I have been writing the Dealer (and Integrator) of the Year stories for 10 years now. Each year, we get a number of very solid applications, and this year was an exceptionally strong year with many great companies to choose from. But one stood out for what they were doing differently than many others in their position.

This year’s Dealer of the Year faced an all-too-common scenario: a 50+ year history with an owner looking towards the next steps in succession planning and deciding whether to sell or pass the business on to his kids. Doug Curtiss of Sonitrol New England and Alarm New England was lucky to have three kids involved in the business and one in particular who was ready and interested in stepping into the leadership role.

But after he and his daughter, Alexandra Thompson, now president of the company, worked through an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) framework in 2023, they realized that they needed to make a tough choice: either take the path of growing the enterprise side with the Sonitrol division, or focus exclusively on the residential and small commercial business. They chose the latter, selling off their Sonitrol franchise to Pye-Barker and keeping Alarm New England in the family.

The story of how this company split off its large commercial division and went all-in on the residential and SMB space is not one you hear every day in this industry. And it is definitely food for thought for those who say the traditional alarm industry is declining.

“I thought, ‘If I am going to be the leader of this company, [the residential and small commercial] is what I am good at,” Thompson says in in the article. That is what led to selling Sonitrol to Pye-Barker and to the whole process of ‘splitting the baby.’

Around the same time, they largely standardized on the Alarm.com platform for all customers, providing them with a streamlined way to sell, install and service, as well as an RMR growth engine that has allowed the company to almost make up for the loss of the Sonitrol sale to date, with a projection of being back up to where they were in just over one year.

While it was definitely not an easy transition, the story of how this company split off its large commercial division and went all-in on the residential and SMB space is not one you hear every day in this industry. And it is definitely food for thought for those who say the traditional alarm industry is declining.

“We think there is so much opportunity in this business, and we want to go out there and get it for ourselves,” Thompson says of the decision. “The future is so bright.”