The Master Integrator Podcast

Ten years ago, an arts and community worker in Brisbane swiped right on an electrician. On their first date, they got talking about what we owe each other, and how to use privilege for good. Eight years after that conversation turned into a business, Give Industries has given more than a million dollars to charity.Kat Dekker is one of three co-founders of Give Industries, alongside her partner Calvin Baker and their friend Jeremy Chirpaz. Give operates as a commercial electrical contractor across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Melbourne. It's triple ISO certified, a national NECA Gold Medal winner, and Master Electrician accredited. It's also structured as a registered charity, so every dollar of profit at year end is committed to giving.In this conversation, Kat walks through what a social enterprise actually is, how the profit-for-good model works in practice, how the team hit their first million dollars donated at the end of last year, and why the impact side of the business cannot come at the cost of the electrical side. She's honest about the pressure of running a business where the stakes are bigger than yourself. And she puts an invitation on the table for someone from another trade, the same kind of crazy as her co-founders, to help build the next branch of Give.In this episode:• How a first date about philosophy turned into an electrical contracting business• What a social enterprise actually is, and how the profit-for-good model works• Why Give had to be a serious electrical contractor first, and a charity second• Hitting the first million dollars donated, and the target of a million per year by 2030• Using charity evaluators like GiveWell and The Life You Can Save to give strategically• The Against Malaria Foundation, and the case for direct cash transfers• The four-day work week, and why diverse teams are also profitable teams• How social procurement is opening doors: Kinetic, CDRE, and Social Traders• The mental health of running a small business where the stakes are bigger than yourself• The open invitation: Give Industries, not Give Electrical, and what that means for tradespeople in other disciplinesSponsors:ADI is one of Australia's largest distributors of security, audio visual, smart home and low voltage products. Its branch network, online ordering and technical support give integrators access to the brands and stock that keep jobs moving. Sonance’s Mariner MX Series delivers high-performance outdoor audio with durable, weather-resistant speakers designed to withstand the elements while delivering exceptional sound. This October, dealers can take advantage of a special Mariner MX offer from Sonance. For more information, contact Amber Technology at https://share-ap1.hsforms.com/1tIbjnGIWSWOBPFWg56wZ-w6r5sSomfy is a global manufacturer of motorisation and automation solutions for blinds, curtains, awnings, shutters and screens. With more than thirty years in Australia and New Zealand, Somfy supports integrators across residential and commercial projects with motors, controls and the TaHoma smart home hub. Kolosseum provides design and documentation services built specifically for integrators. From system design through to as-built documentation, the team works as an extension of your business so the paperwork stops being the thing that holds a job up. Connected Magazine is Australia's trade publication for the custom installation and smart home industry. It covers the products, projects and people shaping residential and commercial integration across the country.

Almost every integrator carries insurance. Far fewer are actually covered for the work they do. Insurance runs on occupation classifications, and the integration industry has never fit neatly into one. Call yourself an electrician, an IT contractor or an AV installer and you have described a fraction of the job, which is exactly the fraction an insurer will hold you to when a claim lands.Daniel Webber co-directs Webber Insurance, a general brokerage that deliberately niches into construction and technology. Over a series of conversations with Master Integrator, he helped build what Webber believes is the first insurance package written specifically for Australian integrators, general liability, professional indemnity and cyber in one place, with the insurer involved from the ground up rather than a generic policy relabelled after the fact.This conversation is the honest version of a subject most integrators avoid. Why the cover you hold may not describe your business, the gap that opens between a public liability policy and a professional indemnity policy, the claim general liability will never pay, why cyber is the threat that can shut you overnight, and how to find out whether you are protected before you need to be. It is a launch, and neither Daniel nor Paul pretends it is finished. It is a starting point for an industry to finally be insured for what it actually does.In this episode:• Why insurance has never fit the integration industry, and the problem of occupation classifications• Where an integrator's risk actually sits, spread across general liability, professional indemnity and cyber• The gap that opens when you stack a public liability policy and a PI policy that each exclude the other's territory• General advice, personal advice and no advice, and why the way you buy insurance decides who carries the risk• Why the aggregator sites that hand you ten quotes are not doing the job you think they are• What professional indemnity actually protects, and why an industry built on design services cannot go without it• Three ways to find out whether you are covered, including where AI helps and where it does not• Why cyber is the threat that can shut a business overnight, and the first party cover the other policies do not give you• Inside the new package, general liability, professional indemnity and cyber, built from a technology base with room to ramp cover up or down• How to get a quote, and the one thing that will make or break the schemeSponsorsADI is one of Australia's largest distributors of security, audio visual, smart home and low voltage products. Its branch network, online ordering and technical support give integrators access to the brands and stock that keep jobs moving. This episode of Master Integrator is brought to you by Sonance, available through Amber Technology. This September, Sonance is turning up the value on outdoor audio. Buy a Garden Series 8.1 System and Amp and receive a FREE 10-inch In-Ground Subwoofer, valued at $2,775. That’s more bass, more impact, and an even better outdoor listening experience for your customers. Don’t miss this limited-time offer. Click this link.Somfy is a global manufacturer of motorisation and automation solutions for blinds, curtains, awnings, shutters and screens. With more than thirty years in Australia and New Zealand, Somfy supports integrators across residential and commercial projects with motors, controls and the TaHoma smart home hub. Kolosseum provides design and documentation services built specifically for integrators. From system design through to as-built documentation, the team works as an extension of your business so the paperwork stops being the thing that holds a job up. Connected Magazine is Australia's trade publication for the custom installation and smart home industry. It covers the products, projects and people shaping residential and commercial integration across the country.

Master Integrator is evolving.What began as a podcast is becoming a dedicated industry body for residential, commercial and AV integration professionals across Australia and New Zealand.In this special announcement, founder Paul Skelton explains why Master Integrator has been created, who it represents and what it intends to deliver.The episode explores the challenges facing the systems integration industry, including limited recognition, fragmented representation, workforce shortages and the need for stronger education and career pathways.You’ll also hear about Master Integrator’s work across:Industry advocacy and government engagementSystems Integration qualifications and the next stage of securing government fundingProfessional standards and consumer recognitionBusiness support and practical member resourcesIndustry research, including the State of the Integrator report and Manufacturer Channel Report CardEvents, education and professional developmentThe Founding 50 and how to become a memberMaster Integrator is only just getting started. A substantial program of work is already in development, with several exciting announcements coming throughout launch week and beyond.Membership is now open to integrator companies, sole traders and industry service providers.Find out more: https://www.masterintegrator.orgBecome a member: https://www.masterintegrator.org/joinComplete the Industry Survey: https://masterintegrator.org/resources/report-card/Follow Master Integrator on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.Contact: [email protected] thanks to our sponsors:ADI is one of Australia's largest distributors of security, audio visual, smart home and low voltage products. Its branch network, online ordering and technical support give integrators access to the brands and stock that keep jobs moving. Visit adiglobal.com⁠This September, Sonance is turning up the value on outdoor audio. Buy a Garden Series 8.1 System and Amp and receive a FREE 10-inch In-Ground Subwoofer, valued at $2,775. That’s more bass, more impact, and an even better outdoor listening experience for your customers. Don’t miss this limited-time offer. Contact Amber Technology at https://share-ap1.hsforms.com/1tIbjnGIWSWOBPFWg56wZ-w6r5s⁠Somfy ⁠is a global manufacturer of motorisation and automation solutions for blinds, curtains, awnings, shutters and screens. With more than thirty years in Australia and New Zealand, Somfy supports integrators across residential and commercial projects with motors, controls and the TaHoma smart home hub. Visit somfy.com.au⁠Kolosseum ⁠provides design and documentation services built specifically for integrators. From system design through to as-built documentation, the team works as an extension of your business so the paperwork stops being the thing that holds a job up. visit kolosseum.io⁠Connected Magazine⁠ is Australia's trade publication for the custom installation and smart home industry. It covers the products, projects and people shaping residential and commercial integration across the country. Visit connectedmag.com.au

The integration industry is full of technically gifted people who find the business side of their work uncomfortable. Selling feels like a word that applies to someone else. Marketing means spending money they are not sure they have. Leading a team is something they will get to once things settle down.Daniel Grozdan has spent most of his career watching that play out. After years in retail, national account management and a senior role at Samsung, he now manages marketing across 12 brands at Canohm and writes for Connected Magazine. His view, developed across a long time on the distribution side of the industry, is that the integrators who build good businesses are rarely the ones who know the most. They are the ones who have figured out how to talk to people.This conversation covers the part of running an integration business that nobody trained you for. What AI is actually useful for, and where it gets in the way. How to think about sales when the word itself makes you uncomfortable. What a discovery conversation should do that most integrators skip. How to find your ideal customer when your instinct is to say it is anyone with a house. What marketing actually costs, and what it costs you not to do it. What metrics matter when going viral is not the point. And what the one thing an integrator could do this week to be more human in the way they run their business.In this episode• What Daniel means by the human element, and why he thinks AI makes it more important rather than less• Whether sales can be taught, and what happens when you take the sales element out of a sales conversation• The ideal customer profile, what it is, why most integrators think their customer is anyone, and how to find out who it actually is• Finding common ground before you try to find common business, and why that order matters• What marketing is, and why most integrators mistake it for advertising spend• Where to start with social media if you are time poor and have never done it• What metrics actually matter for a small integration business, and why going viral is not one of them• What to do if you will not use social media and do not want to• Whether old school marketing, print, letter drops, physical mail, still has a place in 2025• Common mistakes Daniel sees in how integrators approach sales and marketing• Reverse engineering a business goal, and why writing the number down changes how you think about everything else• The one thing an integrator can do this week to be more human in how they run their businessSponsorsADI is one of Australia's largest distributors of security, audio visual, smart home and low voltage products. Its branch network, online ordering and technical support give integrators access to the brands and stock that keep jobs moving. Bluesound delivers high resolution wireless audio across multi-room systems, home theatre and streaming components, built on the BluOS platform. Distributed in Australia by Amber Technology, the range is designed for integrators who need reliable network audio that scales from a single room to a whole home. Somfy is a global manufacturer of motorisation and automation solutions for blinds, curtains, awnings, shutters and screens. With more than thirty years in Australia and New Zealand, Somfy supports integrators across residential and commercial projects with motors, controls and the TaHoma smart home hub. Kolosseum provides design and documentation services built specifically for integrators. From system design through to as-built documentation, the team works as an extension of your business so the paperwork stops being the thing that holds a job up. Connected Magazine is Australia's trade publication for the custom installation and smart home industry. It covers the products, projects and people shaping residential and commercial integration across the country.

For years, the Certificate III in Custom Electronics sat on the national register and looked, from a distance, like a pathway. Up close it had no registered training organisations delivering it and no students enrolled in it, and on those numbers alone a Jobs and Skills Council is obliged to remove a training product from the register. Two years on, that qualification has been rebuilt as the Certificate III in Systems Integration, joined by a Certificate IV and a set of skill sets designed for technicians who want to cross-skill without committing to a full qualification. In this episode, Christina Bradley of Powering Skills Organisation and Paul Vivian walk through how it happened, what is actually in it, and what has to occur before anyone can enrol.Christina explains why two people asking for a rebuild was not enough, and what changed her position: roughly 150 survey responses from industry, PSO's own workforce planning data, and an email from a person with a disability describing how many separate tradespeople they needed to retrofit their own home. Paul details the content rebuild, including a dedicated assistive technology stream he believes is the first of its kind anywhere, project management placed at the centre of the qualification rather than the edge, ethics around handling client information, cabler registration units imported from the ICT package rather than duplicated, and security and access control units.The draft goes up for initial industry feedback from late August, with formal consultation running December to March. In this episodeWhy the Certificate III in Custom Electronics was being removed from the national register, and how close it cameWhat Christina needed before PSO would commit, and why two industry figures asking was not enough on its ownHow the systems integration subject matter expert group was formed, and who sits at the tableWhat is now in the qualification: assistive technology, project management, ethics, IP distribution, data, fibre and coaxial cabling, CCTV, access control and security integrationWhy nobody can deliver this yet, and the ASQA requirements around trainer capability and currencyHow manufacturer training can be mapped to performance evidence, and what suppliers need to do to get involvedThe funding problem, jurisdictional funding lists, and the fee for service cost of a Certificate III without itWhat success looks like in year one, and why Christina wants no more than 50 studentsHow the training products have been future-proofed, and what can be changed without reopening the whole processThe consultation windows, the Integrate launch, and the 12 month runwaySponsorsADI is one of Australia's largest distributors of security, audio visual, smart home and low voltage products. Its branch network, online ordering and technical support give integrators access to the brands and stock that keep jobs moving. Find out more at adiglobal.com.Bluesound delivers high resolution wireless audio across multi-room systems, home theatre and streaming components, built on the BluOS platform. Distributed in Australia by Amber Technology, the range is designed for integrators who need reliable network audio that scales from a single room to a whole home. Learn more at ambertech.com.au/brands/bluesound.Somfy is a global manufacturer of motorisation and automation solutions for blinds, curtains, awnings, shutters and screens. With more than thirty years in Australia and New Zealand, Somfy supports integrators across residential and commercial projects with motors, controls and the TaHoma smart home hub. Learn more at somfy.com.au.Connected Magazine is Australia's trade publication for the custom installation and smart home industry. It covers the products, projects and people shaping residential and commercial integration across the country. Read it at connectedmag.com.au.