In a world where volatility has become the norm and our businesses have been thrown into a constant state of uncertainty, it’s never been more important to control the controllables. In the sales world, one of these manageable elements is called second mover strategy. Apple famously describes this approach to business as not necessarily starting the conversation, but being there to finish it. Here are some killer second-mover tactics to transform your CI business overnight and set yourself apart from the competition.
Let the First Movers Bleed: The battlefield is littered with the corpses of those who embraced “ready, fire, aim” a little too literally. Some examples…
- Voice Control — Early entrants into the CI space date as far back as the early 2000s with products like Home Automated Living (HAL) and the VoicePod. It was only until Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa took the world by storm a decade ago that voice control became mainstream, and customers began asking for it by name. Consider the bind of many integrators as they watched cable companies like Xfinity debut voice remotes that weren’t compatible with traditional CI systems. Smart integrators preached reliability and refused to warranty voice-based systems. Fast forward to 2025 and voice control is much more integrated thanks to Apple HomeKit integrations with many CI-centric products by Savant, Control4, and Crestron. Even with the passage of time, voice control is still flaky with third-party control and requires occasional rebooting of the control system or HomeKit. Labeling these friction points with clients during the design phase is essential to avoiding frustration and non-warranty service calls down the road.
- Smart Lighting: Early entrants into the lighting control category were unreliable and used technologies like power-line carrier signal and radio-based switches that were highly susceptible to interference. The popularity of Lutron’s RadioRA in the early 2000s introduced rock-solid reliability into lighting control and began the march toward exploding the category through forward-thinking integrators. This move capitalized on resistance to change by incumbent electricians and enabled CI businesses to add substantial revenue streams by waiting out the less-reliable offerings.
- Remote Monitoring: CI wasn’t ready for managed services in 2009 when ihiji debuted. By waiting out technological advances and more robust offerings like Domotz, OvrC, and subscription solutions from players like OneVision and Parasol, many integrators are now successfully operationalizing RMR into their businesses for the first time.
Lower Cost of Entry: Early adopters pay a heavy price from both a financial and reliability perspective. For many of these die-hards, being first on the block to own a shiny object is worth it. For the majority of customers, waiting for the adoption curve to move further along tends to introduce competition and brings down prices substantially. For integrators, this can be a double-edged sword. Many remember the days of selling $8000 40-inch 1080p TVs in contrast to today’s highly commoditized flat panel world. Still, in subsystem categories like motorized shading, prices dropping below $1000 per window while still preserving a 40-point selling margin means more revenue for savvy players who see the marketing opportunities.
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Proven Tech = Happier Clients and Employees: No matter how many expectations you set, no one likes it when the system the client “just paid all this money for” doesn’t work properly. Second movers benefit from lower service call volume and happier clients, which translates into repeat business, social proof, and higher net promoter scores.
Refined UX From the Start: The first version of anything is usually a work in progress, no matter how good the design. Take a look at the first iPhone versus what’s available today. All hardware reaches a point where, in the words of Ray Lepper, “the technology gets out of the way.” This is the point where “it just works.” This is especially true in home control, where early versions of all the major home control platforms were clunky when compared to today’s streamlined offerings.
Leverage Customer Fatigue: It’s not uncommon to hear clients express that they used to have a fully integrated home but they were frustrated with how often they had maintenance issues and needed on-site visits from their integrator. Savvy second movers acknowledge this pain and design best-in-class subsystem-based systems that stand alone without a single point of failure. Better yet, a well-designed subsystem-based home control project can easily be pivoted to a “full control” system down the road should they change their minds.
We Learn From Their Mistakes: Sun Tzu famously states in The Art of War: “If you sit by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.” The wise integrator chooses to respond vs. react. That often involves doing nothing, which can feel frustrating. Nothing is often the best strategy and requires no effort. Still, many of us can’t resist the urge to interrupt our competitors when they’re screwing up. Consider listening more and taking notes when tempted to rush in too early.
Ask Them About Things They Don’t Have: Instead of using negativity to sell against the competition, intentionally “salt the earth” by asking about elements you know the first movers aren’t selling. Remote support and lighting plans are common elements that most integrators don’t offer and can be easy conversation starters, which will have any prospects in competitive bid situations questioning the other proposals they’re reviewing. Consider openers like, “What kind of support do you expect when your system breaks?” or, “You know the most overlooked element in home technology today? It’s the lighting. Can we review your lighting plan together?” In both of these scenarios, you’ll put the prospect into a state of pain where you (and only you) have the medication they need.
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Second mover strategy is not monolithic — there are certainly times where being first is clearly advantageous. These situations are often marked by market opportunities where timing is everything; where it might actually be more conservative and more prudent to have been a second mover. By waiting, sometimes the market opportunity completely closes or disappears. One of these key strategies is called “cookie licking,” which involves announcing something potentially before it’s even been developed or launched. This is commonly used in the technology game. Alarm.com launched a security drone program at CES 2017. It’s still on the drawing board eight years later. While they didn’t launch quickly, they did successfully manage to suck all the oxygen out of the room and relegating any future market entrants to be compared to Alarm.com. Being first sometimes is the only option, but these opportunities should be carefully considered.
As you stare down the back half of 2025, ask yourself which of these second-mover strategies sound like a fit for your business. If you could only pick one, which one would it be? What are you waiting for? Go do it!
