TODAY'S RAMBLINGS

I didn't know shit about announcing a company to the world and getting my first customers.  Luckily, I already knew from painful experience that nothing happens until somebody sells something.  Upon returning from London I couldn't sell anything for WestConnect, which was a big failure.  I wasn't going to make the same mistake now.

It is not an overstatement to say a book I read at this moment was the difference-maker.  It reinforced that I was going to have to try just about everything, and reminded me how things like color printing and new software tools (this was 2002) had made decent self-produced materials doable.  

This now-classic book egged me on to do virtually anything to sell my services.
  

      
        

  

Later, I will return to another idea mentioned in the book - regularly published newsletters - that would prove pivotal in the success of Casa Integration.  

But for now,  just know that I blew a hundo on a rickety Canon color inkjet printer, and I was off. 

I began Casa Integration by sending 1,000 letters just like this one, although with our address and phone number intact. 

This was a lot of stamp- and envelope-licking, and Julie and I sent out thousands of these in the coming years. 
 
The crazy thing is that it worked.

What didn't work was putting fliers on cars outside of Best Buy stores.  But I did it anyway.
  

      
        

  

Julie to this day loves telling the story of the names of these first few clients; they were so weird she thought I was making them up.  One new client was Patty Dinner, another was Karen Fireman.  There was the aptly named Doug Tokerud.  These are their real names and in fact, Patty Dinner's full name was Patricia Swig Dinner.  

Turns out she's the granddaughter of Benjamin Swig - who owned Fairmont Hotels for decades.

And then there was the most important client of them all, who I will call Randy Clough.  Randy came to me not from a direct mail campaign, but from another suggestion from Guerilla Marketing, that being writing and issuing press releases.  A neighborhood paper reprinted my very first in its entirety, with zero edits.  Here it is, and it is how Randy Clough first learned of me and Casa Integration.  
  

      
        

  

If I don't send that press release, it is likely none of this story happens.  In other words, destiny can work both ways.  I will be returning to the vital Randy Clough and the veritable family tree of clients from him in a coming chapter.  Maybe even two.

THERE'S JUST ONE PROBLEM
For those wondering when this miasma of narcissism and imaginary entrepreneurial triumph might dissipate, it's right now.  Because I will never forget the pain, embarrassment, and shame that came from not knowing what I didn't know, and I am about to learn that in living color.  Sweaty, red-faced color.

It is worth repeating:  You don't know what you don't know.  Especially when you are going solo.   

Thankfully, too, because there's no way I would have had the balls mentioned previously to endure the humiliations and panic attacks that were coming.  For two solid years and beyond.

You see, I hadn't done my homework, beyond being an A/V hobbyist and enthusiast.  I sought gigs for which I had no qualifications, at least in terms of installing technology in custom homes.  It was going to get embarrassing and fast.

Let's begin with my first two work vehicles.

Cars
I vividly recall arriving at Patty Dinner's Russian Hill driveway in this.  Top down, ladder sticking up in the back, as there was no other way to transport one in this car.  I do wish I had an actual picture, but perhaps you can imagine how ridiculous it looked.  Yes, I was pulling into an active job site (she was doing a gut remodel of her perfectly located condo) in a car better suited for a meh country club.  With a ladder sticking out of the back.

The only thing sillier was that from the trunk of that car I would remove a flowered zipper bag that Julie had gotten at the Estée Lauder counter at Macy's, back in the "free gift with purchase" days.

I used it to carry my tools onto the work site.  Full disclosure:  That is not the exact bag.  But it is close enough and I don't think the one I did use was quite as masculine or well-suited for construction sites.  

Actually, there was one thing more silly:  My next work vehicle for Casa Integration.   We had finally convinced my aged parents to stop driving, so to save money, we sold our Schwab-era Saab, and I started parading into project sites in this machine; the ladder didn't fit quite as well, but it was built better than the Saab.

Industry Knowledge
Consulting pro?  Yep.  Project manager?  Yessir.  Telecom and networking veteran?  Yes.

Professional knowledge of consumer electronics, their distribution, and the specialized products used in their installation in the finest of homes?

I've always liked this term from science and it works well here to describe that knowledge:  Absolute Zero.

Construction/Building Knowledge
You'd think not knowing what products to use in fancy homes would have been bad enough.  It was not because what was worse is that I started Casa Integration not knowing a thing - and I mean not a fucking scintilla - about homebuilding, jobsite practices, specialized tools, licensing, or insurance.  I didn't own a proper work vacuum or even knew I needed one, FFS.  

I was also so ignorant it never dawned on me that I might need a second person to help on projects.   You know, on the other side of the wall when you're running wire through one, or lifting something large - like a flatscreen TV.  

I somehow covered all of this up - at least for a while.

It was the Patty Dinner project on Russian Hill that sent me reeling.  I had somehow done her Sonoma compound's living room TV control system adequately enough that she asked me to do the A/V work on the TV room at her Russian Hill remodel.  

The panic attacks were violent.  The first was when it came time to mount a flatscreen TV on the wall of her new TV room.  Fundamental to the exercise is ensuring the mount goes into the studs in the wall - that is what makes it safe and secure.

"How do you find a stud in a wall?" I thought as about a pound of anxiety left my body that day, via sweat.  But I had enlisted a former colleague at Schwab to help that day, who at least knew what a wall stud was and how you find one.  We somehow got the TV on the wall.  

Successfully mounting the TV was the last good thing that happened on this project because now it was time to run cables in the custom cabinetry in the closet, connecting the amplifier, cable box, DVD player, etc.

This would require getting the cabling through each wooden shelf in the cabinet.  Again:  the custom cabinet.  "No problem," I thought as I reached for the new DeWalt drill I had bought (I had seen a guy on "This Old House" use one . . .), put in a 1/2" bit - the largest in the collection that had come with the drill set - and got busy.

But there were a lot of cables, so to get all of them through each shelf, I drilled a bunch of 1/2" holes, together, trying to make one big hole.

It turns out that is absolutely not how it's done.  

This is how it's done, with something called a hole saw.  

      
        

  
A handy tool, one anyone working with wood will have.  I ended up owning dozens.
 
But then?  I didn't know what one was until the general contractor, already suspicious of me - with my clean jeans and Saab and flowery tool bag - summarily tossed me from the project.  But not until showing me, rather bluntly, what a hole saw is and its proper use.

So BANG I'm off the project and back in the Saab, tears again flowing, just like about 9 months previously, driving home after being laid off by Schwab.  

FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES

Thanks, Portico, for the sanity.  I just got back from Albuquerque and Phoenix.  I am worried and sad.  Most people are clueless and uninformed.  Keep up the good work. 

KLUF

This Diamond Certified time capsule of an album takes me directly back to the start of Casa Integration:  It served as a soundtrack to the early days.  It appropriately runs the gamut from the panic attack accompaniment "Here it Comes," to the incredibly uplifting "Catch The Sun."   Here are Doves and Lost Souls.