Mobile Electronics Magazine April 2016

April 2016

me-mag.com

Road to Independence

Dave Phillips leveraged specialist & big-box experience to build his perfect store

The Next Phase

Directed’s Jim Minarik discusses accomplishments, what-ifs, and what’s next

Bass Below: Tips to Build Top Footwell Enclosures

Two Score and More:

Auto Sound celebrates 45 years of protecting Boston drivers

optimize your senses

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Volume 33// Issue 3

Ad Index

18 FEATURES 18 // Directed Q&A

Editor-in-Chief Solomon Daniels pays a visit to Directed headquarters to speak with retiring CEO Jim Minarik to learn more about current direction and recent changes within the company.

22 // Real World Retail: The Sound Shop

After only two years in business, David Phillips has achieved his long-awaited dream of owning a profitable car audio business, placing him on the path to self-fulfillment.

AAMP Global/PAC .................................................. p. 43 ® Accele Electronics .............................................. p. 2 & 3 ADS/idatalink maestro ........................................... p. 5 American Road Products ..................................... p. 32 Arc Audio ....................................................................... p. 47 AudioControl ................................................................ p.29 Compustar ................................................................... p. 59 Diamond Audio .......................................................... p. 39 Escort/Cobra ............................................................. p. 35 First Integrated Technologies ............................. p. 39 Focal ................................................................................ p. 28 FreeTel ........................................................................... p. 38 Harman ............................................................................. p. 7 InstallerNet .................................................................. p. 57 JL Audio ........................................................................... p. 17 K40 Electronics ......................................................... p. 41 Kenwood ......................................................................... p. 9 Kicker .............................................................................. p. 51 Metra ................................................................................ p.27 Mito .................................................................................. p. 47 Mobile Electronics ..................................................... p. 21 PowerBass .................................................................. p. 45 Scosche ......................................................................... p. 37 SiriusXM ........................................................................ p. 33 Voxx/Prestige PROCORE ......................... p. 15 & 60

36 // Say My Name: Retail Marketing Tactics

Building a brand can be a costly endeavor for any business. Experts weigh-in on how to do it without breaking the bank.

42 // Behind the Scenes: PowerBass

From the outside, this well-known brand may seem like a straight-forward company, but the reality is much more complex.

48 // Tech Today: Passenger Footwell Subwoofer Enclosure, Part 1

Installation expert Joey Knapp walks through the process of building a different kind of enclosure in the first of two parts in this month’s tech feature.

12 ARTICLES

On the Cover

To show the contrast, we are featuring a 45-year-old shop and a 2-year-old shop side by side on this month’s cover. Auto Sound is a family operation built on strong vendor relationships and treating customers like family. Similarly, The Sound Shop is built on its local car culture audience and strong employee bond. No matter the background, both stores are proving that a shop can succeed for as long as it wants as long as passion and friendship are driving forces COVER DESIGN: ROBIN LEBEL

4 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

12 Retail News/Who’s Who: Auto Sound Celebrates 45 Years 54 Installs

DEPARTMENTS 6 Feedback 8 Editor’s Forum 10 Stats 11 Helpful Stuff 30 On the Market 34 External Effects 58 MECP News

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 feedback

Why Should I Go? Education events like KnowledgeFest are critical for retailers like Rick Arnold who believes in the social value of the event. The same is true for manufacturer partners like Carlos Muñiz of Metra who thinks they help streamline workflow in the industry.

“I look forward to the Dallas KnowledgeFest every year. This will be my third year attending. I always get very useful information from this event; everything from management to sales and fabrication. The ability to network and insight on new products from manufactures is also a plus. I would also like to attend the Indianapolis event at some point in time.” Jody Coe, All Terrain Audio, Bullard, Texas “Remember: you NEVER know enough. Knowledge is POWER and the more you know, the better you, as well as your company, are. I learn something every day. More power to the NERDS!!!” Larry Frederick, CV & DA Holdings, Inc., Los Angeles, Calif.

“The first KnowledgeFest I ever went to (Dallas Gaylord) was all about the theme that “perception is reality” and the importance of “the customer experience.” It was life changing to me and I’m not just saying that. What I learned really changed my view on our industry and how we handle things. What I learned helped me create what I had been wanting to do for years and years and because of what I learned I have grown a very good, thriving business within the past five years. I do generally think that the overall experience was better at the Gaylord hotel. Now, I know it may cost a little more, but heck, we don’t mind paying a little more for a better experience. And that was the focus of the entire weekend, wasn’t it?” Rick Arnold, Street Smart/Automotive Solutions, Flowood, Miss.

“Expand your knowledge as much as you can. Never stop learning and

6 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

never doubt yourself; success and acknowledgement come with time and patience.” Dave Kosakowski, Total Image, Pittsburgh, Pa. “We are faced with having our products devalued by the Internet/box stores and the trend has continued.

Be proactive of getting behind a line that has quality and reputation, gives you support or your wholesaler treats you fair. Explain why you carry it, why you feel it’s the best, compare it against others brands and demo it!!

But keep an open mind and be willing to put in stuff purchased in other places; be sure to bench test it and at least reap the benefit of your labor.

Educate , don’t discriminate, and show why you are the best!” Jim Sullivan, Audiocarve, Newport, Vermont “The event definitely brings the industry together for a unique cross-training event. It allows our target customer base an opportunity to meet with key personnel and contribute their ideas and views. In turn it provides a clear-cut road to developing key products and streamlining processes for a better workflow between manufacturers, distributors and dealers.” Carlos Muñiz, Metra Electronics “Sharing both successes and mistakes helps others. I have many successes and mistakes in conceiving, engineering and bringing to market automotive electronics products. I want to share leadership practices that will help our industry thrive.” Stephen Witt, American Road Products

ADVERTISING SALES Kerry Moyer 703.598.3733 • kerrym@mobile-electronics.com ®

EDITORIAL Solomon Daniels 213.291.7888 • solomond@mobile-electronics.com Ted Goslin 800.949.6372 ext. 466 • tedg@mobile-electronics.com Creative Layout and Design: Robin LeBel Contributing Editors: Jamie Sorcher, Laura Kemmerer and Rosa Sophia.

Published by

®

Chris Cook, President 978.867.6759 • chrisc@mobile-electronics.com Kerry Moyer, VP Strategic Partnerships 703.598.3733 • kerrym@mobile-electronics.com Solomon Daniels, Dir. Media and Communications 213.291.7888 • solomond@mobile-electronics.com Richard Basler, Dir. Technology Solutions 978.645.6449 • richb@mobile-electronics.com Karin Drake, Events Manager 978.645.6478 • karindrake@mobile-electronics.com Robin Lebel, Creative Director 978.645.6456 • robinlebel@mobile-electronics.com 1)Title of publication: Mobile Electronics. 2) Publication No.: 957-170 6. 3) Date of filing: Oct. 1, 2015. 4) Frequency of issue: Monthly except FEB/MAR & APR/MAY 5) No. of issues published annually: 10. 6) Annual subscription price: $35.00. 7) Complete mailing address of known office of publication: 85 Flagship Drive, Ste F, North Andover, MA 01845. 8) Complete mailing address of the headquarters or general business offices of the publisher: 85 Flagship Drive, Ste F, North Andover, MA 01845. 9) Full names and complete mailing address of Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Publisher: Chris Cook, 85 Flagship Drive, Ste F, North Andover, MA 01845; Editor/Managing Editor: Solomon Daniels/Ted Goslin, 85 Flagship Drive, Ste F, North Andover, MA 01845 10) Owner. MERA, Mobile Electronics Retailers Association, 85 Flagship Drive, Ste F, North Andover, MA 01845. 11) Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1% or more of total amounts of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None.

12) Tax Status: Not applicable. 13) Name of Publication: Mobile Electronics. 14) Issue date for circulation data below: August 2015. 6. a) Total no. copies (net press run) Average: 12,484 Single Issue; 12,826. B1) Paid/Requested mail subscriptions Average: 6834, Single Issue: 6826. B3) Paid sales through dealers, etc.; Average: 0. Single issue; c. Requested distributed by other classes of mail: Average: 531, Single issue: 520. Total paid and/or requested circulation; Average 7365. Single issue: 7346. d) Non-requested distribution by mail; Average: 4382 Single issue: 4223. Free distribution through other classes of mail: Average: 0, Single issue: 0. e) Nonrequested distribution outside the mail; Average: 325. Single issue: 750. f) Total non-requested distribution; Average 4707, Single issue: 4973. g) Total distribution; Average: 12,072. Single issue: 12,319. h) Copies not distributed; h1) Office use, leftovers; Average: 412. Single Issue; 507 j) Total; Average: 12,484. Single issue; 12,826 Percent paid and/or requested circulation; Average: 61.01%. Single issue 59.63%.

me-mag.com   7

 editor’s forum

A Typical Day Selling Car Stereo

We’ve all got some great stories of our retail experiences. Here’s one of my more memorable ones.

It was relatively quiet on the car stereo show floor. Barry, the other sales guy, had just rushed across the street to wolf down a piece of pizza and inhale a whole cigarette. I figured he’d be gone eight minutes max. That was his secret to being the top earner in the department: never leave the floor. Well, almost never.

John, who dabbled between home and car, walked over with his peculiar waddling stride, too-short arms bookending a belly that propped up the end of his too-short tie. “See that guy?” he said, pointing over to a poorly dressed customer, who was following a CSR out the front door. The CSR was pushing a dolly, holding three large boxes. “He just dropped six thou on a home theater amp and speakers. We thought he just came in looking for the bathroom. Crazy, huh?”

I didn’t think it was crazy. In my years in the bay I had seen a lot of seemingly destitute people drive in with cars whose price tag eclipsed three times my annual salary, spending what amounted to six months of my pay to get “speakers that cost more than the ones my buddy got for his car, man.”

But up front, I hadn’t had any of those customers lately. What I had lately were people coming in off the newspaper ads, pointing to the lowest price on the page, saying, “Give me these.” In fact, I had just gotten out of the dreaded ESP slump. We’re pressured to sell extended warranties on every sale, something Barry calls “icing on the cake.” But until yesterday, I hadn’t sold one in more than three weeks. That kind of slump makes you question your approach, your dress, your mouthwash.

Until a couple came in looking for an amplifier for the car they had just bought their son for graduation.

I went through my steps. “What kind of car is it?

What kind of music does he listen to? (Like they would know.) Will he (or you, since you’re footing the bill) be adding more items in the future?”

And throughout, I dropped those hints, even though I felt the dread. “How he plays his music will determine the life of the amplifier. You’ll want to have some protection if something happens.” And “The warranty on this is just a year. But we can double or triple it, and even 8 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

replace it here rather than having to send it in for repair.”

Finally they agreed to buy, and I asked the question: “So are we taking the extended warranty with this? I highly recommend it.”

I didn’t look up from the computer screen.

In fact, I think the entire world around me froze in anticipation. I felt the beginnings of sweat break out on my forehead. I fully expected the “We’re going to pass” response, or even the “We’re just getting this, if he breaks it, he can replace it” response.

Instead, I got a simple “Yes.” Elation. Internally, of course. Can’t let the customer see you doing the “I took you for more money” dance.

But that was yesterday. Today it was slow. It was days like this that I missed working on cars in the bay. Every one a new challenge. Seeing customers’ faces light up with delight when they experienced your completed work in their most prized possession. Going home tired and dirty, physically and mentally. For me, it felt fulfilling and wholesome; like you worked for a living.

I glanced at my watch. It was nine minutes and Barry wasn’t back yet. I looked across the street and there he was, staring at the storefront, pizza in one hand, cigarette in the other. I guess he felt he had a few more minutes since he didn’t see any new cars pulling up.

Suddenly I saw him drop the pizza, spit out the cigarette and dash into traffic toward the store, dodging cars while swiping at his shirt front for errant crumbs. But he was too late. The door opened and in walked a casually well-dressed customer. He came right over to the car stereo section, right up to me, hand outstretched.

“I’m Jim Minarik,” he said. “I just took over as president of Clarion, and wanted to visit a few stores and see what salespeople and installers thought about the brand.” Behind him I heard a thump at the front door as Barry banged his shin on the jamb in a hurry to get in.

I saw him pull up short when he realized this guy who looked like a “big whale” was already engaged. I felt the daggers of his stare as I turned back to Jim. “I’m Solomon,” I said.

More on page 18.

me-mag.com   9

 stats

Calling All Customers

What marketing tactics are most effective in bringing new business through your door?

RDS THREE WO THE MOST T N E S E R P THAT RE OF LE ASSETS B A T E K R A M ESS YOUR BUSIN

5% ................... 8 ... ... ...

E IS T R EXPE % ................ 69 ... ... ... ... ... ...

E SERVIC .. 54% ..........................

LONGEVITY ........ 8% ...........................

VALUE ......... ... 23% ...........................

N IO T C E L E S ....... 8% ........................... ...

D N E H IG H CE ERFORMAN P , N IO S S A P 15% .........................

Y IT L A U Q OR

E DIA M F O E P Y T THE D N E P S L YOU’L ON Y E N O M MOST

5% EE) ......... 2 R F ( IA D E SOCIAL M .. 8% ...................... .. .. .. . . ) ID A P ONLINE ( . 8% S ...................

N IO T A L E PUBLIC R . 8% HIP .............

S R O S N O LOCAL SP

10 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

T YP E OF M EDIA YOU’LL USE TO YOUR BUSIN MARKET E THE NEXT F SS OVER E W MON T H S SOCIAL ME D

IA (FREE) ......

.......... 92% ............... 46% RADIO ........... ........................... .............. 54% PUBLIC REL ATIONS ......... ............... 23% LOCAL SPO NSORSHIP .................. 23 % BUILDING S IGNAGE ........ ................. 23% NEWSPAPE R/MAGAZIN E ............ 15% TV/CABLE .......................... ............. 8% ONLINE (PA

ID) ..................

APPROX I MA FOR MAR TE BUDGET K E T I NG O VE NEXT FE W MON T R HS

1 PERCEN

T OF SAL

ES .............. ...... 23% NT OF SA LES .......... ............ 15% 5 PERCE NT OF SA LES .......... ........... 23% NOT SUR E (YET) .. .................... ........... 23% NONE ...... .................... .................... ....... 15% 3 PERCE

Books: Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

By Jocko Willink and Leif Babin us.macmillan.com/extremeownership/jockowillink There is no shortage of academic style leadership books out there, but if you’re looking to boost your management testosterone in a straightforward way, here is your next read. Written by two Navy SEALs, “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win,” underscores the premise that without a team, there is no leadership. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin give you an understanding of SEAL training and operations—and how that applies to business leadership. In addition, the authors share their own way of learning from failures that they experienced. Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, the two men were part of a SEAL task unit facing an all but impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city in ruin. In fascinating firsthand accounts of losses and victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that at every level leadership is what makes or breaks a team. Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and developed SEAL leadership training that has helped shape upand-coming SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. If you’re a startup or an established company, this 320-page book will give you powerful instruction that you can implement immediately. Fall out!

Services: Meetup.com www.meetup.com/about

You may know Meetup.com as a great place to find a book club or some folks who love to go fishing, but it’s also a great resource for small business owners.

Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups and a great way to make new acquaintances and build relationships right in your own community. According to Meetup, more than 9,000 groups get together in local communities every day so getting in with some folks who have similar interests as you, who want to learn something, or do something, will give you the chance to network. Many groups are free to join.

SitesVistaprint T0 See:

www.vistaprint.com Spring is here and that means it’s time for sound-off season, show and shine events, and audio fests, among other exciting things. With all of these competitions and gatherings, it’s a great opportunity to promote your business. By using promotional products—whether it’s a keychain or a koozie—you can increase brand recognition. You always get lots of bang for the buck—major outreach at a relatively low cost. Even if you have a small budget, a simple giveaway can still generate big impact. If you choose the right item, your customer will be getting repeat exposure to you every time they use the item—coffee cup, pen, baseball cap, tumbler, or laptop bag. It’s always good to have a core marketing program, but promotional products allow you to vary your branding in a fun and creative way. With Vistaprint, no minimums are required, prices are reasonable, and you have the convenience of doing everything online.

Software/Apps: Mimicker Alarm

play.google.com/store/apps Do you sleep like a rock? Do you abuse the snooze button? Have you been late for work? Then it’s time to try this approach. Mimicker Alarm, an Android alarm clock app from Microsoft, puts a somewhat annoying twist on the traditional wake-up routine. Want the alarm to go off? Then you need to complete one of three tasks: say a tongue twister, match a color, or mimic a facial expression. The tasks use your phone’s microphone and camera to detect whether or not you’ve done it properly. If you don’t succeed in 30 seconds, the assumption is that you’ve fallen back asleep and—boom—your alarm goes off again.

me-mag.com 11

 retail news

Genetic Ambition Experimenting with new product lines and a willingness to change with the times brought family business Auto Sound to its 45-year anniversary.

WORDS BY ROSA SOPHIA

W

hen Auto Sound opened in 1971 in Holbrook, Mass., the driving force behind it was Ron Needleman, Sr.’s own father. “He died when I was 12. I knew he wanted to own his own business and I was determined to fulfill his dream for him,” he said. “In 1971, I borrowed $2,000.00 from my bank, gave Automatic Radio my notice and started Auto Sound with a dozen radios I purchased from Audiovox. My wife, Connie, gave birth to our sixth child, Ron Jr., the same week I started the business. She and I ran the business out of our garage for the first year. I asked another employee at Automatic Radio, Bernie Feldman, to join me, and we became partners.”

12 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

It has now been 45 years, and much has changed, but the core of Auto Sound as a family business remains strong.

Ambition appears to run in the family.

“My sons Paul and Ron Jr. now own and run the business with help from Howard Honigbaum as president.” With 40 employees in all, Auto Sound has two main locations and one satellite location, allowing the business to strengthen connections with local dealerships, giving them a chance to grow more quickly.

Automotive Heritage Ron Needleman, Jr. doesn’t recall what it was like having the business in the family home, but he does remember going to work with his father and

eventually becoming a full-time employee in 1989 when he graduated from high school. “I am the youngest of four sons, and at one point all four were in the business. Now it’s just my brother and me,” he said. “I don’t even remember ever thinking about doing anything else. Since I was little, I always went to work with my father on Saturdays, and I always wanted to work at Auto Sound. I didn’t even go to college. I had to take a day off work to go to my own high school graduation. I was already working full-time. All my brothers, four of us, did the same thing.”

Before opening Auto Sound, Ron Needleman, Sr. went to college at Northeastern University for mechanical engineering, and was hired by Automatic

»

Who’s Who Rene’ Garza Mobile Concepts Dolton, Ill. Years of Industry experience:26 Hobbies: Working out What you’re really good at: Closing sales!

Stephen Witt American Road Products Santa Fe Springs, Calif.

Years of Industry experience: 33 Hobbies: My kids, my wife, modifying vehicles, house of worship sound engineering, playing music and golf.

What you’re really good at: Public speaking, product strategy, managing change, inspiring change and being grateful.

Carlos Muñiz Metra Electronics Holly HIll, Fla. Years of Industry experience: 16 Hobbies: Golf, football What you’re really good at: Selling Radio to design car radios. “In the early 70s, I was Chief Mechanical Engineer for Automatic Radio Manufacturing Co. in Melrose, Mass.,” he said. “I was responsible for their Custom Aftermarket Radio Program. I was sent to San Francisco to consult with one of our distributors. While there, I observed their daily operation and was amazed to find they sent installers on the road to car dealers. This was not done on the east coast to my knowledge. On the flight back, I started to plan how I could start a similar business in Mass.”

The business has changed a lot since the 70s, focusing first on car

audio and now on other aspects of 12-volt. Though Auto Sound still does a fair amount of car audio, it is not their number one seller. “Through the 70s, it was mainly car audio, and in the 80s it transitioned into security and alarms,” Ron Needleman, Jr. said.

“Car audio stayed strong through the 80s, but we were doing a lot of alarm systems; rear window defrost was a big thing; cruise controls, which we still do; power windows; power door locks. They were a lot bigger 15 years ago, and that took us from the car audio time into the remote start time.”

Around the mid-1980s, the value of selling car phones was

Bill Sommers Sommer Sound Systems Panama City, Fla. Years of Industry experience:26 Hobbies: Cars, guns and concerts What you’re really good at: I would like to think, in the time that I dedicated to the trade that I’m relatively well-rounded from the bay, to the sales floor, to the office, but high-end custom installation is my strong suit.

me-mag.com 13

 retail news clear, so Auto sound became a dealer for Nynex. “We would install them in cars and then as the business got a little bigger, becoming portable, we opened a company called Mr. Mobile, where we opened stores in the malls.” At one time, they had kiosk locations in eight or nine malls, selling cell phones throughout the 1990s. “I’m almost sure we were the first people in the country to give away the Motorola flip phone,” Ron Needleman, Jr. stated. The phones themselves were considered quite small at the time.

“We would get residuals on people’s phone bills.” This proved very profitable for the business. Remote starter sales grew steadily until present day, and Auto Sound is now doing more remote starters than ever before. “That’s our bread and butter this time of year.”

Auto Sound also continues to be the oldest Audiovox expeditor—now Voxx International. “I believe they approached him [Ron Needleman, Sr.] because they knew about his history with Automatic Radio.”

Extended Family Despite the various avenues they’ve explored, the business originally began with a focus on car dealerships, and continues in that vein today. 85 to 90 percent of Auto Sound’s profit comes from working with car dealerships, while the rest is selling to retail customers.

“That’s how it started off originally with my father,” Needleman said. “He was going straight to car dealers and selling radios to dealers. We got into retail afterward, because we had to have a location and a garage so we figured we might as well sell to the public. We do well with that but it’s not the majority of the business.”

In terms of their current interactions with dealers, Paul Needleman noted the importance of informing them about various products. “Our job is to train the dealers,” he said. “That builds confidence in them to go out and sell. That’s important, because they won’t talk about something if they feel they might not have a good understanding of the product.”

14 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

s e t a l u t Congra

AUTO SOUND COMPANY ON THEIR

45TH ANNIVERSARY On behalf of all of us, thank you for your dedication and outstanding contribution to our industry and community.

Congratulations!

John J. Shalam Founder & Chairman

Patrick M. Lavelle

voxxintl.com

President & CEO

me-mag.com   15

 retail news

Over the years larger retail stores took away some business, followed by the Internet. Things have shifted from car audio into other categories of 12-volt.

“People don’t usually buy back-up cameras online or remote starters because they know they can’t install them,” Ron Needleman, Jr. said. “So we’ve had to shift to different product lines like back-up sensors, installing things that people can’t do themselves.” One important thing a retailer can do is to continually experiment with new product lines, because “it’s a short timeline between when something comes out and then when all cars have them from the factory.”

Thinking back on their beginnings, Ron Needleman, Sr. recalled working with business partner Feldman for Audiovox to design their Custom Radio Program for 10 years while running Auto Sound at the same time. “[Auto Sound’s] 45-year success story is amazing in my opinion, considering the constant changes required every year in

16 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

the aftermarket automotive business,” Needleman said, who is still involved in the business as a shareholder, consultant and officer.

When the business was operated out of their small three-bedroom home, in a garage they’d converted to a warehouse and office, Needleman contacted car dealers and installed radios. “My wife, Connie, answered the phone and changed the diapers,” he said. “We were young, poor, unafraid and ambitious.”

Paul Needleman, five years older than his brother, Ron, recalls “playing around the boxes of radios and 8-track players that were stored in our living room.

All you have to do is spend five minutes talking to my parents about the company to see that it is like a seventh child to them. The sons have come to feel the same way about Auto Sound.”

According to Andy Sussman, operations manager, the family dynamic extends to Auto Sound’s employees as well. “The atmosphere here is really a

positive one,” he said. “We have a lot of fun, work with a great group of people and I really feel like part of the Needlemans’ extended family. Even though I am just a regular employee, I’ve grown to care a lot about the company and consider it part of me, and me part of it.”

Today, the business continues to maintain relationships with trusted suppliers and ensures all customers are satisfied.

Ron Needleman, Sr., Paul Needleman, and Ron Jr. all echo the same advice: “Treat employees well, do everything possible to remain vigilant in regards to quality—no matter how successful a company becomes—and keep a close eye on trends in the industry.” They also recommend focusing on finding and keeping employees who are enthusiastic and competent.

“Our goal is to earn each customer’s business for a lifetime,” Paul Needleman stated. The key is clear: Strong relationships and networking fosters loyalty for continued success. 

Let’s play dirty.

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me-mag.com 17

 directed q&a

The Snake Charmer’s Journal Directed CEO Jim Minarik presided over some of the highest and lowest moments in his company’s history. Our interview touches on significant milestones and lays out what’s next on his list of life and career challenges.

WORDS BY SOLOMON DANIELS

If you read my editorial, you know how I first met Jim Minarik. (If not, head back to page 8.) When I got the news he was retiring, I jumped in my car and headed down to the Directed campus (you know it’s big when they call it a campus) in Vista, near San Diego. My objective was to not only remind him of our history, but to hear firsthand about his own.

Daniels: So February 3 rd, Directed sends out an announcement that you’re retiring after XX years.

That started me thinking about when I first met you while working at the Good Guys in Puente Hills. You walked in one day and talked shop with me on the sales floor.

Was that your regular practice? I assume

18 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

you had people to tell you what was going on in the stores, right?

Minarik: It’s neat to hear you remember that actually. That’s like way cool. One thing that I’ve always tried hard to do was be in touch with the customer. It’s very easy to get [to a point] where you think you know what’s going on, and it’s not accurate. We had somebody that detailed the Good Guys stores who reported to somebody, who reported to a regional manager. By the time it gets to you, it’s filtered and it’s interpreted.

When I would visit with you or all the other folks, I would get the information first-hand. I was in a much better

position to say to my staff, “Well, you say that but when I was at the Good Guys, I had talked to this guy Solomon and he said this.” I think it made me better, it made our team better.

Daniels: So you kept that up when you went to Directed?

Minarik: Yeah, when I was at Clarion, I met Darrell [Issa, Directed founder].

Darrell and I had served on the CEA board. He was the chairman of the mobile division and I succeeded him there. We had a great professional relationship. When he sold the business to

the Trivest guys, he introduced me to them. We did the deal and then for my first six months, I just went on the road.

Daniels: So coming from Clarion, you were sort of a competitor with the UNGO Box alarm. How did that experience influence your road trips?

Minarik: Well of course, I knew all the dealers right?

I had tried to compete with Darrell by purchasing UNGO. How’s that as a name for alarm company? It literally means “Don’t Go.” He and Kathy had done an amazing job of locking up the dealer base because by then we had owned UNGO a couple of years and it was tough to gain share. So yeah, when I took over at Directed I started talking to dealers to learn what they liked about Viper and Python, and Rattler and every other snake we had, and what they liked about Clifford, which we had just acquired.

Daniels: When people talk about leaders, they always make reference to things happening “under their watch.” Well, quite a lot happened under your watch at Directed, from market share growth, product line expansion and diversification, to new acquisitions and partnerships. When you started with Directed, did you have a vision of the changes and growth you wanted to implement?

Minarik: Yes. The plan was to grow organically and then to make acquisitions that were aligned and in the same channel. Our first move was to acquire Directed Electronics Canada, which had existed since Darrell and Kathy started the business in ‘82. It was really just an independent distributor that Darrell allowed to use the name. Then we acquired Autostart and Astroflex. Autostart in Canada is like Kleenex® down here. People don’t say they want a remote starter, they say

they want Autostart. Then of course, we got in the data bus business by acquiring Trilogix.

We had really good share and it was part of our plan to expand the base. We also launched Rear Seat Entertainment back then, organically. We thought about acquiring somebody, but we figured out how to do it on our own. We then expanded our goal to keep our core position of number one in vehicle security and become a meaningful player in car audio. We were able to do that.

Daniels: That started with Directed Audio, right?

Minarik: When Trivest acquired the business, we were 95 percent vehicle security and remote start, and five percent in Directed Audio, which Darrell had started. To me, it seemed an obvious extension of our core capabilities which included installation; the sales force reaching all the channels. We kept growing Directed Audio. And we added Viper Audio, leveraging our best brand which had by far the highest recognition in the security space and like 42 percent consumer awareness. Then we got the opportunity to acquire ADST, which included Orion, Precision Power and the brand ADS. Daniels: I remember thinking at the time that Directed wanted to be everything to everybody.

You even had wire. And then, of course there was the partnership with Sirius Satellite Radio. How did you accomplish that?

Minarik: We were all 12-volt at that time, and the Sirius-XM battles were going on. Now, talk about relationships: back in my early days with Altec Lansing, I had a rep I worked with in New Jersey named Bob Law. Here it is some 10 years later and he is the senior VP at Sirius Satellite Radio.

They wanted to find an effective way to reach the aftermarket and he knew we had very strong distribution, sales force and logistics. We talked and in late ‘04, we became the exclusive hardware provider for Sirius Satellite Radio. Then, that business went from 40 million dollars that year to 120, then 180, then 220 million dollars. By 2007, it had gone up like rocket ship. Sirius had merged with XM, so now we were delivering all the hardware.

Daniels: Now, was that the impetus to become a public company?

Minarik: When I made the agreement with Sirius, that was the deal that really catapulted our volume. Even though it was only a small percentage and under 20 percent of our earnings, Sirius and XM satellite radio were everywhere in the investing press. We had also acquired Polk Audio and Definitive Audio and were in the home audio category. Bankers and investment bankers were all over us. My partners said, “Wow, we should probably be public.” That’s how that started.

Daniels: And then there was the downturn with your company. Aside from the economy, what was your view why things happened the way they did?

Minarik: We went public in December of ‘05 and then ‘06 was fine, and then Sirius and XM started to implode. It looked like they were going to go bankrupt. At the time, we had millions of receivers out and we were technically the responsible party for any warranty, especially if satellites [failed]. Also, the OEMs started aggressively including satellite radio in new cars. It could’ve brought the whole company down because by that time volume started falling. The great recession was just starting. Timing is everything.

me-mag.com 19

 directed q&a Daniels: And more recently, Directed made news when you started, basically to get out of car audio.

Minarik: Yeah. Well, with car audio, it was clear now. About five years ago the market share we had was modest. However, Rockford, Kicker, JBL and others had most of the share. Now the market was beginning to contract, and it was pretty clear that the likelihood of growing those businesses in any material way was small.

So it was a conscious decision to come back and focus on the core of Directed.

We saw an opportunity to get a return for our shareholders and get out of businesses that we were not dominant in. It’s just a simple as that, so we sold them.

Sold them and never looked back.

Daniels: Now for two hard questions. If you could do it all over again, what would you have done differently?

Minarik: One thing is, to be perfectly blunt, I got distracted during the time of the explosive growth.

My eye wasn’t on Directed as much as it should have been. I mean, we were buying some pretty big companies at that time. Polk was bigger than Directed by a significant amount. So we lost some share. By the time I realized what was going on, I put Kevin Duffy in charge, and we narrowed our focus.

Also, we entered the data bus market pretty early. But today, we don’t have number one share, you know who does.

We have strong number two. I would’ve moved earlier in data bus somehow faster. We were early enough, we didn’t move aggressively enough. It’s turned out okay, but I would’ve done that faster.

The company was overall doing very well, and we went back and recovered some market share and got the support right for the dealers who always relied on us. We were not as quick on our technical

20 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

support and the wiring diagrams and all that, but we got it back in order pretty quickly. Yeah, I would like not to have had that bump.

The other thing is our Canadian acquisitions. That got messy because we had five acquisitions in five different buildings and five different teams. That took us the better part of a couple of years to realize we needed to make it all one. I would’ve moved that faster.

But overall, no regrets. We created a lot of shareholder value during that time.

We created a lot of dealer profit. I mean the dealers that ended up selling Orion and Precision Power and Viper, made a lot of money. They were good, protected brands; high-quality product. No regrets with that.

Daniels: And finally, why are you leaving?

Minarik: I’m a guy from Pittsburgh. I started working when I was 14. I’ve always worked. I loved every bit and I finished my undergrad and then my graduate degree. I’ve been in consumer electronics the entire time. I’ve honestly never really felt like I’d worked a day in my life because I love what I do. This is the 39th year I’m working full time. Forget about the years before and all that stuff; I have been everything from a paper boy to a hardware store guy.

My agreements with Charlesbank (current owners) are typically three-year deals. The next one is coming up. I was thinking about what I want to do over the next few years, separate from what they want to do. My usual method is, I don’t think about it, I just keep doing. But in recent years, I’ve began to travel more with my wife. Like this year, we were in the Himalayas for two weeks and we had a great time in Bhutan and Chengdu, China, and we were in Tibet in China. At the end of the two weeks, I wanted to stay another two weeks, but I’m a CEO and I have a responsibility so I come back. Also

during my trips, I am still answering a 100 to 150 emails a day.

So I just started to think, “Okay, this next three-year period, what do I really want to do?” The answer to that was, I didn’t exactly want to go back to just doing. I’m very much looking forward to the challenge of finding out how I do not keep doing that. I think it’s going to be quite difficult for me because it is what I do, but it’s also not all of life. It is part of life. As chairman, I can continue to participate with the company and give the benefits of my experience and knowledge.

With Kevin (Duffy) and Tarek (Kutrieh), the company can go on just fine with leaders of this caliber and I do not have to spend the same amount of time.

I’m on a couple of other boards of companies not in this industry. I don’t spend enough time with those. I’ll spend some more time. Really important to me Solomon, is our Forte for Children Foundation. I think you know about that.

Over the last few years, we’ve raised over three-and-a-half million dollars to help disadvantaged kids. I will spend more time with that to try to make it bigger so that it can do more good.

Daniels: It sounds like you’re saying, you want to challenge yourself in a different way with no guarantees and see what happens.

Minarik: I couldn’t quite articulate it that way, but that is exactly what it is. I actually don’t know how I’ll do, but I decided, this is a very good point in my life. I’m in excellent health. I have plenty of other interests and it feels like a good time to do that and see what’s around the corner.

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Contact us today to become a Mobile Electronics® partner. me-mag.com 21 Mobile Electronics® • sales@mobile-electronics.com • 800-949-6372

real world retail

Owner David Phillips (left) hugs his long-time friend and primary installation technician, Kenovtis “Cup” Little (right).

Never Too Late Becoming fulfilled in life meant a willingness to take risks and learn as much as possible for David Phillips, owner of The Sound Shop in Indian Trail, N.C. After working at several shops, including a big box giant, Phillips chose the hard road and found himself through the path of entrepreneurship.

WORDS BY TED GOSLIN

F

inding one’s path in life is a goal most people hope to achieve.

The sad truth is that many fail.

Either they succumb to fear and

22 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

choose the easy route or follow the wrong path, not clearly seeing the difference between that path and the one that will best fit them. For David Phillips, owner of

The Sound Shop in Indian Trail, N.C., the path to finding his life’s fulfillment was more like a roundabout.

Starting out like many others in car audio, Phillips’ passion began in high school when a friend introduced him to the field. After hanging out with his friend at events, he decided to join in and start doing his own builds. His lack of money didn’t stop him from finding a way to build subwoofer enclosures and perform installs for friends throughout high school.

Once he reached college, Phillips worked part-time at a local 12-volt shop in Charlotte, N.C. “It was one of those places I started working but saw everything was wrong and learned what not to do,” he said.

Soon enough, his time in college lingered without a true focus. Starting out as a graphic design major, Phillips eventually landed on business management, graduating with a bachelor’s degree that took eight years to achieve.

“While still in college, I got a job at a high-end shop called Circuit Werks in Monroe, N.C. I went with a customer of mine to get parts for an install. They noticed how knowledgeable I was and offered me a chance at a job,” Phillips said. “I had to compete with another candidate in a two-week trial but eventually got the job. I started in 2003 and worked there for five years doing things like alarms, remote starts and custom work.”

According to Phillips, many of his fabrication ideas were developed from reading various car magazines like Euro Low Rider and Mini Truckin’. Some of his custom work included paneling trunks and building amp racks. The shop then started doing vinyl graphics and striping police cars, eventually becoming the only work Phillips did there for his last six months. Wanting to have more variety, and make more money, Phillips hit up a friend who worked at a local Ford dealership. He soon left to work at the dealership as an automotive technician, but realized quickly he had made a mistake.

“I didn’t like being greasy all the time.

I wasn’t into diagnosing problems. I did it for a year to try it out,” Phillips said.

“During that time, I racked up credit card debt and needed a part-time job to get out of debt. I went to a shopping

The company operates in Indian Trail, N.C., an area famous for a strong automotive culture, which makes it an ideal location.

me-mag.com 23

real world retail

THE SOUND SHOP FAST FACTS

www.thesoundshopnc.com The Sound Shop is a traditional retail shop with one location at 270 Suite E Unionville Indian Trail Road, Indian Trail, N.C. The store is located next to a major highway in a suburb of Charlotte, attracting a large portion of Charlotte’s travelers. The main marketing method is word-of-mouth, coupled with occasional car club meet-ups and social media promotion. The location has 2,000 total square feet with 325 squre feet dedicated to the showroom and 1,675 square feet for the installation bay. The bay can hold up to five vehicles at once.

KEY STAFF David Phillips

Owner, Manager, Fabricator

Kenovtis “Cup” Little Installation Technician, Wiring Specialist

Kayla Phillips

Accounting and Finance

24 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

Phillips hopes to enhance the woodroom by adding two more routers, which will speed up the fabrication process greatly. center and dropped off résumés at several places, including a Best Buy. They called me in to work there part-time, then they offered me a full-time position to run bay.”

For the next four years, Phillips would run the installation bay at Best Buy, doing mostly stock installations of car audio equipment. There was no fabrication work, no vinyl graphics work. There was also no fun.

“Most people’s careers go opposite of that. When I went backwards to Best Buy, it was kind of easy. Deck and floor all day, speakers and radios, subs once in a while.

At first I was excited because it was easy, but it wasn’t very fulfilling. That Best Buy was part of budget cuts across the country and was closed. After that, I decided it was time to open my own shop.”

Less Is More In order to gain capital, Phillips had to first save money, so he worked at a local car audio shop for a year-and-a-half, cashed out his 401K, applied for a business credit card and started looking for a space.

Due to how loans are given, Phillips couldn’t apply for a business loan without having developed business credit first.

“Some banks require five or more years to loan you money,” he said. “I was able

to get a Bank of America business card to get started.”

Hoping to find a location that suited his needs, Phillips searched for a shop that had a showroom and rear drive-in bay, which wasn’t easy. Once found, however, he put in a two-month advance deposit, added new floors, baseboards, painted, added a TV for customers and some displays in the showroom to look as high-end as possible, despite his limited resources. One thing Phillips knew from his years of experience was the importance of a store’s appearance.

“I visit other shops to look at how they do it. I think, ‘What are they doing that I’m not doing?’ I’d always try to take a piece of that and make it mine,” Phillips said. “A lot of places around here don’t have a higher-end storefront. A lot haven’t updated for 20 years. It seems like everyone is still behind with checkered floors. Regardless of how bad big box stores can be, Best Buy was always changing their look to look fresh and new. It’s important. You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

Once the design was in place, it was time to bring in customers. With a strategy of opening just before the busy remote start/holiday season, Phillips opened The Sound Shop on November 6, 2013. He then immediately began advertising, primarily with Google Adwords,

A Change For The Better

with Facebook and Instagram as his social media anchors.

Since opening, Phillips hired one fulltime installation and wiring technician, Kenovtis “Cup” Little, and gets part-time help from his wife, Kayla, to handle the accounting and finance aspects of the business. Now in the middle of its third year, the store has doubled its first full year of sales, which were about $220,000.

“We’re expecting another 20 to 30 percent increase this year. We also added lines,” Phillips said. “At first we did Sonic Electronics wholesale. We were able to get kits and harnesses, everything in one order. We did that for two months until we got set up with a real distributor.

Then we transitioned lines.”

The most important thing Phillips has pushed has been to expand the shop’s brand. To do so, he knew he needed a strong vendor partner. That’s when he picked up Orca.

“We didn’t have a protected line. Not every customer is concerned with getting the lowest pricing. We can sell at MAP pricing and not get lowballed by everyone selling for lower. It’s nice to have a product that can back us,” Phillips said of his relationship with Orca. “When I got back from KnowledgeFest this year, I decided to pick up more and get more buying power with Focal. It turned out to be great product for us. We can sell to a lot of different customers because it fills a lot of different areas.”

Sound Practices Being such a young company, Phillips hasn’t had the need to develop employee training processes just yet, but admits to using common sense methods with those he has hired.

“I like keeping things close to ensure quality control and customer satisfaction. Cup [Little] and I started as friends.

We’ve been friends for about 10 years. At work, he knows when it’s time to stop having fun and do work. He’s a wiring expert. You could hand him a rat’s nest and when he’s done it’s absolutely beautiful,” Phillips said. “I’m very hands-on, borderline controlling. He’s an installer and doesn’t do sales as much. We had someone else doing sales but we had to let them go due to performance issues.”

Finding the balance between fun and work was part of the reason the sales employee was released, according to Phillips. While the employee had plenty of experience, his style of work was also different in how he dealt with customers. Phillips attributed his issues greatly to the shop culture, hoping a lesson was learned by himself and Little.

“He perceived us too much as friends and not as much as his bosses,” he said.

“We all do a little bit of everything here and you gotta have a pretty good attitude for that. If we bring an outsider in, we need to work on it. It was a learning experience.” Since losing the extra help,

“Orca is our key vendor providing us with quality products to fit our current and desired market. There is a great variety of products under that umbrella: Focal, Mosconi, Gladen, and Illusion Audio. They approached us last year after our article in Mobile Electronics magazine where we expressed a desire to add a protected line.

“We have a great working relationship with our Rep. They have a great demo program which allows us to build promotional vehicles more affordably. Our brand and their products complement each other perfectly.

“After attending Knowledgefest we dropped a competitor’s speaker line and brought in Focal Auditors to create more buying power.

Their quality and affordability have pushed them into being one of our best sellers.

“We’re excited about the new K2 Power series, which just debuted at CES. We immediately swapped out our demo board to let customers experience the difference themselves. The sound quality and efficiency of the K2s is overwhelming.

“They are always available for questions or orders via email or phone. They take a vested interest in our business as our success mirrors theirs.”

me-mag.com 25

real world retail

The installation bay can hold up to five vehicles at one time, but generally, only three fit comfortably during work hours.

Installer “Cup” Little adds sound deadener to a vehicle to enhance the sound experience for customers.

26 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

Phillips has made the decision to continue without a third full-timer and make the most of it. “My wife and I have been talking about it. It may be one of those deals where we can save enough to put more money in our pockets. It is a little more hectic without an extra guy at times but it may be worth it.”

Since the store opened, it hit the ground running with a successful marketing strategy during remote start season, but for Phillips, it just wasn’t enough to maintain the business over time. He needed to learn more, so he went to dealer shows, including KnowledgeFest. He got what he needed.

“Last year was our first KnowledgeFest. I first learned about it at a dealer show in Atlantic City, put on by DAS distributing. That event turned out to be one of the best experiences I had in terms of training,” Phillips said. “I met cool guys from the area with other shops, talked to them about tools they use and what works for them. I met so many people that said you have to go to KnowledgeFest. So I went and it was worth every penny we spent.”

Phillips also attended a Sonus training in January thanks to connections he made at KnowledgeFest. He plans to attend the show again this year, but hopes to bring Little with him if he can plan it correctly.

“A lot of guys close shops down to go to shows. They are never in middle of a busy season like remote starts,” Phillips said. “We’ve transitioned from walk-ins to appointments only, so we don’t get that rushed customer. It helps a lot to

transition into that. Most people like to set appointments. It’s no big deal if we leave for a weekend.”

For Their Benefit With at least half of the shop’s business based on business referrals and word of mouth, Phillips stopped using Google Adwords this past July.

He’d started spending $200 per month in the beginning, and was able to drop it to around $100 per month at the end.

“We were number one or two locally on Adwords. Now we’re into natural selection, if you will. We do a lot of social media,” Phillips said.

“What’s odd is, the younger generation is transitioning away from verbal communication. The younger customers like to use Facebook messaging to communicate with us. A lot of younger kids are really talkative on Instagram or Facebook messaging, but when they come to the store they are more quiet and you have to force them to talk to you. It’s the opposite of just ten years ago.”

To help win over customers, Phillips learned a method from sales guru Del Ellis regarding the importance of a smile. “Above the door to the store front on the bay side, we have a picture of a girl from a magazine who shows you her butt. The caption says, ‘Smile.’

Everybody knows it’s hard not to smile when you see a pretty girl’s butt.”

The typical sale at The Sound Shop begins with a greeting, a smile and a discussion regarding what the customer wants for their vehicle. Phillips then goes to their car to see what he’s working with. Solutions are then

offered based on any modifications made to the vehicle and its current sound system.

To offer solutions, the customer is taken to the shop’s Focal speaker display, where Phillips uses a topdown selling process, starting with the most expensive product first.

“We don’t talk about prices at all.

We just tell them the truth about the ones they like and get a feel for what they want,” he said. “I always throw the subwoofer on at that point, then we talk about enclosures. The biggest initial thing it to find out what they’re looking for.

We don’t want to sell them something they don’t need. It’s about finding a good solution for them.

You can’t do the same install for everyone.”

To enhance the experience, Phillips and Little wear embroidered shirts, Dickie or T-shirts, with any type of bottom. “I had a teacher

once tell me, ‘Perception is reality.’

The way someone perceives you is the way they remember you.”

Along with the 42-inch television he purchased when he first opened, the customer waiting area has a Blu-ray player, complete with a repeating season of The Big Bang Theory, and two individual chairs.

“We give them a remote to make themselves at home. We sell drinks but mostly give them away. There’s Wi-fi, too.”

On the installation side, Little handles most of the wiring and general installation and mild fabrication tasks, while Phillips handles more complex fabrication work, along with basic installs when needed. With a square footage of 1,600, the bay includes a wood shop cut out of the back area, with dimensions of about 16 by 21 feet.

“We can park three cars in the bay comfortably and up to five if we

me-mag.com 27

real world retail

Store layout: The space is designed to maximize space for vehicles and installation work, while the showroom includes some displays used to sell solutions.

have to. We generally work on one to two cars at a time.”

After attending KnowledgeFest, Phillips decided to expand the wood room to make more room for fabrication and make the space more efficient. The wood room is used for a variety of work, including wiring, assembly and vinyl sign work.

“Although not unique to the industry, unique to our area is our dedication to

28 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

soldering. We only use connectors if they are being soldered as well,” Phillips said.

“I attend as many trainings as possible to learn new and better ways of installation and fabrication.”

Bang For The Buck Being a jack-of-all-trades type of shop, Phillips isn’t one to let anything go to waste. That’s why he made sure to make a

pair of vehicles that act as all-in-one solutions for showing off product as a demo vehicle and acting as a mini billboard for the shop.

“The shop truck is a 2000 Ranger.

Chris McNulty convinced me to set it up as an entry-level option for a thousand bucks with no sound deadener,” Phillips said. “We also have a wrapped Tahoe, which is a bigger form of advertising. It

has a huge, reflective, orange and white logo down the rear windows. I drive it a decent amount. It’s one of our rolling billboards that’s affordable.” The Tahoe cost the shop $800 in supplies and includes Focal Utopia speakers, a Pioneer 4100 head unit, Mosconi amps and DSP. While the shop doesn’t do much digital advertising anymore, it does focus efforts toward other avenues of promotion, such as hosting a nighttime cruise-in where local car clubs can come hang at the shop and talk cars. “Last time, we ordered pizza. The time before, Dad was manning the grill and cooking burgers non-stop.

The last one we did was in the fall.”

Thanks largely to the type of regular customers the shop has established, there hasn’t been a need for much of a marketing campaign aside from promoting the shop through social media sites like Yelp, Facebook and Instagram. “We make sure our online presence is good. Most of our regular customers keep in touch on their

own. We have some customers that come in every six months with a new car.”

Believing Is Seeing As such a young shop, the company has yet to apply for any of the Mobile Electronics Top 50 awards, but Phillips hopes to remedy that this year, since they are now eligible to compete. Given the shop’s early achievements of adding Focal as a protected brand and doubling its profits since its first full year, it’s likely more achievements are imminent.

“Since the article Mobile Electronics did on us two years ago, we scored Focal. They read the article and signed us up,” Phillips said. “We’ve also added air conditioning to the bay, which is one of our biggest accomplishments. We’re not skinny; we sweat out. In the summer of 2014, we sweated our asses off without A/C. Last April, we finally got it in the budget.”

Phillips attributes most of his early accomplishments to his customer service

practices, citing the importance of treating the customer like family. “I like to scope out what others do when I go out. I think customer service is most important thing altogether. Give them a solution, not just a sale. It works. Get more work, more money, which equals air conditioning.”

Next up for the store is to enhance its storefront and add two routers to the wood shop. The goal, he says, isn’t so much to add more, but to make the shop more efficient. He also wants to sell more shop merchandise, like embroidered T-shirts, to help build the brand.

Letting customers know what he’s all about is a top priority given the company philosophy.

“No job is too big or too small for us.

We take pride in anything and everything. We’re gonna do it right so you’re happy. That makes us happy in the end,” he said. “You’ve gotta be all-in with your company. If you hesitate, you’ll fail.

You’ve got to believe in what you do.” 

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me-mag.com 29

 on the market

Ready For Business

New products begin shipping for spring, including component speakers, subs and single-DIN receivers.

K40 Installer-Inspired Radar Detector and Laser Jamming Systems www.k40.com Notable: K40 Electronics has introduced the K40 RL360i and RL200i Expert custom-installed radar detector systems featuring an all-new system controller that provides a factory/OEM installation solution.

Inspired by installers, the Expert Control Unit enables mobile electronics retailers to offer an additional customization option to customers and design a protection system that meets their needs. This permanently installed, yet easily concealable component, looks and functions just like other factory installed vehicle controls, including back-lighting for easy button identification in low light conditions.

In keeping with its three decades’ commitment to product excellence, K40 made the Expert Control Unit available to several dealers prior to market launch to gain insightful installation feedback.

Boom Mat Hi-Temp Spray Adhesive www.designengineering.com/boommat Notable: Boom Mat’s Hi-Temp Spray Adhesive is designed to provide a secure high strength bond to most any surface in as quick as 30 seconds to trim materials, and most any fabric including vinyl and foam. Once applied, Boom Mat Hi-Temp Spray Adhesive dries quickly to a clear seal without risk of yellowing, making it ideal for installing carpet, headliners, insulation, or upholstery.

The three-way adjustable valve allows a choice of three spray streams for added versatility and ease of use. One 10 ounce can (part #050490) covers 15 square feet. The adhesive is water and heat resistant; making it ideal for both automotive and marine use. Its high bonding strength is designed to hold up in hot and cold temps. Rated up to 160°F (71°C) it can be used where heat resistance is required such as in the application of Boom Mat Under Carpet, DEI Heat Screen or Leather Look Headliners.

Cerwin-Vega Mobile RPM Tower Speakers www.cerwinvegamobile.com Notable: Cerwin-Vega Mobile is now shipping its RPM (Recreation.

Powersport. Marine.) tower speaker systems. The RPM Stroker super high-output tower speaker systems are available in four 6.5-inch models, the SMC65W (White), SMC65B (Black), SMC65CFW (Carbon Fiber White), and SMC65CFB (Carbon Fiber Black). They are also available in four 8-inch models with the same color schemes, SMC8W, SMC8B, SMC8CFW, and SMC8CFB. The RPM Vega high-output tower speaker systems are available in both 6.5-inch and 8-inch sizes as well. The 6.5-inch models consist of the VMC65W (White), VMC65B (Black), and VMC65TB (Textured Black). The RPM Vega 8-inch tower speaker systems come in the same corresponding finishes which include the VMC8W, VMC8B, and the VMC8TB. 30 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

JL Audio RD Series Car Audio Amplifiers www.jlaudio.com Notable: JL Audio has unveiled the RD Series car audio amplifier line. Four models are being announced for 2016, including two monoblock subwoofer amplifiers, a four-channel full-range amplifier and a five-channel system amplifier. All models are scheduled for delivery in the 2nd quarter of 2016.

Circuit design for the RD project was led by JL Audio’s Senior Amplifier Engineer, Bruce Macmillan, and is based on JL Audio’s highly successful NexD Class D technology, which delivers “outstanding sound quality, efficiency and reliability,” according to the company.

RD amplifiers also offer a very sophisticated input section, featuring JL Audio’s dual-range differential-balanced technology, for superior noise rejection and excellent compatibility with a wide range of input signal voltages.

Automatic turn-on is also built-in, selectable between Signal Sensing and DC Offset Sensing modes. Convenient bridging switches are also provided for each stereo channel bank, eliminating the need for y-adaptors when bridging these channels.

Also on board, for the first time on a JL Audio amplifier, are LED clipping indicators. With the use of a CD or an audio file with a full-scale sine wave, installers can use these LED indicators to quickly establish the correct input sensitivity setting, without the need for additional test equipment.

PAC Multi-Channel Programmable Trigger Module www.pac-audio.com/ Notable: PAC has released the TR12 programmable trigger module. The smart trigger device offers a total of eight inputs (four positive and four configurable as positive or negative) and four programmable outputs. Each output channel can be specified to generate a pulsed, latched, timed, actuator, ground, and positive 12-volt trigger (with up to three amps of current) using a PC and the PAC application.

The TR12 is designed to solve many common and custom installation issues, from timing out a device in a car to controlling small motors in a custom install. Alarm installs can also be simplified with its triggering benefits.

Through the TR12 application on a computer, each of the four outputs can be customized, set for specific objectives and precisely controlled to specs and timing. Plus, users have the ability to save and load user defined configurations on a PC for quick programming of other modules. The TR12 comes pre-configured for common uses including settings for Pioneer, Alpine, and Clarion radios.

Soundstream Single-DIN Multimedia Receiver www.soundstream.com Notable: Epsilon Electronics’ name brand, Soundstream, is now shipping its VRN-74HB unit. This single-DIN multimedia receiver with GPS Navigation and 7-inch LCD Touch Screen is designed for those without the space for a large enclosure.

It is equipped with MHL MobileLink X2 Integration Android Mobile Device via Front Panel USB. It also offers turn-by-turn GPS Navigation of USA, Canada, and Mexico. Other features include Bluetooth V3.0 hands-free calling from an enabled phone and A2DP wireless MP3 audio playback from an enabled device.

me-mag.com 31

 on the market KICKER CompR and CompRT Subwoofer Lines www.kicker.com Notable: KICKER has announced the immediate availability of both the new-for-2016 CompR and CompRT subwoofer lines. The subwoofers are available for consumer purchase at authorized KICKER Dealers nationwide, both in-store and online.

The slim CompRT Subwoofer is available in 6.75, 8, 10 and 12-inch versions with dual voice coils (1 or 2 Ohm), and it retails from $179.95 to $249.95. The rugged CompR is available in 8, 10, 12 and 15-inch models with dual voice coils (2 or 4 Ohm), retailing from $149.95 to $299.95.

32 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

Epsilon Precision Power Two-way Powerclass Components www.precisionpower.com Notable: Precision Power is now shipping its twoway Powerclass components P.65C2. Powerclass P.65C2 components showcase a range of 40,000 Hz. The components include a tweeter with adjustable spin nut mounting system and woofer with inverted surround technology.

Fortin All-in-One Solution For JEEP Cherokee www.fortin.ca Notable: Fortin has released a JEEP Cherokee solution (2014-2016 Tip Key and Push-to-start vehicles) for bypass, remote starter and security system installations on its EVO-ALL and EVO-ONE platforms. The solution allows control of comfort functions like heated seats, mirror and rear defrost, as well as heated steering.

Both modules offer 3X LOCK remote starter and monitor and control the OEM remote while the engine is running. Popular long range RF Kits can also be connected directly to the module as well as compatible smartphone apps.

A T-Harness is also available to help installers speed-up their installations. THAR-CHR6 T-Harness works with 2014-2016 Tip Key and Push-to-start JEEP Cherokee vehicles. This harness is exclusive to EVO-ALL, EVO-CHRT6 COMBO and EVO-ONE Fortin modules.

Rockford Fosgate DEADSKIN Sound Dampeners www.rockfordfosgate.com Notable: Rockford Fosgate is now shipping its new lineup of DEADSKIN sound dampening products.

DEADSKIN products include trunk, door, speaker and bulk kits as well as a license plate kit with laser-etched stainless steel license plate frame. With a material thickness just under 1/8-inch (1.5mm), DEADSKIN is designed to be applied to most surfaces with little or no preparation. It is also highly flexible and cold formable to irregular surfaces so no heat guns are required to install the products and comes with a black foil backing.

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me-mag.com 33

 external effects

At Your Digital Service What’s Going On:

Shut Eye Is A Sure Thing What’s Going On: Not getting enough sleep during the week can up your chances for diabetes, but sleeping late on weekends can limit the damage, according to a small U.S. study. Researchers conducted a sleep experiment and found that just four nights of sleep deprivation were linked to changes in blood suggesting the participants’ bodies didn’t handle sugar as well as usual. When extra sleep was allowed the next two nights, their blood tests returned to normal, countering the effect of the short-term sleep deprivation.

How It Can Affect You: If you think that working all those overtime hours at the shop is healthy, think again! “People should try very hard to protect their sleep when they do get an opportunity to sleep in and sleep as much as possible to pay back the sleep debt,” said Josaine Broussard, University of Colorado Boulder, and author of the study.

Still, catching up might not be enough to prevent diabetes. Chronically sleep-deprived people are more likely to develop other health problems including obesity to high blood pressure.

34 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

Siri was just the start of it. Now personal digital assistants are the wave of the future in the vehicle and many automakers are seriously upping their efforts. It means the carmakers want drivers to use their dashboards not their smartphones for information—and they’re giving them the personal assistance to do it. In BMW’s new cloud-based Connected service, which will debut in a few months, drivers will be able to find a nearby restaurant with open tables, book the seats, and find the best way there. The service, displayed at CES as a prototype, will also link up to controls at home so drivers can manage functions like heating and lighting. Ford is expanding its digital and home-related capabilities, too, with its Sync system. Drivers could use Sync and its digital assistant to open a garage door, activate a security system, or turn on an outside light.

How It Can Affect You: The pressure is definitely on carmakers to develop digital features especially as Apple, Amazon, and Google are dipping their toes in the automotive world.

Ford recently said at CES that it is working to integrate its Sync Connect platform with Amazon Echo who has “Alexa” as its personal digital assistant.

Other automakers are sure to be developing similar strategies. Mobile communications definitely present a new business opportunity for the auto industry.

According to McKinsey & Co., when considering the data streams and connectivity components, it is estimated to be a $196 billion market by 2020.

Out to Sea

What’s Going On: First the sky; now the seas.

Amazon made news with its plans to deliver packages by drone in the near future, but now the company is looking at the high seas in its quest to manage more logistics of package delivery. The retailer registered itself last November with a federal agency overseeing ocean transportation, a step towards allowing it to serve as an intermediary for suppliers shipping merchandise in or out of the U.S.

How It Can Affect You: The move speaks to the company’s broader ambition to take the reins of shipping and delivery from traditional players, but more importantly, it demonstrates how this retailer wants to take more ownership of the purchase process and control what consumers go through from start to finish.

Amazon intends to roll out its own branded semi-trucks, for instance, serving two purposes. First, there’s the visibility since these trucks will be seen by customers on the roads as they’re transporting merchandise. Secondly, the company is being more efficient. Amazon is also reportedly considering leasing cargo planes along with its drone initiatives to get packages to customers as quickly as possible. As a retailer, Amazon recognizes that it comes down to customer service and they want more direct responsibility for what’s called “the last mile,” the final leg of a package’s route to customers’ homes.

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me-mag.com 35

 business feature

Say My Name Experts and retailers, such as Proline Car Audio and Titan Motoring recommend various local marketing tactics to help any business build an unforgettable brand.

WORDS BY ROSA SOPHIA

W

hile many business owners are encouraged by experts to expand their online reach, it is also important to remember the local community. Appealing to potential clients in the immediate area can make a business the go-to place for mobile electronics.

Hector Ray Hernandez, author of “You Don’t Need Talent To Succeed, But Everything Else Counts,” has over 30 years of business and corporate experience, and is now a guest lecturer as well as an adjunct professor at Palm Beach State College.

Ray encourages business owners to “cast a net” and brand themselves locally using community outreach and events.

Referring to his own location, Hernandez stated, “Every Monday in the Palm Beach Post, there is a whole page dedicated to things going on in Palm Beach County that are public venues people can attend, some you have to pay and some are free.

Out of the thirty on that paper, there [may be] two you can plug yourself into because people want to hear about this topic.”

Casting the Net In Brooklyn, N.Y., Proline Car Audio has been in the same location for 32 years. Since its beginning, the company has expanded to three locations, and Proline has branded itself as a local expert.

“We’re a local staple, especially being in Brooklyn, being a niche installer, there’s

36 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

not many guys that can do the quality of work we do,” stated co-owner of Proline, Shef Fadik, who also noted that a lot of small mobile electronics businesses have opened in the area over the years, and subsequently closed after a time. “Being direct with our vendors over the years has made us stronger,” he added. “[We have] good relationships with vendor partners.

We do three car show events per year. We do two local events where we shut down the whole street, for a Sunday. We built our brand over the years, as the guys in Brooklyn to go to for electronics.”

Hernandez recommends reaching out to event coordinators and exploring new avenues in the local community to raise awareness of mobile electronics. There may be events in the area a business could utilize to attract new clients and keep the brand top-of-mind. “You have to reach out to those event coordinators,” Hernandez stated. “You plug yourself in to those events to get your expertise out.”

Sometimes, unconventional marketing tools can be a huge boon to business.

Proline continues to build its brand via personal interaction with potential clients. For this business, fliers are the most helpful marketing tool. Members of the Proline team will even go to the train station, engage potential clients in conversation and hand out fliers. “The most [successful] for us personally, especially in the Tri State Area, is handing out actual fliers to customers. It has been

our biggest return,” Fadik said. “We go to the train station, or get 10 or 12 guys and gals, send them to local high schools, local events. Brooklyn has become the up and trending place in New York, so we go to the bars and hand out fliers on Fridays and Saturdays. We go up and say, ‘Hey, you need a remote start?’ and give them a flyer.”

Thinking creatively, getting involved and reaching out to the local community will help raise the public’s awareness of a business as well as the industry as a whole. “Throw yourself out there,” Hernandez advised. “You can’t sit at home.

You cannot stay complacent. It’s about transforming. [The industry] changes every day. You have to be a learner and an investor of your own environment.

If you don’t invest, you won’t be able to compete.”

Reeling It In In Nashville, Tenn. Titan Motoring targets its audience and reels in new clients by setting up at the Nashville Stadium during football games. “We’re close to the stadium so when the Titans are playing, we set up and hang out and talk to Nashville locals and people [who are] there for football games,” said Don Wolfe, store manager of Titan Motoring. “We bring cars out there. We bring a car out and make sure it’s known that it belongs to a [football] player. Everyone wants to see it because it’s their favorite guy. We’ve done

a couple car shows and that’s pulled stuff in,” he added.

Hernandez noted the importance of “capping that net so people know you’re there. People are willing to come to see you and talk to you because you offer expertise. You have to in some way brand yourself as an expert, that you not only know about mobile electronics but how it works and how you want to optimize, reach out through your expertise.” Hernandez suggested offering a day or afternoon of one-on-one discussions with potential clients. Marketing a business’s expertise is essential when it comes to gaining the trust of possible customers.

Blogs and social media can be targeted to a local audience.

“When they find someone local like that, it’s very powerful,” Hernandez emphasized.

“Go and start promoting as the expert today in the digital world.

Some might say that’s not going to work, but trust me, it works.

People will come to you.” Encourage discussion, invite questions and market the business as an expert in the field. “You have to offer high value service. ‘Talk to the expert … one on one.’ Imagine this takes off and now people are making appointments with you. You have to give something away to get something.”

Eyes On The Prize Proline Car Audio has found the most success via five- by seven-inch cards handed out in various locations in Brooklyn.

Though the business does traditional advertising and brands themselves using t-shirts and hosting events, handing out fliers and engaging the public one-on-one brings in the highest return. “As William would say, it is the simplest method that works the best,” Fadik stated, speaking of his business partner,

William Sullivan, who is the buyer for Proline and is involved in marketing the business.

A local audience can also be targeted using the Internet.

Hernandez recommends utilizing online tools to educate the public about the 12-volt industry, and making oneself available to answer questions. Periscope is one such tool that can be very useful in gaining a following, even a local one. “Millions of people [are] looking for topic areas on Periscope,” Hernandez said. “I get on my phone and point the phone at me, and you’re talking to the phone. I do it, and I call it ‘Rehearsing Your Future with Hector’. People come in and ask you questions. Envision that in mobile electronics.”

Shef Fadik of Proline Car Audio keeps an updated Facebook page, as well as an Instagram profile for the business. “We’ve been told we have the largest car audio Instagram in Brooklyn,” Fadik said. “We have two guys on Instagram, answering questions.” The social media site has become a very useful tool when it comes to reaching out to a younger demographic. At one point, “we tried to team up with an audio vendor and they were doing the Vans Warped Tour. It didn’t appeal to our customer base. It didn’t work at all, we didn’t get any residual income from it. It was a different genre of customers, they didn’t have money and disposable income, they didn’t have vehicles, an age group from 16 to 18.

They were not concerned about what we were doing. We learned that we needed to cultivate a younger clientele.” As a result of that learning experience, Proline has seen a younger age group visiting the store during the last year and a half.

Word of mouth continues to be one of the most valuable tools

me-mag.com 37

 business feature

Titan Motoring connects with potential customers by bringing show cars, like the one seen here, to local events, including Nashville Stadium for football games.

when it comes to drawing in new clients. “Everything in this industry is always a reputation thing,” said Don Wolfe of Titan Motoring. “You can pay all you want for TV and radio advertising, but we are a niche market, so marketing for radio and TV hardly ever works. It’s word of mouth. A guy comes in and gets work done, tells his friend, and he tells his friend. Build a good reputation locally as someone who does good work and doesn’t gouge people.”

Proline personally hosts all their own events. “My partner, William, deals with vendor partners,” Fadik

said. “He does signage and marketing, sending out email blasts, all the small things that make it happen.” Proline has already begun planning with their vendor partners for their May 2016 event. Advance planning will ensure the business can get demo vehicles as well as merchandise to have on display for the event. “Unlike other small dealers, who wait until the last minute, we plan ahead,” Fadik added. “We try to start buzz about the events.

Customers come and say they can’t wait to see us in May. They look forward to it. We’ve been doing it for 12 years

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straight. Every quarter, we have some kind of theme to go with our marketing deals.” Proline’s main event is the Proline Mega Car show in May. “Then we do another car show at the end of summer, a huge blowout sale in August every year.”

said. “Getting on a show that maybe talks about mobile electronics, talks about the industry, is the best way to start casting

Facebook.” While digital marketing has a wider reach, a YouTube channel or even a podcast can still be geared toward a local audience.

Titan Motoring concentrates little effort on more traditional marketing techniques. “No one ever comes in and says, ‘I heard Online Tools about you on the radio,’” Despite the importance Wolfe pointed out. “With of word of mouth, a busiGoogle and the electronic ness must still work on age, Google reviews are the other forms of marketing most powerful tool. Countto extend its reach. Tradiless people move here for tional advertising can be one reason or another and Hector Hernandez, Author and Businessman very expensive. Hernanthe first thing they do is go dez recommends YouTube to Google for the highest as a useful alternative to rated reviews. We come up television advertising. By with all five star reviews, creating a channel on Youand they come to us. Any Tube, business owners can show viewers that net much wider. Podcasts can be time a customer has a good experience what they are working on. “Again, you done very cheaply, almost for nothing. … go ahead and leave us a great review if have to offer an expertise,” Hernandez You can record yourself, put it on a blog,

“Getting on a show that maybe talks about mobile electronics, talks about the industry, is the best way to start casting that net much wider. Podcasts can be done very cheaply, almost for nothing. You can record yourself, put it on a blog, Facebook.”

me-mag.com 39

 business feature you have a mind to. Customers look and say, ‘Oh yeah, I want to go to that place.’”

There are numerous options for sharing information and educating the public, as well as answering questions and fostering communication. Hernandez noted another useful tool, called Blab, which business owners can utilize to connect with an audience and answer questions about 12-volt. Similar to Periscope, “you put a topic area in and people come in, but it’s four people at a time and you can see them. You’re looking at them, talking to them live, but others are asking questions in a chat room. They will leave and another pops in. They are still there,

plus you. People come in and out, asking questions. Very powerful.” Such a tool can attract local attention and draw in new clientele. By offering knowledge, a business also offers value and demonstrates expertise.

There will always be competition.

Treating customers with respect and holding the business to a high standard of quality will help set it apart from the rest. Don Wolfe of Titan Motoring stated that, no matter the simplicity or difficulty of the job, “the operating standards stay the same. Whether you’re spending 100 dollars or 10,000 your car is treated just as important as the next car.”

Shef Fadik stated that Proline’s biggest competitors include Ebay and Amazon, since so many people are shopping online for mobile electronics.

“Best Buy is not too far,” he said.

“Every one of our locations, there is a big box retailer less than a mile away.

Over the years, building the brand, we have gone into the Best Buys. One of the Best Buys closed the 12-volt Proline Car Audio has built a reputation both with clidivision, and they ents and vendor partners to help build its brand over its 32 will send their cusyears in business. tomers over to us to get the install done. Their sales associate will send customers straight to us.”

Commitment to a Worthy Ideal

Block events, like the one seen here, can excite customers due to the feeling of exclusivity it creates.

40 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

Local events, vendor partnerships and even online discussion tools can help foster a deep connection to the community, branding a business as a

local expert and attracting new customers. “The commitment you have to make to this has to be unprecedented,” Hernan-

“[We have] good relationships with vendor partners. We do three car show events per year. We do two local events where we shut down the whole street, for a Sunday. We built our brand over the years, as the guys in Brooklyn to go to for electronics.”

Shef Sadik, Proline Car Audio dez stated. “You cannot say I want to do all these things and not commit to them.

[Some people] have a lot of confidence but they don’t commit. Commitment triggers confidence to get to the other side, and I define that as success—advancing confidently toward a worthy ideal but with commitment.”

Being recognized as an expert is key when it comes to being noticed, and this involves a dedication to continual learning as the industry changes day to day.

Investing in the future and always being willing to learn is vital to success. “There are a lot of people who think they know and they don’t know. If you give me an ah-ha moment, and you say you’ve had experience, and lessons learned, that is what people want. People want to go to people who are going to solve their problems. A lot of people just talk but don’t solve problems.”

Hernandez emphasized that commitment is the trigger that moves a business or an entrepreneur forward. “It’s important to commit and that triggers moving toward what I call the worthy ideal, which means it’s worthy to me so I’m going to commit to it. [Business owners] want … to be found, but you have to reverse that and commit to being found.

It’s not just talking about it anymore.

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me-mag.com 41

 behind the scenes

MORE THAN A BRAND Rooted in both car audio manufacturing and competition, high-end 12-volt brand PowerBass is geared towards educating its dealers, as well as protecting them by keeping an eye out for those who would undermine its sales policies.

WORDS BY BILL BRAUN

42 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

D

efining PowerBass is a particularly interesting exercise.

The reason lies in the fact that PowerBass is more than your standard 12-volt manufacturer. PowerBass is the parent company of Image Dynamics (ID)—a storied, high-end car audio company with deep roots in as much retail as competition car audio. The old timers of the industry will remember ID for making some of the first car audio compression horns, the IDQ, and IDMAX subwoofers.

Despite merging in 2010, each brand has its own unique set of lines, its own website and its own identity in the marketplace. While they share some common staff, the gear and its respective positioning in the marketplace is kept quite intentionally separate.

One of the factors that makes PowerBass unique is the way their products come to market.

“PowerBass is a vertically integrated company,” said Brad Fair, sales director of PowerBass. “The [parent] owns the manufacturing facility in China, but the research and development goes on here in Ontario, California.”

The company also employs a pair of dedicated acoustic engineers, with Fair acting as the third acoustic engineer. “I do a lot of the follow up work,” he said “And I do a lot with the sales and marketing departments as well.”

The Drawing Board Defining the viability of prospective products starts with a team asking questions, both from the consumers as well as the retailers. Once that team starts comparing notes, the round table discussion evolves into the beginnings of a product. Can it be made in a certain target MSRP range? Is it unique enough to warrant production, and if so, is it an Image Dynamics product or a PowerBass product? All these questions get bandied about, refined, experimented with, dissected and refined again. Fair believes strongly in the importance of “taking a particular product, and making it ours.”

Quality and market considerations invariably come into play.

In addition to establishing if a potential product concept is financially viable and sufficiently unique, Fair’s team assesses how it could be sold and marketed. Fair offered Bluetooth enabled products as a prime example. “Bluetooth is the biggest thing that’s been out there for the last year or two. We put our twist on to it. By that I mean price point, a feature, and so on.

For example, we now have a Bluetooth sound bar for UTV’s. There are a couple of other companies that have this already, however, the R&D is much different than

what we do. We added a DSP processor to two of the new sound bars we just released, which makes a world of difference to the way it sounds at low and high volume. It’s pre-programmed to account for dips and peaks as well as a distortion limiter. It allows the user to turn it up louder than the competition, and sound better at low volume. We do the same thing when we develop a speaker, woofer or amplifier.”

Price Isn’t Everything PowerBass does not consider itself a price-driven company, according to the Sales VP. Positioning themselves as a “mid-fi” brand, the company doesn’t believe that being the cheapest option is not consistent with the goal of avoiding an entry level image in the retailers eyes. “We know who we are,” Fair stated, “and we try to concentrate on that particular niche in the market. We want to make quality product of good value,

that performs beyond just our warranty period. That’s always the goal. We don’t want to have to play down in the dirt with a lot of other brands out there.; the people that just do volume.”

PowerBass goes to market on product credibility, but by their own admission, its mid-fi position is a rarity in the car stereo world. Those who remember the industry in the 80s, 90s and even the 2000s invariably remember a plethora of car audio enthusiasts, many of whom became employees of distributors, rep firms, and sometimes shops. That enthusiasm created a knowledge about the gear available in the market. It fostered the ability to make a manufacturer’s message simple.

In modern times, making a message stick is an entirely different exercise. It requires training, marketing materials, incentives and more to send a message to retailers and to tell consumers in which direction the industry’s marketing efforts

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me-mag.com 43

 behind the scenes

From its 2015 catalog, the 4XL Competition Series subwoofer is a 15-inch sub that features 3,500 watts RMS and 7,000 watts peak sound.

are traveling. More so than the whole, this starts at the dealer or distribution level.

Fair and his colleagues have devised a specific path to education. “We have put together a training program this that is way more in-depth than what we have done in the past to try and pass this information along.” The company incentivizes as well, in the form of spiffs.

In addition to the training initiatives, the company has also recently hired Eric Harbour the PowerBass Marketing Manager. “Eric brings in a younger, fresher mindset about how to reach the company’s customer base,” said Fair. “We’re looking for better graphics on social media, for example. More posters and POP we can give our dealers to remind our customer and our salesman on the floor can say “hey – these people carry PowerBass.” It’ll make people beg the question if they have never heard of it. We’re working on a new display program as well.”

PowerBass believes powersports is a growing market, as is OEM fit. Consequently, they are investing in marketing and product development to upgrade factory systems without making any modifications to the vehicles. Fair believes that anybody can make a speaker or an amplifier. However, if one can make it simpler and easier for the installer and the consumer alike, then it becomes more palatable and easier to sell, which is their stated goal this year.

Fighting Fear

The XL-5675M is part of the Xtreme Powersports amplifiers line and features five channels, rated at 1,980 watts.

The XL-POD8 is an 8-inch marine-grade wakeboard speaker pod with 2-way full range capabilities, compatible with most tower bar sizes.

44 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

When it comes to car audio and the Internet, most in the industry evoke fear and reveres the potential the Internet possesses. Finding anything about anything is as easy as typing in a question to the nearest tablet or cell phone. Fast forward to a theoretical 12-volt shop, where a customer walks into a store, sees an amplifier and while in this brick-and-mortar store, he immediately goes online, puts in the model number and sees there are four shops that sell it for 25 percent less. “Now it becomes a challenge for the retailer,” Fair states, “how do I sell against the Internet? It will be a lifelong problem, and has been for the past decade.”

To balance the scales, PowerBass has instituted a UMAP (often known as Universal Minimum Advertised Price) policy, spending an “enormous” amount of money this past year on lawyers, and will continue going forward [to enforce the policy]. This is not only with the lawyers involved but policing the people that sell below UMAP. The company buys products from people selling below UMAP and tracks the serial numbers.

The UMAP policies are backed up by warnings and legal action, and in some instances, more dire consequences. “Myself and the other sales guys have been doing this for a long time. The dealers know that our

me-mag.com   45

 behind the scenes

“We know who we are and we try to concentrate on that particular niche in the market. We want to make quality product of good value, that performs beyond just our warranty period. That’s always the goal.”

Brad Fair, Sales Director, PowerBass

policies have teeth,” Fair explained. “In fact, we have cut off two of our largest distributors because they weren’t playing by the rules. Granted, they were warned.

The bottom line is that we have to protect

46 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

the dealer and the consumer. If we don’t have a value to our name it’ll never sell.”

Fair believes that the fight to convince consumers to stay off their phones and in the store has to be more than simply price. The retailers have to have some ammunition, prompting consumers to realize the value in giving their business to a local car stereo store.

“The company wants everyone to play on a level playing field. Pricing has an undeniable impact on both the health of the margin and on the longevity of the shop itself. The younger crowd seems to think that the cheapest price is the best price,” Fair said. “The reality is that it is not. When it comes to warranty, service and everything else involved, [a consumer] would be better off spending a couple more dollars from a brick-andmortar retailer who installs it in their vehicle.”

To sweeten the proverbial pot, PowerBass offers additional incentives to consumers doing the installation at a 12-volt shop by offering a three-year warranty on their upper end product. “We also only offer a 90-day warranty if its sold by an unauthorized dealer. Someone who is selling below UMAP,” Fair added.

During the decades Fair has been in the industry, the landscape of car audio has changed, but the roots of its most experienced operators remain consistent.

“Most of us came from a brick and mortar background,” Fair said. “Those are the guys who can be trusted more, who are singing our praises, rather than the guys online or in blogs saying buy it from this place or that place online, because

they’re cheaper. The guys in the brick and mortar businesses are the guys keeping us in business day-to-day.”

Know It All Part of what keeps retailers effective is education. According to Fair, PowerBass has quadrupled its training budget in recent years. The first step in changing the company’s education process is by first training their representatives. The logic behind directly educating the sales rep is to expedite training to the retailers.

“The reps are the guys calling on the brick and mortar stores and their customers,” Fair said. “They resell the product every single day. If they’re more knowledgeable about the product, they are more likely to sell that product to the dealer and train them on how to sell it to the consumer.” From features and benefits, to warranty to pricing, if the retailer has all three of those components together, PowerBass believes they have a complete story to tell their customers.

In addition to training their distributors, the company conducts direct retail education. Their training “summits” allow state-wide education of the dealers, distributors, and direct dealers. When the company puts on a training event, they attract attendees with everything from food to raffle prizes and other incentives help get PowerBass retailers interested and attentive.

The company is also working on improving its image and functionality online. Fair described a few key features of the new site to include a dealer portal, which will make it simpler and easier for

a dealer to deal with returns, or RAs, and pricing. In addition, the portal will allow dealers to go online, log in and see what they’ve bought. They can also look at the gear and get details if they need to know more about a specific product.

“The other part of this is an easy return process. Whether it’s a return for credit, field destroy, or customer part replacement, the goal is to take care of it as quickly and easily as possible,” Fair said. “We spent and exorbitant amount of money on this new website to be launched in March of this year.”

Ultimately, the goal of the ongoing Web project is to make it as simple as possible to do business with PowerBass.

The retailer has direct access to accounting, credits, debit, and the repair status of product. The automated system is designed to make dealing with the company as easy as possible so the retailer doesn’t have to spend time on a phone call, waiting for the same information.

To survive in the marketplace, diversification is a necessary watchword. With the the ease of replacement and lower comparative cost, PowerBass believes OEM Fit is one of the growing markets to compete in and Fair explained that they already have a head start in leveraging it.

“Fortunately for us, our factory does huge amount of work for Hyundai, Ford and a few other manufacturers of OEM speakers,” he said. “We have access to a lot of mounting platforms, trim rings and the like, so its easy for us to figure out how to make a bolt and unbolt speaker system.

This year you’re going to see a concentration on Toyota with a lot more coming for Ford. Whether it’s done at the shop level or the car dealer level, either can benefit greatly because it’s so easy to install.”

The company is also pursuing the ATV/UTV market by offering Bluetooth-enabled sound bars, as well as a line of powersports speakers and amplifiers. Existing on the border of affordability and performance is not the easiest edge to balance a company’s future on. With a large dealer base, expanding product strategy and an obvious desire to improve both retailer knowledge and convenience, PowerBass is making a convincing go of it. 

me-mag.com 47

 tech today

Passenger Footwell Subwoofer Enclosures, Part 1

In the first of two parts, 12-volt expert Joey Knapp navigates the complex expanse of footwell sub enclosures and how to avoid trapping oneself between a box and a hard place.

Bass is awesome. I love the realism and excitement bass brings to music.

While some people may not fully be able to appreciate a high-end set of tweeters, or fully grasp the technicality of a welltuned car, everyone enjoys bass. Due to its universal appeal, adding bass to a vehicle is one of the most common things that we, as mobile electronics experts, do.

We all know everyone needs more, and better, bass than their factory system

48 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

provides. Most of the time clients understand and want the benefits of an aftermarket bass system. Sometimes, though, objections come up.

I think almost everyone has heard a client say, “I don’t want people to hear me coming down the road.” Sometimes our clients negatively equate the type of bass we are trying to provide with cars that have a lot of bass. We have to help the clients understand there is a happy medium—a realistic, pleasant level of bass.

Another stereotype we often deal with is that bass will add make their car rattle.

Who hasn’t heard a car going down the road with a loose, rattling license plate? For some of our clients, that is

what comes to mind when we talk about adding bass.

When we add bass, we move air.

Moving air takes displacement. As a result, we need speakers which are typically fairly large. They also need to be in an enclosure most of the time. This is where a third objection comes in. Clients often do not want to lose the useable space in their vehicle to a subwoofer enclosure. When many people hear of “adding bass”, they think of a big, rectangular box taking up valuable space.

This is a legitimate concern. To address this issue, companies like JL Audio have enclosure lines dedicated to providing clients all of the useable space in their vehicle. The Stealthbox series of enclosures provides great options for clients

Car Owner, Kenneth Chan who want to have bass but not lose too much space in their vehicle. These enclosures are great for providing unique solutions and educating the public about alternatives to big, rectangular boxes.

If you have a client interested in adding some bass, have a great sounding demo vehicle. I believe every shop that does mid- to high-end work should have a demo vehicle with a minimum of a two-way active front stage and a subwoofer, all controlled by a digital sound processor. It does not have to be the most expensive equipment, but it needs to sound great. If you don’t know how to tune with a DSP, find someone who can do it for you. A fully active demo vehicle can be a very useful tool for clients who care about the way music sounds. If your DSP has the ability to store presets, I suggest creating a couple of different tunes to address different clients. The most important tune is very natural and borders on almost sterile. This tune should not being offensive. Another tune would be for a younger crowd. It might have a

brighter, more detailed, high-end, and maybe more emphasis on the low-end.

The final tune should have no processing at all, just crossover settings. If you have a client who is sitting on the fence about purchasing a DSP and going with an active system, this can help them see the difference tuning can make.

Demo Music Once you have a great sounding demo vehicle, you need to find music which showcases that great sound. Compiling a list of decent sounding songs you have heard on a reference system benefits both you and the client. Bing Xu, of Simplicity In Sound, has a demo disc he has used for years; he knows what the songs sound like. The combination of songs that not only sound good but also demonstrate the capabilities of a great sounding system.

Using a disc like this for so long makes it very easy for him to diagnose audio issues as well. After listening to a few of the tracks, he knows right away how the system sounds. Fred Lynch, of Arc Audio,

also has a similar disc. Fred’s disc is more of a tuning disc, which also includes some technical tracks. Fred’s disc has some tracks that are quite challenging for an audio system. If your midbass has issues, or your soundproofing in the doors wasn’t done very well, you will definitely hear it on some of those tracks. I mention Fred’s disc because every song or disc might not be what you want to use for showing off your system to a client. It can be great for finding weaknesses in the audio reproduction, though. One thing I have wanted to do, but have not prioritized my time for yet, is making a custom demo play list. The songs would be edited, using software such as Audacity or Adobe Audition, to be samples of the best parts of the song. For example, one of the songs on Bing’s demo disc is a live version of Hotel California by the Eagles. There is a very long lead-in before the vocals begin.

While it sounds great, I would edit out the beginning to minimize time, and cut it after 30 seconds or so. Most clients are not interested in sitting through a

me-mag.com 49

 tech today full song. Having a few highlights from different songs might make for a more effective demo. With demos, some have said the demo will be more successful if they prepare the client for what they will hear. If you know there will be an awesome guitar riff, or know something pans across the soundstage, some say it is good to tell the client about it. I have demoed cars where I was instructed on what to listen to, and also where I just sat and listened. Personally, I don’t have a preference.

This is a good sample of what your fiberglass should look like after the layup process. Since this vehicle was so uncomfortable to work in, I did three The Right Questions So, you have the media, you layers in the vehicle and five more layers outside of have a great sounding car, and you the vehicle.

It is important to make sure all of the tape pieces overlap for a good seal. If you have any doubt of the tape adhesion, add more!

It is important to make sure all areas of the car that can be potentially exposed to fiberglass are protected.

50 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

have a client who wants to hear it.

Perfect. You might be tempted to sit the client in the car and show them what it will do. You might need to show a little restraint.

Instead, I suggest you ask the client some questions about their listening habits. When they tell you, LISTEN to them. Find out what type of music they listen to.

You should try to cover a number of genres in your demo music. The most common types are: rock, rap, EDM, classical, pop and jazz. Most importantly, find out what their preferred volume level is. Listen for things like, “I want to feel like I am at a concert” or “I don’t need a competition system.” One of the quickest ways to turn off a client from your demo is playing the system too loud. Unless the client says they want a concert-level experience, I suggest starting at a moderate overall level. I would also start with the bass on the lower side. Once you have begun the demo, you can encourage the client to control the volume level and the subwoofer level. This will help them feel more comfortable in the process, as they know what level they like best.

Almost every system we build at Simplicity In Sound includes a subwoofer. One look through

some of our builds, and you will see we have had to get creative at times to meet the aural needs of the client, while retaining needed space. Bing Xu has become famous for his “false floor” build concept.

While not the pioneer of the idea, Bing certainly has made fitting a lot of gear into spare tire wells into an art. In many cases, the spare tire well is the only part of a vehicle where there is extra, unused, space. Some cars—higher end, European models, mostly— don’t even have a spare tire, but still have a recess in the floor for one. Some clients might initially balk at the idea of removing the spare tire. With the reality of our connected society, however, most clients would just call a tow truck.

There are occasions, however, when keeping the tire is mandatory. In those circumstances, a location for a subwoofer must be found elsewhere. The passenger side footwell has worked very well for us as an alternate location.

We have done this a number of times with the Acura NSX. If you are familiar with the NSX, you know there are very few places a subwoofer can fit. The factory “subwoofer” is in a small enclosure between the two seats. It offers no useable space for an aftermarket subwoofer. The seats in the NSX rest almost completely against the back wall of the car, thus eliminating the space behind the seats as an option. The trunk, or trunks as the case may be with the NSX, are completely isolated from the interior cabin. For this car, the passenger footwell was a perfect choice. The car already had plenty of legroom. Plus, there is additional padding underneath the carpet which can be removed to gain additional airspace.

Bass Benefits The NSX isn’t the only car that has been a good fit for a footwell enclosure. We have found space

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 tech today

To protect the Morel Primo subwoofer, I used the Morel Octo-grill. For a cleaner look, I added an additional vinyled trim ring to conceal the mounting hardware.

I was able to cut the carpet in this NSX in two places and then fold the center flap inward. This gave me the room I needed while still allowing the carpet to be repaired in the future. Note the OEM mounting point which was used to secure the enclosure.

Here the baffle is trimmed and glued by using the mixture of Duraglass and fiberglass resin. This baffle had a recessed mounting ring for the subwoofer.

To ensure a perfect fit, the perimeter of the enclosure contact points in the car are taped up and the enclosure is installed. Body filler is used to backfill any gaps, making the enclosure fit perfectly.

This is a great example of the finished result of a well executed footwell enclosure. The angle and depth very closely match the OEM floor. This enclosure fit so well the floormat was used for a completely stealth look.

52 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

This is test-fitting the mold after it was reinforced and trimmed. It is always important to make sure you doubleand triple-check the fitment throughout the process.

Recessed magnets hold the top trim piece onto this front grill. The filler line provides a break-point between the vinyl and carpet which will be used to trim this piece.

The grill for this Mini Cooper enclosure was trimmed to allow access to the fuse panel cover.

When the top trim piece is installed, the gap is covered.

The owner of this Mini Cooper wanted something a little different. Instead of following the floor angle, he wanted the enclosure perpendicular to the floor. A two-piece grill assembly protects the Illusion Audio subwoofer and provides access to the fuse panel.

in a number of other cars as well.

Since this has been a solution for a number of vehicles, I wanted to focus on the footwell enclosure for this month’s article. In this first article we will be looking at footwell enclosure benefits and restrictions. The images included are of different stages of footwell enclosure builds in a few different vehicles. Next month, we will be going step-by-step through the build process of a footwell enclosure.

First, let’s look at some of the benefits of the footwell enclosure. All other things aside, I have to say that every footwell enclosure I have done sounded great. Each time I was a little more impressed than I thought I would be. I was also surprised by the performance, in spite of the small amount of airspace. Part of the success of these enclosures is the location. The footwell forms a corner boundary in the front of the car. I think this loading orientation helps reduce some possible cancellation and gives the subwoofer more walls to reflect off of.

(I am sure there is some in-depth information on this subject if anyone should choose to Google the topic.)

Another benefit of a footwell-located subwoofer is up front bass.

While there are numerous discussions about achieving “up front bass”, the easiest way to achieve that is by putting the subwoofer UP FRONT. Competition cars have been doing this for years, and with good reason. Hearing a car with a subwoofer mounted in the front is a very different experience.

The last positive point I want to talk about is the benefit of using a footwell enclosure in a convertible. If you have every added bass in the trunk of a convertible, you know it is hit-or-miss on how well it will perform. Many times the trunks in convertibles are isolated

from the cabins. You might have some bass with the top up. Put the top down, and typically you lose quite a bit of bass. The footwell enclosures we have used in convertibles have performed well with the top down or up. There is typically only room for a single subwoofer in that space, but, from my experience, the single subwoofer in that location can outperform multiple subwoofers mounted in the trunk.

Final Thoughts There are many great reasons to install a subwoofer in a footwell space. There are also some reasons to avoid installing a subwoofer there, too. The most prominent reason for not using this location is space; some cars just don’t have the space for a footwell enclosure. The key limiting factor is depth and the remaining leg room. Another reason to avoid a footwell enclosure is if the client wants the vehicle to remain completely stock. Most footwell enclosures I have done have required cutting the factory carpet. If the car is a lease, or the client is particular about it, you might not have permission to cut the carpet.

The final obstacle to utilizing a footwell enclosure is the client’s expectations. Footwell enclosures are usually no larger than .4 cubic foot. That can be a problem if you are trying to use multiple subwoofers, or a subwoofer which requires more airspace.

There are some definite benefits to installing a footwell enclosure.

Take a look at the images in this article. The captions will give you a quick look at some of the things we will be covering in detail next month. Next month we will be looking at a footwell enclosure build from start to finish. 

me-mag.com 53

 installs

54 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

Power In HD SUBMITTED BY BILL WYKO, AUDIO 2000

Wyko and his team built what they believe to be the most powerful Rockford Fosgate system ever built. Said to have the “power of a football stadium” behind it, this 2014 Chevy 2500 HD boasts four Rockford 360.3 processors, a Pioneer in-dash AVIC 8100 NEX, AudioFrog mids and highs in the front build with six sets of GB60s, eight sets of GB10s, six sets of GB25s, eight sets of GB40s and two GB10D2s installed. The rest of the build includes four Rockford T-400-4s, three T-600-4s, one T-1500-1BD, 16 T-2500-1BD subs, eight T2S2 16s, five DC power 370 amps and externally regulated alternators. The vehicle uses all real carbon fiber, leather, plexiglass and LED lighting on the interior and recently won an import faceoff with Best in Show for installation.

me-mag.com 55

 installs

The install team at The Sound Shop recently completed a Passat B6 Wagon install, with the goal of retaining cargo space while upgrading the sound in dramatic fashion. The new system included a Pioneer 4100NEX, 2-way and 3-way Focal Access, Flax 10-inch in a fiberglass enclosure, backlit with RGB LEDs, running on a Pioneer 8601D and 8604D on a metal amp rack. The team also wrapped the roof, grille, SUBMITTED BY DAVID PHILLIPS, THE SOUND SHOP, INDIAN TRAIL, N.C. and chrome accents in Avery Gloss Black.

Braggin’ Wagon

56 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

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me-mag.com 57 www.InstallerNet.com • 800-444-1644

µ MECP News

Five Ways To Make The Most Of Your MECP Master Certification Being an MECP Master is an honor, and I think it’s fair to say it helps mark your place among the industry’s best minds. While it’s great to earn an MECP Master-Level certification, it’s even better to share your knowledge, love and passion for the industry with as many others as you can. Here are my five tips to making the most out of your MECP Master certification:

1. Be A Lifelong Learner If you aspired to pass the Master exam, you likely already consider yourself a lifelong learner. With the current pace of technology, it’s imperative to keep your skills up to date and sharp. MECP ensures this by requiring Master recertification based on updated exams and study guides every four years. I’ve been lucky to have a number of amazing mentors over the years who impressed upon me the importance of a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. This has made all the difference for me. I can’t relate to people who have achieved their MECP Master certification but have an attitude of, “That’s it, I’m done learning.” That line of thinking is so counter-productive. Don’t be like that. Be a lifelong learner.

2. Become The Expert Now for the requisite corny guest-editorial dictionary reference: Webster’s defines expert as “having or showing special skill or knowledge because of what you have been taught or what you have experienced.” Although our industry is small, the wide variety of product and vehicle-specific integrations we must master is nearly infinite. This is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is the pain of troubleshooting that one problem no one else has ever heard of. The blessing is the fact that opportunities abound for any of us to become the expert in some segment of our industry. I know of some folks who have become industry experts at installing certain remote starters in VW vehicles. Nobody went to these guys and asked them to become the industry experts at this particular integration—they took it upon themselves. There are many other similar niche segments out there waiting to be capitalized on. Figure out what you want to be the expert on and own it!

3. Give Back To The Industry My proudest achievement in the industry isn’t really a specific event or even a story about the one time I saved the day by fixing some bizarre, esoteric problem for a customer. What I’m most proud of are the technicians I helped motivate to

58 Mobile Electronics  April 2016

achieve the MECP Master themselves. Whether it was showing them how to work through logarithms, discussing the finer points of N/C switches, or investigating the acoustics of very small spaces, I’ve been honored to share my knowledge with these folks and humbled by the drive I’ve seen from them.

It’s important to me to ‘pay it back’ and move our industry’s collective knowledge forward. Knowing I’ve motivated individual technicians to challenge themselves to be the best they can be is an awesome feeling.

4. Plan The Work, Work The Plan For those of you who are trying to obtain your MECP Master Certification, my best advice to you is to “plan the work, and then work the plan.” In fact, this is a pretty decent methodology to use in most areas of life. In a nutshell this means first figuring out what your overall goal is and then outlining some sort of macro-level plan to achieve it. Once you’ve locked in your plan, work every day to achieve it. Maybe this means reading a certain number of pages every week to have the study guide completed in a period of time, or giving yourself a deadline of six months or a year to take the exam— the idea is to devise a reasonable plan that you can implement.

The important part is to do the work (or as my favorite professor says, “turn the crank”).

5. Inspire Those Around You Upon passing the MECP Master Installer Certification, I was very proud of being able to say I was among the best in our industry. Fortunately, at the time, I was in a position where the technicians around me were hungry for knowledge and ready to take advantage of their new in-house MECP Master resource.

Quickly, I realized with this position comes responsibility. It is the duty of the MECP Master to help make those around him or her better. Watching someone you’ve mentored share their passion with others is a real treat, so make it your mission to inspire your fellow installers.

Decide how you want to use your Master certification. You don’t have to go on to earn a PhD, or open up your own shop, or volunteer to help write the next study guide. However, this is an invitation for you to claim some sliver of the aftermarket mobile electronics world for yourself. It is a request for you to share your passion with as many people as you can. Earning your MECP Master certification is not the last stop on your journey!

me-mag.com   59

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