Analyzing Your Client's Needs Denver CO

Have you ever proposed a home theater to a customer only to scare them away with the high price of your design? Or did you ever feel like you left money on the table and undersold the customer?

If youve been in the home theater industry for any period of time, you most likely answered yes to both questions. As designers and project managers our goal is to hit the customers needs correctly the first time, but how do we do that?

Lets look at three keys to determining your customers needs for a home theater project. This is also known as needs analysis.

Key 1: Knowing Your Budget. How much is your customer really willing to spend? Based on interviews with dealers across the globe, a typical homeowner is willing to spend from three to seven percent of the total value of their home on electronics. The exact amount varies, of course, based on the homeowners financial status and their desire to embrace risk. Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who make risk-taking part of their lives are typically more willing to invest in new technologies as well. Lawyers, accountants, and those who come from generations of money, tend to take fewer risks in life and as such will spend less on electronic enhancements to the home.
My experience and data from an informal survey of dealers across the country indicates the order in which customers typically purchase electronic systems.

1. Structured cabling
2. Entertainment, including whole-home
music and home theater
3. Lighting controls
4. Integration of HVAC, security, and lighting.

Knowing a reasonable range for a customer and the likely manner in which they will select electronic systems allows a residential integrator to quickly determine the home theater budget. We can further define the budget for a home theater by looking at how the theater costs will be spread among room treatments, electronics, installation, project management, and others areas.
Within of the total budget for a home theater project, the typical percentage breakdown is generally 50/50 between the electronic goods and services that your client will purchase and the room treatments, acoustic panels, seating, draperies, carpeting, millwork, etc. that they will buy. We can break down the electronics goods and services further into a 70/30 mix.

Looking further at the electronics, we can break it down like this:
435% Video, including projection systems and screens, or monitors
420% Audio, including processor, equalizers, amplifiers or receivers
410% Source equipment, including DVD player, digital video recorder,
satellite, etc.
420% Speakers, including front, surround, and subwoofer speakers
410% Control components, including items such as a system control,
touchscreen, hand-held remote, and emitters
45% Miscellaneous, including items such as power protection, cabling,
equipment racks, and other assorted supplies.

And looking into the services we find:
460% Installation
410% Design
410% Programming
420% Project Management

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