According to the experience of our Professional of the Month, the audiovisual industry in Chile has the technology and knowledge to hold large events with the highest international standards.
Richard Santa Sanchez
Since childhood, Hernán Godoy dreamed of being in the film and television industry of his country, of working behind the cameras, a dream that he was able to fulfill after studying audiovisual communication and film and television, but it was his working life that led him to be an outstanding professional of the AV industry in Chile.
After finishing college, our Professional of the Month was linked to the television industry by being part of the production of the program Pateperro, which had seven seasons and was recognized in his country for telling stories of Chileans who were successful abroad. He also participated in the recording of three films and in the production of the first reality that presented the television of his country.
But after five years of work in a row in which he did not have a vacation because he was always linked to different projects, there was a time when he was out of work due to the postponement of the project he was in. Then he was linked in the reception of the technical service equipment of a company that represented the Sony brand in Chile. "It was a very strong blow because I came from another job, with different jobs and salary."
This radical labor change in his functions, shortly after would take him to the audiovisual industry. Says Hernán Godoy the company was looking to enter new business areas, including rental.
"At that time, one of our clients came to do a Pan American ophthalmology in Chile and asked for a live broadcast between two places, a surgery room and the congress venue. Our company was asked for a quote and ended up sending me to present the proposal, which they liked because I had experience in television I knew what they needed, "he said.
Apprentice in sales
Thanks to this project, Hernán Godoy moved in 2004 to the newly created rental area of the company, supporting sales. "To perform in this area, my bosses supported me to continue, guiding me even along the path of sales, which I had never liked because I had the vision of salespeople fighting for commissions, envy and problems."
He explains that in the rental segment he began to get customers because he was more concerned with giving them the best audiovisual solutions than selling them the most expensive product. That's why, at one point, it had 70% of the company's customers along with another salesperson, even though there were 11 salespeople at the time.
Thanks to the experience acquired during five years in the rental segment and the recognition achieved during that time, in 2009 he received a job proposal that he could not refuse.
He commented that "That year SAV's offer came with a much more aggressive proposal because it based its offer on the fact that it trusted me a lot and what I could do. It was a small company that was taking the first steps to become what it is today. That unrestricted support that they have given me in these four years continues, being able to do innovative things that have allowed our clients to be faithful to our work."
Training and updating
At 38 years old, Hernán serves as Commercial Manager of SAV, Audiovisual Support, a position from which he leads the projects and of which he assures that the task of positioning himself in the sales area has not been easy, but he is also responsible for keeping the company updated with the latest technology.
He pointed out that "for a technology company it is very difficult to stay updated, to be aligned with development because technologies go very fast. The decision is not so much about whether to buy or not to buy, it is to know what are the things we can gain, what we can lose. Today we have to think about the price of the things we want to buy because we have a small market."
A fundamental part of their work is to be updated, so for three years they have participated annually in InfoComm fairs, which are attended by the company's managers and technical staff, and in this way they strengthen the quality of the services they provide and have a closer relationship with employees.
"Now being the boss is when you understand the reason for some of the restrictions. But we only intervene when strictly necessary, we are not on top of the employees because they know what they have to do. In addition, the best evaluated technicians in each year can move to the sales area where their economic expectations are very high. This strategy has given us very good results, because we think that it will always be better for the people of the company to overcome that someone from outside comes," he explained.
Hernán Godoy pointed out as one of the main achievements in the relationship with his employees, that none has left because they offer him more money, because he assures that those who have done so are looking for different expectations.
Everything under control
One of the projects of which our Professional of the Month has had great lessons for his performance in the rental segment, was with a large projection for one of the most important clients of SAV, in which they were going to use screens of 20 meters on each side and a large number of projectors.
"We organized everything from the day before, we did the tests, we lined up the projectors and on the day of the event we started uploading the videos at five in the afternoon, the event was at nine o'clock at night, when we realized that the company that was providing the lighting service connected one of its cables to our network and misaligned all the projectors. We had to stop loading the videos to address this problem and when we returned to load them there was an earth tremor that misaligned the projectors again."
He says that in the end, ten minutes before the event began, they were at the races finishing everything and although in the end everything went well, fulfilling 90% of what was planned, this experience taught them that you can not leave anything to chance, you have to be aware of all the details. Therefore, now they try to execute the projects with as much time as possible and to be able to have solutions to equipment failures as quickly as possible.
Family First
For Hernán Godoy, family has always played a very important role in his life. At the age of 15 he went with his parents to live in Sweden, where he spent five years in which he could not adapt to the climate and missed his native country, his idiosyncrasy. He commented that one of the consequences of those years is that he does not like snow, because it was 10 months a year of winter and 25 degrees below zero for eight months and summer was 20 days with sun and the temperature did not exceed 10 degrees.
Upon returning from Sweden he met his wife, from which three sons were born: Philip, 14, Benjamin, 12, and Seven-year-old Martin. "We are a typical family that we like to live outdoors, well attached to sports, our three children are athletes, they run in bicicross. The eldest was world champion in 2010, Pan American champion, and so he has had many awards throughout America. From the age of six, when he saw a friend running, he got on a bike and never got off. The youngest was also a world finalist in Brazil, he was Chilean champion and Latin American champion."
Another of the passions that he still retains from when he was a child, and that today he shares with his family, is the taste for cinema and television. That's why, on weekends, when they're not on the track training, they're in front of the screen.
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