This week's episode of Automation Unplugged features a conversation with Patrick McCarthy, Executive Director of Azione Unlimited.”

About this episode:

Patrick has been with Azione for over six years, recently stepping into the Executive Director role. He started as Director of New Business Development and Member Services, playing a key role in supporting both dealers and vendors while driving the organization’s growth.

Patrick’s journey in the custom integration industry is unique—he started in media, serving as Senior Editor for Technology Integrator and helping launch Connected Design, both of which highlighted integrators’ achievements. He later transitioned to marketing and business development at Portal.io, giving him a well-rounded perspective on the industry.

In the webinar, we’ll cover:

• Azione’s evolution and how it’s redefining what a buying group should be.
• Mergers & acquisitions in the CI space—what they mean for business owners.
• The power of community and education in helping integrators grow and scale.

SEE ALSO: AU #297: Leading with Accountability: Brad Larkin’s Playbook for Integrator Success

Transcript

Ron:

Hello. Hello there. Ron Callis here with another episode of Automation Unplugged. Hope you all are having a great morning or afternoon or evening. Maybe you are watching us on the day of our show release. Maybe you are like me and maybe you listen to the audio format. Maybe you do it while you're walking or you're, you're working out or maybe on a drive between job sites, but regardless, thank you for tuning in again. We produce this show for all of you to help you hear from all of the fascinating and interesting people that make up the custom integration space. All of the characters , all the diverse backgrounds, diverse experiences so that, , potentially you can walk away with a nugget or an idea or something that can help make your life, , perhaps a little more informed or maybe even a little bit better. So it's my pleasure to be here with you. , as always, this show is brought to you by One Firefly. , yes, that is my day job, but, , You aren't here to hear about the day job. You're here to hear from our guests. So today we have a wonderful guest. , I've known this individual for many years and, , he's, he's just doing an awesome job for the industry and for his members, and this is Patrick McCarthy, he's the Executive Director of the, Azione, , buying group. And, , without further ado. Let me go ahead and bring in Patrick. We'll see how he's doing and check in on the latest goings on inside of Azione. Patrick, how are you, sir?

Patrick:

Good, good, good, Ron. Actually, I just looked around my desk and I found I could be just like you today, Ron.

Ron:

Five points, Patrick. So for those that are listening, Patrick just, , is throwing on his one and only black on black, one firefly ball cap.

Patrick:

That is, that is a limited edition. There's a lot of things I am a hat guy is not one of them. So I will be taking that off immediately, but

Patrick:

saw that as you were doing the intro, I said I had to bring that out, but good morning, it's morning for us. I'm saying good morning, Ron.

Ron:

So tell us, where are you coming to us from? Where are you physically located right now?

Patrick:

We are outside of Philadelphia, which is, , a lot easier to recognize than, , I'm in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. And there's, at the time, there's a bunch of white fluffy stuff on the ground that you may not be used to in Florida. Very cold, , You know, kind of covers everything, but that's where we're at right now.

Ron:

I feel pretty safe to say that it's, it's going to be a high of, , 84 degrees here in Florida today. , and it's all sunshine. I'm looking at the weather forecast. I don't see a single cloud. But I'm not saying that to rub it in. I'm just presenting the facts, just presenting the news.

Patrick:

I'm giving away winter coats at our next conference though, so I'll have the last laugh. You know,

Ron:

I'll tell you something funny about winter coats. You know, as you know, I've been to many, many Azione conferences, and Azione always gives away the best swag. And, , you know, you and Richard and, , the whole team have, , I, I got to mention, Karen and, and team have always worked really diligently to partner with manufacturers to sponsor really cool swag. And years ago, you guys gave away, , a wonderful winter coat, actually a legitimately a winter coat and, , and that winter coat. Is the winter coat that's downstairs in our, , storage closet that gets pulled out on the five days a year that my wife or I need to put a coat on in the morning to go walk the dogs. It is, , it's an Azione branded. , winter coat,

Patrick:

the black puffy one, right? Is that the one you're talking about? It was.

Ron:

It's it's not black. It's a it was a navy blue. OK, there was another year that the event I want to say was in Colorado. Yeah.

Ron:

And that was like even a bigger winter coat. Yeah. Yep.

Ron:

We actually donated that winter coat to some family members that I don't know if I'm supposed to say that, that live up north and would benefit from a winter, a proper winter coat.

Patrick:

As long as it has a good home. That's all. That felt

Ron:

almost like a sin to keep such a wonderful warm weather coat here in sunny Florida. That one's a good one.

Ron:

There was a thinner version that is downstairs. Anyway, we digress. , for those that want to know what is as the own, , they've been living under a rock or they're on it, you know, they haven't had the time to learn about groups in general and specifically as the own, what, what is as the own?

Patrick:

Wow. So that there's a, there's a, there is more than three, four, five, six dimensions on that one. And I think this is an interesting time to answer that question as We're going through our own sort of identity evolution, which is great. So where it started was, , 13 years ago, Richard Glickes started Aussie Unlimited because it represented a void in the industry. And what he saw was custom integrators, the guys who had appointment only showrooms, who were growing their business. million and a half, two million and up, you know, established guys, good books of business, didn't really have a home or didn't feel at home with an online retailer or someone with an actual retail presence, , or someone with a commercial background, they didn't feel at home. So he started Azione Unlimited with the idea that these Pure custom integration, high end luxury integrators could be part of Ozzy on unlimited. And what he would offer them was community buying power with a focus line of vendors and conference and education. So kind of a way to connect with people who look and talk and feel like you have a personal relationship with your vendor partners and then ways to grow your business. Really simple stuff. What I say about our evolution is that those are still core philosophies, but I think we've grown on that foundation. And I think that as all the buying groups continue to mature, , it's, it's, it's less about the word buying group because that, that implies that the main bulk of what we do and who we are is, is based around simply buying. But I don't think that's the case anymore. I think. , as Azione becomes over 300 members and we expand into Canada, , and we have a very dedicated group of vendor members who keep showing up, your relationships with those people grow exponentially. And then our conferences have gotten bigger, so they've gotten better, so we've gotten better speakers, we've gotten better educators. We've been able to pull all that from conference and, and put it into different silos and, and be accessible in other places. We've started to train the rest of your team, not just the owners. So buying group, I think is an antiquated term for all the. Buying groups out there, right? We, we were associations. We are the smart home association. I think that, you know, kind of fills out who we want to be and what we want to do. But, you know, we are not really a buying group anymore. I think that's pretty one dimensional. I think we are a group, but we're so much more than just, Hey, we have some good buying power, you know, I think this is relationships and education, meeting friends, growing your business, not feeling alone, you know, I can't tell you how many times a dealer tells me. You know, my business is a little different than everyone else's. Every single dealer tells me that every single one. , they also tell me they're the smallest dealer in the group. Some, most of them, , which, which is. Interesting to me that everyone thinks they're different and everyone thinks they're the smallest. And in reality, that's, you know, it's it's sort of not the case. Kind of not the case, right? , the diversity of all this is what makes us so special. So if you're an integrator in the world and you are looking to talk to other people, you have no idea how they so special. run their books or operate their team or go to market or sell their service or, , , have their software running. You join a group and you get to talk to people and you get to meet amazing people. And now you have a friend for life or 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of them.

Ron:

That's amazing. , perhaps we could cover this quickly and then we'll, we'll jp to, , , such a, a bounty of topics I want to get to within the smart home association as you own, there is a, a spring conference and a fall conference. , can you tell us a little bit about the upcoming spring conference?

Patrick:

Yeah. So we actually, , and to expand on that, we, we host about four to five conferences. So our two main conferences. are for owners, , C level executives, kind of the, who's operationally running the business foundationally running the business. , we will be in Indianapolis, May 5, 6, 7, and then we'll be in Chicago. nine, , November nine, 10, 11. So we're going to have two conferences for owners this year. We get about 140 to 150 dealers to show up. , all, all of our vendor members show up. So we have a healthy balance of 300 plus people that come three days, two nights. , we have keynote speakers. We do small group meetings. So we picked a couple of different topics where you can sit and talk with other dealers about that. We have one on one meetings with your vendor partners. So you get to actually sit and talk with the presidents or a senior vice president of sales for a company, maybe for the first time ever. , so you can start business or talk about something that, you know, you've been waiting to talk to them about, but now you have a captive audience with them. And then we have fun. You know, we go out, we'll do a restaurant buyout. You know, it's a lot of work hard, play hard, , we do a plus one event, you know, for your spouses or your guests if they want to come to our beautiful locations. We were in San Diego last year at the Omni. , so we had people going out. They did some wine tasting, of course. So we have some fun for your family. You have some fun for you as we go out and check out a cool city and see what the nightlife is all about. And then our other events are built for the next layer down. So we think it's important to go into your business. So we put on meetings for operations, sales, marketing, lead technicians, emerging leaders was a new catch all title for I'm going to run a team or I am running a team. , so we kind of pockmark those around. The country as well, typically attached to a vendor partner. So we've gone to Sonance and Leon, , our friends Lowell out in St. Louis who builds racks, , and things like that. So that's, that's sort of our education, how we come together. That's the platform we provide for people to come together, share ideas. network, be friends, be merry, be jolly, you know, be part of the community.

Ron:

Out of curiosity, just, you know, there's, you said there's 300 plus people in Azione. I've been to, I want to say, all the Azione conferences for the last six years. So I've seen the group grow nicely. , and there, there's a handful of other groups or associations around the industry, , but yet still such a minority of the businesses. You know these by appointment only custom integration type shops such a I would challenge such still a minority of these businesses are actually in any group Yeah, and so many

Ron:

of them are out there on their own on an island trying to figure things out Why do you think that is and what? Approach needs to be taken. Do you think to try to gain access to them? So at least they become aware that participating in a group likely can make a positive impact on their life.

Patrick:

Yeah. It, and it's, and it's, we've looked at that before and depending on where you look and who you talk to, we think that the total addressable market of integrators is somewhere between 15 and 20, 000. So if you think we have about 300. , the other groups out there represent another six to 900, you know, we've really only started to scratch the surface of this thing. , most of our membership comes by way of referrals. So that's dealers telling each other the thing has now has legs and it has moment. So it's dealers talking to each other, it's vendors talking to their. Dealer partners and it's reps. We get a lot from reps as well who say, Hey, this group, we've had a couple of reps come to our events, so they kind of see what's going on. But I think the nature of the business is most successful integrators as they're growing their business right when we want to help them out the most. are working in their business, not on their business. And they don't know how to detach from it because they have been the main horsepower, the main driver. I'm, you know, these guys grind from eight in the morning to eight at night, taking care of everything they need to do. When are they supposed to sit down and read an email from me that says, Hey, I have to, I have to explain, , exactly everything I do in one email and you get it on the first try. It just. It just doesn't happen, right? They need someone like a rep or a vendor or another buddy of theirs to sit down and go, no, no, no, you really need to spend some time. , a lot of my conversations happen on the third time around. It's the first time of like, Hey, someone told me about you. We should connect. Okay. Let's connect two months later. Hey, sorry about that. I really want to know what you're all about. But I haven't found the time to do it. Can we connect again? Sure. When are you available? Third time around. No, really, this time I'm going to set up a meeting. Let's sit and do it. Okay. Okay. I promise I'll do it. So we sit down and we go through the presentation and we show them what we're all about. So I think it's just, Understanding there's a group out there that can support you, work for you, negotiate all your programs, provide you all this education and make it super, super affordable, if not, , financially productive for you. Because when you focus on buying the right vendors in the program, you're actually making more money than you invest. And that's a good thing for you and your business.

Ron:

That makes sense. You mentioned negotiate the programs, , you know, is the main benefit. , of an as he owned the, the, the negotiated programs. Or do you, do you believe it's far more than that?

Patrick:

I think it's more than that. You know, I, the way we've structured, , Richard and I, the way we structured over the years, , as we talk to people who want to know about the group. Is front loaded with who we are, what we do, what we stand for, what our initiatives are, what our goals are, what we've accomplished, , where we want to be. You know, it's an hour long presentation and we spend 30 to 40 minutes there. And usually by the end of it, they go, Oh, let's do it. I'm ready. You know, that sounds great. Then we show them, okay, well, by the way, here are some of the lines that support Ozone and you should support them back. Because fundamentally. That is what we're all about. Vendors support dealers, dealers support vendors, vendors or members, dealers or members. We're all in stride. We're all working for the same thing. So by the time we get to those programs, it's kind of a cherry on top. It's, it's really great. , we can help start moving business. What we think into a focus line, because philosophically Ozi believes that you should have less, less is more. You don't need. 678 of any line speakers cables wires anything focus on what's in front of you focus on negotiated programs from vendors who are giving back to the group, these, , really healthy programs for you to support them and them to support you. And then you have direct contact with sometimes they might talk to you, Ron, specifically and directly, which is huge. Although I think you're kind of hands on too. , but you know, that's, that's, that's pretty wild for somebody, you know, six months ago, who was just on their own. And now they're talking to the president of the company, of the vendor company that they've been purchasing from for years. Decades. They love this stuff. And now they get to talk to them directly. I think that's pretty, that's pretty special the way we can bring all that together.

Ron:

Is it fair to approximate that if someone is of size that could qualify to be an Azione, that if they simply do that same vole, they're probably going to see the dues they pay. Renerated back in the form of rebates or program benefits to look at the financial side.

Patrick:

Yeah. And it's, it's really about piling it on. Right. And that's, that's the benefit here is, is we all pile on with our vendors. That's why we're selective with who we have. And we can't, you know, if you put on every partner in the world, as much as I love everyone I meet. You won't hit programs because you're not focused and you're kind of all over the place. So if you need to grow with a vendor you have to be focused You have to grow your own pies before you cut it and we really like to grow those pies. That's for sure.

Ron:

That makes sense , I want to go more into azion, but I I want to dig a little bit into you and specifically i'll just , State the obvious a lot of people know azion As you've already mentioned founded by richard glykes back 13 years ago And , and he he ran that that that group, you know strongly and proudly and successfully , richard has a personality , you know bigger than life and , and and and people, you know The time is the time and there's all these ephemisms that are are so closely attached to richard , and I've certainly You know respect the heck out of the man for what he built take take us through the kind of the background And maybe start with you. What's your background? And then how ultimately did you did you land it as he owned and then ultimately grow to this? Executive director role because everyone knows richard's now moved on. He's exited the company. Successfully, sold His his equity in the company and and retired from that role. Take us through that, that whole picture, but really focused on you and your background and, and kind of how that transition happened.

Patrick:

Yeah. So this is, this is a fun story and, and, you know, I can kind of, , weaponize what some people think is, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll talk about how young I am. And then I'll say, well, five years ago when I was in high school and I start to make people kind of, you know, squirm and they're like, you come on, man. , but no, you know, I am, I am for obvious. obviously pretty young for an industry that I think, , people kind of come into and establish themselves. And by the time I meet them, they've been doing this for 10, 15 years, right? , so my background, much like many of the people I talked to had nothing to do with where we are now, just sort of a hobbyist, someone who is naturally intuitive with electronics and very curious about it. But my background is journalism. So I went to Temple university in North Philadelphia I graduated with a journalism degree, and I kind of fell into the temple newspaper as their web editor, who then became their video editor, who then became a writer and photographer and did some layout for the paper. I've never done anything like that in my life. I just sort of said, sure, let me try it out and see what happens. And that's sort of always been my philosophy is let's try it and just be curious. And if you like it, let's keep doing it. So yeah, Packaged up this idea that I could handle media and write stories and take photos and create websites. , put it all together, took it to the dean of the college and he said, you should go work for this newspaper out in southern Illinois. , I found out that my moment to be curious didn't go as far as I wanted it to working at an actual newspaper wasn't the kind of excitement that it had. working at my college newspaper. It wasn't a fit. , had a lot of fun there. Really like the people, but I really also went from Philadelphia to Southern Illinois and had a totally different lifestyle change. So I said, the first job that brings me back to Philly, I'm taking it in that job. Was a CI publishing B2B publishing for the CI industry, which is I had to Google every single one of those words before I went into that interview. , and I ended up getting the job at the time working for dealer scope and technology integrator, which covered CE. And C. I. Respectively. So I got on the C. I. Beat if you will. And now all of a sudden I was going to C. D. A. And pro source and H. D. S. A. And Ozzy own. I went to a robotics show out in Hong Kong. I went to IFA. Out in Berlin, which is great. So I was going to all these trade tech shows and I

Ron:

was, I

Patrick:

was great. And you know, I'm 26 at the time I'm in Hong Kong, you know, just my head's spinning. I'm like, how did I end up here? You know, four months ago I was in Southern Illinois trying to figure out which bar was open past 10 o'clock. Now I'm in Hong Kong, you know, across the world. It was, it was amazing. , but I got to cover this. industry as its own world. And the more I did that, the more I became infatuated with. but also the people. And it was, everybody had this fascinating story. They were, they worked on wall street or they were a surgeon or, , you know, they started their own business right out of high school and, or they worked for somebody for 30 years and then took over the, you know, everybody had these fantastic stories. And I think that scratched an itch in my brain. And I think that's what really got me connected. And then I started to find out that people also had jobs in a very small universe. You know, you came from, Lutron, I believe. Is that right?

Ron:

Yeah, many years ago.

Patrick:

That's so you have a different background. And, , all that was so fascinating. , and of course, the peak of fascination is when I got to go to my first Aussie M conference in Las Vegas and interview Richard. For not only what was happening at the conference, but also as a, , , lifetime achievement award for dealers scope. So I had a two hour conversation with him for the first time that I ever met him. And of course, you know, Richard has, no one has a more fascinating background or history or war stories in Richard. So I got the full story of everything he did from. He went to Villanova and he had a, , , theater, an arts and theater degree. You know, I kind of felt related to that where we both fell into an industry that we'd never heard of. , and ironically, I went and I sat down with my boss at the time, Mary Ellen. And I said, all I want to do is have that guy's life. I thought that was so funny that I, you know, I tell the story all the time. I don't know why I couldn't have picked, you know, , Tom Cruise or Barack

Patrick:

Obama. I, why I picked Richard and it came true. I'm not sure. , So, , you know, I became infatuated with this whole industry and, , I ended up taking a short stint with portal. You know, Josh is, is sort of local to where I am and I had a good rapport with him and he needed a director of marketing and, , my time at technology integrator was, was sort of sun setting, was kind of moving in a different direction anyway, so I thought this was a good transition at a good time. , that lasted for a little while, , they had a restructuring that I got caught in the middle of, and then I got a phone call out of nowhere from Richard Gleicks, and he said, come have lunch with me, and he was also local. , so I went, we had lunch, and one conversation later, he said, you're gonna come work for Richard Gleicks. I said, oh, I am. I said, what am I, what am

Ron:

I going to do? What am I going to do?

Patrick:

He said, you know, you'll come work for me and you'll come work for Ozone and you know, we'll, we'll figure this out. You'll talk to members, you'll do some of our marketing, you'll do PR, you know, again, taking all these different things, packing it, packaging it up together. So I was, I was very, in fact, I was curious of what, what could I do? How could this work? , You know, a week later I was helping him move a table into his basement. , you know, I was like, Oh, this is what working for Richard actually. And I say that with, you know, a lot of love, , you know, Richard and I are very close and, and, , we did a lot of work and, you know, sometimes I reflect back that I've been working for Ozi for six years and it's been in business for 13 and it doesn't feel like I've been working here for half of its. Half of its time alive, you know, but you look back and it's, yeah, I, you know, I have. And so I think that's pretty special. You know, I think that, , I had a lot to do with where it is, but I also love all the work and dedication that Karen has put into this. Maxie is our newest marketing manager and she's put a lot of, you know, she's. Totally created a new timeline for Ozzy on, , you know, Nick Burnett, when he was working with us, he helped put so much operations and HR and all this background and backbone into all of our systems. And everybody who comes into the Ozzy on world wants it to win. So they leave a little bit of something on it. They leave their fingerprints. And I think Ozzy on was built to accept that, to accept. , some of the influence and good ideas and take what works and run with it and, you know, move quickly and be agile. I think that's what made this place so special. So, , last October, , I was put in as executive director in the transition between Richard leaving and right now. So it's been a couple of months with me at the helm. , the ship did not explode, which I'm very grateful for. You know, I kept waiting. I keep saying I kept waiting for it. , us to cut the wrong wire and the bomb explodes, but, you know, I've been peeking through my fingers and everything looks pretty good. So far so good as we enter 2025. So that's sort of my story.

Ron:

What was it like going, , what were the date of the, what was the date of the fall conference? , because that's, I just recall you being on stage and, and I believe you were in that executive director role at that point. Was that interim? Were you at the interim or you were officially announced as the executive director at that point? I was

Patrick:

officially announced, , five days before I was on stage. So it would

Ron:

take us through that. What was that like for you?

Patrick:

So it was, it was a, , in retrospect. I'll say a grateful, graciously tedious process. , there was something like eight or nine hour long interviews that I went through with the entire executive leadership team at Nationwide. , you know, they really put this thing to the test in the trial and made sure that, , you know, what they were hearing from the person closely aligned with what Azione should be in the future, right? Is how I'll say that. , and that what I mean by that is they is I really believe in carrying the torch for Azione in a different way because my background and my legacy Doesn't involve me bringing in a bunch of things that I know how to do or i've done before It's i've been in this seat or in this position for six years. So , can I keep the moment going and can I work closely with the people i've already established relationships with to make sure Azione continues to move forward so One week before they put me on stage as executive director. What did I feel? I don't know. I felt that, , I don't know if I had time to feel. I don't know if, and I, what I mean by that is that I don't know if it's hit me yet that, , this responsibility has been bestowed to, you know, they've given me the keys to the Lamborghini. They've, you know, they've, they've given me some power to make executive decisions because I feel very supported by everyone around me. You know, I have a good team. Both internally through the advisory board, which you've been a part of, , through our education committee, through dealers who really, really care about the success of OzEon, vendors who really care about the success of OzEon. So I have a, It's not exactly designed by committee because you don't want to make a Subway sandwich with 300 people behind you, but it's really easy to be successful when everyone around you is rooting for it. And everyone around you has good ideas and everyone around you wants you to know what should be done to keep the group moving forward. And now it's just my job to sort of sort through it. Pull the best ideas and run with it. So it's, it's, I don't know, Ron, I really haven't just kind of keep moving forward. Right. I kind of feel like all of our dealer dealer members, you know, you kind of keep growing and you just run through the next wall and just keep going.

Ron:

What's the, , the Disney movie, , , just keep swimming. Just keep

Patrick:

that's right. That's right. That's you gotta keep swimming, man. You can't, you can't stop. And there's a lot of action and a lot of moment and, . You know, it's just, it's a

Ron:

finding Nemo.

Patrick:

Yeah, there you go. Finding Nemo. That's right. , you just, you just got to keep moving forward. And I think that's sort of been, , you know, Azione means action, right? That's what it translates to. So action unlimited. So keep, keep having unlimited action, right? Just keep going forward, keep moving forward.

Ron:

And maybe you touched on this a bit when we just started talking, but maybe, , now that everyone has the frame of background of kind of your journey. , what do you see as the evolving role of what are called buying groups? I know that might be a dirty word, but what, what do you really see the role of, of associations like at Azione? The smart home S association. What are they to the members moving forward? What's their goal or vision for what they are?

Patrick:

It's it, and it's not a dirty word because our DNA and, and, you know, our DNA will always have vendors in it. Right. And I just think as a focus, that's not our main focus anymore. , but we'll always have vendor partners, vendor members in the group. helping us move forward and creating more focus and creating better businesses because of that. But the evolution I think of, of Ozzy on really is to be, , that association and committee of friends around you and support. So as we all continue to talk to each other and evolve, we can do it together. We have a lot of examples in the group of dealers. Who have met through Azione, who now share projects, they share trade secrets, they share labor, you know, if this person is not doing enough and this person has extra work, hey, let my guys come work for you. So there's networks within networks inside of Azione. , and if we can build it correctly and have the right frame of mind to say, leave your ego at the door, be vulnerable, talk to everyone you meet and be friendly. You can build something pretty special because like we touched on earlier, there's so many people hanging out on islands thinking they're the only people that have these problems. And then they come to one conference and talk to another hundred plus people that have the exact same issues or conquered those issues or about to run into those issues. And then you all sort of share, you are all sharing notes and sharing ideas. So the purpose of a group like this is to feel like almost like one big organism, right? And we can all talk freely and share secrets because there is high, there's high tide.

Ron:

It's a community.

Patrick:

It's a community, you know, and we all get together and, , keeping a community in touch with each other. When you have people in Los Angeles and New York and Vancouver, you know, we're in Canada, Toronto, Miami. That can be tough. You know, how many friends do you lose just naturally? , because they move too far away, right? So let's well, we're a tribe, right? We all come together for the main reason of we're in the same industry. We all want to grow our business and we all want to be successful. So if you come into a group with that mindset. You're going to be in it for life.

Ron:

Love it. I want to jp into some a mindful of time and , I've got you here for another, you know, a couple of tens of minutes And so I I want to just kind of rapid fire through some different topics and get your thoughts here in 2025 , it certainly appears, , it, this didn't start this year, but it, it, it started maybe some years ago. , but it seems to continue to heat up and that's all the M and a activity happening across the industry. , I don't want to offend anybody by leaving people out, but I'll state some of the obvious, , daisies in the news, nonstop, , high solutions is out there. , Bravis is out there. Level up is out there. , and, and then there's even, I'll just say a good nber of dealers that are doing M and a activity just amongst themselves. They're not part of a, a private equity group or VC money or other money. They're just using their own money and success to then merge and acquire. What's, , what does that say about the industry?

Patrick:

I think there's a couple of different ways that I think about this. And I think it's, I think it's great to celebrate both. , the businesses that are able to sell and those people get to move on and they built a successful business. I think it's great that, , people can celebrate, like you said, they merged with someone maybe in their own market. We've had that happen even in Aussie owned. A couple of dealers have come together to say, Hey, we're better together. Right. And we've always been preaching. Let's be better together. So I think there's different ways to celebrate. the different levels of success and also just celebrating those dealers who are going to grow their own empire and become, you know, their own, , gigantic business on their own. So MNAs are interesting. They're, they're certainly not easy, right? If you talk to these people, there's a lot of moving parts and there's a lot of different, , styles and flavors to this. And when you bring on, you know, we, we merged with were acquired by nationwide. So we're going through that same. Call it growing pains. I would just say growing, you know, sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's awesome. , but you're, you're, you're growing. You have to grow alongside these businesses. Change is

Ron:

hard. If nothing yet, maybe it's not pain, but it's hard. It's hard to change,

Patrick:

right? It's, well, it's, you know, it's, we think it's painful because we've always done it this way and why would we change our ways to what you want? You know, and it's, you know, it's a little bit of ego, right? I think is the hardest thing that you have to accept when you have an M and a is. Is, , you know, you don't always get to play by maybe your own rules anymore, or you have to find the middle ground all of a sudden where you're used to doing it your own way. So I think when I was talking with, , Travis Leo, who was formerly with Azione on our advisory board, , now run synergy. , you know, we talked a little bit about exiting the, , Industry and selling your business and looking at your EBITDA, , growing exponentially, but dealers may not be able to pinpoint why it's not where they want it to be. And most of it is because they're, project driven, , businesses. So when they go to sell and they're saying, well, if you're going to leave and you were the main drive behind all the projects, you know, you're not worth as much, your company is not worth as much, maybe as you think. But I think Travis said a very interesting is that. They think that there should be this high EBITDA, but there's no barrier of entry. So there's, there's no way to assess where you're supposed to start in this industry, because if you have a truck with a couple of products on it and you're one guy, you can make a nice living. And now you're in the industry and you're the same person as a five location, 20 million dealer. ,

Patrick:

so I think it's just to be in the wild west an to call integrators. If y public, you know, we're n not plbers. We are , We are technology adviso We're trying to figure it all out in real time. So I think it's exciting, , that we can talk about this with the outside world. And there's people who look at what we do is interesting, whether that money is coming from around us or from private investors, , or private equity out there, but I think it's just sort of a time to celebrate that our industry is growing. I think it's a time to kind of hold on tight and see where it all goes. I think it's, , more unfounded territory, which I know really excites the custom integration world. You know, we truly like to break new territory and smash through new ceilings. So I, you know, I, I think I'm all over the place with it. I think it's exciting and scary and. , you know, I think it just needs a lot of thought, right? And it needs to be, we've seen a lot of people try it over the years, different groups try to roll up. , and they've had their, their, they've had their trials and tribulations, you know, even now, as these people that you mentioned are going through the exact same sort of growth modes and what that looks like. So there's just no script to this thing. It's, it's, it's exciting and scary all at the same time.

Ron:

I agree. I think that, , I think it's. Awesome for the business owners that are able to capture some equity for their many years of hard work. Yes. I think that it's also very rare air in the custom integration industry where a business is actually able to do that. I mean, just based on your nbers, you said 15 to 20, 000 businesses make up the space. You know, and I, I'm going to say, I I've heard ranges anywhere from 10 to 20, 000. So it's, it's somewhere in there are the total population. And yet how many of these businesses, , I'll just say in the last five, , maybe go as far as 10 years have actually been acquired. Like how many, I mean, is it less than a hundred?

Patrick:

It's hard to, it's, it's hard to say, you know, because I couldn't put a nber on it because there's all the time. , people will pop up and say, Hey, by the way, you need to change our DBA because we merged with someone three years ago, you know,

Patrick:

so they became a new business entity. , So it's, I think it'd be hard for me to put a nber on it. , but you know, and you know, the other point that just dropped in my mind is what I think is very interesting is you take a step back. Why do they want to leave, right? Gaining equity, you know, pulling out equity on their business. Great. They want to retire. That's awesome. But I think if you also look at the evolution of the landscape of offerings. People may not feel as comfortable to continue their business into the future with lighting, with shading, with, , RMR being such a big part of this. Network

Ron:

driven technologies. Maybe they're stuck in the analog days and they don't see themselves as network engineers, which is really what you have to be to be an AV automation company today.

Patrick:

Right. And that, or at least that's the lion's share of what's being presented out there, right? So you may not feel at home when you started your business 20 years ago. As a two channel specialist, right? You may think now to yourself, oh, this looks a lot different and I don't know how to hire for it. The evolution around me and I don't, you know, so now I want to get out. So I think that there's good and bad to this, right? We are changing. I think there are a lot more. There are a lot of really young people getting into this industry with a lot of vigor trying to get out there and just I love the young,

Ron:

hungry go getters that are, and there are, there's a lot of young go getters that are either breaking off of their current workplace, , or finding this industry altogether, just smart talent that's out there that's going to figure it out.

Patrick:

Right. Or they, you know, they want to get out and make sure that their company's in good hands. You know, they've built a wonderful business. , they just want to switch over leadership so that. The people in the family they've built is now being taken care of because these are real people, you know, at the end of the day, they need to continue moving forward to, so a hundred different reasons to do it, but I think it's all exciting.

Ron:

I agree. And, , it's, it's going to be fun to continue to watch it play out for sure. , As he owned was acquired by nationwide nationwide has a couple of other buying groups there. And, and the nationwide parent, there's just a lot of moving parts. And I'm assing that there's, , there's exciting and interesting aspects to that larger parent company. Can you kind of just break down, like there's different, as he owns a group, there's different groups, and then maybe broader, what has you excited about the overall opportunity of being a part of that bigger family now?

Patrick:

Yeah. So, , two and a half, three years into this, I promise you, I'm still learning things every single day about what nationwide can do and what they're capable of, because, , we are a six person team, , that handles again, 50 plus vendors, 300 plus dealers. We represent a little sliver of, of the CI portfolio where we have our sister companies, Oasis, , which is another 300 plus they will be 600 integrators, , with a couple of their own, with their group of their own group of vendor partners, vendor members. We have a couple of shared vendors, and then we have ellipsis, which is a commercial group. So we kind of have different identities in the CI portfolio. We are also siloed next to FEI. So they are roofing, flooring, cabinets, , backsplashes, countertops. They work with builders. They're another 400 members in their group. , they represent, they're in every, one in every three new U. S. residential constructions, whether that's MDUs, production homes, spec homes, a little bit of custom homes in that mix. So there's a relationship there, which if you're looking at the Venn diagram, there's certainly some shaded in in the middle. We have another group in Canada that helps finance, do financing for our custom integrators up there. And then you look at the nationwide side and there's 5, 000 plus, , appliance, bedding, retail dealers out there. Some are doing the ultra high end appliances, the sub zeros, the wolves. , some are have 10 locations or just. churning and burning and getting a lot of foot traffic. , they do some CE as well. So the services that Nationwide has been able to build out, , warranties, credit card swipe rates. Health insurance, , fleet management services, you know, they have the capacity to do that and the capabilities, which is really cool. So not only do I get to interact with the high end appliance and the high end retail, I also get to talk to these guys who work in builders and they work on roofing and cabinets and flooring. And all of a sudden we have this whole ecosystem and a story to tell. And I, I was kind of laughing because I said, who do we have the story to tell too? Because now we can do everything, you know, from cradle to grave nationwide has a piece in everything we do. And I think that's really, really interesting as again, we evolve as Azione to become a better community. We now have all these partners that are. Are not, they're more than partners. They're, we're working on the same company. We're under the same roof essentially. So it's just, it's just massive growth trajectory. You know,

Ron:

F E I, is there any integration or collaboration happening at the moment between that group and as the owner, is that in the works?

Patrick:

So they're, they're just as new to nationwide as we are. They were acquired about the same time. , so we've started to, I went to their conference, , in, in. Last October or September down in D. C. So I got to see what they're all about. , we're looking to integrate them. So our next conference will actually be co located with Oasis and ellipsis. So all of our vendors can have a one stop shopping if they're part of a couple of different groups. , and they want to see all of our members. , now we're looking to talk with FBI, bring some of their members into our circle and just talk to us. And I, and I had to laugh because they had a panel at their show, and they had four people go up there. And guess what they were talking about. How do I implement better RMR? Where is my labor? How do I streamline my operations? How do I train my people? You know, have you ever been to an Aussie owned conference that didn't touch on those topics as well? You know, we're, we're all fighting the same problems. And that again is amazing. You know, it's just exponential. Aussie owned ecosystem has the same problems. Sister companies have the same problems. So we're, we're, we're getting really close to these people and we want to be the de facto integration with, you know, builders all across America, because FBI has those connections. We think that's a very powerful partnership that we can continue to grow on and natural.

Ron:

Got it. No, that sounds exciting. I can't wait to see where you and team take that. , next topic is education. , certainly a big part of the conferences for the many years I've been involved in participating has been education. , how do you look at Azione’s role with helping or assisting in the education, , of the integrator? , and, and I'll just say, you know, there's you as a group or association, , have the opportunity to lead there. I know you're doing that at the conferences where the leaders or CEO types go, C level go, but then you also have the middle manager education. And, , you know, I'm going to call a spade a spade. , for many years, Cedia, , led with education and, , I think that they're, they've. Lost a bit of their footing and I, I, I think that they're working on that. And I think they're trying to figure that out. And I think they're trying to remain relevant and important. I think they will, by the way. And, , , I'm certainly rooting that they will, but at the end of the day, the business owner of a CI business, I mean, not only do they need to keep their team up to speed on all the technical evolution of our space. But also, , the always and evergreen topics of just the basic and principles and fundamentals of running a business, which many of the business owners, many of the members here did not go to school, , and study business and learn how to run a business, right? They're, they're figuring this stuff out often on the fly or trial and error. So how do you see the role of Azione? And in fact, what is that collaboration with Cedia and what does that look like for you?

Patrick:

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, I think as I look back at how Cedia has evolved, I think they have a problem that Azione also ran into, which is they try to do, I think they try to boil the ocean just like we do. Let's tackle everything all at once, all the time, and of course we'll be good at it because we're the best around. , so in the years, you know, since, , you know, they've, they've sold off, been able to sell off their trade show. I think they've been able to focus, right, and stop boiling the ocean and, and, you know. Kind of drive that back to its fundamentals. I think Azione has a little bit of that too, where we try to do too much all over the place. And it's, how do we get back to exactly, like you said, the fundamentals, the laws of gravity, the things that are foundationally important. , you know, I was talking with a deal when he was part of Google, who was in the group. And he said, the best businesses out there have a really good integrator and a really good businessman, and they're never the same person or very rarely. So. What that said to me was we need to help not only on the technical side and product side, which there's endless education for, because every vendor is really good at creating that. But we also need to help on those fundamentals, the PNLs, the operations, the hiring and retaining, the firing, , , this, , , putting in a service department, having your RMR strategy. What is your proposals look like? You know, just these fundamentals of presenting yourself as a well oiled polished business so that when you talk to a high net worth affluent client, they see you just like they do the Lamborghini dealer, the Aston Martin, you know, these, these high end. You name it businesses. So education is so important to us. Now, I think I made up a new word in, in Sisyphusian task of creating education that everybody asks for, but then you're going to

Ron:

have to tell the audience who Sisyphus is in order for that. Adjective you've just invented to fully realize it's full merit. What is that Greek mythology?

Patrick:

I think so. I think so. You know, and, and by the words are, you know, if you know, context of the word is now a real word. I'm, you know, I'll put my stamp on that. I

Ron:

think I'm going to contact Webster dictionary and let them know. Patrick McCarthy has. Defined a new word that needs to be entered. That's right. Anyway, go ahead. Who is Sisyphus? Everyone's going to realize this quickly. As you, you described

Patrick:

it, he was rolling the hill. He was, he was cursed to roll the rock up the hill. Every time he got to the top, he would wake up at the bottom, you know, and he'd have to roll that, that, , rock back up the hill every, every day for the rest of his life. So

Ron:

the never ending arduous task.

Patrick:

Right of always rolling this rock uphill, right? , oh it isn't maybe it is a word Yeah, there you go. Dan

Ron:

our producer. He just dropped it merriam webster. com Yeah, I can't even say it But that word

Patrick:

I love and I, and you know, you know, if you know anything about ozone, you know, we love a $5 word. So, , the task of, of rolling this education rock uphill, and then the flavor of the month changes, or I don't have enough time to sit down and take it, or, , you know, there's something new about this, that that's become a little bit outdated. So I think there's a little bit of. , perfect timing, right place, right time where you can create education that is always evergreen. That always helps a business be better while sprinkling on the, , how to put AI into your business. How is a K going to work? , how can you sell high performance? How can you get into new categories like lighting, shading and energy? , there's a really, really delicate balance there where you can't go too far over One side or the other, where people start to think that you're no longer relevant to what they need to do right now. , but I think as businesses grow, they naturally find themselves wanting to be better businessmen and wanting to figure out what can I do to improve that for myself. So Azione is tasked with creating the right education that is right to the point. sticks with them and is easy to conse. It's really easy when you're at a conference, captive audience, they have nowhere to go except for the bar and they can sit and actually, , take the education in and learn about it. It's really difficult to convince them that their lead technician needs to sit at a computer for an hour and Watch something about, you know, leading a team soft skills on how to lead a team better. You know, the ROI might not be very apparent to them in the moment, , because you're investing in the future, right? There's compounding investments that only take place down the road when your lead technician or your operations or your sales manager becomes smarter, better, faster, stronger. A lot of these businesses have learned trial by fire trial by combat. I'm in the field. Let me just figure it out there. There's a delicate balance in there. I don't think anybody has figured it out perfectly. I think people have gotten really good at it. People have gotten close. , I think Azione strategy is going to be a little bit of how can we continue conversations? I think we have a little bit of, , education gbo going on. A lot of good stuff tastes really good. , but it's kind of just thrown together and it's all, it needs to be organized. And I think once you can organize it. Put it in an easy to conse format, easy to conse place, maybe gamify it, reward it, you know, you, you start to feel good about consing education. I think sometimes it can feel like there's friction. So, you know, a long, a long sort of windy answer to education is super important. , I think the more the merrier, but I think there's bigger strategies out there than just let's record this and put it out into the world.

Ron:

Got it. I want to pull a thread, , really tying back into your journalism background, , Patrick, and that is, I was recently, , at a HVAC conference and I was just, you know, doing a little market research, actually attending some of the marketing classes that are being offered to those contractors and, , in the marketing class, , one of the main topics they were hitting, they were hitting on two primary themes. One was the importance of reviews. , online to drive, , loyalty and, , trust in people that are doing research, which is specifically referrals that are coming in. And the other thread was, or the other side of that, , education was around the importance of earned media. Now earned media is a fancy term in marketing, but what it means is when your business is written about and, , no, you know, newspapers, magazines, you're published. And people are ultimately saying good things about you. And it's not you saying good things about you. People don't really care what you say about you. People care about what other people say about you. And, , specifically in the HVAC contractor world, it seems to be a very regular tactic where. , businesses that are say doing philanthropy or maybe they're doing a school backpack, , collection from their clients or from partners. And, and, , that's an example I heard. Another one I heard was, , there was, you know, the big floods in Houston a few years ago. And, , , , an HVAC contractor had said he would do a dollar match for every donation that came in to help the victims. Anyway, they were then taking those good deeds for the community and really working them up from local television, local publicity to drive that community love and affection and appreciation for what they were doing as members of the community and how that's a really positive driver for business growth. I don't see a lot of that happening in our channel. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but what's your opinion? Just, this is very specific. It's a granular topic related to marketing and it's, it's not something one Firefly, I'm not advocating products or services we offer. It's not something we've historically done or played in. I'm curious what you believe the role of earned media or pub PR could be for integrators to help drive their. Differentiation are standing out in their market.

Patrick:

Yeah. It's a really great topic. If you take a step back, you're really talking about, , the death of, of print media, which by the way, my first journalism class, he showed me an article, my professor from a hundred years ago that said the prep, the death of print media is imminent, you know, a hundred years later, that's still being published. , so I don't think it's, it's, there's a death knell to it, but I do think there is. , more avenues, right? So newspapers aren't less important. There's just easier ways to conse. So what I mean by that is I don't think there's less charity work happening. I think there's just harder. It's just harder and harder to find because there's so much noise and there's You know, you end up doom scrolling on tip talk before you actually go read an article on the new york times, whatever But what I do see happening around us is both dealer and vendor and now Azione doing a whole bunch of this charity work Which is amazing Now we just need the coverage to your point to earn that media, but we look at dealers like Mosaic down in the group and they put on I'm gonna say it wrong, but I think it's blues bruise Blues, booze and brews. , so they do a little festival where they play some blues music. I think it, , they do some beer tastings, stuff like that. And when I was talking to Mike about it, he said the first time they did it, they had a couple, maybe less than 100 people, raised a couple thousand bucks. , but it was never about how can I raise a million dollars overnight? It was how can I bring people together? How can I donate to a great cause, make everybody feel good about it, put on a little party, and then also tell them, hey, by the way, here's what I do and here's who I am. , he's been doing that for something like 10 years now. It's, it's, it's grown, you know, Ozone has made a small donations to it. We helped promote it to our membership, , with the recent LA fires. Kyle Steele over at Global Wave. He put out, , he made a whole website built into his or part of his website that was, , donating, , had to go fund me up there. It had relief for some of the workers and some of the people. , and now that philosophy has also come to Aussie on through Nationwide because Nationwide, everything they do, every time they have a conference, it's leave it better than you find it. And when they bring 3, 000, 4, 000 people to a convention center, , they really want to leave it better than they found it. So they do a lot with No Child Hungry, where they pack tons and tons and tons of food. They do the assembly line. Ozzeone was tasked with the same thing. So now at our conferences, we always have a give back. , we've donated to colorectal cancer alliance to help, , Add to the research of that and, and help, , that horrible cancer, which is quickly becoming one of the, you know, , fastest killers in America. , we've donated to the Ronald McDonald Fund. , you know, we've, we put on charity events that are able to, , not only give back, but then we get to feel good because we all come together. And again, our community is now connected because we've all gone through grief. We're all real hans, and we can all. You know, support each other in a totally different emotional way, which I think is amazing. Every time we put on a symposi, we pack something like 200 backpacks for kids that need backpacks because we're right in the smer. So now we can do these backpacks full of calculators, rulers, papers, pens, pencils, and then give it back to the community, which I think is amazing. So, , there's all this happening around us. I just don't think we get enough coverage. , nice has a really great example of this, where they help build it. Connected homes for veterans. So people who come back from the war the

Ron:

Gary Sinise foundation

Patrick:

the Gary Sinise foundation, correct? and we we actually last conference we got to talk to one of those veterans who has a a lawn controlled home, a nice controlled home. , and he was so grateful. And, you know, he said that he likes his house hot. And every time he leaves the house, he just rips the, you know, the heat on and he gets to come back to a nice warm house. And, , you know, he, he, he can live in his home comfortably. And that's really what we, you know, it's great that we can do luxury high end toys for people who can afford it, but Man, the capabilities we have to control lights and shades and turn coffee machines on and off and, you know, any appliance on and off, it's, it's incredible. So I think naturally we do a lot of that. I don't think we get credit for it. I don't know if guys want credit for it out there. I don't think companies, these people who are doing it, they just want to feel like they're doing the right thing. , and giving back, you know, I think that's what I was most interesting about the people. I mean, is there real salt of the earth and they're very, very, very hble. , and they, and what they do for free says so much more about, you know, the business they built or the people's lives that they've changed to help grow a company. But. The charity that they give out into the world is incredible. I think the only issue is there's not enough places or people covering it. And you know, there's just so much of it out in the world for sure.

Ron:

I agree. I appreciate you taking that, , , that curve ball, , of a topic and just weighing in on it. , I see we're at time, Patrick, folks that want to get in touch with you and, or learn about Azione, where are we going to send them?

Patrick:

So azioneunlimited.com is our website. That's the easiest way. My email is Patrick at azionegroup.com as well. And then our phone number 610 280 3840 is on our website. Email's the fastest way to get to me. , of course, cause we're always, you know, we're never where we're supposed to be in the world. , but there is a form on our website. But yeah, you know, honestly, if you want to find out about Osseo, I would ask your friends, your reps, your vendors. What do you think about Aussie? You know, why are you part of that group? What do you think about those guys? I think that's kind of the way I'd like to have a warm intro is that talk to somebody else about what we've done. I could tell you all day about if my arm was long enough, I could pat my own back, right? , I don't think, I think the, the, the association stands on its own. I think, talk to the people that are a part of it and who've been here for 12, 13 years and see what they think. I think that's where I would direct some of these people first.

Ron:

Love it, Patrick. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of automation on plug, sir.

Patrick:

Always a pleasure, Ron. Thanks for having me.

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Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

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Resources and links from the interview:

• Patrick McCarthy LinkedIn Profile
• Azione Unlimited LinkedIn Profile
• Want to be an Azione Unlimited member?

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