Ready for Anything

Davis Distribution is “all systems go” for car audio’s new normal, offering webinars, a YouTube show and an updated studio to keep dealers motivated and educated.

WORDS BY JAMIE SORCHER

There’s probably no better way to get into the car audio business than to be born into it. For Nate Taliani, vice president of sales and marketing for Davis Distribution Systems, that’s exactly what happened.

“My father has been in this industry since before I was born. I grew up around it,” Taliani said. “When I was 20 years old, we opened the company and I’ve been here since day one. This is all I’ve ever done for the past 22 years, so I have seen quite a bit. We were here for the start of satellite radio, when neon lighting was going through the roof, the Fast and Furious scene, NOPI Nationals and all that stuff.”

In business since 1998, Davis is headquartered in Newell, West Va., and includes Taliani, his father, two brothers and a sister.

“We don’t have an official mission statement, but our reputation combined with our word is our number one brand,” Taliani said. “That means more to us than any brand we deal with. As we all know, brands come and go, vendors come and go, but your reputation and your word are what lasts—and that’s the most

During the pandemic, Davis Distribution’s training webinars have been well-received by the industry. The company hopes to continue in-person events soon, such as the Custom Installer Roadshow Training in Columbus, Ohio, shown on the left. Pictured from left to right: Chuck Fauser, Robert Saddler, Phil Traverse, Nate Taliani and Sarah Taliani.

Robert Saddler, Nate Taliani and Phil Traverse accepted the Domestic Distributor of the Year award from JL Audio. important thing you can provide to your customers.”

This has proven especially meaningful during the entire pandemic, and particularly now as dealers emerge from months of lockdown, seeking guidance and support.

Training Online During Pandemic

When it became clear that businesses would have downtime during the pandemic, and scheduled training events wouldn’t happen, Taliani said Davis Distribution wanted to be proactive.

“We worked with vendors to coordinate a month-and-half worth of webinars and trainings geared for our dealers,” he said. “They were really well-attended. We promoted Davis University through Mobile Electronics magazine and had an absolutely tremendous response to it. For once, dealers actually had the time to hop on these webinars.”

While the company has been offering webinars for years, Taliani added they’ve never hosted 30 of them in a 45-day period before. Each webinar was packed, he said. Moving forward, he anticipates that dealers will have a fresh perspective with online training and content.

“They will be much more open to participating in webinars and recognizing the value in them,” he said, adding that businesses are swamped now as numbers increase and communities begin reopening procedures. “Everyone is trying to get back to normal. They’re completely swamped, but I am sure they will lean into these options more often now than they did in the past.”

Davis offers more than webinars: They have a YouTube channel where they not only record and upload webinars, but they also constantly send out tech updates, Taliani said, adding, “We even have our own little show on our channel called ‘Check it Out.’ We cover different topics and keep dealers up-to-date on new products coming out.” This includes products such as Sony head units, power command centers from NavAtlas and STX Micro Amplifiers from Wet Sounds.

“We started the show in November of 2018, and it’s interesting to go back and look at it,” he said, adding that he felt it started on a weak note because

From Great Lakes to Garden State Davis Distribution is a regional “wholesale only” distributor servicing customers in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, Southern New Jersey, Delaware and D.C.

the company was anxious to get it going. “Now we can see what we did from November 2018 to the end of 2019, it’s amazing how far we’ve progressed. Throughout COVID, we were doing about one episode a week or three to four shows a month.” This included segments on home products. “The other great thing is that during this time when everyone was working from home,” he added, “we also got to update our studio.”

Seeking Accountability and Consistency

Davis Distribution’s continued commitment to in-house tech support, which always proved invaluable for dealers, was key during the pandemic. “We have a talented and knowledgeable staff,” Taliani said. “We’re very strong with remote start tech support and we actually prefer when the dealer calls us directly over the vendor.”

In addition to in-house tech support, Davis offers a variety of trainings and roadshows throughout the year. “We hit the dealers from all angles,” Taliani said. The company offers mini roadshows, bringing either a single vendor or multiple vendors together to cover three or four cities in a week. Events are held in hotels, or networking opportunities take place at locations like Dave & Buster’s.

“Sometimes we also take the vendor directly to the dealer or host events at our main facility,” he explained. “Throughout the year, there are also some vendors who will have the dealers come out to them for a tour of the facilities and to get hands-on training from their top guys.”

While Davis works with a wide assortment of vendors, a longstanding record of consistency determines who remains part of the stable of brands. “The most important thing we look for in terms of a vendor is consistency,” Taliani said. “Vendors who are constantly changing their go-to market strategies every so many years tend to fade away. The vendors we do best with are those who are rock solid and consistent year after year.”

While popular brands may be on the Internet, Taliani said it comes down to whether or not a vendor holds true to their policies, stays accountable and holds

dealers accountable, too. “Those are the vendors we have the most success with. Fortunately, we’ve seen a lot of the major vendors take these issues much more seriously than they did in the past.”

In working with its dealer base, Davis Distribution keeps it simple. “We first want to verify if they are a 12-volt specialist,” Taliani said. “We want to be sure they are actually in the 12-volt industry—and that it’s their full-time job. Do they have a storefront and an install bay? We have a

large rep force and in almost every single case the road rep will visit an account before we set it up. If we have someone who reaches out to us and says they sell online, we don’t even return the call.”

As for the types of dealers they service, Davis has accounts across the board. “If a dealer meets our criteria, we have enough brands in-house to sell accounts A through D,” Taliani said. “When it comes to lines that are exclusive and there is protection we do require dealers to have

an opening order. We also have them commit to an annual dollar amount since they are being offered exclusivity with that particular line.”

Navigating Uncertain Times

For now, Davis Distribution is helping its dealers get back to business despite the current circumstances with a hopeful outlook toward the rest of the year. Taliani thinks the present boom in business will last until the end of July, and he added it will be interesting to see how things play out in August and through October.

“I hope November and December will be strong,” he added. “I hope everything will be back to normal. And that’s the thing—it’s unknown. It’s about trying to pay attention to what’s going on out there each and every single day, and then doing our best.”

With a team of seven road reps who haven’t been out since the pandemic started, Taliani wasn’t sure at press time when they’d be getting back out to see the dealers. “What I do know is there’s been a spike in business for which we are grateful,” he said. “Obviously there’s been understandable inventory issues. No one can place blame for that. We’ve been working on finding solutions and working with each dealer when there is a shortage.”

The company’s salespeople, he added, have been working hard to help dealers navigate these difficulties. “At the end of the day, I do feel good. I am hoping we’ve turned the corner.”