Michael Hanks:

Sorry that we're a few minutes late, had a few technical difficulties, but we're really excited to get this webinar started. We have a special guest here, Cade Smith. He is our regional vice president of sales here at LVT, and he has some fun stories. One, specifically, that we're going to dive into. But before we get into that, Cade, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Cade Smith:

Sure. I'm glad we blended on technical difficulties. I thought we were going to go with wardrobe malfunction. I couldn't decide what color shirt to wear.

Michael Hanks:

A couple changes.

Cade Smith:

Yeah, exactly. So Cade Smith, been here with LiveView for probably about a year and a half now since July of 2020. But I've been in the security industry for quite some time, probably a total of 18 to 19 years. I was mostly in the residential and small commercial sector.

I always had kind of a pulse, a finger, on large commercial enterprise entities, bigger-type commercial ideas for security, but I knew of its archaic passing. So when LiveView presented itself and its disruptive technology, that was something that interest me greatly. So made the switch from a long-term career where I was at previously, because I saw the writing on the wall.

Michael Hanks:

Sweet. Well, I know I've loved working with you. You're a great guy, and we've had a lot of success. I know you've seen a lot of success, but tell me a little bit about some of the highlights and the experiences, some of your top ones that you've had with customers in the last year and a half you've been at LVT.

Cade Smith:

So you want specific customer wins, use cases, ways that I've seen there, or do you want product... What ways that we've really changed things and changed the industry?

Michael Hanks:

I'm wondering, just in general, if you were to write your eulogy of LVT that you've been here for year half, what you would say. This was one of my favorite moments, and it could be internal, it could be customers. We'll dive into customers here a little bit more, but it could be a situation with the customer or a product, the whole kit and caboodle.

Cade Smith:

Sure. Let me talk briefly just about, because I think it kind of sets the table for our customers. The thing that LiveView does that really [inaudible 00:02:21] to me impresses my customers is the vision of it.

As we've understood in our 16-year tenure, 17-year tenure, whatever it is, that we have a very unique product. There's a hardware solution and there's a software solution. Both are mutually exclusive. They're tied together. They're married.

And what I think the rest of the industry hasn't figured out is, that the end user's experience can only be as good as the lowest common denominator of those two factors. Like a case in point, if you go purchase a brand new 4K Ultra whatever TV you bring home and you plug in a VHS into it, no matter the capability of that piece of hardware, you're limited by the software that's being piped into it. And we see that all the time

Michael Hanks:

Totally. Yeah.

Cade Smith:

You turn on the nightly news and Wells Fargo got broken into on the corner of 72nd and Grand. Here's video. Here's a picture of the guy. It's laggy. It's blurry. The coloring's off. You're talking about Wells Fargo, multi-billion dollar entity, having crappy camera footage video.

And that's where LiveView has really... People see our trailers. They see our cameras. They see our solutions, and they get super impressed really quick. It catches their attention.

But once you start seeing the technology, and how disruptive it is, and how it replaces car services, to me that's the high level of what we do at LiveView that really is the highlight. Because when you start talking about that stuff and sharing it with customers and those light bulbs start going on, then you start seeing wins with your customers. You start seeing construction site managers that are like, "Hey, I want to be able to check in on subs. I want to be able to check the list of liability reasons that my insurance says I need cameras on site. I want to make sure my lumber material doesn't go off. I want to make sure my site doesn't get vandalized. I want to make sure my employees show up on time." There's reason after reason in different use cases depending on what's vertical, whether it's construction or big box retail or government. High level, that pretty much sums up what LiveView does really special.

But in the last year and a half, I've got wins all over the place. One of the nice parts about being at LiveView is, that I'm not siloed into staying in my lane. Yes, I hold the title of regional vice president of sales, but I sell. I go out, and I meet customers. I install our systems. I take phone calls if someone has a question or an issue. I wear a lot of different hats, and so I get to see a lot of different facets.

I remember being up in Seattle, Washington installing for Albertsons Safeway, one of those stores, and I literally got a hug from an older lady that just said, "Thank you."

Michael Hanks:

Yeah.

Cade Smith:

Because she saw, and I didn't explain anything, she just saw cameras. She saw lighting. And she's like, "Oh, they're trying to make this place safer." So everything from those types of experiences down to the customers feeling happy, whether they're in your parking lots, or employees thanking you. An employee at a different site in southern California, brought me out a coffee because he's like, "Hey, I want to bring you a coffee. You just made my job easier."

Michael Hanks:

Totally.

Cade Smith:

And he was a security guard, and we made his job easier, because he feels more safe.

Sorry. Was that good?

Michael Hanks:

No, that's great. One of the perks of my job as I help run the customer marketing side of this business is hearing these stories, you and all your whole sales team come back and security guards thanking you, and even just residents of places that have a unit set up there, just thanking the police officers or whatever, and actually seeing the difference. That's actually one of the most rewarding things for me working here. So thanks for sharing that.

You talked about Albertsons Safeway a little bit, and that's the main reason we wanted to jump on this webinar is, because they've had quite an interesting journey, a lot of successful wins. And so I think everyone attending is probably really interested of how, from the beginning when you started talking to them to where they're at now, just walk us through that whole thing. And I think it'd be very advantageous if you talk about what were some of their pain points and how do they overcome them with getting something like LVT.

Cade Smith:

Sure. And that's in that same location that I was talking about is up in the Seattle area. I've been working with the Pacific Northwest division up there. I think we have, to date, 30 units. I know that they're also going to put in an order for Q1 next year, probably another 10 to 15, somewhere in that neighborhood.

And to give you a little bit of backstory, we marketed, connected with them about a year ago this time. And then their Q1 started, I think, February 1st. And, really, what they were seeing was just mass amounts of crime, not only vandalism, theft, car break-ins, but even worse stuff beyond that. In one parking lot in the course of a calendar year in Seattle, they had 13 shootings.

Michael Hanks:

Oh, my gosh.

Cade Smith:

13 shootings. And the police incident reports were just under 700 for a calendar year. That's nearly two a day.

Michael Hanks:

Whoa. Yeah, that is crazy.

Cade Smith:

Yeah. And so there was an obvious need there. And there's been some other benefits other than just reducing crime, which I'll get into. But the moment we put that LiveView unit in that parking lot, March 1st, they haven't had one shooting in front of that store.

Michael Hanks:

Not one.

Cade Smith:

Yeah.

Michael Hanks:

Wow.

Cade Smith:

And that store is a special situation. There's a storefront. You got a liquor store right next to it. Then you also have a gas station, and a bus station, and an old church. So it's kind of this weird trifecta. It brings in a bunch of different people. And there's been such a reduction in crime that the police department actually reached out and said, "Is it just this unit? What else have you guys been doing?"

Michael Hanks:

Totally.

Cade Smith:

And since putting that unit in place, not one shooting, the police reports have gone down from nearly two a day to one every three days.

Michael Hanks:

Wow.

Cade Smith:

Yeah. It's not perfect, but it displaces the crime at a great rate.

Michael Hanks:

Totally.

Cade Smith:

Then you have the side benefits of that. You have employees being a lot more at ease of mind when they're walking out of their shift at 11 p.m. at night, or they're showing up early. You have customers just parking underneath the units because they feel that it's safer. You have shrink numbers inside the store that are completely decreasing because, and the theory is, you keep the bad guys out of the parking lot, you keep them out of the store.

So we have big box retailers that record anywhere from 20% to 60% less shrinkage on the inside part of their store, and they say it's completely the unit on the parking lot. So if putting up that full-court press on the outside part of your building, because you pull in and you instantly, you see this unit that's taking up a parking spot. It's about the size of a Toyota Prius. It's got solar panels. It's got, obviously, three cameras up on top. It's got speaker intercom, and you can have messages playing, "Hey, welcome to Albertsons Safeway, where we're abiding by all COVID protocols. Please mask up as you go into the store."

Michael Hanks:

Yeah.

Cade Smith:

Just a good vibe for customers.

Michael Hanks:

Totally.

Cade Smith:

Does that answer-

Michael Hanks:

Totally. No. Yeah, I think that's great. And I'll just do a quick question. Everyone out there, if anybody does have questions for Cade while we're here, there is a question portion that you could go and ask your questions, and we'll get to those here in a little bit later. So as Cade's talking about these experiences, if something pops up for you that you're interested in and that Cade could help answer, definitely go ask those questions, and we will get to those here in a little bit.

So piggybacking off of that, Cade, for anybody watching in the future or right now, specifically retail, let's dive into that retail space, and if they're looking for an enhanced security solution, what key elements should they know about when they're going into that? And then also help them understand, I think it'd be beneficial, of how they then take this information and pitch it to their team and help the whole team understand.

‍Cade Smith:

Sure. It is not just a matter of putting cameras in the parking lot. That doesn't really change the behavior. In fact, we've got a big box retail partner that has spent more money, more time, more research into parking lot security than anybody else. And the way that they used to go about it is, they would be more covert. They would put cameras on the buildings. They would paint them the same colors of the store. They would try to "catch people in the act", so to speak, and they noticed a couple of problems with that. Number one, they had to raise CapEx dollars to invest in that piece of hardware, being outside, dealing with weather, dealing with those elements, and it decreases in value every day. Electronics need to be replaced. So that's a CapEx expense that they had to replace every two, three, four, five years, whatever.

Number two is, it didn't really change human behavior. People are becoming desensitized to cameras on walls and cameras on poles. Just think about it yourself. When's the last time you walked into a big box retail and you're like, "Oh, that's a cool camera"? You probably don't do that. When people pull into our parking lots and they see a big unit, solar panels, they see lighting, they hear a two-way speaker come through, they pay attention to it pretty quick, because it's out of the norm.

It's no different than if you or I are driving down the freeway and we see a speed limit sign. We're probably not going to be like, "Oh, crap, I need to change my speed." But if I'm driving down the same freeway and I see a cop, and my foot's coming off the gas. I'm going to see where I'm at. I'm going to-

Michael Hanks:

100%. Yeah, totally.

‍Cade Smith:

And so changing human behavior, what our big box retail partner noticed is, by putting cameras on poles out in the parking lot, it didn't change human behavior. So if they had 100 incidents in the course of a year, they still had 100 incidents. They just had clear, closer pictures of those incidents happening. So that was problem number two.

Problem number three is, then you have to hire somebody to sit behind the computer screen and sit there and watch all of those different views. Talk about problematic for a few different reasons. One, that's an expensive employee, eight-hour shifts, three shifts. You can do the math really quickly, even at 15 bucks an hour, that's an expensive employee to sit there and watch it.

Problem number two of that is, data shows when someone's looking at computer screens, different camera views, 75% of people have turned their brain off within 15 minutes. And the data goes up even further to say, within an additional six minutes, 21 minutes in total, it's 90%.

Michael Hanks:

Whoa.

Cade Smith:

So when you're talking about an ineffective employee sitting there watching the computer screens that you've invested thousands-

Michael Hanks:

So much time.

Cade Smith:

... across locations, hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars, and you're getting an ineffective reach.

So when people think cameras and they think security, they're just thinking cameras and views. That again, yes, we sell cameras. And we sell them in unique packages, whether it's solar, or a trailer, or wall mounts. But, really, having that be turned out there and then using the technology, and those angles, and those reaches to actually automate that person sitting in front of the screen, all we did was just become extremely more efficient. We found some efficiencies, and we've scaled it, and it's grown.

That's really the way that you want to start thinking about security. That was the biggest reason why I switched from residential and small commercial security to this is, I saw the writing on the wall. Someone's going to create a disruptive product that eliminates or pushes out that human element that needs to be there that can go wrong on so many levels.

Does that make sense?

Michael Hanks:

Oh, that makes perfect sense.

Cade Smith:

Okay.

Michael Hanks:

I think-

‍Cade Smith:

Just make sure I'm not talking in circles.

Michael Hanks:

I think it makes perfect sense. If it doesn't make sense, feel free to ask the question to help him clarify. But I totally think that makes sense. So thanks for sharing that. I think that's awesome.

We did get a question. Let's dive into questions here. We have a couple minutes left. Great question from Cody. "It's the holidays. Is there anything that we could do right now to reduce shrinkage?" He then follows that up with, "I assume that you can't get us a unit by tomorrow."

Cade Smith:

It depends on location, Cody. But yeah, we have rapid deployment. One of the things, and I'll chalk this up to our CEO, at the beginning of the pandemic, they saw that there could be problems in supply chain. They foresaw that, so they doubled down and ordered things that we need to create units. We build the units here in the United States. So depending on location where you're at, yeah, absolutely. We could probably get a unit out there very soon, whether it's tomorrow, just depends on location, where we're at on our fleet. But yeah, probably quicker than you'd think, or imagine, or expect from the vendor. Yeah, that's for sure.

Michael Hanks:

What about his first question? What tips, just general and industry, of what they could do right now to help reduce shrinkage?

Cade Smith:

It depends on what type of retail shrinkage that you're talking about. If it's indoor shrinkage or outdoor shrinkage, those are two very different factors. Lighting always helps. Messaging always helps, like speakers, intercoms. I still think that there's a place for guard services in what we do. I know the earlier advertising of LiveView Technologies would say, "Hey, we replace guard services."

‍Michael Hanks:

Yeah.

‍Cade Smith:

Our units are great. They're not going to put anybody in handcuffs physically, and both guard services are valuable. Having a boots on the ground presence, I'm not dismissing that at all. However, our units will call the boots on the ground to get there and put those people in handcuffs.

So I would say lighting, messaging, presence, that force of presence is always big. As far as getting the type of shrinkage decrease that you're looking for, yeah, LiveView or some type of like product to ours is going to be your best lift this time of year. And it's a rough time of year. I get that for retail, but we can deploy quick.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Another question just came in. You did touch on this a little bit, so maybe this can help expand a little more, but what are some other benefits than reduction in crime that comes from one of our units?

Cade Smith:

Great question. So liability's a big thing, especially if you're talking like contractors, pipe layers, all of those things. Insurance companies want to know what's going on, whether it's workman's comp. One of my home builders here in the state of Utah, largest home builder, EDGEhomes, they had a guy fall off the roof. OSHA reached out to him and said, "You got a camera sitting right there. You're either going to get $100 fine or you're going to prove that he was tied off correctly."

And cameras are only as good at what they're looking at. Well, it happened to be that the camera was pointed literally right at that roof and that guy falling off. We found that guy falling off. He was tied off correctly. It was just a mishap on his end, so it was able to prove it to him so they didn't have to eat that cost.

So liability's a big thing, whether it's workman's comp, or whether it's stolen goods, or material being vandalized or stolen. I think that that's a big one, liability, that people don't touch on.

I would say one of the other biggest ones is, especially for contractors, is just loss of time, loss of opportunity. If I get lumber stolen off my property or a catalytic converter gets cut off of my trucks, well then that's downtime of getting... The cost of replacing that lumber, that sucks. The cost of replacing a catalytic converter is just as bad. It's terrible. But the downtime of not being able to use that truck or having guys sit around waiting for lumber, the lost opportunity cost of getting onto the next job, that one, it's hard to measure, but it's real and substantial.

My father-in-law's a business owner, and he's very, very successful. And he taught me from the very start, he said, "If you can create efficiencies, you will be successful in life." What a LiveView unit does is, it helps you create efficiencies, whether in a parking lot or a job site, it allows you to create efficiencies and use your manpower more effectively. It's a tool. And when tools are used and leveraged correctly, not only is your workmanship better, but it's more proficient.

Does that make sense?

‍Michael Hanks:

Yeah. 100%.

Cade Smith:

Employee satisfaction. I can't state that one enough. I was explaining this to my wife one day and she said, "So you're telling me you can have a unit basically watching me come out of," because she was a cashier at a grocery store when we were young, newly married, she's like, "You could have had a unit watch me walk to my car."

And I was like, "Yeah, we can do that."

And she's like, "I don't understand why not everybody does that. That would make me feel so much better and valued as an employee that they care about me."

So employee satisfaction, also customer satisfaction from a retail standpoint. Go to any big box retailer that has this. If you go into a rougher area, we have them all over the place. You've probably seen them. Some are yellow, some are white. But that's us. And you'll notice that cars park around the units, and the reason is, they feel safer. They know if something does get broken into, there's going to be video of that person, and they'll be able to catch them. They also know that it pushes away the bad guys.

So there's lots of different reasons other than shrink or other reduction in crime. It just depends on which one strikes you the most and the one that you're dealing with that's the most painful.

Michael Hanks:

Love it. Cade, I always enjoy listening to you, hearing from you, learning from you. You have great stories. You explain the unit and the use cases so well. So I hope everyone else has enjoyed listening to you. If anybody has any other questions, you can always reach out to us. Go to lvt.com, check out all the resources. You can email us at sales@lvt.com. We have social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Find us there, and we're happy to dive a little bit deeper with you, help figure out if it were a good solution for you.

Cade, before we leave, what's one piece of advice that you want to leave our listeners with?

Cade Smith:

I think status quo constantly needs to be challenged. I deal with construction guys all the way up to presidents, and I tell you what, just changing the way of status quo is super important in what you guys do, being forward-thinking. So many times we get caught in a rut, because other things are distracting.

It's just like anything else in life. Criminals are still going to be criminals. They're going to learn and try to get around things. Staying ahead of them is really valuable to you. And so constantly challenging your status quo, looking at what you need to do to prevent crime from happening.

My biggest thing is, I would rather do away with the disease. I would rather extinct the disease rather than treating the symptoms. And so many times when people talk about camera surveillance, security, they want to treat the symptom. I would rather do away with the disease altogether. If I can avert crime, displace it, no offense, push it into somebody else's parking lot if I have to, then that's the way that it needs to be. Until that they catch on and they need to make a change in their approach. But I think it's just forward-thinking and challenging your current status quo.

Michael Hanks:

Awesome. Cade, thanks again. This has been awesome. Thanks everybody for joining. Once again, reach out if you have any other questions or want to learn more.