You’ve heard the phrase “working ON your business rather than working IN your business.” As we head into the post-COVID world, we find that most integrators’ schedules are filled up with active and pending jobs. Yet, you prioritized attending PrimeTime.

Finding the time to be here takes you away from being in the field, in front of clients, and generating revenue. But you understand your commitment to PrimeTime is a commitment to the success of your business. We have the opportunity to network and learn from each other as we collectively start seeing our partners and peers face to face. Those who spend time working ON their business out-index those who just show up on the jobsite day in, day out.

CEDIA is your industry trade association, and our partnership with Nationwide Marketing Group and HTSN is designed to put the resources of CEDIA squarely in your lap. There are year-round benefits that CEDIA offers integrators beyond just free EXPO admission, benefits designed to help you grow your business. As a result of this partnership, we have focused on a number of key benefits to help you do just that.

There are a number of ways to make money. Time is perhaps the most expensive commodity and, unfortunately, is something we tend to discount the most. The CEDIA Designer (TCD) is a cloud-based software solution created to help you develop media room and cinema room projects. What used to take hours can now take minutes. Designed with industry standards in mind, TCD is a powerful resource to create and present cinema room designs to your clients with 3D CAD file output and proposal documentation.

Ranked as one of CEDIA’s most valuable member benefits, the CEDIA Outreach Instructor (COI) program enables members to provide continuing education to their local design and build industry partners, helping establish vital business-to-business networking contacts and raising the awareness of CEDIA, its members and the home technology industry. Limited to 60 integrators, the HTSN COI seminars will be offered virtually with two sessions and in person in November with two sessions in Dallas.

Perhaps the most important benefit of this partnership is the access to CEDIA education. But there is more to CEDIA education than just the classes conducted at EXPO. The CEDIA Academy is just a click away via your MemberNet dashboard. The focus for HTSN members this year is the pathway to certification as a Cabling and Infrastructure Technician. This CIT pathway not only supports new technicians entering the workforce, but it reinforces and acknowledges your experience within the systems integration industry.

The knowledge domains covered in the pathway include audio, video, wire and cabling, termination and testing, construction methods and materials, project processes, equipment installation and retrofit installation techniques, as well as safety practices and applicable building codes and standards. It doesn’t matter if you are new to the industry or a veteran, the ANSI-accredited CEDIA CIT Certification is a standard bearer as a CEDIA integrator and our focus for you.

For some of you, spending time on your business may mean improving upon your business skills. So many of us got into this industry more as a hobby first, and business skills may be secondary to our passion for this industry. As such, as an alternative to the CIT pathway, we offer a group of four courses designed to focus on the following business skills:

Each of these classes is designed to help you develop the skillset needed to support your business from an administrative perspective.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to CEDIA resources that are available to you as a CEDIA member. Please connect with the CEDIA membership team (member@cedia.org) to take advantage of these resources and many more.