I never moved much of their product, I love it, but I don't do much 2 channel, and it doesn't fit much in home theater for my tastes, I've always found it too nice to abuse with explosions. I've used it for nice stereo zones, or surround sound systems where small, pretty, great sounding speakers were a must and budget allowed.

I was buying through distribution, and received a call yesterday that they were going direct only, to dealers with a retail location, and they were only allowing one dealer in my area.

I feel very sad, I truly enjoyed their product and looked forward to having a pair of their speakers for myself one day. Now I need to pay retail to do it, and CIs don't pay retail for AV, its just not right.

From your message it sounds like your disty told you that Totem was only approving dealers with a retail storefront. Distributors are famous for disseminating incorrect information.

If you would like to keep selling Totem I would suggest you call them at their Montreal offices. They will put you in touch with the US sales manager who can give you the real scoop on their dealer policies. If they are only selling to dealers with a storefront this is a brand new policy.

Very sad! I LOVE Totem stuff!

I wonder if such a move is a smart idea. Their name is not a household known brand outside of the industry. And more and more pros are moving away from retail locations to an appointment based office method.

This is my biggest issue with them. Their new units sound incredibly good ([Link: whatsbestforum.com]). But I can't imagine carry speakers in a store that costs thousands of dollars with so little brand awareness.


We have done the opposite :). And have a showroom. But even with that, being a direct dealer is hard as I recall. They have a pretty high bar as far as number SKUs you have to carry and amount of business per year. I have not tried to negotiate that though so maybe they are more flexible than that. If they are not, then their bar is far higher than any other brand we carry (Paradigm, Revel, Wisdom), etc.

That makes no sense. Retail storefronts are disappearing by the minute.

my only thought is that by focusing on shops with showrooms, it will hopefully help create more brand awareness. I find it hard to sell higher end audio without a demo. I've pulled it off, but its not always easy.

That said, I doubt they aren't taking on any non-storefront dealers anymore. If you really like them, call them directly. Nobody makes better on-wall speakeras. Now with the tribe in-walls/ceiling and in-wall subs, its hard to compete.

We've used the tribe in-walls in a family 5.1 and they rock!

I think it is sad if Totem is going that route as this forum was how I first heard of the line and I am sure I am not the only one that heard about them from RC.

I just sent Stephen a note so before any rumors by speculation get started lets hear from the source.

I would imagine that in Daves case there may be a dealer in the area with the ability to push a much higher volume than what Dave is offering. Totem does not saturate areas with multiple dealers to gain market share. That is not what they are about.

Amirm,
In my opinion I disagree.
Madrona is the perfect environment for Totem. People who hear them buy them. Our showroom is currently by appt. only and really gets mostly contractor and designer traffic.
Later this year we plan to move to a high traffic location and staffing up.
I couldn't imagine not showing Totem in the new location.

Dave, I think a conversation between yourself and Stephen would benefit you.
If you would like his contact info I will be happy to PM you.


Edited for spelling.

Agreed

Dave, you really did yourself a dis-service by not using Totems in a HT setting. The Tribe series works incredibly well in a HT setting. One of the best theaters I ever heard was in a showroom in SCal, he had 7 Totem Tribe III's paired up with 2 Thunder subs. I use Totems in my home's 5.1 set up, great stuff. If you can't show them you can't sell them. A client has hear Totems to believe your pitch.
Since when does Totem sell through distribution?

Hi Everyone - I am new here, but I'm here to help. Let me try and clear up some misconceptions that are floating around out there. (Special thanks to White Van Lifestyle for alerting me to some of those misconceptions)

1 - Because the vast majority of our products are hand built in Canada, using Canadian workers, earning a proper North American wage, we are not trying to destroy our competitors. With slow and careful production by hand, we are not trying to flood the market and dominate the market. Because of the above, we feel we have a right to be picky about who we sell to. Our policy for 25 years now has been: No mail order, No internet order, No distributors, No chain stores, and No superstores. Yes, I said no distribution. Some of you were told by an old rep firm who had a distribution arm, that we preferred, in that part of the USA, to "let the distributor handle everything, that Totem didnt want direct relationships!" That was dead solid false, and thats why we terminated that rep firm 2.5 years ago! Its the exact opposite, we only want direct relationships!

2 - Due to the extreme quality of our products, we enjoy being careful about who we sell to! We only sell to brick and mortar audio/video shoppes and quality, higher end custom integrators who maintain a showroom in good working order. We understand the trend towards "by appointment only" type custom integration business!

3 - We are not hard to deal with, but we do demand that the dealer always have a reasonable amount of Totem on hand to show clients, and we do demand a certain level of business per year. We enjoy giving dealers personalized service and the way to ensure that that never changes is to limit the amount of dealerships handling our brand. By enforcing the SKU quota and the annual volume quota, we ensure that each and every one of you get personal and outstanding service. Most of you love it this way!

4 - Vince Bruzzese is the founder, president, chief designer and head engineer of Totem. Vince will never, never, never, put his name on a mediocre or a me too product! He'd simply rather not have the sale! We have very strict sonic standards and we have very strict quality of construction standards. This is why it took us longer than the other brands to come up with a full and complete architectural line, because Vince is never in a rush to be first to market, he'd rather take his time and get things to market when they are worthy of being called Totems! We will never play fast and loose with our impeccable reputation.
This is a huge reason why Totem architecturals dont sound like architecturals, this is why they sound like world class monitors and towers. Vince will simply not dumb down or dilute anything, ever.

5 - Vince knows that speakers are just as much about art and emotion and heart and soul, and the human reaction to music. This is a huge reason why Totem's sound so incredibly natural. We have all the calibrated microphones, we have all the software, we have all the science and all the tech stuff in the factory, but that stuff is never the bottom line, the educated, dedicated, talented human ear is the bottom line.

6 - All Totem monitors and towers are designed with a certain type of client in mind. Once you get to know who each and every model is designed for, you will understand how much fun you can have with the brand, and how much you can satisfy each and every different type of client you are going to run into out there. We dont do cookie cutter speakers, because clients and their tastes and their needs dont come to you cookie cutter.

Summary - I could go on, but thats enough for now. I invite any of you who have questions to contact me at anytime. You can easily find all my contact data at www.totemacoustic.com Just click on contact and you will see me listed there.

Thanks so much, good listening and good selling!
Stephen L.

As a former Totem dealer and current supporter I fully understand their business model and like it.
Totem builds speakers as fast as they can and move them as fast as they are built.  Being handmade in Canada means this isn't some production line overseas churning out boxes.  These people have a true love for what they do and it shows in their product. 
Getting the line isn't all that hard compared to Wisdom, Wilson or Paradigm they just don't put as many dealers in a market as some manufacturers, they couldn't and wouldn't want to keep up.
Putting this in the context of an intergrator, would you rather stay smaller, (not small but not huge) deliver on quality and service or grow big and deal with all the headaches of staffing and cash flow?  A smaller, highly profitable business, in this economy, is a model for all of us.
When you grow too big it requires a lot more business to feed the beast and you sometimes have to do things you don't want to keep things running.

I'm also a former Totem dealer (alas, I am finding that I DESPERATELY miss resi AV and home automation). By far and away the most amazing product I ever had the pleasure to sell. Vince and crew are a treat to work with. They are kind, passionate and, frankly, quite generous. I also run Totem Acoustic in my own 5.1 rig and I can't tell you how nice it is to fire up the rig and let the Totems own my home. My wife is also a huge fan and that's saying something.

That's too bad. I'll never have a showroom, and I guess will never sell or recommend Totem.