Projection provides a customized solution for any event. As a full-service, nationwide event production company, this business delivers event production design and services including presentation management, networking, content capture and live streaming, ePosters, digital signage, overflow solutions, strategy and creative services, general session production, breakout room management, and more.
Dave Campbell founded Projection over 50 years ago, and the groundwork he laid continues to steer the company to success. “It all goes back to Dave Campbell, the owner, who is an amazing mentor, a friend to many, and takes care of the people around him,” says Corporate Vice President of National Accounts, Karen Cuviello.
Campbell pioneered the company’s people-first approach, which still benefits customers and employees to this day. “It’s really service before profit,” Cuviello says. “In order to provide a high level of service, we need to take care of our people… Dave Campbell has done amazing things for so many of our people; he created a culture that feels like family.”
This approach has always been mutually beneficial for the company and the people involved, but the commitment has become even more critical as the business expanded in recent years. “Post-COVID, we’re realizing that we have to offer people a better quality of life than they might have at another company,” she says. “We’re really trying to have more than enough people to get the work done and then build new business into the structure that we already have, which is not as easy as it might sound.”
One example of the company’s people-first approach is the extra time off that management is giving to employees, a perk that is particularly important in an industry that requires frequent travel. “For the first time ever, we gave people a free week off in December and we just gave them a free week—we call it summer week—in July because we feel like this industry is so demanding,” says Cuviello. “People are away from their families a third of the year, and we just know that with the talented people that we have, we’ve got to keep them happy.”
The company’s people-first approach also calls for management to recognize that employees’ expectations have shifted post-pandemic. “They got a taste of staying home during COVID, and nobody’s going to travel like they did before COVID,” she says.
Projection’s ability to customize solutions is another secret to its success. The company’s just-right size allows the team to stay nimble and flexible enough to deliver exactly what the client wants. “We’re not the biggest,” Cuviello says. “We’re a medium size, and that allows us to customize some of our services.”
Team members work together across departments to deliver these customized solutions. “For every account we have, there are between three and five departments involved,” she explains. These departments work closely with the client to understand their exact needs and then develop individualized solutions. This means that Projection goes the extra mile as a matter of policy.
“There’s a lot of extra value, things that we do that we don’t always charge for throughout the year that we help our clients with,” shares Cuviello. “You gain customers for life when you begin to add a lot of extra value.”
Indeed, the team values long-term relationships, particularly because they help the company to better understand customer and industry needs and push for their development. Take for instance, “the team that I manage, National Accounts, where we have a direct relationship with associations, or the In-House team where we have an operation inside a convention center. In both of those situations, they’re multiyear accounts. So, we’ve been able to really get entrenched in those relationships.”
The team’s willingness to adapt allowed the business to stay open during COVID and, ultimately, increased its success. “One of the reasons that we’re so successful today is because we made the decision to stay open,” Cuviello says. “The owner was willing to invest whatever he needed to, to keep paying people during that time so that we would come out ahead, and we did.”
The company’s medium size was, again, also crucial to this commitment. Cuviello points out that large, publicly-traded companies may not have the freedom to make those kinds of decisions when profits are down and the company is under pressure to cut costs. “You just can’t do that, right? Your shareholders would not be okay if you kept 300 employees.”
But Projection transformed a difficult situation into an opportunity by making a critical pivot and switching its focus to virtual events. “We really became the first place that our customers came to when they had to figure out how to navigate the virtual world,” she says. The team was “assertive about learning the options that are out there and how we could work with those platforms that were available by providing pre-recordings and video production services associated with a virtual event. So that just strengthened our relationships.”
Projection experienced rapid growth during the pandemic as customers turned to the company as their go-to virtual provider. Now, even if customers need consulting services outside of virtual events, they still come to Projection for assistance, since the team has proven their ability to problem-solve and to take on new challenges. As a result, the growth continues today.
With so much expansion, Projection team members are being very careful to give clients the same care and attention that they always have. “We’re not going to bring on any new business that could put any of our existing business at [risk] of not being a big success,” Cuviello says. “We can make those decisions; we have an owner that supports that type of thing even if we make less money, which is pretty amazing.”
The team is committed to maintaining the company’s core values during its ongoing growth. “That has really been challenging—to keep that culture post-COVID—because half of the people that are with us weren’t with us four years ago,” she says. “So, we’ve got this great culture that people have come into, but they’re all bringing these different experiences.” The goal is to maintain what has always worked well for this team while also adopting new, beneficial ways of doing things. “We’re just trying to keep the best of what we had and add to it.”
Certainly, Projection is well placed to continue its expansion and success. “We’ve got a highly predictable revenue stream and a very scalable operating structure and a management team that’s been with the company for a long time,” says Cuviello. “There’s a lot of opportunity for us.”
As these future opportunities unfold, one thing is certain: the team will maintain its people-first approach for the benefit of all. “Whatever happens will be something that will be good for the employees and good for our customers.” That’s just how this company operates.
