Consultants not just for big jobs any more
Dec 2, 2004 2:20 PM
Whether providing church media professionals with unbiased information and advice, or acting as their “eyes and ears” in project execution, independent consultants have an increasingly high profile in church AV these days.
For one thing, hiring a consultant is no longer an option only for the largest churches looking at the most ambitious installs. “The non-mega churches are really beginning to rely heavily on our services,” says Chuck Walthall of Walthall and Associates in Pensacola, Fla. Walthall says the size of the church or the budget isn't the key to whether a consultant will be involved in an AV job. That decision has more to do with the church’s desire for an independent source of good information, he says. “We bring them rock-solid information on which they can make good decisions.”
Typically, an independent design consultant doesn’t buy, sell, or install anything for the client, but will guide the client through the entire process - ideally from a very early point. Bill Thrasher of the Thrasher Design Group, Inc., notes his firm often helps client churches prepare packages of bid documents as the basis for a competitive procurement.
A recent example is the First Baptist Church of Woodstock in suburban Atlanta. “We wrote the specs for the minimum requirements,” Thrasher says. “The church bid the project directly.” Much of a consultant’s value, Thrasher says, lies in the ability to see the entire project as a whole. “We want to think through how the audio relates to the video, how all of these things relate to each other and to the mission of the church,” Thrasher says.
W. Allen Schulte, himself a former consultant and now a regional consultant liaison for Crestron, agrees that a multiple-bid environment usually indicates a role for a consultant. At a minimum, he says, a consultant can help a church client develop bid documents that assure responsive and comparable bids, without major gaps in information and opportunities for misunderstanding.
In addition, a consultant hired early in the design process can suggest additions to a project without being perceived as selling. Schulte cites assistive listening systems as an item not commonly considered by church media managers, but often embraced enthusiastically once proposed.
Representing Crestron, Schulte sometimes sits in on very early pre-design conferences, where he can answer questions, provide information, and get early warning of potential stumbling blocks as the project develops. “In the very early design stage, there is rarely an AV integrator involved,” Schulte says. Early decisions sometimes have big impacts later.
For example, Schulte says, sometimes the general contractor is tasked with installing electrically powered dropdown screens in conference rooms. It may make sense from a construction point of view, he explains, “but what if it doesn’t work with the control system? Who’s responsible?”
Communication is the key to smoothing out relationships among the players in a complex job, says Walthall, adding that “the bottom line is meeting the needs of the client.”
Dan Stevens of the Whitlock Group says his company sometimes does consulting itself, and often finds itself working with an independent consultant. The consultant’s attitude toward the relationship makes all the difference, he says.
“Some insist that the only way they can work is if it’s an adversarial relationship,” Stevens says. “But some realize that we actually have opinions to which they should listen.”
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