SentryNet takes video monitoring classes on the road to dealers

PENSACOLA, Fla.--As the demand for video monitoring increases, SentryNet, a wholesale monitoring operation with two central stations in Pensacola, Fla., and Greenville, Miss., is focusing on educating dealers about the technology and methods of generating RMR during dealer conferences this year. Although more than 100 dealers from eight states attended its spring dealer conference in Tunica, Miss., some dealers could not make it, so SentryNet decided that every dealer should have access to this information. "If it means going to them, then that is what we are going to do," said Michael Joseph, vice president of operations. Thus, SentryNet has scheduled modified versions of the spring conference in cities throughout the Sun Belt. The program will examine video verification, packaging video for your market and selling video to increase RMR. Typically dealers receive technical information on video monitoring equipment, but sales and marketing programs are quite often left to the dealer's own resources, Joseph said. "In talking with our dealers, we found that they do not know how to package and sell video monitoring," Joseph said. Ray Hightower, general manager at All Safe Technologies of Gulfport, Miss., and an attendee at the conference, said important elements, such as identifying your target market, that go into a dealer's marketing plan were covered at the meeting. He said the courses answered questions that many dealers ask when adjusting to a newer technology such as, "How do we implement it into our everyday operation, and how is it going to add to our revenue line?" Hightower added that, "They just didn't present a program, and say, 'Here is a new way of generating revenue.' They actually broke things down and took us through a step-by-step method." Hightower added that working with this technology depends upon the monitoring center, as not all monitoring centers have the capability. "The two have to work hand and hand with the training aspects," he said. However, "It is our job now to take this to the next level," Hightower said.