Read my fish story in the "trash mouthing" thread. Your posts indicate that you are one of the guys at the south end of the lake with your blinders on because at this time you are fat and happy... good for you... you've obviously done your work to get to that point. I don't know where you live but I do know some areas of the country are easier to make a killing in. We don't live there... we live where new people from the electrical, security, used car etc. industries are being "enlightened" daily... Where every big firm spawns five or six new installers a year who go off to AVAD with a couple of their previous employers clients then realize they should have stayed when things dry up so they give shit away too when trying to find new clients... Where the builders of big custom homes have figured that they too can just walk into AVAD and get a full list of pricing (especially on wire) which they'll just hand to their trou dropping sparky.
I do agree that you have to focus your energy on your own business plan... guess thats why I've been doing that for so long. Something that comes across as a whine is usually just a vent (a semi-anonymous one at that... something one who provides no e-mail adrress would certainly know about).
Awareness is what causes change. Of course there is competition in all business. I love legitimate competition. I don't however like people I support (AVAD) using the dollars I've helped them to grow with to now enter into competition with me (D2B). I don't like associations that claim to be helping me show up at electrical conventions trying to give the theoretical license to a bunch of sparkys by telling them "all they need to know about Home Theater in an hour and a half". I don't like manufacturers who let their products get whored out by people with the audacity to tell me in a test call with questions that I should go stroke some guy at a retail store to learn about products then come to him with pricing because technically he doesn't know s--t. I don't like people proporting to be legitimate competition that don't even carry the proper licenses to compete.
I find that letting it out here is cathartic. the twenty minutes I spend on this forum every other day is augmented by every other hour being spent in positive business growing activity.
Design4Us comments are not based on spec home wiring...they are based on losing the wiring portion of huge custom homes being built by clients we already know... whose builders won't let anyone but Mr Sparkomatic wire it (for free at that). Going in after these guys and basically rewiring the house after finish costs our client unnecessary money and always leads to us making concessions. Believe me... we spend a LOT of time trying to "sell ourselves" but as you also note... builders can be a waste of time.
If you read the latest Residential Systems magazine... you will note that there is a lot of "awareness" there... written by some long time gurus. Awareness, in whatever form it comes, is what is necessary for change.
