July/August 2019 | Residential Tech Today 33
(Opposite page) Tekkease can provide programming services that help to ensure that the system performs
from a software standpoint in the same way the hardware was designed based on the understanding of
the customer’s needs. (This page) Dealers use Tekkease to assist with challenges handling details and
documentation, particularly on larger jobs that can take much more time and experience.
end-users on residential projects as well as
boardroom, winery, and bar projects over the
past six years. Tekkease’s three-person team does
approximately 50 projects a year, varying in size.
Zarb grew up in the custom installation
industry, having worked for his father’s AV
company for six years, before moving on to a job
with industry automation giant, Crestron. From
his experience, he saw both homeowners who
were sometimes skeptical about the system
proposal they were getting from their integrator
and also many integrators who struggled to
balance time and resources while managing
their business. This often would lead to
challenges with the quality of the designs they
put together and resulted in lost profitability
from missing parts or inadequate labor and
sometimes resulted in a poor customer
experience. Many companies also didn’t have
someone on staff with CAD, Visio, or D-Tools
Software experience that could put together
elevations, 3D room renderings, touchpanel
designs, and sometimes even high-quality
proposals to present to their customers.
Zarb explained that dealers use his company’s
services due to challenges with handling details
and documentation, particularly on larger jobs
that can take much more time and experience.
Tekkease finds that integrators typically reach
out for help when systems exceed $30,000
dollars, but most of the work they do is on
projects that are more than $100,000, with their
largest being nearly $1.5 million.
When necessary, Tekkease works on behalf of
the integrator, meeting with the homeowner
often three or more times for design meetings
and spends anywhere from 5 to over 40 hours
on creating a fully engineered proposal, which
they help present to the homeowner. In
addition, finished projects typically have more
than 60 hours of drawing and design work
invested with some being over 300 hours for the
larger or more complex jobs. Tekkease makes
sure to include every connector, insert, rack
parts, etc. in a package that may exceed 100
pages once you include all of the schematics,
line drawings, heat mapping, and theater room
designs. They are so confident in their work
that if any part is missing, they will cover the
cost, bringing peace of mind to both the dealer
and the end-user. The end result is a proposal
and design that is far more detailed and
professional than what their customer could
create on their own.
One of the biggest benefits that Zarb has
found with dealers who use his services is that
the dealer is charging for all of the system design
work. Too often, integrators don’t charge for
this, for many reasons, and the end result can be
a lot of work being done that is not generating
revenue for the company. Zarb’s customers are
able to save money on staffing, make money on
the proposals, save money on paying for parts
that were missed and the time to get them last
minute for the job, and can ultimately focus
their resources on other things while ensuring a
better result for their customers. Tekkease even
helps with creating purchase orders for the
products in the design and tracks change orders
to help ensure that any changes are being
properly invoiced.
Back to that million-dollar plus project. One
example of how Tekkease helped their
customers grow their business involved one of
their integrator customers who was referred to a
Hollywood A-List celebrity. Unfortunately, the
integrator had not done a project of that size and
wanted to put their best foot forward when
presenting to this high-profile opportunity.
They used Tekkease to help put all of the
documentation together and not only
successfully completed the project, but the enduser
has three more homes that he is looking to
have work done from this team and has also
provided recommendations to some of his
friends. Ultimately, the partnership gave the
integrator greater confidence to do larger
projects and they have since started growing