Why the best AV work goes to whoever showed up first

I had Kristian Markovic on the podcast recently, a BDM at CI Group with a long background in AV, sales and construction. One story he told stuck with me, because it's a lesson that applies well beyond his own work, and it happens to describe almost exactly what an AV consultant is for.

Kristian won a small AV fit-out for a school film studio, worth around $80,000. Not a huge job by industry standards, but a telling one. During the design phase, the architect had spent two to three months trying to get basic technical information from truss and AV suppliers, and nobody called him back, because none of them thought a few questions from an architect would turn into a sale. Kristian did call back, spent 30 minutes walking him through what was possible, no pitch, no proposal, just information. The architect later told him he'd learned more in that call than in three months of trying elsewhere.

When the project went to tender, Kristian found out he was the only AV contractor who'd bothered to attend any of the site inspections. The builder called to say they'd won the job specifically because of that early engagement, not because of price. As Kristian put it, anyone can cut a price, that's not adding value. Being genuinely useful before there's anything to sell is what actually sets you apart.

Here's the underlying point here for me: Kristian was doing that early engagement as an integrator, on the chance it turned into a sale. That's admirable, but it's still optional for him, and it competes against a dozen other calls he could be making that week. For a consultant, it's not optional, it's the entire job. I'm not in the room hoping the architect's questions eventually lead to a sale. I'm retained from day one specifically to be the person answering those questions, sitting in on the site walks, and making sure the AV design is right before there's a tender for anyone to bid on at all.

That's also why once a design is locked and a budget is set around it, getting anything added later is a much harder conversation than being part of that budget from the start. Being in the room early doesn't just win goodwill, it directly shapes what gets built and what gets funded, which is exactly why that early involvement is the actual value a consultant provides, not a nice-to-have on top of the design work, but the thing that makes the rest of the design work possible.

It's the same principle behind how the Western Springs College project came together, being involved from the earliest planning stages, not brought in once the drawings were already locked. For architects, builders and project managers reading this: if you're at the point of asking basic AV questions and not getting a straight answer, that's usually a sign you're talking to the wrong people, or nobody yet.

That's just one part of a longer conversation. You can listen to the full episode with Kristian Markovic for more on differentiation, long-game relationship building, and what actually sets AV contractors apart in a crowded market.