Boy am I on the rant trail now! I'm sure you're all familiar with AVAD... I've been buying from them since theri intro to the Northwest. They've been a really good distributor and have helped me grow my business through the years... I've made a lot of friends there.

I'm sure, like me and my partner, you all work damn hard and put in way more time than you'd like to to manage, market and grow your businesses. Well NOW you have this "fantastic opportunity" to join AVAD's D2B program. They're going to take all of their deep pocket profits and massively market to every home builder in the country.

This program sounds great at first and certainly raised some eyebrows and filled some seats at CEDIA... but now the catch(es)... This "fantastic opportunity" costs you $2500.00 per year for two of you and $1000.00 for every other person in your company that wants to get "trained". To join, you have to be a CEDIA member and at least half of your staff must be CEDIA certified (obviously that means beaucoup bucks for those of you with say 20 or more employees). You also have to commit to buying all of your product from AVAD unless they can't provide one.

So let me see... pay a bunch of money... buy distributor products instead of supporting the direct relationships you have established... spend a bunch of valuable time becoming "certified in categories" (you have to be certified in all 7 to be a "Premier" dealer) and then someone else will decide (undoubtedly based on your "commitment level") which builders to refer you to.

This is an insidious program... I'm sorry but why the hell should I support someone who is now going to spend a bunch of money to market against me and try to tear away the relationships I have spent many hours cultivating. You are a seller of products... NOT A F------G DEALER! I'm obviously not about to sign up for this... but some newer companies are going to gamble on it... and my own distributor who I've personally helped grow through hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sales is now going to use some of my own money to tell my builders that I am not as good an option as their guy (who they successfully extorted money from). Sorry but this chaps my ass.

The program will be launched early next year and will definitely generate interest in every market in this country. Know about it and prepare yourselves by either joining up or letting your builders know what is coming before it does. Good luck to all. Got trick or treaters coming to the door so sayonara for now.

4 words, based on what I've been told by our local AVAD rep so far...

Avoid Like The Plague...

avdude
site admin
www.integrationpros.com

Yes i saw something about this come across my desk before cedia but like alot of stuff i didn't pay much attention to it figuring it was just some new marketing by avad. But monday i'm going to call a friend who works there and ask him what the hell is going on because we like most of you have direct relationships with manufactures for our core products, but we do use avad to help fill in the gaps and also to get some other things it's not worth the hassle to become direct. But if what you say is true then i believe avad should be careful in pissing off the people who have helped the become th company they are today because there are plenty of distributors who would love our business, yes we may have to deal with multiple people rather than one but i may not have to watch my back either.

What I'm hoping will happen is that you guys will see the BS here too. I am not worried about it killing my business... just muddying the waters even more... and it feels like a major backstab from someone who just shouldn't be trying to get into the end user sales part of this business.

Their excuse is that some guru predicted that the consumer electronics market will soon be controlled by Best Buy and Wal-Mart so they need to "Brand" small dealers together. Whatever... that shows me how little they understand the market... NO builder is going to walk into a Wal-Mart looking for a custom installer to wire up his houses. We've dealt with Circuit S----y and Best Buy for a long time now and WOW look... we're still here! It is a given that these companies will lead the consumer electronics market because the average consumer isn't the kind of client we deal with... nor want to.

I've had the hardest time here convincing builders to heave ho the sparkie and give us the wiring jobs... been doing it for years... banging my head against the wall... well, the houses are still wired like crap with pie in the sky promises about what can be done. As a result... my company is mostly retrofit (we just signed up $16,000.00 to completely rewire a house that was labeled as a "smart home"). When, I consider all of the time this battle has taken me for the results it has produced (we do have a number of loyal happy builders), it makes me wonder how they feel they can dedicate the kind of time and energy to forming these relationships... it's going to take more than a few mailers. If they do get a builder... what the hell is the process going to be to provide the "lead". Are they going to shove seven dealers together in a lowest bidder scenario? Are they going to reward the highest performer? the most recent $2500.00? I see it as a big time mess thats going to create some real hard feelings somewhere.

Anyway, my main focus is to spread the word that this is coming... both to you AND especially to my builders. Telling my builder that the lead that they'll be getting is only based on payola will almost certainly get the literature tossed in the proverbial "round file". This forum is a way to keep each other informed about what is out there to keep our businesses strong

Do you know what their plans are to help the builder make money? alot of our builders have started doing cost +15% on all built-ins which means we have to do 2 proposals one they can markup and one they have to leave alone. I hated this @ first but they now realize the more we install the more they make. But i worry about the dealer making money, the builder making money and avad making,,,,, oh yeah almost forgot about the $2500 and the certifications. Anyway our relationships with builders are intresting we have a couple who don't make a thing on our products except knowing it's done right and they don't have to worry about angry customers. But the others are driven by the almighty dollar and what we can do for them

Just a new post to keep this up toward the top... I'd love to see this thing exposed... we've got a good thread on it going over at www.integrationpros.com. This week... check it out at you local AVAD and form your opinions... personally I feel that it is a messed up deal... some of you may not but it needs to get out. If you beat AVAD to the punch its in your best interests

Broken into two posts.

So just out of curiosity, what is it exactly that is so evil about this plan? I'm sincerely asking. Is it mainly that AVAD charges $2500 to belong to the program? Because it doesn't look much different than what a bunch of other manufacturers out there already do such as sending leads to their dealers that do 100K a year (just to pick a number) or whatever. It's pretty common. The analogy isn't perfect but I don't see why it's so horrendous for Allnet to require an investment in exchange for leads if they are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to attract builders to stuctured wiring.

Whether the AVAD program will succeed or be fruitful is another question.

If rhm9's description of it is accurate, it doesn't sound like it has much chance of success. I can't help but wonder if there aren't more details than have been listed here. Most small companies aren't going to be able to afford $2500 just for the promise of some leads and the large companies that can (afford it) are not going to be buying all their lines through distribution. AVAD was founded by reps that are still in the rep business (and they are not dumb guys) and I can't imagine they are going to expect major companies to purchase all their products through distribution.

So I can't help but wonder if there are some significant details missing here.

I can't give a more detailed response yet, but On the surface, from what I seen at CEDIA, this is you(dealer) paying them to proceed with their marketing plan. This is really putting forth the AVAD name with you riding their coat tails. The individual dealer will have to decide If they should take the chance. If anyone sees this differently, feel free to slam my post. I won't be offended. I have not read the agreement.
My company has been treated decent from AVAD. They have created the most screw-ups of any of the distributors I deal with. They have made them all right with me, but what the loss is the hours of paper chasing and phone calls.
I am more inclined to stay in front of my local builders at a Builder association meeting with a drawing for a free DVD or in-wall speakers, in which, you can charge to install them.
Personally, I would like to have just a half dozen builders, who I can count on, and in return, they can count on me. I have two more to go. I like having the smaller jobs with the faster payments to fill in between the larger, drawn-out jobs. With the builders I do biz with, I get 1/2 to 1/3 down up front.

I talked EXTENSIVELY with our AVAD rep and we won't touch it with a ten foot pole!! Broken into simples terms, this is what I got...

1) Spend 2500 for two people who MUST be trained in XXX number of areas BY AVAD. Then it's 1000/additional installer....and one person on staff must be CEDIA Certified AT ALL TIMES...

2) Support AVAD and ONLY AVAD products unless there is a specific request which, "AVAD can't supply after dilignet attempts"

3) In my market, there are currently 5 integrators signed up, and 11 more have applied, and are ready to go...16 in Denver? Where is the benefit to me if the REAL big jobs are being farmed out to AT LEAST 16 different people.

4) When I asked how many companies they wanted, the anser was, "as many as possible."

Non-Coincidentally by the way, I got a one page e-mail today with special links to the whole program...

THEN I got my issue of CE-Pro, which has a full page about it (PAGE 46) which is CLEARLY written by a non-objective person to favor the program...

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A totally unrelated topic --

Where are you located? Where is the Hand State, or what is the joke.....because

Here in California, it is only legal for a contractor to ask for 10% of the entire job before starting...so what contractor would pay you 1/3 ot 1/2? Or is it just that they see how unreasonable only 10% is, so they pay what makes sense?

In response to QQQ

I guess its not "evil" and "horrendous"... my word was insidious. They have built their business selling products to us... we've done the marketing. Every builder here and throughout the country has been exposed to structured wiring... many times over... from every Tom, Dick and Harrys AV company ou there. The more Toms, Dicks and Harrys there are... the more successful AVAD and CEDIA are. My problem is the "you're either with us or against us" nature of this thing. I'm not going to list verbatim the details of the program... its up to you guys to check it out. But getting strong off of us and then competing against us just chaps my ass.

Your analogy has weight but most manufacturers are not directly marketing to builders as though they were your competitor. This program will literally say that you...Mr. Builder... should only deal with an AVAD/CEDIA certified pro... NO ONE ELSE! It will be getting mailed to all of these guys and raising questions about your abilities. You know there will always be competition and you will do what is necessary to keep your own business strong and do what you do best. In the long run... this won't kill established companies and will help a few startups. My mission is to make sure that you all don't get blindsided by this when it hits. This forum and www.integrationpros.com have helped me immensely and all I'm doing here is sharing info that may help you better field the call from your builder that comes in. If you are informed... you'll know what to say to keep your relationship alive and you'll look more like someone who keeps abreast of your industry... especially if you beat the advertising to the punch!

I certainly don't feel even the slightest inclination to join this thing... some of you might... others are so established that this will be like a buzzing little gnat in your ear. Some people are going to lose a client/builder here and they are the ones who will be looking at AVAD and saying "what the f--k was that all about?"

Ernie...believe it or not MANY states are far more lenient and fair in what contractors ask for up front...many CEDIA courses in the management this year discussed better ways of billing and the bottom line...

as a standard rule, we bill using a 30%/30%/30%/10% formula...this way we are actually fully paid when the job is substantially complete.

With our builder customers it's 50%/30%/20%

avdude
site admin
www.integrationpros.com

Ernie, I am sorry about your laws in CA. There Are many strange laws in California compared to the rest of the Country. One they forgot to enact is one water tank on the top of every hill in a residential development.
The Midwest has a different set of Laws, not better, just different.
Teh Builders: I actually invoice them and show it paid for (the Rough-in materials and some equipment) upon receiving the check. The stuff is theirs as soon as possible. I usually stock a lot of items such as wire, panels, modules, antennas, brackets and such to accomodate the last minute call. You know the one... "My insulator will be here tomorrow, can you get this done today?"
BTW, the Hand state is Michigan, where you Hand Me The Money before I start. None of this show me nonsense.

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