I agonised over this for years until about 3 months ago when I finally pulled the trigger on becoming a dealer.

I had been doing my own jobs as a sub-dealer for about 3-4 years and when I finally got a job that put me comfortably over the initial entry point, I took the opportunity and did it.

As far as I could see, here in Australia, the only two options were Savant or C4, with RTI no longer even being in the running for me. And with Savant not having anywhere NEAR the range of drivers, it was pretty much a no-brainer. As for Crestron? Well, you don't need a Meyer line-array for listening to music in your living room.

My reasons for going the C4 route:

1) Support. NOBODY else in the industry has the support network that C4 has. Period. I can call them pretty much any time I'm on the tools and either get a solution, or a work-around, with one of their techs dialling-in via Team-Viewer whenever necessary. Last week I spent 1 hour and 15 minutes on the phone with them while we fulfilled a rather odd and specific request for a client. My last experience with RTI was a full mailbox on a mobile telephone number, which was what sealed the deal for me on walking away from them altogether. Come to think of it, I don't think they ever even got back to me.

2) Software. The software is by far the easiest I have ever come across. It is regularly updated and locked down so every bloke and his brother can't get a copy and mess-up all my work, then call me out and say "Its never really worked right", after they've messed it up.

3) Product range. They're getting closer and closer to having everything covered. Granted, some of their product are not competitively priced at all (looking at you Araknis, Pakedge, Luma etc.) but they're the only company where I can pretty much spec and price an entire quote on their dealer portal, save it, then just hit "Order", and it's on its way.

4) Control4 offer a complete solution; Not just the building blocks for a science project that you have to piece together yourself. I did my time mucking around with RTI, ProRemote, AMX, Philips etc., and it's all junk designed to be screwed together in as many ways as there are people installing the stuff. I want to be able to install and program a system, in the most efficient way possible, that can be serviced or repaired by anyone that I send to site, rather than have them spend the first 2 hours trying to understand what the hell is going on and how they used product "X" with product "Z", through product "Y" to make everything speak the same language. When get a new project, it's time for me to sell and install a system that works from day one, not an opportunity for me to play mad-scientist in someone's home and piece together a box of parts in the hope that they'll be impressed with my ingenuity.

5) SDDP. The last time I installed a new component and it had a built-in option for integration into RTI, Savant, Elan, URC etc., was never. This, to me, is a huge indicator that they are working the closest with manufacturers to have things already programmed and ready to run, before we even spec/purchase them.

Let me openly state that they are by no means perfect, but they seem to have hit the nail on the head more than anybody when it comes to eliminating the key elements that we struggle with in this industry. They make stuff work, and back it up pretty solidly if there's any trouble.

I feel the most confident selling a control system now, than I ever have in my near 20 years of being in the game.