I was approached with an offer to partner with a car audio dealer, who has wanted to do CI. What do you guys think? Company has been around for about 15 years with 2 locations. Has anyone run into this. Should I avoid this type of partnership?

The partnership would need to be better defined before we could give any real advice. Does he want to buy product from you or just take a cut of any jobs he brings you, a complete 50/50 or what?

I do this, you are welcome to call me if you want. I do not feel good about discussing biz on a public forum or you can join IP and discuss it freely there.

About fifteen years ago I dragged a great car installer into retail A/V store building, then home A/V; he has gone in the commercial direction and does a great business and incredible work.

It took about a year and a half to get this car installer to leave enough slack in the wires to be able to connect things comfortably. He was used to zero space for bundling slack, so usually everything moved just far enough to get to the connector, no more. This was his biggest drawback. Not crucial, but irritating.

His ability to visualize three-dimensionally, based on his successful work with cars and dashboards in particular, was a big help.

There were some odd concepts that had to be corrected along the way, too, but nothing major. If these guys are good car installers and do neat work, they should really shine once they get used to having some room to work in!

As an ex car audio/video guy I'd have to say it all depends! Car Audio installers work in a harsher environment and most likely would genuinely appreciate working on a building over a vehicle. If they are crappy car audio guys, they'll probably be crappy CI's. If they're good car audio guys...you get the idea, it's all about the personnel more than the "transition".

The offer would have to make a lot of sense since it sounds like a major business change for you. How big is the deal? $1M plus? What does your accountant say? Has either business been valued by an appraiser?

EX: I own a company that makes $150k/yr gross, how about I partner 75/25 with a company that does $1.5M/yr gross? It works for at least one of us!

Too many variables to give good advice other than that really.

"It took about a year and a half to get this car installer to leave enough slack in the wires to be able to connect things comfortably."

I laughed out loud when I read this because I did car audio for a long time before really getting into CI and that was exactly my main problem- leaving slack. Our equipment has a tendency to move a lot farther after the rough-in and what seems like "long enough" ends up being "just short" on a lot of occasions.

Thanks, highfigh. When I read the start of your post, I thought "that sounds just like Russ!" And hey, it was! That was my friend I was writing about four years ago!

I'm happy to say that he definitely leaves enough slack now, and knows just where to leave service loops. He and I have worked on many jobs together over the last three years.