Article originally published in Morning Star Publications Business Report
Kevin Short, owner of Mid South Audio, believes in listening.
A mentor told him, “Hearing is a physical process. Listening is a mental process.” He took it to heart.
Mid South Audio will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2019 — a milestone attributed partly to Short’s ability to listen: listen to his customers, to his employees, to market trends, and to the sounds of many productions and installations.
From the time he was 12, Short, a musician, was fascinated with how microphones worked. He found that all his interests rolled into a career that he still enjoys.
“I can convince myself that I like any one part the best when I’m doing it,” Short said of his varied work. “I like it all.”
Short started running a small recording studio and repairing and installing equipment. He had learned the ropes of owning a business from his father, a plumber and heating contractor, who taught Short the importance of excellent customer service.
“We were a company of one the first few years,” Short said. On the side, he began to rent sound equipment to a few local bands. Demand for his services grew, he hired staff, and in September 1989, Mid South Audio was born.
Calling on agility for survival
Sussex County, Delaware isn’t a likely locale for a nationally successful studio and event production company.
“People said you will never be able to do it here. I never believed them,” Short recalled. “This might have been easier somewhere else, but I didn’t want to leave home.”
Today, many large area organizations consider Mid South Audio to be a partner in their business.
WBOC partnered with Mid South in 2016 to build a stage with every component necessary to produce a quality, high-tech show.
“TV has a hard time understanding audio,” said Lisa Bryant, co-host of the afternoon program “DelmarvaLife.” “Kevin and the guys at MSA – this is what they do. It’s perfect.”
Short attributes his persistence to his parents, Harold and Dora Short, who always supported his aspirations. But Short also had a knack for staying agile.
Mid South Audio’s business initially revolved around the recording studio and sound system rentals to clubs and small events. But as word spread about MSA’s excellent production skills, more events and festivals began to call for its services.
“I rolled with the punches, let the market dictate what it needed and grew with it,” he said.
In 1995, Short attended a trade show where he recognized a new trend. Churches were starting to install projectors and screens with their audio systems. He made a quick decision to expand from only offering sound-system installations
“Our customers wanted one-stop shopping. We listened and acquired three lighting companies, one sound company and a Backline company that were all either closing or going into receivership,” Short said.
MSA integrated cutting-edge audio, video and lighting technology into any facility to meet customers’ needs.
“We work with our clients to develop a strategic plan that includes not only their current needs but their future ones as well,” Short said. “Audio-video systems are an investment of time and money. With our detailed planning, our clients’ systems are built to cover all of their current and future sound and video production requirements.”
Michael LeCates, associate director of operations, said he’s seen MSA evolve into an audio visual company that does it all.
“People don’t always understand the full extent of what we do,” he said. Some clients think all we do is event production. Others think we do all install. We do both and sell just about everything. “
Staying vigilant to stay the course
Growing a business in Southern Delaware has not been easy for Short.
“My dad’s competition was the guy next door,” he said. “Our competitors come from major markets with lots of resources and cash flow. It’s harder to make that work here.”
One key to Short’s success in Southern Delaware and beyond is vigilance.
Whether he’s working a local installation job or a major gig across the country, he is always aware of the many factors involved.
“From the time you show up at an event, you’ve got to pay attention to moving parts. The goal is to make sure the audience has a great experience at the end of the day. From gig to gig, that takes a varying amount of effort,” he noted.
It’s also part of how Short listens.
“I’ve developed a good ear over the years. It takes experience to listen and to decide how to contour [the sound] to how you want it to be so it is pleasing to other people,” he said. “A lot of people can hear what’s going on. But they are not really paying attention and listening. That’s part of being ever vigilant. If I am in the middle of an event with 20 to 30 moving parts, I notice crisis coming and get ahead of it.”
MSA also provides clients training in layman’s terms for staff and volunteers and unparalleled service to handle unexpected problems that may happen.
Caitlin G. Conry, office manager, said she’s never worked for a company that took such great care of its customers. She considers Mid South the best place she’s worked.
“You always feel supported, and when something happens, they call it a teaching experience and you learn from it,” she said.
Co-worker Austin Carter, systems technicians, added that MSA gives employees freedom to think independently when situations arise.
“I like the freedom I have to do things the way I think they should be done. It never gets boring,” he said.
Surrounding himself with dedication
Success at Mid South Audio derives, in part, from Short’s dedication to his clients.
“Whatever event [our client] is doing is the most important thing they are doing at that time,” he said. “We understand that.”
Short focuses on being aware of his clients’ needs and providing a product that matches their vision. Clients return for what Short calls
“signature service — service you would sign your name to. At the end of the day, it comes down to your reputation and the reputation of the company. You have to go an extra mile to make sure it gets done and the customer is happy.”
Mid South Audio’s philosophy of superior customer service has earned the company client loyalty.
Patty Grimes, executive director of The Freeman Stage at Bayside, noted: “The first call we made was to Kevin at MSA. Ten years later, we still have an exemplary relationship where seamlessly MSA covers all of our production needs. It really has helped us grow as an arts organization … to take our very grass-roots programming on to a national level.”
Short also believes in building solid relationships with the Mid South Audio staff, his work family – a dedicated, hard-working team of 12 full-time employees and dozens more freelancers. He is proud that his first hire, Gino Bailey, is working with the company today.
The joke at the office, Short said, “is that we mate for life.”
Maurice Hein, lighting designer, said he stays because he feels like he’s part of a family that cares.
“Everyone understands that we’re a smaller company, and we have to care about what we’re doing,” he said. “We care about growing this business together. We treat it as our own.”
Hein, who joined Mid South more than 10 years ago, said he’s enthusiastic about the future.
On the other hand, Bailey, senior systems technician, enjoys looking back at how much progress Mid South has made.
When he started 25 years ago, the company had a staff of three.
“Now we have a crew and as many as 40 people in a busy day. I remember the days when people told us we would never be able to pull this off successfully,” he recalled. “I take great pride in the fact that we did.”
For Short, his employees are his greatest source of pride: “Marking success for me has not been about a dollar amount or net worth. It’s been about expanding the family here.”
The most satisfying aspects of Short’s 30-plus years in the business are knowing how many people depend on the success of Mid South Audio. He thrives on watching employees start and raise families, send kids to college, build homes and take root in the community.
Short is quick to credit his staff’s loyalty and dedication for building MSA into a company with a reputation as one of the best in the business. He knows that everyone who works for him could have taken different journeys, but they chose a career at Mid South Audio because it is fulfilling. Short is mindful that their attention to detail and love of the business match his.
Celebrating a milestone by charting a course forward
Short continues to look for ways to grow and provide more options for his customers. His most recent business expansion occurred in 2017 when he purchased a NEXO STM system. “We made the decision about a year ago that we needed to add a new line array to our inventory,” Short said. “We had been cross-renting, and with our business growing, it was time to enlarge our inventory.”
The new system allows MSA to better adapt to client needs and expands MSA’s reach into regional and national markets. “It’s simple to use, and like a Lego system, we can configure it the way we want, for example, breaking it into four systems for four separate gigs or corporate events,” Short said.
MSA is also expanding its physical presence. The company has begun construction of a 10,000-square-foot office space that will include a demo room to be used as a learning center. The demo room will be the new home for MSA’s popular Facebook live show “Tech Talk Live,” a monthly question-and-answer show featuring a new product and giveaways.
“In the past … 30 years, we’ve engineered some of the largest productions in the Eastern Shore of Delmarva, and we’ve grown to become the area’s No. 1 company for creative audio-visual and lighting solutions,” Short said. By the end of this year, MSA will have provided production services for more than 500 shows in 2018.
Short said that his success is like “baking a cake, and it tastes better than you ever imagined.”
For an entrepreneur in the audio-visual world, Short has learned the most important lesson well: Listening translates into business prosperity.