On this week’s podcast, John Palser joins us from Omaha, NE, where he is president of Denizen, a custom integration company with locations in Omaha, Kansas City, Dallas, and Austin. From a complete home that you can walk through in their HQ Experience Center in Omaha to regional domination across 14 states from north to south in the middle of the country, Denizen is re-defining what transformative technology can do in a home.

During the recent HTSA Fall Conference outside of Denver, John got stuck talking to Jeremy at the closing night dinner. John was very patient with Jeremy’s 50 questions about this business and career history, which proved to be an excellent pre-interview for this podcast, minus maybe a few celebrity athlete client anecdotes which we won’t be able to share here unfortunately.

On this week’s podcast, Josh Willits joins us from Mechanicsburg, PA, where he is COO of Portal, the proposal software and product/pricing database for integrators. Although you’ve seen him wearing the Portal orange pants at trade shows going on 11 years now, Josh’s career has also included a tenure in the custom integration trade, as well as several years with a well-respected Crestron programming company. You may even remember his Covid-era side hustle as a gentleman coffee roaster.

Today we’ll touch on a bit of that career arc, but mostly we’ll focus on Portal’s latest innovation: the AI Proposal Builder. Released in beta to the industry on November 12, the new tool promises AV and security dealers the ability to create complete project proposals in just seconds, transforming often-tedious process and making it easier for integrators to sell projects and get paid.

On this week’s podcast, Bert Herrero joins us from Pompano Beach, FL, to discuss his career in custom integration, including his new role as a franchise owner with Daisy, the national smart space installation and services company. Our guest today founded First Priority Audio in Pompano Beach back in 2001 and led that CI firm until a few months ago when it was acquired by Daisy. Then, just a few weeks ago, Daisy announced that Herrero would be launching the seventh Daisy franchise, choosing red-hot Ocala, FL, for its location. This is the second time in Daisy’s first year that an independent owner who was acquired has turned around and launched an entirely new Daisy franchise location. Building from his track record of running a best-in-class operation for more than 20 years at FPA, Herrero is looking to leverage Daisy’s robust branch support systems to establish a strong presence in Ocala.

Special thanks this week’s sponsor: the Sonos Era 100 Pro.