In October, industry titan Honeywell was host to its dealer organizations in Orlando, Fla., where hundreds gathered to celebrate industry dealers and attend a wide variety of keynote and educational sessions. All three of Honeywell’s dealer organizations were in attendance: Honeywell Integrated Security (HIS), Commercial Security Systems (CSS), and First Alert Professional (FAP).

“CONNECT 2014 certainly met the expectations of Honeywell and our attendees. This was the largest attendance of any of our events,” shared Marek Robinson, president of Authorized Dealer Programs for Honeywell Security, in an interview with SDM.

There were numerous highlights at the event itself, but Robinson shared, “Personally, the overwhelming positive feedback from our customers was great to hear. Jeffrey Gitomer, our keynote speaker, was very well received and had a powerful message. The amount of breakout sessions and quality of relevant content was another highlight.”

Honeywell is moving to a tiered structure in terms of its current HIS program with silver, gold and platinum levels with a range of benefits. CONNECT events are a way for dealers to stay at the forefront of the market, shared Robinson.

“Training, sharing of best practices, and actionable items they can take back to grow their businesses make this one of the best things our dealers do every year,” Robinson said. “With so many competitive threats in the market today, our dealers need to continue to stay at the forefront of the market and CONNECT helps them do that.” The end-of-conference gala for CONNECT 2014 was home to the dealer awards.

A staple of the CONNECT conference is the dealer awards. In addition to honoring its top dealers in each organization, Honeywell honored dealers who reached the 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year marks as partners. Honeywell also recognized a multitude of dealers for community service and outreach programs. The top award winners in each organization were:

•  CSS Dealer of the Year: Source 1 Solutions, Clearwater, Fla.;

•  FAP Dealer of the Year: Interface Security Systems, Earth City, Mo.;

•  HIS Dealer of the Year: Advantech, Dover, Del.

 CONNECT 2015 will take place October 22-25, 2015, in Scottsdale, Ariz., at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa.