Soon after it’s release on March 29th 2017 I stumbled across the article “A Staggering Forecast For 12V Installers” while checking my LinkedIn feed. I had a few minutes to myself and decided to read it. Having been a professional 12V installer for 20 years this was a subject that was near and dear to my heart.
Click here to read the article that FIRED me up!
After reading, I was quite intrigued but also dismayed at the dire predictions of the future of 12V installers. I started out as a car audio and security installer in 1997 and have seen a major shift in the industry since then. I don’t believe that this is a dying profession nor will all the 12V installers be out of work in the near future. It is my belief that this evolving industry poses new opportunities and a need to realign business priorities in order to sustain profitability.
This didn’t sit well with me. For a few days I could’t stop thinking about the “doom and gloom” predictions of my chosen profession. During this time I attended a virtual user group for a software that we use called Infusionsoft. After sitting through a technically advanced training on best practices, the host gave a golden nugget of info at the end. He said to go after writers in the vertical in which you are an expert and try to get an article written on you or your business. WOW! This couldn’t have come at a better time. Now with the wheels turning in my head I decided to take action. I was on a mission to get in front of the author and at the very least, tell my side of the story.
I attempted to connect with Amy Gilroy the editor of CEOutlook on LinkedIn. After a few days, she accepted my request and I wrote her a quick message sharing my views. Two weeks later I flew out to Phoenix, Arizona to attend Infusionsoft’s yearly conference ICON17. It was the second day of the conference and I decided to blow my scheduled breakout session and hang out in the lounge area. Just as I got the laptop open and settled into the comfortable couch my phone rings. It was Amy Gilroy, she asked me a zillion questions and wanted to write an article on Top Class Installations. After a ten to a fifteen minute call Amy tells me that she’ll be in touch in a few weeks with some follow up questions. True to her word, a few weeks pass, Amy calls and has a few more questions. I send her some photos of current jobs we’re on and like magic, she publishes an article about Top Class Installations.
Click here to read Amy’s article on Top Class Installations!
May 2017 marks the beginning of the largest project that Top Class has been awarded. We will be installing TeletracNavman GPS Tracking and Garmin tablets in nearly 5000 to 6000 school buses for the NYC Department of Education. This is testament of the projected CAGR of the global vehicle tracking market which has been estimated at over 20% from 2016 to 2023. Further proof can be seen in the recent acquisition of both Fleetmatics and Telogis by Verizon Wireless. Now all that’s left is for companies like Top Class to complete the installation of all the units being sold by the industry giants. Not to mention, we haven’t even touched on the soon to come ELD mandate (Electronic Logging Devices). There will be enough work for all who have the ability and want to shift with the industry.
As the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said “You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take”. I decided that I wasn’t going to miss this one…