It's tough enough to sell desirable products these days, never mind often criticized products like power conditioners.

Furman Sound, however, says some of its dealers have found success drawing from their clients' real-life experiences, relaying stories in which clients lost everything in their home except the equipment that was plugged into their power conditioner.

Avitel, for instance, uses a compelling story to describe the need for power conditioning, according to Herb Metier.

"Montana has crazy power such as the recent surge in the canyon by the ski resort," he recalls. "The only thing in the system that didn't crash [including the refrigerator, microwave, water softener and TVs] was the home theater rack. When the rack was the only thing left, the customer called and asked for protection for the rest of the house."

There's also Integrated Systems' story that has less of a happy ending, explains Doug Underhill. "We installed a system for a customer a few years ago that was damaged by a nearby lightning strike and it cost $10,000 to replace all of the equipment," he says.

"Our customer asked if there was something that we could have installed that would have kept this damage from happening, and we told him 'yes, we could have sold him surge protection.' The customer said that we are the professional and since we didn't do our job and offer the proper products to keep his system safe he felt that it was our responsibility to pay to replace his equipment."

Underhill says his company now offers power conditioning to every client. If the client doesn't purchase it, they have them sign off on the fact that they didn't buy it.