authorized dealer status

[volsla]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working for a big company and we are doing lots of control4 deployment; however, i am starting my own company (part time) and became control4 dealer last year. So, now i do have a situation where i have to build my own business but i have to have keep my current income working for the big company. Control4 (today) is telling me that i can lose my dealer status if i will not sale control4 product for ~$40000 annually. 

That is very tricky situation, in one hand i do have few potential clients i can deploy control4 and have them as a future customers; in other, hand, i don't want to lose their future trust when they receive a letter from control4 with information that i lose my dealership status and they have to go to another dealer.

I even don't know what to ask.

Have you heard any story of someone lost the control4 dealer status because of that?

Do you know anyone who is not meeting the sales goal and still control4 dealer?

I am so frustrated and don't know even what to do.

 

I have to rethink all the available options.

 

 

[msgreenf]

Yes. They do take them away if you are not performing for more reasons then just sales volume

[Cyknight]

I'm not sure what we can answer here for you.

Does Control4 have a minimum sales volume to retain dealership? Yes.

Have they made exceptions? Probably, I could see cases where a smaller dealer is dealing with other issues so they can probably 'hold' termination to cover a bad year.

Does that mean anything in any sense that you could use? Not really.

I'm not sure why it would be surprising that there is a minimum sales number to retain a dealership - whether or not the NUMBER is reasonable is another discussion, but some form of minimum...

And sure, dealers have gotten terminated for things other than sales volume, and indeed even if their numbers were sky high.

 

I get that it's frustrating for you, but I don't know what anyone on here could really do to help?

[EverAction]

1 hour ago, volsla said:

Hi everyone,

I am currently working for a big company and we are doing lots of control4 deployment; however, i am starting my own company (part time) and became control4 dealer last year. So, now i do have a situation where i have to build my own business but i have to have keep my current income working for the big company. Control4 (today) is telling me that i can lose my dealer status if i will not sale control4 product for ~$40000 annually. 

That is very tricky situation, in one hand i do have few potential clients i can deploy control4 and have them as a future customers; in other, hand, i don't want to lose their future trust when they receive a letter from control4 with information that i lose my dealership status and they have to go to another dealer.

I even don't know what to ask.

Have you heard any story of someone lost the control4 dealer status because of that?

Do you know anyone who is not meeting the sales goal and still control4 dealer?

I am so frustrated and don't know even what to do.

 

I have to rethink all the available options.

 

 

Sounds like you've hit a crossroad. Either you continue to do work for your big company and lose out on your own dealer account. Or focus on your own business.

[ILoveC4]

I have to imagine that if your company knew you were owning and running a competing business, they'd probably fire you. I'd wager it's against your employment agreement.

Decide whether you want to be an employee at your company or start your own. Nearly impossible to do both effectively.

[tdougray]

2 hours ago, Cyknight said:

I'm not sure what we can answer here for you.

Does Control4 have a minimum sales volume to retain dealership? Yes.

I’m just curious as an end user why there is a minimum sales target? Does It cost C4 anything to have a dealer?  Are C4 just not happy more people have the potential to sell their product and grow the brand?

want to stress not a criticism just curious as seems a bit backward. 

[JSTRONG]

40 minutes ago, ILoveC4 said:

I have to imagine that if your company knew you were owning and running a competing business, they'd probably fire you. I'd wager it's against your employment agreement.

Decide whether you want to be an employee at your company or start your own. Nearly impossible to do both effectively.

Absolutely. His boss cannot agree to him stealing potential customers or maybe even stealing existing customers away. 

 

[thegreatheed]

5 minutes ago, tdougray said:

I’m just curious as an end user why there is a minimum sales target? Does It cost C4 anything to have a dealer?  Are C4 just not happy more people have the potential to sell their product and grow the brand?

want to stress not a criticism just curious as seems a bit backward. 

If a dealer isn't actively working on systems, they aren't getting the exposure and experience necessary to stay current. Inexperienced dealers don't help grow the brand.

[tdougray]

4 minutes ago, thegreatheed said:

If a dealer isn't actively working on systems, they aren't getting the exposure and experience necessary to stay current. Inexperienced dealers don't help grow the brand.

I totally get that but surely they hold workshops? Also you could work on a shit load of installs but programming only. Just because you don’t sell big money doesn’t mean your not working on systems does it? 

[eggzlot]

22 minutes ago, tdougray said:

I’m just curious as an end user why there is a minimum sales target? Does It cost C4 anything to have a dealer?  Are C4 just not happy more people have the potential to sell their product and grow the brand?

want to stress not a criticism just curious as seems a bit backward. 

I have to think they do not want to saturate a market, so they want X dealers to be able to service Y customers in a market.  I am sure they have some sort of equation - for every 100,000 people in a 10 mile radius they want 2 dealers - those #s are so out of whack, but that is just the concept.  So if 1 of those dealers is not moving product....They are not holding their weight.

Yes there is the idea of what if they are just doing 100% programming and servicing systems.  Every other month or so when the mega threads start about end users wanting more control and not getting support from their dealers - the idea of "programming only" dealers come up as an idea to help.  But as of now, dealers need to sell products. 

I am in Sales myself and manage various territories and its the same thing - though I have account managers to service accounts and then Biz Dev people to find new business, whereas C4 believes 1 person (the dealer) should do both - sell and service.  To each his own but that is their model.

[JSTRONG]

Almost all manufacturers in addition to other qualifications and training, require a minimum sales volume. They do this so they know you are a legit company that is going to push and sell their product. Sure they can saturate the local markets with thousands of little one man shop dealers, but then the big guys with lots of employees lots of sales and lots of overhead suffer 

[JSTRONG]

And Im thinking that Vosla did not need to build the commercial showroom (per dealer requirement) (not in a residential area) decked out in Control4.

Here in NJ, Control4 reps visit your showroom to make sure it qualifies before you become an official dealer.

 

 

[thegreatheed]

34 minutes ago, tdougray said:

I totally get that but surely they hold workshops? Also you could work on a shit load of installs but programming only. Just because you don’t sell big money doesn’t mean your not working on systems does it? 

Sure. And they do hold workshops, but those cost money (your previous question was do low-volume dealerships cost money). Continually educating dealers who aren't selling anything is a quick way to lose money.

You are right that money isn't a perfect indicator. That's why dealers also have to be trained and have certain numbers of trained techs on staff. And why Snap/C4 has regional managers in the area who can address quality issues that come up.

[tdougray]

I totally get that and tbf being in the UK I don’t think I understand the scale of C4 in the US.

i manage within an engineering company and some of the most knowledgeable reps/ account managers that I deal with only sell to me a minuscule amount of business over a course of a yr but they are always there when I need advise. I have other suppliers that we buy a ridiculous amount off but aren’t the best technically.

i suppose in a world of so many companies trying to get involved in “smart home”, as an end user I would want c4 to get bigger so the more people plugging it the better

[Cyknight]

9 hours ago, tdougray said:

I would want c4 to get bigger so the more people plugging it the better

To a degree - but no sales on an authorized dealer could easily mean that:

-(S)He's doing poor sales talk, potentially hurting the brand

-Preferring other options, and using the brand to get people in and onto something else

Then there's the fact that there is such a thing as too many dealers, which is why there are spread quotas - and a bunch of 'dead' dealers can mean new dealers are blocked when they shouldn't be.

10 hours ago, tdougray said:

Does It cost C4 anything to have a dealer? 

And yes, it does. Not overly much directly, but indirectly it can 'cost' C4 to have non functioning dealers. Then there's a small portion for potential showroom pricing, and employee pricing that could be abused (ie start a dealership, get showroom rated products, empty any possible employee pricing you can get - there's numerous limitations in place there to limit that but still...)