A Real Day in the Life of Running an AV Company
- Chris Gore
- Apr 20
- 6 min read
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Author: Chris Gore| Co Founder of SPOR Group
Published April, 2026
You have seen those day in the life videos on Instagram. Everyone's got everything polished and perfect, renting the Lamborghini in Dubai, holding the green smoothie in one hand and a copy of Atomic Habits in the other. This is not that. This is what a day actually looks like running an AV company in the UK.
I am not saying this is the right way. I am not selling a course. I am not going to ask you to buy anything. I just thought it would be useful to show what it is actually like, for people who are thinking about running a business or who want to know what goes on behind the scenes at a company like SPOR Group.
Instagram Versus Reality
When I left the military about ten years ago after thirteen years of service, all I wanted to do was start a business and be successful. And I got dragged straight into the rabbit hole. Buy these properties and flip them. Watch this video and make ten million pounds a day. Buy my course. My course is in the link in the description below.
The truth is I could not make any of it work. Because none of it was real. And now that I do have a business, and it is not one of those buy my course type businesses, I can tell you what a real day looks like.
It does not start with a meditation session and ten pages of journaling. It starts at 6am because there is a meeting in London at 9 and the train takes an hour and a half. The reason I am up at 6am is not discipline. It is logistics.
How the Day Actually Went owning an AV company.
6am. Up. Attempted bike session.
I own an AV company and I could not get the input to switch on my own TV to get Netflix up on the exercise bike. That is the reality of running a technology business. The cobbler's children and all that. Skipped the warm up. Cold shower. Quick coffee. Over to the station.
9am. Director meeting. Q2 pipeline.
First meeting of the day with my business partner. Sales pipeline review. Q1 numbers. We hit the target. Good. Then it was the first of April, and the revenue went back to zero, and the whole thing started again. That is what running a business is. You hit the number and then you go again.
Late morning. Shure showroom. Content filming.
We spent a good chunk of the morning at one of our supplier showrooms filming content. Shure make some of the best ceiling microphone arrays in the business and we work with them regularly. Two videos filmed. Good session. Still had not had lunch by the time we left because things ran over.
Afternoon. Site visit. Covent Garden.
Grabbed lunch on the move and then headed over to Covent Garden for a site visit. This is the bit I told people to stick around for because it was a genuinely interesting problem that came up on site.
Want to come along with me on my day? Watch the video below!
The Problem Nobody Saw Coming
The room had Shure ceiling microphones installed. Beautiful kit. The kind of ceiling mic setup that makes every voice in the room crystal clear without anyone needing to lean toward a device or pass a microphone around.
Then the fabric ceiling went in. Installed for aesthetic reasons, a decorative overlay across the whole ceiling. And the fabric ceiling sits directly above the microphones. The moment you put fabric over a ceiling mic array, you lose the functionality. The microphones cannot pick up voices properly.
The fabric supplier was saying they could not cut holes in the fabric. The project team was working through options: routing the microphones through the backs of the panels, adjusting the sensitivity settings to compensate, exploring whether any solution existed that preserved both the aesthetic and the acoustic performance.
This is what real project work looks like. It is not all clean installs and happy handovers. It is standing on a building site in Covent Garden with trades everywhere, two weeks from project completion, working out how to solve a problem that nobody anticipated at the design stage.
The good news: the site was actually on schedule. When someone asked how long until it was finished and looked at the state of the space, the instinct was to say months. But I have been on enough sites over the years to know that when a completion date is set, every trade piles in and it gets done. Project completion was two weeks out and we were on track. To see what a completed project looks like, read about how SPOR Group delivered for Masdar's London headquarters and the NFL's London HQ.
What the Day Actually Taught Me
Problems are the job
Every site visit has a problem. The skill is not avoiding problems, it is solving them without panicking. Getting the right people in the room, understanding the constraints, finding a solution that works for everyone. That is the job.
Consistency beats inspiration
The day did not start at 6am because of a morning routine. It started at 6am because the meeting was at 9 and the train took an hour and a half. Consistency is not a mindset. It is just turning up when you need to.
The military habits do not disappear
Thirteen years in the military teaches you things that do not go away when you leave. You show up. You deal with what is in front of you. You find solutions under pressure. Running a business is different in every practical way from military service, but the underlying habits are the same.
Nobody is selling you the real version
The people making money from the buy my course content are making money from the course, not from the thing they are claiming to teach. The businesses that actually work are the ones where someone turns up every day, does the work, solves the problems and goes again. If you want to know what choosing the right AV company looks like from the client side, we have written about that too.
The day ended with a quick pint with the project team because it was a Friday and they had done good work on site. Then back to the car. Drive home. Feed the kids, bath the kids, put the kids to bed. Open the laptop. Do some more work.
That is it. That is the day. No course to sell. No Lamborghini. Just what it actually takes.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does a typical day look like for an AV company owner?
In practice it involves a mix of internal business meetings, supplier relationships, content creation, site visits and problem solving. No two days are the same. A lot of time is spent on the move between London sites and client locations.
What kind of problems come up on AV installation sites?
All kinds. Fabric ceilings installed over ceiling microphones. Structural changes that affect cable routing. Display positions that conflict with lighting plans. The job of a good AV company is to identify these issues early and find solutions that work within the constraints of the wider project.
How does SPOR Group handle ceiling microphone installations?
SPOR Group uses ceiling microphone arrays from manufacturers including Shure. The key is specifying the right microphone for the room acoustics, positioning correctly at design stage, and ensuring that other elements like ceiling finishes and fabric overlays are coordinated with the AV specification before installation.
What is the SPOR Group approach to project management?
Every project follows a structured process from design through to installation, commissioning, witness testing and user training. After handover, every installation is backed by SPORTrack, which monitors every connected device in real time. The goal is that by the time a client walks into the finished room, every problem has already been solved.
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