Hey gang--

I'm curious to know what effect dealer incentive programs have on your choices of what to sell/promote... do they have any effect on whether you push one particular brand over another? Or do you go by who's got the best pricing? or is it just the brand you like best based on experience?

-thumbkin

I always base my product decisions on which companies have the best babes. Hopefully babes with good morals and high character - it's more fun when I can corrupt them.

Errrr, sure. But I was being serious.

Personally, I prefer the companys with hot babes with no morals and very litle charater... Brains are optional as well.....

Serioulsy though......
Wether someone else sells on "Incentives" or "Spiffs" should not dictate how you sell....... A good custom installer/salesman will sell a client what he needs in order to do the job correctly.. If there happens to be an incentive on xxx receievr that month, so be it, but it should never detract from the system design...

YES, what Impaqt said.

Additionally, there are a variety of factors I look at regarding whether to work with a product - ease of use, performance, company service, company stability/length of time in business, etc.

my prioritized requirements would be:

Reliability
Integration Factors (RS232 or not, discretes etc..)
Manufacturer's Support (or lack thereof)
Profitablility
HOT BABES
CEDIA cocktail parties
CES cocktail parties
Other CEDIA/CES events (like Monster's concerts)
How cool is the product's name
How often the Rep takes me to lunch
Salesperson Spiffs
Company Incentives

That about covers it.

boat drinks

J

When we design a system, it is based on the needs of the customer not the salesman. Just because a product offers to take the best salesman to Hawaii, doesn't make it work better. Where we do participate is when there are specials on product we know and trust. One of our vendors recently offered a closeout special on some mid priced speakers. We took advantage of this and offered them to clients of ours who might not otherwise be able to afford them at the original price. They still are a great speaker, great warranty(not B-stock, NEVER B-stock), just about half the original price. These type of "programs" we do participate in, but not the spiffs. If there is a spiff attached to an already good product, all the better. We just don't use incentives as a reason to sell.

Jason

great replies guys, thanks --

one follow-up question:

how much does vendor-sponsored training sway you? if it all?

Your question asks about "vendor" sponsored training. To me this means "middle men" like distributors, as opposed to manufacturer sponsored training. I don't think you meant this difference so I will just say that I rarely go to any training put on exclusively by a distributor, they are ALL sales meetings, never installation or integration trainings. As for manufacturer training, there are so many products that absolutely require it that you must take into account the learning curve and the travel expense when selecting and ultimately selling the product. I guess the bottom line is that manufaturer training is quite important in slecting our product mix. I look at the amount of classroom training required (and the location), the amount of online training offered, the willingness of the rep to train installers on new product releases, and the rep's ability to handle technical questions (so I have a last resort on Saturday afternoon when tech support is closed). So the short answer to your question (too late) is YES, but training comes in many forms and you want to be aware of all of a manufacturers options.

One of the problems with absolute answers is that some wise guy is going to point out that not all (fill in the blank) things behave the way you say.

Case in point. At least one distributor I know of sponsers training every March that includes factory guys from Niles, Xantech, Channel Plus, Faroudja, as well as in house training on Panasonic ksu's, security cameras, wiring protocals, trouble shooting techniques and more.

So, without beating a dead horse, not every distributor calls something technical training and wastes your time.