10 Really Important Questions For A Top Home Integrator

CRN: You recently dedicated one of your best employees to focus on selling services, particularly calling upon past clients to see how see if they need new products or upgrades. How has that been going?

Marc: We've been doing it with purpose, but it's been kind of a soft launch as we've been transitioning the team around. We have a lot of ideas on how to expand it. But just making the commitment to do it has been fantastic; we've seen huge rewards from doing it.

CRN: What are some of those rewards?

Marc: I'd have to say it's a new revenue stream we're finding from that existing clientele. Just interacting with old clients or people that have bought old clients' houses; the new sales opportunity starts right there. That has been enormous.

CRN: Any way to gauge the success through increased revenue?

Marc: From a revenue stream, things have really taken off over the last three months. Are we reaching out out of the goodness of our hearts? No, but it's good PR and good service to reach out to clients. It has uncovered a lot of untapped revenue streams. When we opened it up to him we told him your job is to ask people how things are, what are your needs. Once you start talking to clients, you start uncovering that they were thinking of upgrading something and they didn't even know we could did it. You don't find those things out without having some constructive dialog with people.

CRN: What kind of upsells are you making through those existing clients?

Marc: He did about $100,000 in revenue in a single month. And he has about 20 percent of our overall sales just for this year. During that month, the $100,000 was essentially from three clients. One client was somebody who had purchased a previous client's home where we put in a nice home theater. The new client ended up buying a surround-sound system up in the bedroom with a plasma with a mirror over it. The woman is now mapping out all the different things she wants to do, including another plasma downstairs in the living room. Had we not contacted her, she probably would have went to someone else. Number two was an existing client where it was time to upgrade his existing system. He had done a media room with a projector 10 years ago. So we upgraded it to a new DLP projector with HD, and we're updating a family room where you're watching two plasma TVs.

Number three was a client who had called us in about three years ago to fix a system done by another firm. We originally approached him to do that job but he thought we were too pricey and had someone else do it. Anyway, when we contacted him in January he told use the batteries of one of his touch screens were dead. That lead us to replacing his media wall. We took out a rear projection TV and stacked two 61-inch Runco plasmas and flanked it with two 32-inch Runco LCDs. This all started with a bad battery.

Jen: There are a couple of lessons there. I would say a good 25 percent of our business happens because we had to go in there and fix other people's jobs. Again, we have certified technicians and we have to push that. We're in an industry that has no licensing, so the consumer, unless they do their research, is hiring people who might not be specialized.

CRN: What's the biggest concern you have about today's CE (consumer electronics) and digital home industry?

Marc: This industry has a lot of growing up to do. I find everyone is jumping into this marketplace: electricians, IT guys, retail stereo stores, etc They're beginning to dabble in AV installs, some are getting into networks, some are getting into home automation. In a lot of ways it's a train wreck.

CRN: What needs to be done to increase awareness across the industry for the skilled, professional integrators that provide proven technology solutions throughout the home markets?

Marc: Fundamentally the industry has to shift on a different level of marketing. One of the things I've been saying to our top vendors like Crestron and Lutron is that you've got to get your product line into a situation of where the kitchen industry is today compared to 20 years. There are a lot of models the industry can look at. But what the kitchen industry is plugging for is the kitchen should be 30 percent of the value of your home. It's brilliant.