Salesman Compensation

Yep. Also have him accompany you on sales calls for the first few weeks so he gets an understanding of your products and services, what you use, where you install it and why.

What? You don't know how to fish concrete walls? Harrumph!! :^)

Sure I do. In clear water you pitch to where ever it looks dark and adjacent chunks first. In stained water use your electronics to scope the area looking for broken chunks, and holes. Back off for a little to let the fish settle down and then pitch to the high percentage spots first. If you know the area its best to pitch to the best spots from your maximum casting distance. Also watch for any place that the wall forms a curent break.

-- Bob La Londe - Webmaster

Tornament Director

I should have known better than to use the term, "fish" with you around, Bob. :^)

Especially in the presence of a Fat Assed Bass.

You mean like this?

I would have agreed with that 10 years ago when the Power series first came out however a Vista-15P/20P has a number of features that a PC5010 does not have.

DSC is quicker and easier to program but these days everyone else has caught up and passed them in features

Damn, made

I am sure all have our prefered choice of equipment, but are the features offered today, what the customers, overall, want or are they what the industy wants to offer. I believe, overall, the customers what to turn it on an turn it off, the easier the better and be relatively service free. I refer to it as the "sizzle and the steak" theory. All of the equipment on the market, through standards and codes, have the steak and relatively equal as far as that goes. It is the sizzle that makes them different. I am just not sure it is the end user that is driving it as much as it is the marketeers in the industry. I believe the moneys could be better spent on beefing up the panel then adding more "bells and whistles" that the end user may be dazzled with today, but will forget about tomarrow and go back to just turning it on and turning it off. I think we have more fun with new and cool features than the customer wants or needs.

You're absolutely right Bob....Too much sizzle and not enough steak.

And, that's from a guy who has "12:00" flashing on his VCR.

Norm Mugford

I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?

The manufacturers spend a lot of time taking surveys of what customers want which is why they have those bells and whistles. Now the problem is while the customers SAY they want something they don't always end up using it.

Or in a lot of cases, customers simply forget how to use it. Most customers cant even seem to remember the make of panel they have let alone the model, and even further, all the wiz bang features built in. I swear you could train some customers daily and they would still forget even the simplest of procedures.

I'm coming to believe there are some customers who should never have an alarm system (not many, but some.....)

RHC

Which is precisely why the DSC panels are perfect for most folks-

-Rolling code buffer; no need to "start over" or "clear" when a mistake is made

-No "function" keys to confuse things; 4 digit code ON, 4 digit code OFF

-Auto-bypass of interior when E/E door not opened; doesn't get any simpler for the end-user

If the panel is programmed properly by the installer for the user's needs, the only thing they really have to remember is their 4 digit code. The vast majority of my customers over the years have wanted (and in some cases needed) one thing from their system- simplicity. Only a small percentage, maybe 1-2%, have wanted or needed anything beyond the ability to easily arm/disarm it. Of course, most of the extra features are there with the DSC stuff, but they are invisible to the end-user. No wading through extraneous menus or extra command keys to confuse Grandma, the babysitter, or the cleaning people.

Yeah, that's why I early on chose the DSC products or (IMO) the superior Paradox equipment for all my residential customers (superior based mainly on

Either line can be set up as simple or as complex as the customer wants. I have no bones to pick with other makes; I just don't use them to keep down the number of panels I have to know and service.....

RHC

The VCR is easy enough to fix. Just find the nearest 12 year old.

And I wonder if these surveys are really from the "end users" mouth or from the installers. I don't think most end users even know what they want in an alarm system other than turn it on, turn it off. Some don't even understand when they forget to bypass the motion detectors when they're home or open a window in the middle of the night ..... and it trips the alarm ...... how come the system doesn't know it's them?

Some want to know how to bypass a zone but other than that, they usually don't even know WHAT to ask for and what NOT to ask for. It's always seems, even after they've seen another alarm company that I"M the one who offers them the options and what is termed "bells and whistles". I never spend less than two hours doing a sales presentation and most of that is presenting them with scenarios so they can understand why they would want to have a certain option.

Of course this lets me understand how/why some of the other companys, DON'T go through the effort of explaining. This way, they can get in and out and don't have to spend another hour or more explaining how to operate the system .... after it's installed ...... which the end user doesn't remember anyway.

But .....that's ok ..... I get most of the jobs I quote ..... so it's worth it.

But that is offset by the fact that doing many user functions are a pain with DSC, things like looking at an event buffer is goofy, cryptic commands for door chimes etc

Mind you I LOVE DSC and have programmed thousands of them and I know what commands people tend to get stuck on

I was thinking more along the PC1555RK keypad which seems more popular and doesn't have the function keys.