Why do we want to keep supporting, with insight and experitse, a forum/site that advertises for sites/companies that undercut us on price to anyone with access to the internet. My cost on a Pronto TSU3000 from a reputable nationwide distributor is $225. The places that advertise on this site sell them to the public for $240. It's not worth my time to drive up and get one...

I don't think you should sell TSU3000, for many more reasons than that. The Marantz RC series should be all you need in a low end remote.

Who's your distributor? I'm not sure exactly what we pay, but I thought it was substantially less than that. I will ask my boss when I see him next.

You asked two questions there. One is why do we support the forum, the second is why support a product that anyone can buy for effectively your cost.

I think the forum should be supported because we, the pros, gain much from it. I know I do.

I don't believe that my customers know about this forum or care; they have me for that so they can pursue their professions and their avocations. I will hazard a guess that the majority of your clients are more interested in gardening or fantasy sports teams that remote control discrete codes. If you are catering to hobbyists, then I submit you go looking for another clientele base. It's been my experience that hobbyists are not good, high revenue customers; they would rather do it themselves or micromanage you and your billable time and materials to them because they think they know how to do it and they are only having you do it because it's "easier". You and I know that's wrong, it's not that easy. Working for someone that thinks they know as much as you (right or wrong) put the whole situation in the boss/worker framework, and guess who you are? I would rather be in the client/hired professional position as a hired professional, where my advice is taken and my responsibility is to make the client happy. I earn more money that way, and the client does not feel empowered to micromanage me.

On the exclusivity of products, it's my company's policy to promote products that are not widely available to anyone with a web browser; Marantz, Paradigm, Crestron, B&K, etc. We use distributed products when it serves us best, but do not anchor the promotion of our services on them; they are in the "background". Think about moving to more exclusive brands....

Quite a rant there.....

Any company that thinks they need to compete with the internet is not going to stay in business very long.

Fact of the matter is that if someone wants to buy their own remote and program it themselves, they are going to buy it on the internet more times than not. Most people who go to a custom A/V shop or integrator simply do not want to invest the time or dont have the knowledge or resources to do it themselves.... They are usually willing to pay a bit extra to have it done right and have someone to call (Read: blame) if something goes wrong. You do NOT get that with an internet sale.

We need to maintain a showroom, employees, and most of all, we need to make money so in 5 or 10 years, when our client needs us, we're still around. My Clients are the people who apreciate and understand that fact.

If your clients are people who want you to sell them product for internet prices and then program and install them for free, you need to start looking for a new career because your simply not going to be around very long.

My company has decided to go with the Marantz remotes.... Last company I worked for did Pronto.... I did extremely well with Prontos, and now I do extremely well with Marantz...... And quite frankly, if I decided that every one of my customers needed a Sony RMAV-3000, I would do well with that....

Customers should NOT be buying 'Brand X' from us..... They should be buying US and our expertise.

wow..... didnt intend that to be a rant when I started.....

JRITCH you said:

"Why do we want to keep supporting, with insight and experitse, a forum/site that advertises for sites/companies that undercut us on price to anyone with access to the internet."

If you are in business, you need revenue to stay in business and supply your clients with your services. RemoteCentral.com needs to do the same thing. A paying advertiser is a paying customer who contributes revenue to cover the bills produced by operating this web-site. They don't own the site, they support it by purchasing advertising, just like in a newspaper or magazine. If they are undercutting you, then they must have found a profitable nich that works for them. You must find your profitable nich to stay in your business. You can advertise on Remote Central too, but possibly your customer territory is too small to produce useable leads from internet advertising.

To provide the services that you and others use, Remote Central must cover the bills, without discriminating against advertisers. If you are not contributing financially, hopefully you are contributing knowledge and advice. By all working together in this way we all can gain in our own businesses and come out ahead.

I apologize for any inference to this forum or the moderators doing anything wrong. I understand your need to finance your operation, and I was out of line to suggest that you not do whatever you can to do that. I enjoy this site, and gain a lot of knowledge from it's library, and the suggestions of others. For that, I thank you and applaud you (all). I wish I had the knowledge that some of you here have, and I would be happy to share..

Sorry about the rant. I should be a little quieter when I don't have anything constructive to add.

Thank you,

jritch

I think I might have been a bit misunderstood. When I said "quite a rant" during my initial post, I was referring to myself. I'm guite sorry if you thought I was going after you for venting (and I would hazard a guess that Impaqt would say the same) 'cause it wasn't so.

You touched a hot button topic for me, one I have given a great deal of thought to, and then acted on over the course of the last eight years.

Don't think you compete with everyone in the world on price. You will if you let it happen. You won't if you stand by your guns and hold out for the better more exclusive brands and higher revenue they represent to your company.

True.... I certainly didnt mind the original post, Things like this always spark some good discussion..... Buy as Theaterworks related... THis is a subject that should not be an issue. I've been in the Business for about 12 years now.... I've done everything from Managing Retail floors, installation, Custom Programmng, Custom sales, and Project management.....

Its really quite s rewarding career if you have your priorities in line.

Don't, indeed, thing you compete with everyone on price. You are not the competition of most because you add to the value of the product.

We recently got involved in a two-plasma, two-system install where the customer's business manager decided to buy all the stuff where he could save a lot of money. After we did the entire estimate, including discounts, and they decided to do that, we rewrote the estimate for labor and the items they could not get (Sonance speakers and keypads, impedance matching volume controls), and I talked with the client. We ended up getting a couple thousand dollar design fee because I explained that our business was design, sales and installation, and that design was free with equipment sales. I did not have to get to the crappy thing to say: that we would be happy to install the system according to the design submitted by the business manager, or we would not do the install, or we would need to be paid for the design. The client saw the reality of our needing to be supported by something more than just the installation profit.

And at that point, all futzing around with their supplied equipment became a time and material issue. I am still waiting to see if anyone on this site has an answer for his CD changer. He bought a $169 JVC that will not perform when its IR signal goes through an Audioplex system. So far, I have earned four hours labor on this, and will probably have to tell him he has to take back the CD changers and get the ones we put on our list, because we guaranteed those to work.

There has always been the cousin or friend that could get you something at wholesale pricing. The internet has just made it so that everybody has a friend in the business. I have lost a few deals to the internet but I consider that to be a shortcoming on my sales skills (never my strong suit, I'm a tech gone business owner). The ways to avoid that happening have been well stated here and I won't rewrite them but I would like to add that it is not something you or I should take personally. There will always be the customer who wants something for nothing and now they have the internet and Best Buy as bargaining power. If you can't close the deal at the price point you need to be profitable then cut your losses and move to the next job no matter how hungry you are.