Hey, what's up endless fans, will Kern back here again with another whiteboard Wednesday
And today we are talking about how to audit your a/v budget the word audit. It sounds confusing
It sounds like finance. It sounds ohmygosh boring, but guess what?
We've all had to do it at some point
Whether we think we're spending too much on a V or we just want to make sure we're getting exactly what we need
This is for you
This is our chance to get into the nitty gritty
Get into the weeds and peel our way back from the onion that is event AV
And I'm gonna show you how with a bunch of tips
Rapid-fire in quick succession typical whiteboard Wednesday style and let's just jump right on in
Let's start off with the quantity of items far too often
Do we see it on AV quotes where there's just too much of something whether it's microphones
cables
Projection
Whatever it may be this is your chance for you to dive in and make sure that you have exactly what you need
For example, if you have four people speaking on stages at any given moment. Maybe you have one emcee as well
Who's gonna come up on stage and after stage and you want them to have their own dedicated microphone and let's say you have one
Question-answer microphone. That's a total of six microphones
Well now you can do that counting and look at your quote and see oh my gosh
There's ten microphones ask your AV company and get rid of four of them and boom you down to six
So that's just a simple way that you can save a little bit of money
But sometimes when you do that, especially at endless we see that when we're trying to save money with clients is you do that
It's just a little bit at once but if you do it across multiple categories lighting sound video
Staging that's where you start to see big dollars shaved off. So focus on the quantity of items
Well, we want comes the items. Also, let's talk about those line items and using this little handy tool
I don't know if you've heard of it's called Google
Well what you believe and it's complicated AV sounds it's all not proprietary equipment
We all buy the same equipment utilize it. So what happens is on those quotes they should list out
The specific models names numbers everything like that
Go ahead and copy and paste that plug it into Google and what you'll find is that you'll find YouTube videos
Articles information on what those line items are and what they actually do
This is also a really fantastic way to teach yourself a V
If you don't have someone who's there to explain what every single line item does?
what this also does is you'll find is that it will help hold the AV company accountable because when they
Google, it if you can't find the information on it, it allows you to ask that question. What is this?
please explain it to me and we'll explain that what that means in just a little bit while speaking of someone to
Explain what everything means let's talk about requesting a quote walkthrough
I've talked about this in previous webinars and videos and everything like that
but a quote walkthrough essentially is where when you're getting your quote ask your AV company to walk you through everything line by line by
line by line by line by line
Yeah. Yeah, this sounds like
extraordinarily
Excruciating ly painful experience, especially, you know a big event and they can take a long time
But what you can find is that that's the chance for the AV coming to explain what everything does?
So allows you to ask the hard questions
Which we're going to talk about just right next about asking hard questions about what things do and why do you need it?
speaking of that asking those critical questions
Get critical when it comes to your budget if you're looking to save money and do that formal audit process
We're talking about ask the hard question when you're doing your quote walkthroughs or when after you've gotten your quote and say hey
what is this and
Do I need it? I promise you every AV company
This is gonna drive them nuts because they want to say that every single little piece is absolutely necessary to the execution of their event
Well, it might be that just more of a nice-to-have
It's gonna make their job a little bit easier, but it's gonna cost you a little bit more money to make that happen
Well, if you ask the critical questions the good
Ethical AV company should say you know, what?
We can get rid of that. We'll save a little bit of money. But here's how it's gonna affect you also
I love to say that when you're a CE critical questions about what something is and
Do I need it?
The AV company should always and I repeat always be able to explain any line item on there quote in
A simple to easy and understand manner. I'm sure when you google it
it could still be a little confusing but if they are not able to explain it in a simple easy metaphor and
What it does it means they like Li are trying to confuse you and you don't want that
You want a company that can you can trust and that's gonna help you through the entire process. So
Speaking of which understanding how things are and what things do
Let's talk about getting things really visual and understanding what something's gonna look like, right?
that's where you want to ask for what's called a computer assisted design or what we call a CAD in our
terminology, I should say a CAD is essentially where someone takes what you're getting and
renders it in three dimensions
Imagine creating a visual model in a visual representation of your event in three dimensions
What this means is that you're going to be able to see exactly
What you are getting for your money?
the reason why this is important is a big area that you're gonna finally spend all of your money in is gonna come down into
lighting and decor and to be honest as much as we want our stuff to look really cool with cool lights and we how and
I have great scenic pieces and great designs when it comes to that decor a lot of times if we have to save money
it's the first to go and the reason why is it's one of the areas that
Not a lot of people are gonna realize cost a lot of money
So what happens is when you get a 3d render a computer-assisted design, it's CAD design
It's going to allow you to see what the event looks like and what you might find is on the quote
You just see it's alphabet soup above all these crazy line items of what it is and all these things like that
But then when you get into three dimensions you go. Oh wow. Wait, why do we have five screens?
Why do we have this scenic piece? Hey, this looks a little excessive for what we're trying to pull off
Hey
What if we do this it allows you to see what it is and allows you to communicate
And again audit be AV company and make sure hold them accountable for what they're giving you
It doesn't just come in as a piece of paper saying
Blah blah blah equipment instead you get to see what its gonna look like again auditing and keeping him held accountable
Let's jump into more areas that you can on it and get into the nitty-gritty and that is labor hours believe it or not
I'm sure you know this already labor is one of the most expensive
Parts of Av the people that need to execute to build everything run everything they come at a pretty price
So one of the quickest areas that I see all clients try to save money is the labor but usually they take a wrong approach
Instead they usually say hey, can we get rid of this whole person or can reduce the number of this many people?
Can we do that and instead what I recommend is look at the schedule
What you should be able to do is look quickly at their quote and understand when are guys gonna be there?
when do they leave when do they have their breaks and
Then compare that to your schedule
I know a lot of Av quotes look really confusing when it comes to these labor layouts and see things like day rates and
You know travel per diems all these things like that
but you what you want to do instead is if you can't understand it talk to your
Company and have a conversation with them. Ask them to say here's our schedule
Here's where they are count up. How many?
Hours that you're gonna need AV people they're usually a damn one hour break somewhere in there
and then you should be able to see in a day how many hours there's gonna be working and
What you'll find is a lot of times AV companies do one of two things
They hardly seems like ever get it. Perfect the first time they either under charge for labor or
They overcharge the obvious thing when it comes to an audit is you want to make sure they're not overcharging right?
They're not putting too much labor on there just to pad themselves and then hey
They don't end up working and they take that money home at the end of day o no one wants that right?
The other option though is that they under do it and I know this doesn't relate to Nexus her bringing costs down when it comes
to your audit
but this is also an important part because sometimes what they'll do is they'll under budget their labor and
Then what they'll do is they'll do the event and go
Oh my gosh
We didn't realize we were gonna go into overtime your event went later than expected this and this and that here's another bill
Oh my gosh, I've seen this so much and this is a nightmare. No one wants to be billed after the event. So
What I recommend that you do instead is to go over the labor hours in labor schedule in detail and make sure it's accurate
From the beginning you should be able to ask your a be coming and say as long as I don't change anything
Is this the exact quote that in the exact invoice?
I'll have after the event as long as I don't change anything and if they can't confidently say, yes
chances are they're probably under budgeting and you don't want to have that so get really
Nitty-gritty with your schedule and make sure that's accurate. It'll help you avoid bills in the end
And also avoid you being over charged for labor as well
Alright, what else do we got here core breakdowns when it comes to visually representing the quotes most common way that I see quotes broken
Down is at least breaking things down by rooms
at least they say I God forbid if you're a V quote ever says just
thousands of lines of lists of equipment and you have to guess where things are going and this not trust the AV coming nose at
Minimum hopefully, they should be putting everything into rooms so you can see a room and then a list of equipment below it
What's great about this is it allows you to see a subtotal line item for that room and how much money you're spending with it
Which is really great
For example, if you're trying to reduce the amount of money or spending in breakout rooms
You can see the total cost of each breakout room and add it all together same with general session
You can see where the reception money is going everything like that
What I recommend that you do is break this down even further at least in two categories
So this is where a lot of companies kind of differ in this great debate that comes with selling AV the two camps are either
Line-item everything a hundred percent you get to see the price of for every single line on every cable every microphone everything like that
The other is to see categorized pricing and I kind of go right down the middle
I kind of agree and see both parts of the parties. First thing is the categorized people say hey, you know, I don't want to
Show my clients every single item because then they're gonna nitpick the little pricing right there and ask the create the critical questions
But usually do a little bit less informed obviously you're watching this video. So you're very well-informed but
The other camp says no client should have full control and they should be able to see every single line item again
I see right down the middle
however, what I recommend is to make both companies happy is that you do this categorization in the quote breakdown and again when you're doing
Quote walkthrough, it's gonna make this even easier what it's you. I recommend that you do is that you have everything broken down
Not only by room for example jam session, but then inside those have categories lighting sound video staging decor
labor for just that room and what that should allow you to do is see what major
Areas and chunks that your spend your money in for example
If you see that you're spending a lot of money and lighting again
If you got computer assisted design, you'll be able to say wow. This looks a little excessive Camry bring lighting down
It's not as well needed or for example, you're not trying to spend as much money in two core
You'll see that Decorah line-item
And what's great about this is that's gonna lead to my hidden line item right here
Which is what how does this affect the budget it allows you to ask this great critical question
Which is when you're going in category by category when you need to save money
and you're auditing your budget is to look and say how does this affect the budget then going back again to the
Explaining and easy to understand terms. They should be able to say this is how it's affecting the budget
Okay, for example
I will tell you right now the major categories that you always spend a lot of money on is first labor
The people are the most expensive people are expensive the best people cost a lot of money
That's just the simple fact when it comes to it
The second area is video video equipments really expensive right now because it's the newest greatest thing
Everything has to be in 4k the greatest quality the greatest look the projectors bulbs break down very easily all these things like that
So you usually find that videos the next biggest area
The second biggest area then is 2 core because the core usually is a little bit more fragile
Can't last as many events usually has to be replaced a lot. It tends to be a little bit more expensive
from there
Usually everything is relatively equal lighting and audio tend to be lots of little things put together makes a big budget
So when it comes to your budget the first area to look for again
Is that labor hours making sure that's accurate and then it's asking things like hey, do I need this?
How does this affect the budget and when you have conversations if you find out that a majority of money is being spent in these
high-end expensive
projectors you might say to yourself
well
what can we get away with can we get away with a cheaper projector and you can ask again critical questions that allow you to
See, oh my gosh
This is how my money is being spent and this is where it's going which is the whole point of that audit
All right, so we're on to our last and final item, which is the idea of a reality check
The best way to audit your I'm not going to say the best way another way I should say
For you to audit your budget and your a/v budget is to do a very simple task and that is to get outside
opinions
First there's two ways to do this the easy way is for you to find someone who knows AV really well
Whether it's someone on your staff or it's a consultant
It's someone who used to work at an AV
Company or it's someone who just loves tech and is obsessed about this and can go on those
Four-hour long calls the AV company and find out everything they do and everything that they'd love
Totally ok, but keep in mind there are people out there in the events industry
for example Brant Krueger who was event technology consulting actually sits down in walks clients through their quotes and
negotiates and looks at the hard and
Fast in the best stuff when it comes to AV and make sure you're getting exactly what you need
They kind of do the negotiation for you. So you want to get someone like that on your team?
It's really quick and easy way if you don't feel comfortable a technology to have someone help you
The other way that you can do it if you don't have someone like that at your fingertips is to do a really really simple
Task and that is to take your existing quote
Take the a V's company's pricing a hundred percent off
This is extremely controversial by the way
take all the pricing 100 cent off and just have just the list of equipment feel free to copy and paste just a list of
Equipment labor send that to another AV company and say quote me this exact thing don't give me discounts
Give me exactly what it is and compare the pricing apples to apples
That's why I have a picture of two apples right here
Is that far too often when we hear about this stuff?
Like for example, you're begging two companies against each other or you're comparing AV quotes far too often
It's comparing apples to oranges you say
Hey
I need a projector in this room and the companies come back one with a super high-end
Projector one with a really low end projector and you definitely don't want that
You want exact comparisons you want to have the exact - model - the exact model and make sure the pricing is right
This will allow you to get a really quick audit on your pricing to see hey am I being you know cheated out of something?
Am I be giving a really great deal? You know what could be going wrong?
and what's great about this is a great a V company who you are comparing the quote to should be able to say
Well, why are they doing it this way? Do you do this?
Do you do this and it gets you that piece of free consulting that allows you to see are you?
Getting what you need
Again, I'm a big fan of AV companies being extremely transparent and extremely helpful today
So again, I'm not talking about just taking a quote, you know copying the price over saying oh my gosh
This is the cheapest we have to go with them this and this and that it should be the company that explains things the best
And treats you like a human and interacts with you one-to-one
And that will be the best way for you to audit
Your AV budget is to find that partner who will take care of you. So
We're gonna recap everything that we talked about first
Quantities of items things like microphones projector screens make sure that it's accurate to what you actually need
Next is labor hours and have it match your schedule make sure that it's a hundred percent accurate in that
It is really really close to where you're looking for and that the AV company can say without a doubt
This will be the exact same thing as the invoice I gave you after the event
Asked the critical questions kind of ties in all this but do I actually need this? What does this do? Why do I need that?
Getting the quote walks. There is kind of a proactive way to get critical questions answered right away knowing exactly what's on your quote
Again knowing what's exactly in code 3d CAD design can allow you to visually represent exactly what you're gonna be getting
Next is a reality check
Obviously you want to make sure that you compare quotes
Apples to apples but allowing another company to come in and compare the pricing allows you to make sure you're getting where you need
Next up is asking the hard question. How does this affect my budget?
Can we get this lower in any sort of way? Well second the last Google Eli gnomes
it allows you to educate yourself and what everything does and get to see some cool videos hopefully along the way and
Then last but not least is doing a quote breakdown
Related to rooms and then categories and allows you to see where your money's being spent in different categories
So that's everything related to how to audit your a B budget
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them down below
But what I want to know from you for all of you guys watching in this way. What's your number one tip?
How do you guys audit your budgets?
How do you hold your AV companies?
accountable to make sure that you're getting the exact pricing and the exact items that you need leave that down in the comments below and
While you're doing that go ahead and smash that subscribe button and smash that like button if you enjoyed this very much if you didn't
Like it at all
Give me a thumbs down so I can get that good feedback and I'd love to know how we can improve down in the comments
Well that's going to conclude us again for another whiteboard Wednesday
We'll Kern from endless events here wishing you an amazing Wednesday, and we will catch you guys all later
adios
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