Over 3,000 Tweeter employees are hoping that slogan rings true with the modern consumer, and the Tweeter management is betting the shop on it. After some financially challenging years, the chain is hoping to publicly position itself as the source of affordable home automation products and installation services, targeting not only the very rich, but a middle-class shopper who walks in looking for an HDTV and leaves with a reasonably priced home control system from manufacturers like Control4.

“We can put people in control for well under $10,000,” says Joe McGuire, Tweeter president and CEO, recently on site at a new concept store in Wilmington, Del. “Our salespeople used to take comfort in product knowledge, but now we’re integrating lifestyle into the sales experience, an experience which can last for years because control is infinitely expandable.”

The sales experience certainly has a new look at Tweeter’s remodeled retail sites. Customers walking in the front door are greeted by a large hotel-style front desk labeled “concierge.” Absent from view are cash registers or a traditional check-out counter. Instead, customers are invited to sit at bars or consult with salespeople at desks and leather-appointed lounge areas throughout the show floor. They’re also invited on what Tweeter execs call the “customer journey,” a short walk-through tour of home vignettes that demonstrate products like wireless touch pads, light dimmers, wall mounts and a flat panel that hides away at the foot of a bed.

Wilmington store manager John Hightower says 80 percent of customers who walk in are willing to at least check out the “journey,” though many of them are completely unaware that home automation is viable in their income bracket. “Plenty of people still come in and say, ‘Do you have iPods?’ We just sold a hundred of them over the [Black Friday] weekend. But our average sales ticket these days is $5,000. It’s much easier to sell home automation now that we can show them how it works in real spaces.”