Actually in both the Seattle market and here in Phoenix electricians are consideralby cheaper than AV companies.
Stamp is right to pick a line and be very good at it, jumping around only limits your ability to be good at something through practice and repitition. 
If every job is custom you can't ever improve on it, if every job is similar you can build on your skill and knowledge to provide a better product with every project.
I preach this all the time, pick one thing and become a master, then another and another until you have the right mix.  Something will always change along the way but stick to a few things and do it well.
My real point is, regardless of what you think you sell the real product is you and your company, not the hardware.  Even if all you sell is Crestron, promote your brand not the products you carry, that way if you ever changed product lines it wouldn't matter how you positioned your company the marketing wouldn't change.

I did electrical work for a few years to learn the ins and outs so that I could understand lighting control enough to spec it and interface with the electricians onsite. While every part of the country is different I never saw a bid that was based on anything other than $X per square foot for residential work. This included parts and labor. Big companies and small companies all bid this way in those markets. On average it was $3.40 per square foot. So on a 4000sqft home the cost of prewire and trim, not including light fixtures or ceiling fans, was a meger $13,600. There are no holes to cut on trim out and in most situations two guys could trim that house in 2 days max. A journeyman made $15/hour at that point. There was not much profit in the job and the way the books were handled it appeared to me that parts were not marked up at all, only taxed to the end user at the same price that was paid to the supply house. You cannot apply that model to a custom installation because the cost of goods is so much greater. An electrical panel is a couple hundred dollars, with breakers, the outlets and light switches are $.40 or $.50 each if not less when bought in bulk. Plates for trim are $.20 each. The cost of parts is no where close to that of the a/v industry. The talent needed is also much more expensive. Most of the guys I worked with could do thier job but had no idea how to troubleshoot a system if things werent right. They could follow the basic color code of black, white, green/bare copper and the occasional red wire. The real money was made in service calls. Mrs. Homeowner needs that GFCI outlet replaced in the kitchen - $250. Why so much? Truck roll, 2 hours of labor (1 hour alloted to troubleshoot, 1 hour to swap the outlet). If a truck was rolled the minimum that wouild be collected was $250 or it didnt roll. The customer was never told it would be that much BEFORE the truck rolled. They just called an electrician who came out, did a small amount of work and asked for a check.

Somehow our industry has never grasped that we are skilled labor and professionals. I think this stems from a personal guilt that each of us has experienced at one time or another. The service call to change batteries in a remote. WE feel guilty about charging that sweet little old lady $50 travel fee, $10 in batteries (markup on small parts is always more) and our 2 hour minimum charge. I hated to hand a bill to the woman the first time it happened to me and I discounted the bill because she was nice. I look back on that moment often. Part of me wishes that I had just written off the charges and the other part of me thinks I was a complete idiot for letting emotion interfere with business. So, most of us do what I did and compromise by giving a discount. It's not just the scenario above but the good customer who has sent you business that you 'swing by on my way home' to handle a service call. You end up spending hours when you expected to spend minutes and you DONT CHARGE FOR IT, or charge very little. Why? Yes, you got a referral that brought you money. So what? Look, if you go buy a car, lets say a new BMW M5, and you LOVE this car like no other you WILL tell people how awesome it is. Hell, you could tell a guy in the BMW dealership parking lot how awesome your M5, in front of the sales guy that sold you yours, is and that kicks him into buying one for himself. Do you think that you are going to get free or discounted oil changes from the stealership? How about a being told to 'run it by on your way home so we can rotate your tires for free'? NOT going to happen unless you and the sales guy or the stealership manager are on buddy buddy terms. You will get a thank you from the sales guy for helping pad his pocket some more but you wont get discounts or freebies for doing so. (Okay, maybe you would get a keyring or a baseball hat or some other trinket. Get some of those things and give them to your customer)

What we do, the systems we sell are the cost of an extra vehicle for a family. The stealerships have a set way they do business and it more closely resembles our industry than electricians or plumbers, in my opinion. You go to buy a car and you can either choose from whats on the lot, choose from whats on the lot and have the dealer add items or custom order the car. How is that much different to our industry? You should have a baseline product, some add ons that fit in the system design and then a time/materials fully custom system. I understand what Mr. Sipes is saying and I agree you should be branding yourself but at the same time I also believe that picking a brand and sticking with it, for control anyway, is neccesary and a positive selling tool. Another car analogy, when you buy a Mercedes Benz you expect it to have a Mercedes Benz motor, transmission, interior, etc. You would be hesitant to buy a Mercedes Benz that had a MB motor and trans but had a KIA interior. Or by a MB with an MB motor but Toyota trans and KIA interior. People will get the concept of buying a rack full of (insert your control manufacturer name here), for example Crestron, black boxes that make thier system work. They are buying the motor, the trans and the interior from the same company at that point. The motor is the processor, the trans is the switching and the interior is the interface. Help them understand that concept and they will see it as an investment and not a parts list. Then again, I could be a complete moron spouting endlessly on the internet and have no idea what I am talking about.

I also understand what Mr. Sipe is saying, however, in my market, the ability to "sell-oneself" is a commodity that would only be under consideration once a meaningful dialog is established with a potential buyer. These days, you only get one-shot at a deal, oftentimes being bid by several CI dealers (many of whom completely devalue a project simply by stamping it with C4, in an effort to "low-ball" the customer into a signed contract), problem is: most of the bidders are doing the exact same thing. All of this C4 low-balling is creating a false perception to the prospective buyer. The perception is now similar to what consumers to believe to be the value of a flat-panel television. $0.
I recoil at the thought of one of my prospective clients buying into the idea that $20-25K is an acceptable budget to outfit his new 8,500sqft. home with Multisource/multizone Audio, Lighting and HVAC control, a HANDFULL of 55" LED-LCD's, Matrixed 1080p Video Distribution, and a rack-system with thermal management. I truly hope that those of you who proscribe to this mentality go out of business soon... or choke on a chicken bone. My family needs to eat.

This is why Sipe is the CI's enemy. He believes there is no value in what we do and that it is all about the lowest bidder. He doesn't understand project management so he undervalues it. The client follows Sipe and thus the further commoditization of this profession continues. Your experience is what sets you apart--but not to Sipe who will argue to his client that the low ballers will do the same job. He doesn't understand that even someone who pulls wire has to know a lot more doing low voltage than high voltage. You mean if you over torque, bend a wire too much, or run it too close to a high voltage wire it can have negative results?

If it's all about price how can you explain this to a client and differentiate yourself in this new world? Sipe doesn't understand this. iPad is great because it's cheap. You can sell more programming. At what rate? Think a client will pay 1500 to code a $500 device? When it doesn't work who's paying for the troubleshooting when you quoted $750. What of development costs? iPad graphics require considerable reworking of what currently exists. Since he doesn't code he doesn't understand how much work this is --or for those dealers who hire out programming why this might be a bad business plan. Sipe is about pushing commoditization of this industry. We already take it up the rear and Siple would further aid in our collective rape.

Have you heard a single innovative idea about how to get more face time in front of a client? Have you heard a single idea--save the drivel above about selling valued added and selling your firm--about how to do this? Read this CI's post, Mr. Sipe, to understand why you are an enemy of this industry.

Alan

I concur. Bravo Alan.

Alan,
You are full of S#$*.  You, for some reason have a bone to pick with me that really isn't my problem but something eating away at your soul.  You're very angry and I seem to be the guy you like to blame for all the woes of our industry. 
Like I am making dealers low ball projects or not charge for their time on jobs.  My company charged for Service calls, travel and all change orders were paid in advanced, in full.  We never changed our contract payment schedule, too confusing for both parties. 
I was one of the most expensive shops in town since I had a big ass showroom to pay for (be very careful of doing this).  My wife trains dealers on job costing all the time, we know what it takes to be profitable.
So far as closing deals it isn't about getting more time but making a good impression with knowledge, presentation and references.  Clients don't just buy on price, and the ones who do aren't going to be your best clients anyway.  I learned it was better to have my guys work in the office or clean their vans than go out and lose money on a job that wasn't going to be profitable.
iPads aren't great just because their cheap, they're better than most touchscreens out there in resolution and size.  If price was the only factor it wouldn't have made as big an impact as it did.
Once again your revisionist history tells me your not paying attention.  I started programming Crestron in 92' and can code down to a binary level.  I own a software company with multiple coders.  I know exactly what goes into programming something.  We code to PCs, Macs, iPads and Linux.
You are a far bigger drag on CIs and our industry with your half truths and angry rhetoric, maybe you should be a politician.  Our industry is in the process of maturing, and screaming little babies throwing tantrums and acting like they should be in charge doesn't really help us to present a grownup business model. 
Judging me by one project out of the hundreds I have had in my business life is just a little petty. 
Pull it together and act like your out of diapers, we need serious people moving forward.
Business is a balance of technical, management and sales skills, without all three no company thrives for long.  I know you hate "sales pukes" it it just shows how little you understand business, great that you can code, but that's not enough to be in the ring, probably why you work for someone else.

A. You brought the topic up.


B. the guy before you didn't read any anger into my post.


C. It's not anger. It's the facts, just the facts.

Alan, your anger here on RC is not a secret, we all know.  From the inside looking out you just think you are posting reasonable statements, I would advise upping the medication, you may be building up a tolerance.
Anyone that agrees with me would be a fool to post here and get ripped by the likes of you.
Today's market is very much different, but clients aren't just buying on price unless the dealer makes it just about price.  I could usually sell my company by showing what we could do and offering things no one else had mentioned, in other words we stood out from the crowd.  Sales is about sharing enthusiasm, no matter what you sell.  Getting a client excited about what you can do for them is key to closing a deal.  Just being a great tech isn't enough, you have to be able to communicate that to a client.
I would love to see you in a sales situation, I can see it now, Fred Flintstone outfit, big club, client with bump on head being dragged back to office with caption "closed another deal".  Smooth....
I don't know where all this came from but I would love to talk to you on the phone sometime, you let me know.

Excuse me, I didn't realize I was getting involved in some sort of infantile argument. MY POINT is that if the CI industry as a whole doesn't band-togther to counter the price slashing and low-balling, none of us are going to be able to continue to be profitable in an already profit-less industry. Thoughts? Thanks.

There is nothing we can do about it. Remember when Best Buy and the geek squad was going to squeeze us all out of business? They may have squeezed out a few at the low end or those unorganized few larger firms but the rest of us are still here.

I remember back 17 years ago when i first started full time as an installer i would hear the boss and sales guys bitching about mail order and how it was putting us out of business. It didn't. Did it force us to change our business model? You bet. But we are all still here. Then the internet showed up and i heard the same bitching.

If you think Control4 is a dirty word you should head over to CEpro and find the article about Cable/Satellite/Phone/Security companies entering into home automation. If you think your clients expect a lot for a little just wait.. it will get worse real soon. They will drive the consumers expectations about "what it costs" into crazy land.

So yes.. you, me, Alan and Mark and everyone else who participates here is going to lose jobs to other companies. There isn't anything we can do about it. All we can do is continuosly adjust our business model and keep an eye on the market. And dont feel bad. Our industry isnt the only one that has to deal with this.

Think about Block Buster or Kodak. We can wait until someone else takes what we once had or we can adapt and stay ahead of the game. Why didn't someone at blockbuster say "hey lets buy netflix and change our business model" or "redbox is kicking ass lets buy them or give them a run for their money". What the heck happened to Kodak? Why dont the OWN the digital camera market? Those companies got stuck on what was instead of what is and dropped the ball.

The first reality that everyone is going to have to face whether they like it or not is that the manufacturers dont give a damn about your brand. They are not your partner and we dont work for them. Any profit on hardware should be looked upon as a fluke and your business model has to change so that it revolves around labor.
If this is a reality you cant or wont live with then you need to leave this industry now. Your percentages and points and margins and profits are going to belong to amazon and ebay resellers in 5 years.

Second reality is that at some point one of the big boys like Apple or HP is going to "walmart" our industry completely. $10 light switches, $15 tstats and a $99 security system will all communicate with a mac mini wirelessly and AV will be a dedicated appletv in every room. My guess is they are still 10 years out from making this a totally plug n play DIY system like Sonos is today. But it will happen. And between now and then you will lose DAV systems to Sonos and HTPC's. You will lose security jobs to ADT and lighting and climate to them at some point and so on and so forth.

Third and finaly reality is that if you expect to eat in 10 years while being part of this industry you will be wearing a logo from one of the service providers mentioned above or you will have advanced your organization and its offerings so that you can cater to the high end client who still cares about quality.

I remember when it was super rare to see someone with a mobile phone but now everyone has one. Same with plasma tv's. The same will be true with Crestron and Control4 systems. To make that happen the cost has to come down. The difference is that unlike a TV or a cell phone.. its not plug n play. Someone has to engineer and install and support it. Even when there is an apple logo on a "home automation kit" there will still be a need for someone to engineer and install it. Thats where we come in. Those of us who stay in front of the ever changing market anyway.

Well said 39 Cent Stamp

Got to love "corpocracy".
Who knew "Big brother" was going to end up being an Apple Logo?

Out of all the companies pushing out industry down - it's not apple.
If anything they are just giving us more items to integrate with.

Verizon will be a bigger issue in the long run.

You mean like two-way modules from third party manufacturer's that stop working after an i-tunes update?

I love corporations that require my credit card number so that I can share "my music" in my own house while they keep tabs on me.

Unfortunately; all corporations care only about making profits and could care less about the end user.

C4 dealers, can you tell me what you like and dislike about being a C4 dealer?
Are you satisfied with the margins you make? Are you okay with what seems to be an oversaturation of dealers? Is there any truth that Control4 will return to Bestbuy? Do you or the company you work for carry a higher end control system like Crestron/AMX/Vantage?

Look forward to your response...

Right. And for those reasons - apple will be the end of the CI industry. Guess u better start looking for a new job from now.