Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pro AV today. I am your host, Ben Thomas, as always. Today's conversation is one that I love having an one that we're having as an industry, especially as we start to service different verticals and reach out to different communities that have different buying channels, expectations, things like that. But wanted to to focus specifically on a conversation, really, that I I had at this year's CDA show. As I was walking around, one of the common denominators that I kept seeing was, this logo from this company who I had typically associated is more the the consumer side of the world, but the fact of the matter is, it's just not the case anymore. Not company is Sonos. And look, wanted to have a conversation today with their professional team to talk about how a a brand that's really well known in the in the the consumer side of the world has made that jump successfully into the commercial side of the world while retaining some of those things that made it so popular, on the consumer side. So I brought on today I guess, Audra Kinzley, GM and VP of the Sonos professional team. Audra, thanks so much for coming on today. Thanks so much for the invite. Thanks for having us. You're very, very welcome. And and and we talked about this just a little bit before our conversation before we push the record button, but I love to see as somebody who is a fan of, consumer technology and have been. It's it's it's the reason that I got into the professional side of the world I love to see brands like Sonos finding their way into the professional side of the world. And one of the reasons that that that is so important and impactful is because a lot of those consumer facing brands like Sonos invest so heavily in their end user experience, and their end user preferences, and they ask a lot of great questions. You know, before we kinda dig into some of the specifics about jumping over into the the b to b and professional side of the world, talk a little bit about how you guys have focused on that end user experience and how it's helped you bridge that gap. Yeah. Absolutely. And and thanks. You nailed it. I mean, Sonos is primarily an, laser focus on the end user experience from the very beginning. And, you know, not, no doubt that twenty years ago, we were really founded to revolutionize at home listening. But Fastco works today, and we've organically found our product in over hundreds of thousands of commercial applications. And certainly our brand awareness and, background helped that, but what we've really found is that business owners and operators and system integrators that we've spent time researching just want to be able to replicate that same easy premium experience that they've enjoyed in their home, and they want that same experience in their place of business. So we have really doubled down and and spent a ton of time over the past few years, interviewing hundreds business owner operators and hundreds of system integrators. And that is what we found. They want to be able to replicate that same premium, easy enjoyable experience, that consumers have at their home in their same place of business. Well, I love that you you kinda brought up the idea of that transitioning now truly from somebody who's a user, maybe into their place of business. Right? And and that brings up something that that transparently on the professional of the world. We haven't done a great job of in general, and that's focusing on things like brand affinity. Right? Where on the commercial side of the world, historically, the b to c side of the world, there is a a much larger emphasis on brand affinity and end user experience and, what I'll call the the full ecosystem. Right? How have you seen things like brand affinity actually make it easier to make that jump into the pro side? Yeah. Absolutely. There's no doubt that our brand awareness and brand affinity has certainly helped. Again, and we really believe in our hypothesis is it's the product experiences that we've create that has really helped that pull through into the commercial space. We're really proud of the overall brand and presence that we have, but we really, really, really, are being made that it's the product experience that we've delivered in commercial spaces, that's what's given us that our initial success. What I wanna ask about this too, right? You know, it's it's I think I'd be remiss to not bring this up. Right? The the the buying cycles, the buying process is wholly different. Right? When you start talking about e commerce, going through things like Amazon and and on the b to c side, it typically is different. Right? And then, obviously, when you're looking at their traditional pro audio side of the world, you're talking about distributors, integrators, dealers, all sorts of different people, that exist kind of in that buying cycle. You know, what are some of the challenges that you found as you have gone through maybe some of these different buying channels? Is it Is it something that that you're seeing integrators embrace, or is it something that they're they're kinda having, you know, a little bit of a challenge kinda picking up? One of the things that we really strive to do is make it as easy as possible to sell, support, and transact with the Soto's brand. That's what we're focused on with systems integrators today. And so as you mentioned e commerce, one of the things that we're really focused on is being able to provide a best in class digital b to b commerce platform, and that's how our systems integrators, transact with us today. We have a lot of thought about how we continue to evolve that going forward. But from an e commerce perspective, we really wanna make sure they have the best in class tool and make it incredibly easy. To buy sell and support Soto's products. Another thing that you'll see us are that you will have seen from us in this past fiscal year is we put a ton of effort into standing up an elevated level of customer support for our systems integration partners. And so today, we have specialize, and tailored customer support for installers where they can reach our most seasoned and technical experts on the Sonos platform and really bypass, what you would normally expect from a consumer experience. Well, that's interesting too. And I I think that provides a really nice gateway for folks who might be maybe users at their house, but, you know, our our business owners, our decision makers, our influencers inside of their company. And one of the things that I really, really love that you guys do a fantastic job of is is teaching people things that they don't know. Right? And and one of those things that I I love to pinpoint is you know, maybe maybe say I I have Sonos at my house. Right? But I might run a local retail store or something like that. I might not know that is that it is illegal for me to play music that's not licensed by me, inside of my store. Right? But those are things that you guys help to to teach people and also bridge that gap. Talk about some of those things that folks might not know as they, specifically end users as they transition from maybe an end user in the home to maybe a more commercial application. Totally. Absolutely. Thanks for that. So, you know, over I mentioned that we've spent the past years, interviewing hundreds of business owner operators, and then, of course, systems integration professionals as well. And one of the major opportunities that we saw is When you're designing or installing specifying an audio system, you're oftentimes in a situation where your tons of research obviously goes into that looking at a patchwork solution of many, many different brands. Whether or not it's the manufacturer that you're actually using to play or amplify the content, who you're actually sourcing that commercially licensed content from, or as you point out, even being aware that having commercially licensed content in a commercial setting is is as important. Or third, how you're controlling, that content and overall audio experience. And where we saw that is an opportunity to really simplify again bring that simple, easy and intuitive experience and be able to unify where a business owner operator or an integration prevents professional is getting their audio hardware, getting their audio content, and then also how they're controlling that audio all from one individual manufacturer. So we believe that's our opportunity in the commercial space. You started to see that last year with our introduction of Sonos Pro. And so Sonos Pro is exactly that. It's an opportunity to get, to offer our customers commercially licensed content, premium and personalized customer support for commercial environments, and remote monitoring and management all from one cloud based dashboard. And we rolled that out in April, and we've been very excited about the product feedback there thus far. Well, let's talk about Sonos Pro for a second. You know, one of the things that traditionally on the the b to b side of of the world that manufacturers have struggled with is, okay, we need to create software. We need to make it easy. We need to try and figure out how our our hardware platform can cross over, and a lot of people are not doing it very well. Right? And it's for lack of a better, term, it's it's crushing a lot of these manufacturers. Right? And you see folks like yourself and Sonos, focus on the usability of software, and they focus on the feature set and and the design of it, whereas a lot of folks are just I'm gonna throw something together, click a few buttons, and they don't quite care about the aesthetic side. They don't care about the ease of use. You know, when you're developing a platform like Sonos Pro, especially for the commercial side of the world, you know, how much emphasis goes on that UX on that e on that that usability side of things, especially when when people who might not be trained, audio professionals are having to operate that. Wow. So cool. Yeah. Shout out to all of our you are in US people on the Sonos Pro program right now. I am so proud of the team that we have assembled. Like, it's first of all, we spend a ton of time actually, with the business owner operator, hearing what their needs are, hearing what challenges they've had with competing systems or not using any solution right now. And then we have an incredibly strong UX team, where, you know, maybe I can connect you with our product counterparts at some point, and they can get into the philosophies of UX design. But we it's certainly when you look at our overall product and engineering team, that we have supporting the Sonos Pro effort. You are user research, excuse me, and user experience UX is a huge piece of that. And I hope that you see that replicated in our dashboard today. I I would say that you do. And I will I will put this notification out there too. This is not by any means a paid or sponsored conversation that we're having. Right? This is this is genuinely my opinion. And we're having a genuine conversation, but it's really, really cool to hear about these these things, honestly, Audra, because we don't have enough of these conversations on the pro side of the world about user experience, about operability. You know, we do have things about accessibility and conversations, but it really hasn't permeated the industry in a way that I I think is acceptable. Right? And that's one of the things I genuinely enjoy about you know, Sonos as you guys are continuing to find your way and find your footing on the pro side of the world, you know, but as you're looking to do that too, you know, I made a joke out obviously about seeing your logo everywhere at at Cedia, but part of part of that success in the commercial world is also embracing the existing channels, embracing partnerships, You guys have done a nice job of of continuing to elevate the brand. But how important are, you know, partnerships with, whether it's associations like Cedia or manufacturer specifically How important are those partnerships to to continue to grow in the BB side of it? Oh, man. Tremendous. We have a program called works with Sonos. That's the umbrella that we put all of our partnerships under and whether or not you're thinking about it from the lens of, potentially other commercial content companies. Or you're thinking about it from the lens of control partners, Crestron Control four, etcetera. We really believe that interoperability is needed in the commercial space and in the residential space as well. And so we spend a ton of time, really investing with our partners and trying to build upon our API platform that we have today. The stay tuned for there too. You know, that's something you might see us evolve in the future as well. Well, let's talk about future. I mean, you guys continue to evolve, whether it's from product offerings, whether it's jumping into new verticals, applications, things like that, What would you say is next? I'm not gonna say what's next for Sonos, right, because there's a million things that are next for Sonos. But what would you say for folks, really, that that are looking to bridge that gap between the traditional consumer side and commercial side. It doesn't have to be pro audio. It could be any specific vertical you want. But what are some of the things that you would say you you are you would anticipate seeing, coming up in the future? Well, while we don't necessarily comment on our road map, what I will tell you is that we are spending That's why I yeah. That's why I skated around the question. We we spent a ton of time really investing both from engineering and user research as you've called out in this space. And one of the exciting things about the early feedback on Sonos Pro is we absolutely, the way that we shape our road map road map is based on user feedback. That's what's so exciting about getting it out into market this past year. And we're really gonna stay kinda core to our ethos about delivering premium audio experiences and delivering, delivering product experiences that are premium, easy, intuitive to enjoy whether or not you're the business owner operator or the systems integrator. So I'm Stay tuned. Well, look, Audra, I I really appreciate you in in your candor. Right? It's not always the easiest thing in the world for people to talk about their vision for a community. Right? You know, historically, as a b to b in professional community, we've we've sort of had our our, we'll call it our secret sauce. And didn't wanna share it, but I I appreciate you being willing to have the conversation. And and talk about how, you know, these worlds are kinda coming together in some of the ways that, you've seen that growth happen. And and look, I'm sure we'll find a way to have whether it's you or your dev team back on I feel like we can have nineteen conversations about UI and UX in our industry because everything is going software based these days, but, I I genuinely appreciate you coming on sharing your insight with us. Let's do it sometime soon, Ben. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you, and thank you all for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe and join us again next time for Pro AV today.
