Keith: How has the Internet impacted your business?

Loren: It’s been a positive and a hindrance at the same time. We developed a web site and it has been a positive move. The site is not used for selling at all. No prices, no products recommended. More of an information thing, to show who we are. And, done well, a web site helps your credibility in the minds of the prospective customers.

Our web site designer – if I don’t call him every 60 days, he calls me. We are committed to regular site updates. This must be a priority. We find our customers check it regularly and do make comments to us when there are changes. They’re impressed.

We use the site for announcements, to talk about things that are happening. Our e-mail addresses are included so site visitors can contact us directly.

What I find about the web that’s sometimes a disadvantage is that customers can find out information - particularly about products - that we don’t have yet. Or, they’ll call asking about a new product that we haven’t had a chance to thoroughly evaluate yet. We then have to log on to the suggested site and check the product out, but at the same time, we’re honest and admit that we don’t know a lot about a particular product, but that we’ll get a sample, check it out and let them know if it’s good.

Keith: What are some of the biggest difficulties you encounter, from a business perspective?

Loren: Our business is so time consuming. We go out to meet with a client, which can take hours. Then several more hours are spent in putting together a design, and then a quote, and then all materials are assembled into a book.

Sometimes the customer will then take this work and compare prices posted on the web, and they’ll query about why our product prices are slightly higher. They don’t understand the sometimes hundreds of hours you’ve got into a project and all of the services you’re providing as opposed to just selling equipment and installation.

Catalog houses make it difficult in this regard as well. There are some that target churches and schools, and they of course buy semi-truck loads of gear and thus receive quantity discounts, which we can’t do. So our per-unit price is invariably a bit higher.

We actually had a customer take a design and do some of the installation themselves with discount equipment. The console that they bought from a discount supplier, that we did not install, had problems, and the customer wanted us to service the console any way.

From the outset, we explain to our customers what can happen, that we stand behind everything we sell, but that we can’t stand behind products we don’t sell. So, in this case, we explained it again, that we couldn’t service the console and couldn’t provide a free loaner while it was being serviced. When you purchase from a catalog house and there’s a problem, you send the equipment back to the catalog house, which in turn has to ship it to the manufacturer for repair, then it’s shipped back to the catalog house and finally returned to the customer. It’s a process that can take six to eight weeks, and that’s a long time to be without a console or to have to pay to rent a suitable replacement.

Now, the differences in our equipment prices, in relation to other outlets, aren’t all that huge anyway, and when a customer purchases from us, the burden of getting repairs and replacements falls squarely on us. This type of service is one of the tenants of our company and we take tremendous pride in it. When you’re able to show a customer this kind of service, and really work with them, they see the value and they become a repeat customer.

Getting back to the particular case of the console, we had a very honest discussion with the customer about why we couldn’t provide support. They apologized, and have now ended up as a very good repeat customer.

Keith: What are some of the toughest things to convey to your customers?

Loren: It used to be much harder to convince them that they need to plan for the future, but it’s gotten a bit easier of late. Also, since we work on a referral business, our customers tell our prospective customers that we know what we’re doing, that our service is 100 percent, that we don’t oversell, and that when we make recommendations for now and the future, these recommendations are borne out.

A lot of customers think you’re trying to oversell them when you recommend going from that old 6-channel mixer to one that’s 16 or even 24 channels. They think that doubling the number is just fine. But they invariably find that once they get used to experiencing the increased capability, they want even more, that their creativity and the possibilities are exponentially increased.

Architects play a huge role in our work. They don’t always understand sound systems and room acoustics, and we’ve had cases where churches are already well into the construction process, setting the footings, and then they call us to talk about a sound system.

The biggest reason this happens is because the architect says, “don’t worry about the sound system, that’s the last thing that goes in”. And they won’t design any conduit runs for audio, and other crucial facets. It can end up being a very painful process, and we really feel for our customers because they’re not getting good advice.

Fortunately, with our reputation, we’re now called often by architects early in the process, and we’re asked to make recommendations regarding systems. Sometimes the amount of infrastructure that needs to be included is tough for the church to understand, and they sometimes think we’re overselling them. The objective is helping them understand that they will be very disappointed if they don’t follow our recommendations, and that they’ll likely have to spend a lot more money solving the problem later as opposed to doing things correctly from the start.

Keith: How are you preparing for future growth?

Loren: Growing is hard. The first key is finding great employees, ones that want more than an eight to five job, ones that are willing to be out of town a lot. We’re very upfront about this with all prospective employees, and we provide comp time following long projects on the road.

We also don’t let the company grow as fast as we perhaps could. It’s not inconceivable that the company could be four to five times bigger than currently, but you can’t let it explode or you can lose it all if you’re a service-first operation. And there should be no hurry in any decision of importance; that’s when mistakes happen.

We now do projects in an ever-increasing number of states, including Arizona, Texas, Michigan, and even Hawaii, in addition to Minnesota and surrounding states. Pastors move to another church every three to seven years, on average, and while their new church may be out of our region, they still want us to handle the systems work. They’ve grown to trust us, that we’re going to do what we say we’re going to do, and that’s why our reach has expanded.

Our accountant is amazed with the amount of business we do in a given year without advertising. If asked for recommendations, we give prospective customers our entire project list with contact info for all of them, rather than just four to six projects that went well. They can check out any project they like – we are confident that every customer will give us a positive recommendation.

The most important thing is that God owns Kingdom Sound & Lighting. While the official paperwork says that my wife and I own it, really, I’m just the manager. He opens the doors of possibility; He helps us with the most difficult decisions.

Fifteen years ago, it was just me and a secretary, and now we’ve got a great staff and satellite offices and countless satisfied customers. It’s fun to think about the possibilities God has in store for our future.