Top 5 House of Worship Market Integrators

These innovative, market-leading firms share dos and don’ts when approaching this completely unique vertical.

Emily Underwood

Think of the CI Industry Leaders as power rankings.

We recognize the top integration firms serving 12 vertical markets, not purely by revenue but by a variety of factors including reputation, innovation and market approach. Put another way, these are companies that are making waves and worth watching.

CI spoke to five house of worship market integrators about what helped them succeed (or fail!) at every step along the way. Check out what they have to say and click here to download the complete report, Meet the 2014 CI Industry Leaders.

On Success:

“The biggest reason [for our success] is that we have been faithful to the HOW market for all 42 years of our history. We have always had a dedicated HOW team that specializes in the design and installation of sound, lighting, and video systems. We work with consultants and do design-build.

“Our HOW team will travel nationwide to meet with churches. We have been consistent in our work with churches even during economic recessions when others have moved away from the HOW market. We continue to install about 60 HOW systems per year.” —Jim Ford, President, Ford Audio-Video

“It’s about our partnership with the heart, vision, and passion of churches to make it a reality. Each community has a sound, each has a heart, and our job is to eliminate all obstacles and to make sure that sound is actually true.

Related: Industry Leader Technical Innovation Brings 4 HOW Campuses Together

“Our goal as a company is to understand when conversations are being started in the design-build stage. It will be important for us to collect data to understand specific project, design, construction and needed gear that our prospects are likely to engage with.

We have implemented many research strategies. We plan to capture more specific data on how prospects communicate more relevantly and understanding how often our touch points need to be.” —Ben Mankin, Owner, Mankin Media Systems

“Customer service is our number one focus. We look at these projects and jobs not as a business transaction but as a chance to partner with a churches vision to reach a community. We try very hard to help define the goals for the project up front so that throughout the course of the project we all stay focused on the original goals the customer defined for us.”—Nick Kofahl, Summit Integrated Systems

On Failure:

“If the conversation just revolves around the tech then they missed the mark. Tech in the worship setting is just a tool to help the church communicate in a more modern way. You have to make sure the tech doesn’t become a distraction to the overall vision and message of the church.”—Nick Kofahl, Summit Integrated Systems

Click here to download the complete report, “Meet the 2014 CI Industry Leaders.”

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