Part 2 | Talking Professionalism with David Hatmaker

[00:00:06] This is the Tech Arts Podcast, where we talk about tech, leadership, and all things that concern church audio, video, and lighting. Welcome to the Tech Arts Podcast and the Earthworks Audio Studios. My name is DL, so glad to have you joining us today. Today's episode is Part 2 of our conversation on professionalism with David Hatmaker. If you missed Part 1, you definitely want to go back and listen.

[00:00:32] Not only did we cover the subject of professionalism, but we had an amazing Earthworks Audio Mic Technique segment on choir microphones. And we covered rigging in the Paragon Angle, which is brought to us by Paragon 360. It was a great episode packed with content that will help you be a better leader. Like I said, that is just Part 1.

[00:00:56] Today we will pick up our conversation with David Hatmaker answering more exciting questions on professionalism. But the part I'm looking forward to is when we talk about compromise. Can you do a service and compromise? Or does it all have to be your way or the highway? But before we get to that, today's tech tip is a company that I know everyone uses. They are fast and efficient and can get you almost anything you need when it comes to tech.

[00:01:25] They have been your creative partner since 1973. Please welcome to the podcast, Nick Mastromarco from B&H. Hey, Nick. How you doing, David? Thanks for having me. Man, it's great to have you on. I got a question for you. I've always called your company B&H, but I've never stopped to think about what it stands for. What does the B and the H stand for? That would be Blimey and Herschel. They were husband and wife, and they founded the company. From day one, it was a family-run business.

[00:01:52] And in a lot of ways, it's still run like a family-run business, even though we've grown quite significantly. We're 50 years in the business now and running strong. So, Nick, I know B&H is all about faith. They have strong convictions, even closing down on Saturday to observe the Sabbath, which made me wonder, do you guys have a faith division? Oh, yeah. We absolutely do. Yeah. So, I work in the B2B department, which stands for business-to-business.

[00:02:18] We have a gateway, essentially, for every industry. So, specifically, in this case, for faith. So, it's bnh.com slash faith. And what's great about it, really, it's if you're just going to the regular B&H website, that's our consumer retail website. But getting into B2B, it gives you access to a few more tools and features on the website that you wouldn't normally have. You could link your tax exemption.

[00:02:47] You could apply for a net terms account and then submit purchase orders during checkout instead of just relying on credit cards. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on right there. So, at the normal website, you know, it's PayPal or credit card. You're saying that the church can set it up so they can have actual terms? Yeah. Yeah. So, you could apply for a net terms account, just like applying for a line of credit, like anything else. And once approved, you will then have the, you'll see another button pop up during the

[00:03:16] checkout process where you can, it'll say, pay with net terms instead of checkout with a credit card. So, you'll have another button pop up with that option. And then you could upload a purchase order to your cart at checkout. You could just, like, attach, like, a PDF file to your cart during checkout. That's very cool. And then, what about tracking? You know, I'm a manager of a team. Can my team be involved in this? And how do I track things? Do you guys allow for that? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:42] So, you could have, you could each have your own and be separate if that works fine for you. Some people are like, I'm the IT guy and I do my own purchasing. And I'm the AV department. I do my own purchasing. There's no silos in churches, Nick. But, right. For those organizations that want it, the power is in your hands to choose how you want to use the B2B portal. And if you wanted to, you can set it up where there's an admin of the B&H account at your organization.

[00:04:11] And that person can invite others and share the account. It'll share the tax exemption. It'll share the net terms account. And then, but each person has their own login. And then, the admin person, when they log in, they can see all the quotes that were requested and all the purchases that were made from everyone on the team. All in one place. And the best part, of course, is being able to request a discounted priced quote, right? Which you can't do on the retail website.

[00:04:40] So, you just, you know, add your items to the cart. And instead of checking out, you'll see a button that says, get a quote. And you can, you know, request a quote. And that'll get right to our pricing team. And every project is looked at as an individual project. And it's looked over by people, not an algorithm. So, you know, they'll look over your quote and see, you know, based on the items you selected, what's the best price we can do for you to try to earn your business.

[00:05:06] So, I can literally price it out online and then send it to you guys and say, hey, can I get a, you know, like a registered pricing quote? Can I get a better quote on this? And you guys will look it over and see what you can do. And then kick back a quote that's a little bit better price. That's right. That's awesome. Usually, it would get emailed to you within 48 hours, business hours. Nick, there's a lot of outlets out there that do what B&H does. But what makes you different from them?

[00:05:36] We're right in the middle between Amazon and your local camera shop, I think. We have the same large warehouse and inventory and we carry loads of products and mostly everything is in stock and readily available. And when we ship, we ship so quickly. People often tell me like, oh my gosh, I couldn't believe I got it the next day. And I wasn't, I didn't even pay for overnight shipping, you know? Yeah, I ordered something the other day and I got it like literally the next day and it was free shipping.

[00:06:05] And I was like, whoa, that's amazing. So we have that. But also, you know, we have experts, professionals in, you know, coming from industry that are here, you know, working, you know, to give you the best advice possible. You know, a lot of our people, you know, we're separated by departments, you know, lighting department, audio department, video department, you know, we have some guys in our audio department that have won Grammys, you know.

[00:06:33] A lot of the folks that work at B&H, they still do work in industry, you know, whether it's on the weekends or at nights or if they work, you know, part time with us. So you're, so you have someone that's really, that really knows the gear and has the experience to really understand your workflow and what you're doing and really give you the best advice.

[00:06:57] And we truly give you non-biased advice too, because we know when at B&H is, it gets a commission on a sale. So it doesn't really matter, you know, which brand you purchase, you know, we're going to suggest what we think is the right camera for the job that you're trying to do. So, and often in cases, people call us and tell us, you know, they might have a $5,000 budget. And, you know, after asking a bunch of questions like, well, what gear do you already have?

[00:07:27] And what lenses might you have? And what are you trying to do? What are your goals? And by the end of the call, we're telling someone that really they could do the job for about $3,000 instead of $5,000. And then of course, people are, you know, ecstatic that we just saved them all that money. What I heard you say there is your team isn't paid on commission, so they're not biased to move people towards a certain product. Correct. Or sell you something that you don't need because it improves their paycheck.

[00:07:56] And secondly, you have really high educated professionals. I mean, Grammy award winning people that are a part of your team that can help guide people. So you go to the B&H website and it lists out like 30 products. You're like, oh my gosh, which one do I buy? So you can call in to B&H or go to the website and get to a professional that can help you. That's amazing that you guys do that. Right on. Yeah.

[00:08:23] So Nick, what's the best way to get in touch with you and how do churches sign up for B&H Faith? To sign up for B&H B2B for Faith, just go to bnh.com slash faith. And once you get there, it's pretty straightforward. Enter with your domain level email address. And if you already have an account created, you can convert to B2B. If not, create a new one.

[00:08:51] In terms of meeting me personally, I would love to meet face to face. I'm the outbound guy. So I go to trade shows all the time. You can definitely find me this year at NRB. This year it's in Dallas. And I also go to Philo and Capture Summit. So yeah, come on down. Look for the B&H booth and come and find me. So if you want access to all the great technical products on the market, go to bnh.com slash faith right now.

[00:09:20] They're fast, efficient, and have many of the items you need in stock. Don't forget that B&H hires and extensively trains their product specialists so that each one can speak from a place of confidence and expertise, which means when you need answers, they are ready with solutions tailored for you. At B&H, it's all about people, not algorithms.

[00:09:45] So start purchasing today by going to bnh.com slash faith. Nick, thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing with us about B&H. Thank you, David. It's a pleasure to be here. All right. It's time to jump into part two of our conversation on professionalism with David Hatmaker. Where we left off was Dave answering the question, is there a difference between a manager or a leader? So Dave, what say you? Is there a difference?

[00:10:14] I think there is a difference and not to make one particular that sounds better than the other. And I think there's a place for both. I think a manager might be someone that can do, I'm not going to say absolute rote tasks, but they can do tasks over and over and over again.

[00:10:42] And their management style would be how to keep their underlings or their staff doing that same amount of commitment 300 days out of the year and then repeat for next calendar year. I think there's an absolute place for managers.

[00:11:03] I think a lot of people in finance can manage others in a kind of a flat management style. And then I think like you said, then there are leader managers. And I would hope, think that as a leader manager of creatives,

[00:11:28] you're wanting to lead everybody to the common goal of a show opening or an Easter service or Christmas, your candlelight service at Christmas. I think leaders will find those that are on their staff and create and lead them up into a better position than wherever they are.

[00:11:55] Um, I think, I think as I'm going to give a huge shout out to two manager leaders that I worked with at, um, Disneyland that changed my trajectory is Earl and Chris. If they happen to listen to it, um, they took me up and then brought me out of an hourly into staff

[00:12:21] and then had me ready to go to somewhere else. Right. I could have stayed at Disney, but the trajectory was, I'm probably not going to stay at the Walt Disney company. I'm going to, I'm going to change and, and move out. And, and their path wasn't to get me there, but they certainly helped me through the process of, I've moved out of my comfort zone into the next step,

[00:12:50] into the next step, into the next step. And they led me through this process of, and, you know, through churches and through, uh, corporations that, that there is a, um, there are some steps that you have to go through and things that you have to learn. And, uh, this, this ability to see maybe playing 3d chess or that kind of thing, seeing more than just of yourself. Um, and then how to turn that back around and lead others through the path.

[00:13:20] Right. So it's your, you're kind of evolving and evolving others up through your organization. If that makes sense. Yeah. I, I like to say leaders inspire. And managers accomplish tasks. Right. But you can't be all like with anything in life. It can't be all one or the other. Right. Um, you, you can't be a hundred percent task oriented.

[00:13:50] Um, you won't have a team. It'll be all you. And typically those are the people that are more controlling. Um, and then you can't be all inspiration. Like you, I mean, there's, you gotta go get some things done, but I do believe that some of the great manager leaders, as you called them in, in life are those that inspire. Um, they don't necessarily say to themselves, I've got to do everything. So they're pretty good at delegating.

[00:14:15] They're not afraid of replacing something that they do with somebody else doing it. Um, and I like to say this, I wish there was a third category that I wish it just wasn't, you know, drop people into the manager category and the leader category. I love, cause I played sports. I love the coach category. Right.

[00:14:38] I think coaches and people who take a coaching mentality, I think are the best leaders because I look at sports teams and I go, man, the coach who, who doesn't, you know, in professional sports, at least doesn't get paid as much as his players. Right. He inspires those players, some great ones too. I mean, Michael Jordan still had a coach. Right. You know what I mean? He inspires those players to play better, but yet he's got to manage them too.

[00:15:08] He's got to get the tasks done and things like that. So I like the third, I like to add that third category in there. Like, are you a coach? Like, are you a coach? Cause if you're just a manager, you know, you're probably going to burn people out. And if you're just an inspirational leader, you're probably not going to get anything done. So are, are, are you a coach? You know, is that, and it sounds like the guys that you were describing, um, was it Eric and what was the other gentleman's name? Earl and Chris.

[00:15:38] Yeah. They had a couple of really genius things too, and that they, um, they were absolutely, you absolutely, if you said it was going to be done at one o'clock on Friday, they were taskmasters that it had to be done. So it would inspire you to make sure you got it done. And I don't know that I ever missed, or maybe I had a legitimate, something that something flipped and whatever, and it was not an excuse, but things happen.

[00:16:04] Um, but I don't, with that clarity, I don't know that I ever kind of missed a deadline, but they were also really flexible in. I don't care when you get to that deadline. If, if there's a time that you're not being consumed with the work part, go home. So they called it penance time. You don't have to be here. Don't be here.

[00:16:30] If you know that next week, you've really got 28 hours on your schedule. Just do the 28. Just go, go to the beach or whatever. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't absolutely written quite like that, but it was, you could feel that like, you're going to be here 60 hours in two weeks. So next week when you've only got 28 hours scheduled, you know, it wasn't penance time.

[00:16:55] So if you, if you don't require your people to do the penance time, I think that frees them up. Oh, I've got a, uh, one of my, or my wife's got a something at two o'clock or whatever. Okay. Well, I'm going to go have lunch with her. It'll be great. And then at three o'clock I'm back at work and it's great. So there's flexibility in that.

[00:17:16] I can also tell you with the, with the coach mentality of, of the end goal of winning the game is I've worked with a few and I would call them managers that I will learn to never be like that. I learned don't, don't do that. And that would be like, um, okay, today at eight o'clock, we're going to do this. Okay.

[00:17:45] And you do that and you see him at one o'clock and he goes, okay, then you're going to do this. And you go, okay. And tomorrow you show up at eight o'clock and here's the plan. I, I had a, I had a moment where I could early on in my, in my being a technical director, I had a moment where I could get my whole staff together. So I had five or six people on the staff of that day. And I said, Hey, so Friday night, it's a corporate party and we're going to do this.

[00:18:14] And we get the room at this and we get this time. And there was going to be 20 texts on this and 40 texts on Tuesday. And we, we went through the whole plan. Any questions? Of course there are questions to, to, to, to, to, to, to answer all the questions. And then they just went off and it was great. I, I did, I, it was early.

[00:18:36] It was again, early on in my TD them, but I sat a lot or I walked around a lot and didn't give a lot of input. Because my, my leads, they all got it. And then after a year of that, it was fun to, for them to come back and say, I would hear them say, well, Dave would probably like, whoa. Okay. So there's that.

[00:19:05] I think that coaching thing is they were, they already had the game plan. Cause I would then use the same guys again, or same crew, same guys and girls. I would use that, those same people. And then they would just do kind of my plan every time. And I never thought of it being like a, a playbook or a, a, a basketball plays or a football plays or setting up the defense and soccer or the offense. So they just kind of did it. So that was fun watching again, that ebbing of people.

[00:19:34] If you give them all kinds of the plans, at least your lead. So I'm leading the leads go do. And they went, you know, you get a bunch of motivated A-list self starters and they're just going to go like rabid dogs and get it done. Train and prep well, hire the right people and they'll go get it done. Right. My job gets easier. You said something earlier though, that I thought was really cool. And I want to bring attention to that.

[00:20:02] And that is, if you worked 60 hours the week before you were up till 11 o'clock midnight, two in the morning to get the job done and you got the job done, you accomplished it. Why are you coming back in at 9 a.m. just because, you know, it's a nine to five job. No, you got the job done. You accomplished it. You worked the week. It's a shorter week. You don't have to be there at 9 a.m. Like you said, hey, you may have a 60 hour week coming up.

[00:20:31] You've got your prep work done. Why are you working 40, 50 hours this week? That a lot of people need to hear that. A lot of people need to take the weight and the pressure off of themselves of saying, hey, but the job rules are I've got to be there nine to five. And if your leader requires that, that's a conversation to have with your leader is, hey, if I accomplish my work and I'm, you know, I'm a salaried employee.

[00:20:58] Obviously, there's some differences between salary and hourly, but I'm a salaried employee. I've got my job done. Do I need to be in at 9 a.m. if my work is accomplished or can I flex my hours a little bit? I think a lot of people need to hear that, need to ask those questions, take a little bit of the weight off their shoulders. I would love to.

[00:21:19] I know we're going to maybe put my email address at the end, but I would love to hear somebody, if they took this on, I would love to hear the outcome of this. But I would implore every leader, if you have leads, if you oversee leads that then oversee crew, is find one lead and make that person a first lieutenant is what I would, I kind of always called it. And that's your kind of, it's an assistant.

[00:21:47] They're not doing everything that you're doing because you're doing the high end corporate meetings and then you trickle it down to your leads or your church. You're maybe going to a board meeting a month or maybe you're meeting with the pastor and the executive staff, one meeting, a quarter or whatever. Your first lieutenant might be that person that you cut loose at 6 p.m. that night so that they could make the 9 o'clock meeting in the morning.

[00:22:14] Or your first lieutenant is taking the staff and the people that are on that out of that show. And then I, Dave, will make the 9 o'clock in the morning meeting. Shout out to Ed. Ed'll know. Ed. I found a great first lieutenant in Ed and we could ebb and flow that 60-hour week.

[00:22:39] So I would know Ed's going to take the crew out and I'll make the 9 o'clock meeting. Or because there were some circumstances that maybe multiple disciplines were there that I had to be there because I was the staff TD. I'll take the crew out. I'll burn this one and you make the 9 o'clock meeting. So I entrusted him to either do that. He had the latitude to gaff the staff on an out or an in.

[00:23:06] Or he was corporate enough. I don't know what the word would be on that. But he was savvy enough that if he was at the 9 o'clock meeting, he could speak for me. And if he couldn't speak for me, he would certainly say, well, I'm going to pass that along to Dave and he'll get back to you today with whatever. So it's believing in your staff back to the professionalism is I entrusted these things in him and he entrusted in me that I wouldn't throw him under the bus or he wouldn't throw me under the bus.

[00:23:35] We were, we were, we were, he was a great, let's say in your coaching, he was a quarterback. He could lead the team and I was doing something else, you know. So if that makes any sense. Yeah, it makes total sense. And I'll put your email up right now. It's Dave at Dave hat maker.com. Yes, sir. If you guys want to email in and answer that question for Dave, I would love to know. Try, try the first lieutenant. Let me know how that works. He'd love to know how it's first lieutenant works.

[00:24:04] It's a challenge because you're, you're giving off a fair amount of your domain, let's say, or your, your managerialness. I don't know even how that is. And you're going to entrust this person with, again, not taking your gig or, or doing the right thing because you're not going to be there. You can't be two places at the same time. So, um, whatever it is, and by the way, everyone's going to fail at something.

[00:24:33] Um, and then you just go, okay, well, thank you for your honesty. And we're onto the next thing, man. We're, we're moving on. Um, I work with a singer songwriter guy, Sean, and, um, we've, we've played a bunch of shows now, but I remember early on him saying, you know, it's kind of how we start. And how we finish and the rest of the inside, ah, it's a country song, you know, I'm badly paraphrasing, but, but you can kind of get that.

[00:25:02] We all kind of want to go two, three, four, and everyone goes on their way. They do the country song. You lose the truck, you lose the dog. And then we all come back and we go, but up, oh, close the truck and drive off. Right. It's, it's really not that complicated.

[00:25:19] I've also said this too, is that our job, no matter how complicated it is, a lighting guy, you're going to, you're going to kiss black when you shouldn't have, or a video guy, you're going to lose signal on camera three or an audio guy. This is my worst day ever is this. Or this. So if we're kind of all in the range of it. Sounded like my Husky there for a second. Um, count that as success.

[00:25:47] Like it, we, we have never a back to the, to the, the, the guys that are in the medical profession in the week. I've never, you know, had a baby go cold blue on me on a table. You know, that that's not what we do. So if we're in the range of pretty good and don't hear me say, don't try to get better. But if we're in the range of pretty good, a good gig is a done gig a lot of times. Right. And let's smile and not kill each other and have a great tomorrow.

[00:26:17] You know, let's make it better tomorrow. Sure. But let's celebrate today too, you know? Well, Dave, let me, let me pivot on you here a little bit. Um, I want to talk about paying attention to your surroundings and how that applies to professionalism.

[00:26:32] We all have these little devices, you know, we're scrolling through them, but, you know, as, as someone who's developed and helped, you know, craft technology, um, how does paying attention to your surroundings help with this craft? And, um, let me kind of add this to that question. You know, a lot of, you know, church techs are listening to us and they say, well, that doesn't apply to me.

[00:27:00] I'm not building a console or whatever, but help them kind of understand how paying attention makes a big difference with your craft, whether you're just mixing front of house or you're building a console for somebody. Right. Right. And I'm going to, I'm going to get this one out of the way, which ties perfectly with professionalism and, and knowing your surroundings.

[00:27:24] So I remember oftentimes, or when I go into a school district or I help another, um, municipality out with their technical skills and whatever. And I'll say, well, what's coming up this week? Oh, well, we just have a, it's just a choir concert. It's just a choir.

[00:27:47] It's just don't ever say it's just because to those people that have worked all year long on that, it's their choir concert. So that's like, right then being, knowing your surroundings is all those people on stage have worked really hard at doing their, whatever it is, dance or, or, um, whatever, whatever their, their show is. Oh, it's just a show.

[00:28:16] No, it's their show. And you should be there to do everything you can to support their show. And I think that's driven me on everything of knowing my surroundings of, I would have a casual conversation with you and I would already know, oh, that's an earthworks mic or, or, oh, it's on a, it's on a, um, triad orbit gimbal.

[00:28:42] And I'm just a geek and I, I don't know what headphones those are, but like, I'm just a geek. Sennheiser headphones. Right. I'm always in the surrounding. It'd be a, I like to think I'm, I was a pretty good R and D guy because I could pick up on what people were doing. And I would watch, I'm just a creature of watching how people do a process.

[00:29:05] And I'm, I'm, I'm forced to do process because we want process, but I don't know that I was ever a process guy, um, just in what I did. But now I come back and I go, whatever those shows are, I think, well, I got to do high pass filter and the gain is a 58. It's about 25 dB and what I can, I can kind of pre dial things just on what I've experienced.

[00:29:32] So if my experience gets me to the next job, then I'm going to do a lot of the same things on the next job. Right. I'm going to learn some technology. I might do something better or nobody noticed, but I made a note of like, oh, I got to research how that, those button pushes went or on a digico console. I got to figure how do I do a macro to do that or whatever.

[00:29:56] So I'm, I'm constantly on my own wanting to learn something, but it's, it's, it's, it's based on, I guess your, your question is, how do you always know what your surroundings are? You're, you're always in it. So how can I get better at my craft to do it better, more efficiently next time? Does that, does that make some sense? Yeah. It makes total sense.

[00:30:19] Like, you know, if you're ignoring what's going on around you, if you're ignoring your clients and saying, ah, it's just a choir, you're not going to engage with them. You're not going to have a good attitude with it. And you're not going to learn for the next time that you have a choir. And to me, that's kind of the big deal about paying attention to your surroundings. If, you know, you miss a mic cue every time this happens, but you're not paying attention. You don't even know that that's happening.

[00:30:47] And you're just missing the mic cue. You're not going to learn. You're not going to be able to coach yourself to not miss the microphone, to not say, oh, somebody talking to me, distracting me. Right. It's causing this problem. So, I think paying attention to your surroundings is kind of a big deal. And can I add to that, though? It's, I think, I think it's always, it's, it's also paying attention the most to, I know this is crazy, but it's going to be the departure into still the professionalism and, and gear.

[00:31:16] And it kind of puts it all in the perspective of, of finances is who, who do you ultimately work for? So I work for a lot of companies now, and I've been early retired from Yamaha. So I'm, I'm, I'm now just Dave hatmaker.com. Right. So I work for immune. I, I, I do some work at a municipality, but I'm hired by the jazz band director.

[00:31:44] So maybe I have a little, there's some animosity of why, why is Dave coming in to mix this and not a guy that's a staff guy at the venue? Well, cause I work for him. When he says, can we get a something? I'm not like, how's that? How's that? How's that? How's that? You know, I'm, I'll bark it at him. How's that? Too much. Okay, great. You know, just so he can tell I'm paying attention.

[00:32:14] Right. So those are the ones that keep calling me back. So I'm nice as pie to everybody else there. But when the director is talking to me, guess who I'm looking at, you know, and I'm not going to break their gear and I'm not going to make it not a successful night for anybody. And I'm not going to displace anybody. But when that guy talks, that's the guy I listen to. And same thing with the, with the voices of rock radio band.

[00:32:43] I'm, I'm hired from the band, not from the venue. So I've got to make it all good for everybody else that's there. But when John talks, hi, John. Right. You know? So, and that goes back to the professionalism. Don't discount anybody else. But whoever is paying me, I'm going to be, I'm going to be the most alert to what they're needing and wanting. Yeah.

[00:33:09] I like to say filter it through the vision of the person who hired you. And so at a church, you know, the senior pastor lays out a vision. And let's say the senior pastor has asked you to come in and mix or run video or whatever it is. And he's kind of laid out the vision for what he wants it to feel and look like. And then there's a lot of other cooks in the kitchen, right? That are going to come in and say, well, this is what I want. This is what I need. You've got to filter it through the grand vision to make sure that you stay on track with that.

[00:33:38] And you don't make a left turn away from the vision of what the senior pastor wants. Now, Dave, when we were talking, you said something that caught my attention. This is during the pre-interview. You made the statement, no compromises is a myth. And I want to ask you, I mean, are you able to do a show without any compromises?

[00:34:04] Yeah, I once upon a time through the Walt Disney Company thought, I am a no compromises guy. I am a complete mic snob. If I get the right mic and I get the right gear and I put it in the right place. By the way, that all works, by the way. So your first answer years ago would have been, yes, you can do a show without any compromises.

[00:34:29] But over my time, and it went through the Yamaha filter also. All you young ones listen to this answer. Everything is a compromise. Absolutely everything is a compromise. And I would get it in my brain of, okay, I'm going to tell you that everything is a compromise

[00:34:54] because no one can just get out a million dollars and there is no speed of light accelerator right now. So below that, everything is a compromise. And I want to say that it's us professionals being professional in what we do and bringing to the table our years of experience

[00:35:18] is we will make a thousand carefully considered compromises to get to whatever that is. XYZ band concert, right? We only have 32 trucks. Okay. Well, that certainly limits some art or it might limit some speakers or of course, everything's a compromise. Right.

[00:35:43] And I, I will put this back to education is I don't, I don't think that educators should teach compromise. I think educators need to teach specifics and choir directors at the beginning of the year should teach absolutely articulation. And here's how to develop your tone and, and your pitch and everybody together. And we're going to do all this stuff.

[00:36:12] And yet at the final concert in may, not that it's just a choir concert, remember it's their choir concert is that if someone gets sick at five o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. That's the time you better make a compromise. So is there an understudy or do we have to cut the song? That's a compromise. So everything that we do is, is a compromise and it's the carefully crafted compromises.

[00:36:39] I think that, that make actually the show a better show. It, it, it has to be, and we will go in and we will not be belligerent in what we must draw the line in the sand on, but we should always be able to make the, the, the point of we need this because of this. Here's the return on investment. Here's how we can finance it. Here's what we have to do.

[00:37:09] Okay. And they can say no. And then you take that compromise and you go, okay, well, the next thing is half as many, these half as many, those, it won't sound as good, but we're going to get to a show at seven o'clock on Friday night. You know, it's, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, what compromises do we make? I guess that makes us, I think more successful. I agree with that.

[00:37:33] I think producers that come in and say, I'm not going to compromise on anything, end up having the worst shows. The ones that come in and have the team mentality. Hey, it's about the team. It's about, you know, how far can the audio guy get me to my goal? Right. And he may, he may, or she may not be able to get you to that goal. But when you start to compromise, sometimes the show gets better. Sometimes you see a different path. And yeah, exactly.

[00:38:01] And the show starts to move in a direction that, that works better for the audience, helps the audience see it or hear it better. And I think that comes when you, when you take the approach of, you know, not waving the white flag compromise, but the team approach of, hey, we got an audio person, a video person, a lighting person. We've got musicians.

[00:38:26] How can we all work together as a team to make this the best show, best service possible? And through that process is compromise. Right. There's budget compromise. There's sound level compromise. There's, you know, can they see this? You know, I want a hundred foot LED screen, but half the audience can't see it. You know what I mean? So there's visual compromises. Right. And that's my video guys drive me crazy. They're always the ones that suck all the budget away from the audio team.

[00:38:55] And I'm like, come on, video guys, compromise a little bit so I can actually get some Earthworks microphones. Amen. Preach. Amen. So, yeah. So compromise, I agree with you. I think compromise breeds excellence, especially if you're handling it in more of a team environment, a give and take environment instead of a my way or the highway environment. You know, I got to ask you a question. You got one of the best backgrounds that I've ever had for a guest.

[00:39:24] You know, tell me what you got. Too kind. I've been blessed. I have absolutely been completely blessed. So if I had done this in a different way, I don't know that it had even been my plan. But yeah, it's a fun plan to look at. It's fun. Yeah. But tell me what you got hanging behind you, though. This is truly... I got to go mirrored. This is truly a... That's an Ibanez Iceman Paul Stanley version. That's really a guitar.

[00:39:51] These aren't props. Oh, it's not a green screen. That's a real background. It is not a green screen. Yeah, this is... Oh my gosh. Yep. Uh-huh. I mean, technically, it's a blue screen with guitars hanging in front of it. Right. That is true. But it's not fake. Those are real. Right. I'll be honest. This one... This one's a... Not a Rickenbacker. But it looks like one and it hangs like a little bit. It's not a Rickenbacker. Which one's your favorite to play?

[00:40:18] Um, again, I'm a drummer. So if I look that way, but I'm not going to move the camera, but that's my drum part of the studio. And that's what I play. And these are just... These are fun. And they all sound different, which is great. And my favorite to play? I don't know. I like them all. Then there's a Strat there and there's an Epiphone there. And I'm just a giant Beatles fan to boot. So... And a Paul Stanley fan.

[00:40:46] Well, I can't play the guitar at all. I play piano. So... That's cool. It's a keys. I have a... Downstairs, there's a Yamaha piano. I bled purple for a long time. So, yeah. I have that on my wish list of things to do is learn piano. And I walk by there. Ah! If I didn't have a podcast today, I'd be like, I'm learning piano today. Oh, I love the Yamahas. They're bright. They, you know, easy to mix. You can get them in there nice and easy.

[00:41:16] Like, it's a Yamaha. That is a fact. It kind of sticks out in the mix there. It's pretty awesome. But Dave, tell everybody how they can get a hold of you. The easiest one is that on the website, Dave at DaveHatMaker.com. And I'll pop it up and give you a response and let me know what you think or if I'm absolutely crazy. Everyone... I think everyone knows I'm absolutely crazy. So, you're going to have to write, yeah, you're crazy, man. But try a few of those things out.

[00:41:41] I don't know, little tidbits of knowledge or, I don't know, try it next time you have a staff or a team or just try something different. Try, well, maybe Dave, that was an interesting way to do it. I'll give them more information and see how that works. To get in touch with Dave, go to Dave at DaveHatMaker.com. Or you can go to the Crazy Dave website. DaveHatMaker.com is the website there. So, whether you need product development, a mixer, somebody who can mix front of house

[00:42:10] or whatever, tech director, or just an entertainer, go to his website. Check out the... He's there in front of the drums. I'm drumming this weekend. That's right. All originals. It's good. You can hit him up at his website, DaveHatMaker.com. Dave, thanks for coming on and sharing all your insights. It's been a pleasure hanging out with you today. Thanks, everybody. Well, that wraps things up for today's episode. I can't wait to talk to you on the next Tech Arts Podcast. Until then, I'm David Loishner, signing off by wishing you a great day and praying God

[00:42:39] blesses every moment of your week. See you soon. You have been listening to the Tech Arts Podcast, presented by Digital Great Commission Ministries. DGCM is a 501c3 nonprofit that was started to help churches with all things technical. Whether you need help building a team, finding the right gear, or just a better understanding of the church tech world, DGCM is here for you.

[00:43:03] Find out more about our free on-site visits, reports, and consulting by going to audiovideolighting.com. Digital Great Commission Ministries will help you run your church service like a pro. Find out more at audiovideolighting.com.