Re: Acceptable time from walk-thru to quotation delivery


Level 7- Recognising when the term Horses for Courses applies.


Doug
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"Roland Moore" <roland@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45e9ea69$0$4897$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You might THINK you're saving a customer money by selling in the lower end
of the market offering, but I bet in many cases you might not be. Here is
one example of mom and pop I had recently. If you sell him a 4, or 6, or 8
channel DVR did you do that because it looked like he could fit that many
cameras in the square footage available? I bet the mom and pop has
concerns about the register, the front door, and the back door no matter
the square footage. But did you ask what types of losses mom and pop had
in the past year? Maybe a DVR box is right for them and maybe not. I did
asked that question about loses recently and had the owner explain to me
about the gun battle he had with the Mexican Mafia at his store that left
him hospitalized for 2 full years, in addition to leaving 5 other
employees with bullet wounds. Could he get the facial details of the
people that shot him off that Speco system you just sold him, or the
Geovision you built yourself? Perhaps, if that Everfocus DVR didn't end up
in pieces on the floor under the boots of the thug that just shot your
customer. Or if the ouside camera was stolen off the wall a month ago and
no one noticed it yet. What if he felt better about being able to check in
via the net and see, talk and listen to what is happening and not worry
about the video archive element because you backed it up real time off
site (at your office, or his home, or where ever he wants from a different
stream from the same encoder?) What if liked the idea of using that same
"video" system to remotely lock or unlock the office door? So what did you
sell him too much of and not enough of? A DVR box frozen in time hardware
wise, with limited software or firmware upgrading available. Or did you
sell him something that he can use now and add to or change later, as his
business changes and the threats he faces change. Did you sell him
something that "can work" on a network or something designed as part of a
networked solution? Or will you go back in a few years when the hard drive
or CPU fan fails in the DVR box and sell him another box and start to
whole sorry trunk slammer cycle all over again? Wouldn't it be better to
at least offer a solution that can run on a computer he owns already, and
that will already be part of an upgrade cycle, so that he won't have to
pay for twice for the same gear he uses for the same single application? I
compete with low end gear routinely. I believe for the same budget dollar
what I offer might weigh less in terms of pounds of hardware, but with my
solution I give the customer better features as well as a better future of
features. It is not the hardware price but the location of what level
product you offer and what YOU have done with YOURSELF as a professional
to understand and offer that level of product delivery. Where are you on
the level (below) as far as what you offer and what your ability to
install and service it in any size environment?
If CCTV is:
Level 1 VCR with MUX
Level 2 DVR with hardware MUX (limited metadata integration) [DM and GE
box]
Level 3 DVR with software MUX (metadata integration) [AD, Bosch V8,
Integral, I3]
Level 4 Encoders, IP cameras with NVR (interactive metadata integration)
[Broadware, Genetec]
Level 5 Edge encoders NVR Server analytics (complete metadata integration)
[AD/Mate, Verint, IndigoVision]
Level 6 Edge encoders, edge recording, edge analytics (OS independent
complete metadata integration) [BVIP]

What efforts have you made to get yourself to a higher level of product
offering? Or do you buy your own BS when you sell the junk at the low end
of the market? You don't have to sell a $6000 NVR to offer a big feature
set. In most cases a true COTS NVR doesn't do anything but run as a
service on the server and just record. It is the workstation software that
connects to the NVR that has the features. There is lower priced gear in
the encoder/with software world that still does a lot more than most any
DVR box. Think of how fast the technology is changing nearly everywhere.
Having CCTV professionals get up to speed on new product delivery is the
best way to stop the whoring of the CCTV world like the burglar alarm
world was and is.





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