relocating all of the gear from a cabinet in the family room to a closet in the lower-level rec room. We were about to hand Buddy the final invoice, when he started asking us about controlling the lights and adding more zones to the audio system, Chima continues. At the time, Valastro was operating a few lights in the family room with a Nevo remote. 360 Media Innovations decided it was time to explore the addition of a home control system to its bag of tricks. To get the house ready for whatever Valastro might have in mind, the Gales installed a completely new, 10,000-foot highway of high-speed cabling behind the walls, ceilings and floor. The Valastros were living there during the renovation, so our goal was to replace the wiring with as little disruption to the family and the home as possible, Chima says. We had to find the path of least destruction. The installation duo used closets and the backside of baseboards and crown moldings as wiring channels, even trenching cabling through a plastic conduit outside to reach the main equipment rack in the lower level. Orders from the Cake Boss The project would also mark the Gales first experience designing and installing a complete home control system: in this case, the Elan g! system. The pair had completed manufacturer training previously, and quickly refamiliarized themselves with the system. Time was of the essence. Valastro, his wife and four kids (all under the age of 7) would be living in the house during the installation, so Chima and Abiose wanted to button it up as quickly as possible. How in the world could we tell someone who is able to build a 7-foot tall cake in two days that we couldn t put in a home control system in two months? says Chima. As the installation of the g! system commenced, Valastro decided to beef up his home s technology even more. Chima and Abiose expanded the audio system from six zones to 12 and eventually 17, encompassing a total of 42 Elan Elios in-ceiling speakers. Lighting control grew from 30 PCS PulseWorx switches to 50 before finally settling on 87. Twenty-four analog surveillance cameras were installed and tied to an Aviosys IP Power Distribution Unit to so that Valastro could access them anywhere via the Wi-Fi. Last but not least, additional low-voltage wiring was trenched in the backyard for the eventual integration of the swimming pool system, irrigation system, landscape lights and outdoor TV. In the Big Leagues A well-connected member of the community of East Hanover and Hoboken (where the client s store, Carlos Bakery, is located), Valastro busted the door wide open for the Gales. It didn t take long before people caught wind of 360 Media Innovation s work in the Cake Boss house. It s led to a half-dozen referrals, including $15,000+ projects for three of Valastro s sisters and two of his best friends, and g! installations in his new 35,000-squarefoot baking facility and 10,000-square-foot restaurant. They may not be of the scope and size of Valastro s six-figure system, but they re definitely more impressive than a $250 TV mounting job. And just as Chima and Abiose expected, with the exception of the commercial work, they re almost all retrofit. CE Pro 50 CE Pro August