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If you’ve ever felt you have to tread a bit more carefully around house-of-worship clients, you’re not alone. They are a unique customer cohort, existing across a much wider spectrum of AV knowledgeability and fiscal canniness than those in other industry verticals, like corporate or higher education. Here, a few veteran AV specialists reveal some useful insights that can help ease these important relationships.
Adam Henderson, sales manager at CSD Group, a design-build firm in the Ft. Wayne, Ind., area and that specializes in the house-of-worship (HOW) market, says that understanding the unique nature of this vertical is key to success in it. He emphasizes that while technology is the reason a consultant and a church are talking, what’s being built is not just a line array or a lighting truss but also a relationship. “HOW clients will make decisions based on relationships more so than on technical wizardry,” he observes. “Understand that and you understand how a church thinks, and the relationship will be much more productive.”
“HOW clients will make decisions based on relationships more so than on technical wizardry. Understand that and you understand how a church thinks, and the relationship will be much more productive.” Adam Henderson, Sales Manager/HOW Market Specialist, CSD Group, Ft. Wayne, IN
Of course, there are also nuances within each individual church, many of which revolve around worship styles, which in turn affect technology choices. In more and more cases, a single church might have multiple types of services, ranging from traditional to contemporary, and those may be made further specific by things like ethnic, generational and other demographic characteristics, which also influence technology choices. For instance, an older demographic will be especially receptive to the idea of assisted-listening systems.
Conduct before-meeting intel
“Do your research before you meet with them as clients,” he encourages, suggesting resources including the church’s website and Facebook pages. “Look at the bios of the pastors. They want to know that you are dealing with them as people first, then as a business proposition.”
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Henderson also emphasizes that consultants and integrators need to keep in mind that houses of worship are staffed mainly by volunteers, an extension of their non-profit nature. At the same time, you’ll still need to apply the basics of business interaction, such as managing client expectations around areas of timing, budgets and processes.
“When a client doesn’t know what’s happening next [during a project], that means that expectations aren’t being managed properly,” he says. “All clients need to be constantly engaged, but HOW clients especially so.”
All clients need to be constantly engaged, but HOW clients especially so....
And when things do go off track, put the relationship first. “Empathize when hurdles arise,” he says. "Saying ‘That would frustrate me, too,’ can go a long way.”
Expect denominational differences
Kurt Bevers, technical specialist and systems engineer at Delta AV in Gresham, Ore., emphasizes the importance of not looking at the HOW market as a homogenous sector, citing his experiences with both Catholic and Protestant churches. Catholic churches, he explains, tend to be very hierarchical: vendors such as AV integrators will deal with a parish’s head priest or with an archdiocese’s budget committee. The former, he says, tends to emphasize functionality and performance of AV systems, since it is the front-line priests who will be using them on a constant basis. At the archdiocese level, budgets tend to take precedence over technology.
“The perspective of that group is almost always filtered through their checkbook,” he says. “It’s an interesting delineation, and a very real one.”
On the other hand, at Protestant churches, whose various denominations are generally far less rigidly tiered, vendors will more often deal with committees within the church, where budgets will tend to be the starting point and even lead pastors are often just one vote of several. However, says Bevers, pastors, like priests, are the ones who interact with the technology regularly. Striking a balance between these sometimes-competing interests can be tricky, but knowing their distinctions can make it easier to navigate.
“Be aware of the different agendas in who you speak with, which will give you some idea of how they’ll respond to certain proposals,” he recommends.
Anticipate different dynamics
Also, Bevers suggests, try to understand the dynamics at work in religious organizations. “They don’t function like corporate or other types of clients,” he says, noting that committee-driven churches might have business or technical members of the congregation they can draw on for advice around AV decisions, vs. top-down or charismatic congregations where the emphasis might be less on the fiscal short term and more on the long view of technology life cycles. “Their appropriations processes can be very different,” says Bevers. “It’s good to know where they’re coming from.”
“[Different religious organizations'] appropriations processes can be very different. It’s good to know where they’re coming from.” Kurt Bevers, Technical Specialist and Systems Engineer, Delta AV, Gresham, OR
HOW clients are unique in some key ways even as they share many of the same requirements as any other AV customer. Successful consultants will understand the nuances.
