Surviving COVID and the "Different By Design" Philosophy

We sat down with SONARAY recently and talked about their outlook and business philosophy on lighting and how they seek to meet customer demands. They were clear in that they stressed they view their brand and company as a “technology solutions provider.” We further talked with them about the impacts on COVID on the brand, how they have adapted and where they see the business going in the near-term and well into the future. A brief summary of what they talked about appears in this blog post. The blog appears in interview format and follows below.

Interviewer: “I’m sure like virtually every company or brand in the world, SONARAY has had to adapt to doing business differently during COVID-19. How has COVID impacted SONARAY and what specific changes have you put in place?”

SONARAY: “We’ve had challenges during COVID, but our business has been resilient. Our first goal of course has been to keep our employees safe. For the most part we have been staggering schedules and working both in and out of the office depending upon the position, demand, and what we see and hear from our customers. It’s been different not being able to visit folks in person, attend tradeshows, conduct real onsite training sessions, or accompany our reps to potential job sites, but we have found ways to not only adapt, but to set ourselves apart from some of the others.”

Interviewer: “Can you give me some specific examples of what you have done to adapt or to make yourselves different during this time?”

SONARAY: “Part of the way we have ALWAYS marketing our business is that we are not like your typical lighting company. We see ourselves as a “solutions provider” for our customers and we always try to bring something meaningful to every part of the value chain. Our value proposition for our channel and for those who use our products is that we design robust, intellectually proprietary, energy-saving fixtures that we develop and manufacture ourselves. There are a lot of people in the lighting industry and setting us apart has been our commitment to our design expertise, our quality, and our programs. To that end when COVID hit, we had to find ways to communicate to our customers that we were still building, still supporting, and still looking for ways to add value. One of the really key things we have gotten good at is our webinar training series. What we have done is use technology to conduct short, to the point training sessions on our products. These webinars have been virtual, recorded, added to our website in a composite library and do a great job of telling and showing our representative channel how our products are different. We’ve added in examples of where the products have and can be used, how they stack up with others from a technical standpoint, and added time for Q and A afterwards. We know that a lot of companies have resorted to webinars, but we have really made a concerted effort to have ours be meaningful, on-point, and short. We have continued to do what we do best - that is - we innovate and solve problems. The method of delivering our message has changed for a bit, but we have adapted.”

Interviewer: “You mention “adapting” a lot and that seems like a real buzz word for SONARAY of late. Has that adaptability helped you?”

SONARAY: “Without question our adaptability is a strong point in what we do. We tell people that we are a right-sized company. That is, we have the financial, intellectual, and resource capacities to do special projects or look at projects that others won’t. We’re not a huge company, but we are not a small company either. We have the assertiveness of a small company with the ability to make things happen and to adapt. In fact, we have developed an internal mantra of sorts - “different by design.” This ability to be different is something we have chosen. Part of it is COVID driven, but a lot of it is in the DNA of the company. We always believe we can do things that other people won’t. We always look at things from a number of angles. We always try to be proactive and responsive in a crowded field. It’s about having good solutions and making yourself relevant in a crowded space. We think we are very good at that and our momentum is building. We value relationships and we have fostered those and gained trust and we continue to build on those relationships. That’s also a big part of being different. With us, you are never just a number.”

Interviewer: “Given the way COVID has affected supply chains, transportation, delivery, stock, price, etc., do you think that SONARAY is well-positioned relative to other lighting firms right now?”

SONARAY: “One of the strong points of our company - and this has been true from the beginning, is our commitment to stocking and shipping products. When we started the company one of the very first things we did was invest in a lot of inventory that could be delivered in a timely fashion. Take a look at our Quick Ship Program and you’ll see it is very strong. We carry a lot of inventory and we are good at expediting products to our customers. We also offer free freight with every shipment in the contiguous U.S. so that is another advantage we offer. Plus, our location in Virginia is relatively near to about 2/3 of the U.S. population. We have a good transportation infrastructure and we are committed to timely delivery. To say we have been unaffected would not be true because everyone has. But, we have held our price increases to a bare minimum and we continue to flow product into our warehouse. We have to make a profit, but we also are good at tightening our belt - We don’t operate in a way where we are greedy or use something to take advantage of a situation. It’s not who we are.”

Interviewer: “What do you see out the backside of COVID? That is, do you think the market will bounce back strong?”

SONARAY: “There is a lot of pent-up demand in the market. But, we realize that businesses and agencies were hurt by this downtime. Not everyone was as fortunate as we have been and we don’t take that fact lightly. We are empathetic to folks in the market, but we do think things will really get back to a sense of stability soon. We look forward to doing in-person trainings and have already committed to some trade shows. We also have a virtual event that we are conducting for our rep channel in late September that will talk about our “Different by Design” theme. This is going to be a nice event because we are going to show a lot of products that are being used in a lot of unique ways. We’re going to show how we can do things differently and how we have developed custom solutions for customers. This is going to help show our channel not only that we are willing to look for solutions, but it will give them ideas on how our products can be used in applications they might see. We also will talk about our programs and a bit on our philosophy. We really try to do a lot of things in a different way and this is going to be evident to people who do business with us. We haven’t changed who we are, but we will show that we have changed some in the way we convey who we are.”