CCTV Industry experts !

Heard a great comment today from a guy that is been in the industry for literally decades!

He was asking a very straight question and he was genuinely being serious – but the way it was phrased was complete garbage! A complete mixture of technologies was wrapped into one technical sentence……. it was like Back to the Future and Back again ! IP, HD and analogue references were all included!

This got me thinking, our industry is full of so called ‘experts’ who have built a living from selling CCTV related products.

But how much do they REALLY know about the products and services that they sell?

Don’t get me wrong, I have seen and been with Company Representatives who really know their product inside out – often bordering on being Technical – yet they move from company to company, with their excellent and polished sales skills, simply picking up the new products and revising specifications verbatim from the professional data sheets their new company provides.

And some of these guys are going out to installers, and installers sales staff (who tend to have less specific product knowledge) and attend site to meet with end users (who have even less specific product knowledge) and advise on the best CCTV solution for that end users needs – which, by coincidence is based on the end to end set of products that sales ‘expert’ has in his company briefcase!

And Distributors? Well, in my experience, they tend to look at the best square to fit in this week’s circle, often based on commission rich product bonus offered by economic-strapped manufacturers to ensure their product is pushed to the front of the pile!

Some Manufacturers do just that – manufacture – often bringing in 3rd party OEM products to supplement and complement their manufactured range whilst delivering the full end to end solution the installer and subsequent end user craves. This can bring it’s own problems, the manufacturer often providing excellent service for their own in house kit, but falling short when it comes to controlling the 3rd party OEM kit and it’s support.

Training is essential – companies like Tavcom Training provide superb courses in a variety of topics and to be fair, any decent installer worth his/her salt should invest in their staff to ensure at least a modicum of basic knowledge before thrusting them toward the end user!

As we move towards a more IP-centric world, less A to B cabling and more network connections, is going to expose the bright boys from the pretenders……. so now is the time to get the training in and the sales bluff out!