Original article by: Brilliant
With builders looking to make homes smart right from the beginning, integrators get the chance to get in early and stick around.
A strong integrator-builder relationship has been an industry-wide goal for years for the obvious benefits — more work and getting into the project at the earliest stages. Lately, integrators have received a strong ally in this goal in the form of basic smart home systems that builders can add from the outset to increase the value of the home and support the new homeowners.
Brian Motheral, general manager at Republic Elite Integration in Northern California, has been working with Brilliant to offer builders a basic smart home system that provides plenty of room for growth. And while having access to the tech and know-how that builders need helps, he explains that it takes much more than that to establish the connection.
“With the builder market, my experience has been very regional and very much relationship-based,” says Motheral. “I mean, all sales are relationship-based, but in the builder market world, it really is.” And he would know — Republic Elite Integration does 450 homes each month, with most of them being new houses.
“The biggest thing for us was going to the builders and convincing them that — whether they like it or not — home automation is coming,” he continues. “Every house will be automated. As millennials get older and older, they’re going to walk up to the door and say, ‘Wait…I have to use a key to open my door.’”
Fortunately, most builders have come around to accepting this fact. “I’d say about 80 percent of builders are now doing something standard with regard to smart homes,” adds Motheral. “It typically goes down two paths with the builder market — half are doing a security-based home automation platform and the other half are doing something like a Brilliant smart light switch. If you do a security-based home automation system, it can do some lights and your locks, but if you want to stream music, it can’t do it. With Brilliant, it’s a light switch, but it’ll play with many third-party products. That changes the conversation.”
How do builders decide which path to choose? If only there was someone they could ask… “I think builders are truly looking for a partner nowadays — they don’t want to be the home technology experts,” says Motheral. “They’re looking for somebody who they can consult with. I get calls all day long — ‘I was watching this commercial and there’s this new thermostat that talks to your toilet. What do you think about it?’ Being able to build that trust and have them know that you’re advising them correctly is key.
“As the GM here, one of my biggest jobs is staying in touch with the builders, taking them to lunch, sitting then down and saying, ‘Hey, we got this new technology,’ or ‘This is what’s coming out.’ I met with a lot of different builders over lunch and took the Brilliant light switch and display with me and plugged it in right at the table. So we’re eating lunch and checking out this smart light switch.”
As valuable as the relationship with the builders is, it is equally important to have access to the homeowners, advises Motheral. “One of our requirements with the builders we work with is that we meet with the home buyers,” he says. “We have a full-time sales team, and we assigned each salesperson to a certain account, so that’ll be his builder, and he’ll be meeting with those buyers.”
Of course, there are times where there is no buyer and the builder is going to sell the homes after that fact. That still works out well for Republic Elite. “I may have no idea who bought that home, but I do know that they have a Brilliant system or a security system in that house, and so we have to go back in if they want it to work,” says Motheral. “At that point, we send in a service tech with a company van and he’s in there saying, ‘This is what your system will do,’ and ‘I noticed that your house is pre-wired, would you like some speakers or security cameras.’ It’s really trying to create that customer for life.”
READ MORE