I'm new to the home theater installation business as a profession. For the past few months, I've been quite busy setting up home theaters. I've acquired all of these projects mostly through friends and acquaintances who recomend me, my services and my skill and knowledge of home theater to their friends, etc. I an now committed to establishing myself as a professional home automation \ home theater installation services organization.

My question to the veterans of this trade is what are the best ways to generate new sales \ business in the custom home automations \ home theater installations market? What advice would you give to someone who is starting out in this industry?

Thanks...RN

In this economy, two words....

Good Luck!

Do what your doing. Referals are the best way to generate business. Another good thing to do is find builders in your area and try to work something out with them, they are an excellent source for referals. Jobs done well will create more jobs.

We are in the enviable position of being an old retail business in a neighborhood with a lot of money. We actually have to avoid advertising because we would soon be overwhelmed with customers whom we would be pissing off because we could not get to them. We still are growing...and this is
a)referral
b)we are a very old retail store that has lots of people who think of it once every five years when they need something new and the technology has made self-installation too cumbersome and
c)a sign adjacent to a jammed road, that thousands of people see daily (but most people who come in off the sign say they have passed us by for years).

Previous to this place, I worked with a guy who started out of his apartment. His principles were:
Referrals.
Customer Service.
Making sure the customer is well-informed so he can't ask why you didn't tell him about such-and-such three months later.
Communication.
Estimating prices, informing the client that this is the best guess, but that things might force the price higher to overcome unforeseen obstacles. Fixed prices are easier to get paid on, but harder to sell because they usually have to be padded to cover obstacles that might not come up.

There is a book called "marketing without advertising" that has been some great info in it.