YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeff Poggi

lines on the record: 68
first: 2020-12-26
most recent: 2020-12-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“To consumers for everyone. And that's going to effectively grow the industry across the board. And so I think that building of a collaboration amongst companies together to build the industry is something that's really important to me today, but not something I was aware of many years ago.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, the audio file or audio industry is a very small hobbyist industry with lots of really super passionate people. And I think that the thing I've learned the most over the years is that our business is less about competing with other audiophile firms or other audio firms, and it's more about growing the entire industry. We together as a community of audio companies, if we do a better job getting those butts and seats, getting more consumers to come to dealers and listen to the gear, regardless of the brand that it is, we're going to build a bigger base.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Young person, you're out to prove yourself and what your own abilities are, what your contributions can be, really being reflective on what you're good at, what your colleagues are good at, where your weaknesses are in being humble, and recognizing that teams win championships, not individuals. I think that's the foundational sort of spirit that I think sets everybody apart. I don't think anything in business has ever been done by one person, or at least not anything that's worth anything, let's say, or anything of sort of material impact. You really do need a group of people to get something done and really building those sort of team skills, I think are critically important early on in your career.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Advice I'd give to a recent college grad would be find a career that you love. Find something that you are passionate about and do it with conviction. Don't chase promotions, salaries, titles. Be true to yourself in what makes you happy because in the long run, you're going to be way more successful if you follow the things that are really interesting to you that sort of you're emotionally connected with. That's foundational. I would also encourage them to learn about emotional intelligence early. That's a topic that they teach in universities, and it's usually not something as young people were very good at. Usually we're as”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Favorites. I go back to Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, probably the most influential book on me in my entire life. Still have a copy right in back on my desk. Really a great foundational book, I think, for young people to think about how to approach the world. Some of the more business focused books like Jack Welsh's book, Winning Sharan, Larry Bossetti's book, Execution, really kind of core managerial books of how to run a business or a company. I think those were fantastic. John Maxwell's got a bunch of books on And actually, another book I just reread, Clayton Christensen, a famous innovation author from That had passed away last fall, his book, The Innovator's Dilemma, which was written probably 15, 20 years ago now, which I read a long time ago, I reread just sort of in honor of his passing.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a passionate reader, usually multiple books going on at any given time. My most recent reads this year, I fell in love with Simon Sinek. Start with why was the first book he put out probably a decade ago. Really wonderful book. He did a couple others after that. Leaders, Infinite Game was his most recent one. It's really great content to help companies, I think, really remember sort of more of a personal truth and keep grounded in why we as businesses exist, which is much, much more than profit and loss. So Simon Sinek, I have to say, is really highly regarded and one of my latest reads. All-time.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“influencing skills, all of the soft things that really over the course of a career end up being probably more important than the hard technical skills that you learn in school all those years ago. So Paul was really a fantastic mentor for me early on in my career.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which I can still remember a Dilbert cartoon about this saying, you know, how insulting that is for an engineer to move into sales. And he actually sold me on the benefits of going into sales as an engineer to learn about customers and to learn about what the customers want, the need, how to help them, that if you understood your customers and you listened to them, you will be a better engineer, you'll be a better product developer, and then it would be an important skill for you to develop. And that was really an important sort of moment for me. And he was a great mentor for me in that regards and also just to teach the skills they don't teach you in engineering school about building relationships with people, customer relationship management.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, boy, it all starts with, I think, my mom. She's a fantastic lady, single mom, raised myself and my older sister, just really hardworking sort of small town, sort of, I'd call it country, farm, hardworking values truth, honesty, hard work. It all started there. And my first, one of my first bosses, Paul Nace from Harmon, great sales executive. He, I attribute him to really helping me, I can remember the moment where I went from being an engineer to going into the sales group.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah. So there's some great stuff that we're engaging with. So with the family, we are absolutely in love with Schiffs Creek. I don't know if you've ever enjoyed that, but it's a wonderful program that we discovered too late. And so we're trying to catch up. And that's our family entertainment. My wife and I are watching Gomorrah, which is an Italian sort of crime mob drama that was produced in Italian. And I think I'm watching that to help me with my Italian for my sonas Faber team as well. So that's great. Those are the two shows that I'm watching regularly. The other thing that I enjoy privately is books on tape. I do a lot of listening to books on tape. And I just finished the Iliad, which I had never read or listened to previously. So that's been pretty interesting.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I love this kind of conversation because I think it applies to so many different aspects of life. And I think it, frankly, is what makes the world go round, because each of us have our own sort of passion areas that we're willing to do whatever it takes to get that perfect level of performance. And other places, we shortcut. I've been accused of being unsophisticated because I don't wear a watch. I've just never been a watch player, and a lot of people are in a similar domain with watches where you can get these amazing timepieces, which I really can appreciate from an afar, but they just don't fit my DNA.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I disagree. I think the Spresso machines are fantastic for their convenience and speed. And I have one in my home and I think it's fantastic. I think it's a fun coffee to me is a really fun topic. I very much enjoy it. I love nothing more than when I'm in Italy to go to a proper barista and get a proper espresso and really enjoy it standing up at the bar with the colleagues and chatting, which is the only way to do it. But honestly, it's not something I have the time or patience to do myself. And I think it's one of those wonderful things in life where everybody has their thing that they're willing to go that extra quality step and really put the time and effort into. Doing it just right. And if you wanted to come over and make me a proper espresso, I would happily enjoy it, but I don't have the time to do it myself.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, thanks. It's, I guess, my third child, if you will. I have Sonas Faber, Olympica Nova 5s, which we just launched about a year and a half ago. Really a fantastic forest standing loudspeaker. And I have a full Macintosh set of electronics behind that, a C2700 tube preamplifier. The MT5 Macintosh turntable, the MCT500 SACD CD player because I am one of those old guys that still has a rack of hundreds of CDs and I actually take them out sometimes. And an MC462, which is a 400 watt stereo amplifier driving the whole thing. And for streaming, I added in a project Streambox S2 Ultra, which is a fantastic little streaming box that allows me to connect with Rune, Title, Kobus, and do all my streaming.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“the overall sound quality that you'd like to achieve. And depending on those specifications, there's lots of choices that I think can be amazing. And then the Macintosh amplifier family and preamplifier and CDs and turntables all scale in a very similar way where we offer consumers the ability to everything our newest Macintosh turntables actually is a fully integrated unit that has the amplifier declassifier built into the turntable with a Bluetooth Aptex receiver in it. So if you wanted to just have one piece of electronics you could buy this product and actually do your streaming and your LP playing all from one. And all you need is a pair of speakers. So it's a very flexible product line that has lots of different solutions. But I'd want to know a lot more before I give you specific recommendations.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I would want to know more things about your room and your room size before I was to be presumptuous to define it for you. But I think that it's really about your level of enjoyment. We have obviously a wonderful range of products that Sonas Faber, our entry-level product for your loudspeakers goes from our luminous series that are starting at around two thousand dollars for a floor standing pair of speakers all the way up to our IEDA, which is one hundred twenty thousand dollars. So it's really all about the physical size of the room. That's a big part of how you would size your loudspeaker. And also about the”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Attached to something, they're going to go out and end up buying a physical copy of it, right? And then exploring that same content that they had in a streaming service, but then in LP or possibly a CD or SACD if they still enjoy those. That's how I see the dynamics. So I do see the album or the vinyl experience not as a everyday listening experience. So I think that the fact that LPs are growing year over year is really good because it's saying more consumers are willing to spend more time with their music and that they're getting more value out of that experience. And so I think that these two very different mediums actually co-habitat together or co survive together in a very interesting way and can actually help each other.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the way I see that dynamics between consumers engaging in albums, let's say versus streaming, is streaming becomes the first choice for convenience, right? That's just easy to access, easy to use. I can take it anywhere with me. And it's great for music discovery. I can find new artists so quick and fast when I do searches and it can give me recommendations of what artists are similar to others. And that honestly is such a great power that we've never had in the industry that I think it's a super benefit because it's introducing people to many more types of music and many more artists than maybe they would have found on their own, let's say in the old days. But then if they really...”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't go there. They just drive around to the grocery store and back in their three stories. So they don't really use it for that. And I think maybe that's a similar parallel where you don't have to be a classical musical fan to get all the enjoyment out of a high quality loudspeaker system, high quality audio system, you can enjoy it for what you do and it's going to give you an immense set of pleasure, whether you're listening to classic rock or not. I am a huge classic rock fan and that is my go-to genre and I can promise you that I much enjoy listening to Bruce Pinkstein and Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin on my Macintosh and Sonus Fabric system much better than, you know, My Apple earbuds.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it's an old stereotype. I think it's just 5% of the population. I think that there's a lot of people that are passionate classical musical fans and that they really can get extreme value from a high quality audio system and that for all the reasons you just described because of the level of detail and dynamics that you can really get. And there's an appreciation for the art in a very strong way. But I do believe that that's a small part of the population. I would say it's If I drew a parallel back to the car industry, BMW makes the M3 and they also make all the three series. Well, the M3 is only less than 5% of the population of those vehicles, but they advertise it all the time, and they use it as their performance halo. But most people don't.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Honestly, we do not believe that the musical styles or genres or people's musical preferences have any bearing on the equipment that we are producing. It kind of goes back to the comment I made earlier that Our job is to give people the best possible experience when they're listening to their music as possible. And I want them to get those goosebumps, to have that emotional moment, whether it's a tender moment or it's a dynamic, violent moment, depending on the type of music that they're listening to, they should enjoy that in the best possible way. And therefore, you know, if our equipment is able to give them extremely high fidelity performance, high dynamics, great sound quality, low distortion, amazing sense of space imaging, regardless of whether you're listening to rap, classical, rock and roll, country, I don't think it matters.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are a source of art and inspiration, right? There's more content when you buy an album because you have the five-page or six-page booklet, right? With all the lyrics of the music and art and different content that they can deliver to you. And so I think that artists are investing more into the album to try to”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“capacity is so underutilized, right? They had all of these factories that built all these CDs that now there is no more demand for. So the cost of that is down dramatically because you have an oversupply of capacity and an under demand. Whereas albums actually the capacity dried up and we lost a lot of production capacity for albums when CDs were booming. And so now that album sales are growing again, manufacturers actually now has to start investing back into making albums again. And so you've got a reinvestment curve that's going to drive some costs. So there's that dynamic, which is fundamental. But then I think there's a second piece on top of that, which really gets more to the marketing angle, where in albums as they traditionally were,”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, actually, I think that that price change, which is absolutely true, is more of a function of a basic S curve of an industry. When albums were dominant and CDs were in their infancy, the technology cost of producing CDs was very high. People were scaling up factories. You had the technology investment to actually produce those. That was new. There was R&D that you had to amortize into the cost of the CD to produce them. Whereas albums were a very established sort of manufacturing process at that point. And so you had some volume efficiencies. While you fast forward 25 years in the future, and a lot of things have happened to the industry, now CDs cost very little because the actual”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Albums through the roof. And to me, that's exciting. It's not just the Bruce Springsteens or the Pink Floyds and the Rolly Stones and the Beatles, which have classically always been in the top 10, right? Because those are people like maybe me buying the albums for the second or third time. But now you've got this whole new group of artists that are really putting their content out on vinyl and it's really creating a whole new experience for a whole new generation of listeners that I think bodes very well for the industry.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By this, because that means somebody is saying, listening to music is important to me. I'm going to spend the time to find the album, you know, dig through the collection to the one I want, clean it off first, put it on the platter, turn it on, sit down, probably grab my favorite beverage, and listen for 25 minutes until I have to flip the album and then repeat the process. People that are doing this are truly engaging with their music more. And it's really exciting because when you look at what albums are selling, you have artists like Billy Eilish and Taylor Swift, right, in the top 10 artists. These are new modern young artists that are selling, you know,”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Psychological or an emotional sort of change in consumers' behaviors. People that buy LPs and turntables and want to listen to vinyl frankly want to disconnect from their digital fast-based sort of hyper-daily reality. It is so easy to put on a pair of headphones and stream Spotify or Title or your favorite service. You can do that in an instant. And then you can jump from song to song, track to track, album to album, instantaneously into all sorts of mix. That being replaced by a turntable vinyl listening experience, now you're talking about, I have to actually invest in the activity of listening to music. And I really get excited.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we saw this coming, honestly, four or five years ago. The number of albums have been growing for a good decade, year over year, album sales continue to grow. And over that same period, CD sales have continued to shrink. And so there was eventually we knew there was a crossing point. I think it says two things. One, it says streaming has dominated and streaming has killed CDs and that the idea of owning CDs in the current generation of consumers is a lost art and that that is going to be the main way to consume music going forward. On the LP side of things, I think it's actually a bigger reflection on sort of a, I guess a”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“if your brand carries that quality and trust factor, oftentimes the designer can sit down with a client and say, I'm going to install a Macintosh home theater for you. And here's the components that are going to be used. A lot of clients will just trust that it's going to be amazing. Your brand carries that that reputation for quality and performance, then you can make it a sale without the demo. I still would prefer the demo because I know that's only going to surprise and delight the customer even more, but that's the power of the brand. And that's why the marketing and the PR and the reviews of products is still important because oftentimes consumers are buying things without actually hearing them first.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. For us, it's that demonstration is still very important. And so we have a strong program to try to encourage our dealers to set up proper demonstration systems in their showrooms. And even the project based business, there's many of them have they're more consumer experience centers. They're not retail trade stores, but these experience centers can often house a nice audio video demonstration room. And so we do think that that's still an important piece of this. But the other advantage we have is that we have a very strong brand. Actually, we have two very strong brands, McIntosh and Sonas Faber, as well as the other brands we're representing and distribution.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We launched our first line of in wall and in ceiling loudspeakers, right? Things that are going to be permanently built into your home as opposed to your traditional floor standing or bookshelf speakers. So that's been a new development for us that we think will be a very good investment and be a good product line for us going forward. And likewise, Macintosh continues to expand its line of audio video processors and multi channel amplifiers that are more designed for custom installation, home theater usage. So we think that there's a lot of ways that we can tap into that, let's say growth of movie watching or TV watching at home through the audio Space, and there's a very good trend there and one that we see nothing but double digit type growth for the next few years.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think about investing in their home, they're looking at a variety of different products and audio and video becomes part of that. And so one of the big changes for us is how do we provide more products that fit into that sort of project based business for your home. On the Sonus Faber side,”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No. The way we are looking at this is the industry has been shifting from a, let's say, a traditional what we would call specialty retail store, which would sell goods to consumers towards a project based business, if you will, the custom installation business or CDS channel. So the audio video business really has been moving for a number of years from a retail based environment to a project-based environment. That trend is only accelerating now as consumers are doing things more than just audio and video, of course. They're putting in wireless networks and lighting controls and home controls, safety and security systems. And so when they”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Records, they're going to be buying more audio systems. So that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down. It seems to have been accelerated by the pandemic, but it's going to be here for a while. But the other trend is as movie theaters and the whole movie industry changes, that's having a really interesting effect on our business too. With AMC announcing its bankruptcy, we know that more consumers are going to be watching movies at home. And guess what? They're going to be putting in more home theaters, which is going to help our business. The latest announcement by a Warner Bros. and HBO with the direct to streaming releases of movies for the next year, that's going to help us as well. So there's going to be more people watching more movies at home. So I think there are some other trends that are really favorable to the industry.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“June forward, every month this year has been our best month ever. It's been sort of a record breaking year for the company, which is quite amazing. And we're obviously quite thrilled with that and very, very happy. And we hope that much of this trend continues. And actually, it's more than just a hope because when you start looking at other sort of dynamics that are happening, there's actually a number of things that are very favorable for our industry. I think you mentioned earlier that LP sales are booming. And actually LP sales are at a record level this year than they have been. And they've been growing now for a decade straight. So if more people are”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They have spent less time or less money as well on other discretionary purchases. And so what seems to be happening is the money that used to be spent on vacations, on food, on dining, on live concerts, on going to the opera.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's certainly been the most interesting year of my professional career. And as we were looking at the world in front of us back in the March, April, May time frame, it certainly didn't look like a banner year. McIntosh had to close its factory for six weeks, right? Because of the pandemic, Sonas Faber had to close its factory for a month because of the pandemic. And it's hard as a manufacturer when you build all your own stuff to sell things when your factories are closed. So it looked a little bit dark for a period of time for sure. But what has happened in the industry is that as people have spent more time at home”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Farming communities, and we both happen to love the Pittsburgh Steelers. So we've got similar backgrounds and a lot of sort of common shared experiences that we can play off of.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, we're allowed to really run our businesses as our businesses, and Charlie gets to run Macintosh day to day as he always has. And I have the opportunity to lead the Sonus Faber and Samiko business. And we can pretty much work independently and then have the advantage of actually use each other as sounding boards and peers to collaborate with as we see fit. So it gives you a, frankly, it gives me a great person to bounce ideas off of, to build strategy off of. And then together we sit on the board of directors with our investors and represent the total group level performance. So it's quite a good collaborative effort. We both happen to be engineers. We both happen to come from small”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“main businesses. Everyone knows Macintosh, Mac Labs with all of its products, Sonas Fabre being our Italian loudspeaker brand, and then Samiko is our distribution company based in the US that distributes many other hi-fi audio brands, including Project from Austria and Rotel Electronics, and we also distribute Basso Continua, which is a high-end Italian Hi-Fi racks for your gear, as well as our own cartridge brand for turntables, Sumicophona cartridges. So the co-CEO job works well because we have a very thin group structure. The group basically consists of four people, Charlie and I are two of them. So there's not much group level work to do.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, for our business, it works honestly extremely well. So I joined Macintosh group just over three years ago now as the co-CEO, a Charlie Randall is my partner. And Charlie has been with McIntosh his entire career. So he actually started in Macintosh as an intern, engineering intern out of RIT and has been there ever since. He has been president of Macintosh for over a decade. And together we've been co-CEOs now for the last three years. And the way it works for our company is that we are organized really by brand. So Charlie is running Macintosh. I am running Sonus Faber and Sumiko. So those are our three”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was one of my first mentors, Floyd Toole, Dr. Floyd Toole, from he was the CTO of Harmon. He said that basically our job is science in the service of art, that the job of the manufacturer of products is to preserve the art of the creators. That's stuck with Moon for 20 years now, that my responsibility is really to the musicians, to the producers, to the recording engineers, to the people that are creating the art. I'm just trying to do our best work to make their effort worthwhile.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thing to get behind the wheel on a test track and really to put it to its full potential. It gives you a different experience and a different appreciation for the product. And so really driving people into getting great quality demos is the best way to market our product.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And if you have heard it, you know what I'm speaking of. And so a big part of our marketing is really working with our dealers and distributors to do events, to bring people into the stores, to get them in front of the product, to get them exposed to the product and give them that emotional opportunity to engage because these products may look interesting online. You can get great write-ups and reviews and people can from the Hi-Fi press can review the products and you can get five-star awards. And it's all great and all absolutely helps. But there's nothing like actually experiencing it for yourself. And it's no different than any other passion product, right? It's one thing to say, boy, that you say you drove a BMW, that BMW, boy, that looks nice. But it's a different...”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Budget into the digital social space than the year before. So that becomes a bigger portfolio for us to try to engage and communicate with customers. But for us, a big part of our marketing is still a bit old school, and it's really about frankly getting butts and seats, right? If I can get you to sit down and listen to a pair of Sonus Fabra Olympica speakers or a Macintosh MC611 amplifier, I can probably get you to buy it. It's the emotional experience that you get when you listen to a really great audio system.”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. The biggest part of our marketing we focus a lot on PR. We do try to get drive the awareness of our new products through various media channels to try to get as much exposure as we can. Over the last many years, like every other company, we've moved from traditional print advertising to more digital search SEO activity because that's how people are searching for products these days. You need to be online and available and have your products be discoverable through the digital side and it's social as well. And we spent incrementally every year we spend a little bit more of”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“doesn't exist on the market anywhere. And it was something that our technology team, our engineering team, came up with. And as soon as we launched it, we sold out. And we've been back ordered ever since because it's such a unique fun Macintosh only product. Quite interesting. Yeah, that's part of the fun of the engineers, right? To let them loose once in a while, to do something that the market doesn't know is coming. And the market certainly...”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Truly only Macintosh could do this product. It's a nine hundred watt monoblock amplifier with a retail price of seventeen thousand five hundred and you need two, right? Because it's a monoblock. So you have to buy two of them together. But the really interesting piece of it is it combines we call it a dual mono product. So there's actually two audio outputs. One is tube based, 300 watts of tube based amplification plus 600 watts of solid state amplification. And it's designed for a large loudspeaker where you're going to buy AMP that product and you're going to use the tube power stage to drive your mid-ranges and tweeters and you're using the solid state to drive your woofers. It's really kind of a wacky, crazy product that”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“in the home theater business when Dolby goes from Dolby 5.1 to 7.1 to Atmos, right? There's different trends that are happening in the technologies that we need to be sensitive to to make sure that we're grabbing those technologies and introducing those to our products at the right time with the different wireless technologies and Bluetooth, Bluetooth high deferenti, we have home control system integrations, all of these technologies are sort of third party technologies that we want to make sure that we're monitoring and bringing into our products at the right time. But then there's the stuff that only we can do. And one example of that would be the recently released MC901. This is a”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's a balance. You know, different innovation processes, some companies are looking at sort of consumer driven innovation where it's very much outside in. Other companies are very much inside out where it's sort of that coming out of the R&D technology portfolio and sort of comes to the market. We have a balance of both. And we have a bit of a structured product development process that includes the marketing group, the engineering group, the sales group coming all together along with feedback from key dealers and distributors in the sales channel. So we're sort of doing that constant sensing of the market to see what's going on and to bring those sort of key trends in. For instance, examples would be”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That culture is probably the one thing that really binds together Macintosh and Sonaswabber. So as our two main brands that we manufacture, Sonas Faber is sort of a peer equivalent to that manufacturing process and design process, but for loudspeakers made in Italy. And with Sona Swabber, we have a very old world craftsmanship process for everything from design to sourcing to manufacturing, where our engineering team, again, is all co-located with the factory. And all of our”
2020-12-26 · Masters in Business · Jeff Poggi on the Art and Science of High-End Audio · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source