Meet the SoundVision Crew

Established by CEO Mark DiPietro 14 years ago, SoundVision is a Mooresville, N.C.-based integration company that serves the greater Charlotte region, which includes the affluent Lake Norman community. SoundVision was No. 72 on the most recent CE Pro 100 list, pulling in over $4.5 million in the 2023 year used for last year’s rankings. 

The integrator prides itself on educating trades about the work SoundVision does and in turn… well, the company can thank these relationships for becoming the go-to dealer in its region. Over time, SoundVision has unlocked several doors to success, and the business continues to solidify its processes that help make it all possible.  

In recent years, the company created a separate security division, Mad Dog Security, which has added to the revenue stream by increasing the amount of customer accounts with recurring revenue and boosting upsell opportunities through more service call touchpoints. 

The savvy team members at SoundVision also really know how to host special events and shindigs. They aren’t holiday or morale-building team activities, but rather these gatherings are held to thank and gain more work from existing clients, showcase exciting new solutions, and expand their network of trade partners.  

The building they’ve been in for the past five years includes office and meeting space, warehouse, and showroom. SoundVision uses every bit of it to showcase their capabilities and win over visitors — especially the VIP clients, trade partners, and industry suppliers who turn out for lunch-and-learns and marquee evening events. 

Forming the Basis for the Modern Day

SoundVision’s formation came after an extremely challenging time for DiPietro. His first integration company crumbled in the Great Recession and he was in six-figure debt to banks and vendors. Fortunately, he had grown a base of security accounts to where he managed to sell those and pay off those debts, but it took a couple of years, he says. 

“I wasn’t going to have any money, but I wasn’t going to owe any money,” he recounts. However, while that situation turned around, DiPietro was also going through a bitter divorce, one in which he “literally lost everything — bankruptcy, house foreclosure, cars repossessed.” 

What he did still have though was a client base of clients, including some high-profile ones like professional racecar drivers. He merged his company with another, but eventually he came to a critical fork-in-the-road decision and went out on his own as SoundVision (he chuckles, admitting he stole the name from his friend Scott Sullivan who owns a successful same-named integration business in California). 

“Everything shifted. I realized that now I know how not to do it, so when we started SoundVision I said I’m going to do it totally differently, leverage nothing other than our current 30-day stuff and maintain almost no debt,” DiPietro says. 

DiPietro hired people with integration business experience to address specific tasks, including valuable hires, Chief Operating Officer Michelle Ferlauto (who was recently named in CE Pro’s 40 Women to Watch list)and Chief Sales Officer Zach Simpson. 

“We delineated job responsibilities and now everything is very process driven,” DiPietro says, who adds that he wore pretty much every hat at his first integration company. “So Zach just sells — he doesn’t project manage, he doesn’t order anything, no service, no installs, nothing — and Michelle runs operations and everything is very structured here. SoundVision is the same business that I did before but it’s totally different and that’s the best part of this.” 

He says the delineation has been a big factor in the company’s success and SoundVision’s processes really become stronger with every new hire. 

“One of the biggest drivers of growth is me being able to work on the business and not in it,” DiPietro remarks. “It’s having people who can specialize. We try to hire all-stars, put them in their lane, give them what they need, and get the hell out of their way and let them do what they do.” 

VIP Parties Serve as TLC for SoundVision Partners

Bringing on Ferlauto was particularly prescient as she brought organizational and marketing ideas that had worked well at her previous integrator employer.  

One big result is how SoundVision literally caters to its key customers and trade partners, hosting classy VIP parties quarterly or semiannually to recognize them and show them new tech. She has also spurred the company’s outreach to potential trade partners by putting on successful lunch-and-learns.  

“The design team is going to sell what they’re excited about, so if there’s something new and they’re like, ‘Hey, I want to do a renovation, let’s knock down this wall’ … you just have to take the time to do it,” she says. “So, it’s having these as consistently as possible but also allowing time for evolution of what we’re trying to achieve.” 

She notes that at her previous company, she had created an event to help the struggling business recover following the Recession. The integrator’s customer base still gave it potential for an expedited rebound.  

“I set up an event at a local country club, we swapped out their lighting, we were able to demo some things there, they had a very nice experience, and they were able to see the newest technology,” Ferlauto recalls. “We had vendors go in on it with us, and it was a success — it brought in almost $100,000 worth of business in 2012 to somebody who was trying to get back on their feet.”  

The similar opportunity to assist an integrator’s comeback presented itself at SoundVision, and Ferlauto’s skills fit in perfectly. The VIP parties are another way for the company to illustrate its capabilities and commitment to its customers and partners, while also providing a way to plant new business seeds. 

“Mark was enthusiastic, he was like do your thing, let’s just do it,” she says. “So, when we got the showroom in 2020 that was always the plan. We were going to have interactive events and plan them on a regular basis so [people] can experience what we do. It’s so hard on the marketing side trying to communicate audio/video without an experience… people can come in and see and experience what is new.”  

It’s a good excuse for SoundVision to tweak its showroom from time to time, setting up new demos and vignettes with the newest technologies to incorporate. 

“Technology is ever changing, so that’s why we’ll do a revamp and have people come back,” Ferlauto says of the events. “We don’t want them to come back in and see the same thing, that is not the goal. We want them to come back and have something new every single time.” 

Held just before last Thanksgiving, SoundVision generated over $200k ($204, 909) in closed sales from its recent VIP party. The cost to put it on was $3,154.60, Ferlauto adds, and the ROI will continue to grow as the company bids other projects.  

Lunch-and-Learns Expand Trade Partnerships 

It’s no secret integrators who cultivate relationships with trades such as builders, architects, and interior designers tout the benefits of bringing in projects and getting involved earlier in the process than typical.  

Toward that end, many host “lunch-and-learn” meetings in which trades will visit and learn more about smart home technology so they can understand why it’s important in modern luxury and production homes. SoundVision schedules these as often as possible. 

“As soon as we can get them, because then you’re showing your value to a potential new trade partner, showing them the process, doing the walkthrough, answering any questions that their team might have as far as working with project managers and other key members of our company,” explains Ferlauto. 

For lunch-and-learns, the company welcomes one trade guest at a time to the Experience Center and rolls out the proverbial red carpet.   

“It’s a dedicated thing. We’ll put their name on the TV to welcome the team, show them the different technologies, then we’ll come back here, answer any questions, have lunch, and just socialize,” she says.  

According to Ferlauto, the trade guests enjoy the details, but they also enjoy that SoundVision is trying to get to know their team, because the person who owns the company is not necessarily the person who deals with the day-to-day operations. 

The company’s friendly brand ambassador, Sue Schober, will reach out to trade owners or principals that SoundVision would potentially work with and ask for a short meeting to lunch-and-learn about what the company is all about. 

“We’ll try to get them to give us a little bit of time, give us an hour-and-a-half, come see what we do,” says Simpson. “We cater it, people come in, have a good time — and after nine out of 10 of those meetings we have a new trade partner.” 

He adds that if a builder won’t take a meeting, he’s patient and believes that opportunity will come back around thanks to SoundVision’s long-standing success in the community. 

“I’m patient, I’ve been doing this 26 years and I know what’s eventually going to happen,” Simpson states. “Eventually they’re going to build a house for someone that’s already our customer and that client’s going to go, ‘No, I’m not using your guy, I have a relationship with someone.’ Then we have an opportunity to show them what we do. Nine times out of 10 at the end of that project we have another partner… so we kind of get it from both ends.”  

Experience Center Tours Turn Focus to Customer Satisfaction 

SoundVision’s by-appointment Experience Center tour for its clients takes about an hour to go through the 2,000-square-foot facility and starts and ends in the conference room. The conversation at the beginning involves defining and learning about the clients, understanding if they’ve had experience owning smart home systems. 

The experience begins at the front door and right on into a living room vignette, where visitors learn about and see what happens when they enter the home and hit ‘Welcome’ or ‘Relax’ or ‘Entertain,’ for example, on their keypad or touchpanel. 

“And how that impacts what affects audio, video, shades, lighting, fireplaces, thermostats, security — so it allows us to go into top-down selling,” he explains. “We show folks everything we do and let it resonate with them what they find valuable and so usually when they end this tour, we’re able to circle back into the conference room and it’s a way to bring up plans.” 

The walkthrough includes the usual types of spaces in a home, decked out with controls and AV systems, both concealed for aesthetics and wow factors or out in the open to gush over like beautiful loudspeakers and displays. 

From the living room where visitors can demo the Control4 automation scenes, the tour goes on to areas such as the kitchen and media room. SoundVision illustrates aspects such as three layers of warm/dim/tunable lighting from Control4, DMF, and Proluxe and distributed audio with architectural speakers in the kitchen and corridors. Toward the back, customers can learn about vast motorized shade solutions, fabrics, and lighting trims. 

The media room is in the midst of a refresh that will include removing the front wall; removing another buildout to gain 15 inches of floor space; replacing a motorized 120-inch 2.35:1 Screen Innovations screen with 145-inch fixed acoustically transparent screen to show off in-wall speakers; moving the 98-inch Sony TV and Theory Audio soundbar from where they now hide behind the screen to a different wall; adding stylish Artnovion acoustical treatments; and other details. 

Regular Updates to Showroom Help SoundVision Highlight Cutting Edge Advancements

A stop in the very professional podcast studio, outfitted with audio gear and acoustical treatments, might impress — and surprise — visitors. It also has a stunning 77-inch OLED TV and MartinLogan electrostatic speakers on one side. 

“We decided not too long ago that we wanted to create a podcast studio — like most things, you don’t want to create this and not have anything to demo in it,” Simpson says, referencing the TV and speakers. 

“This is something we sell fairly commonly, in places like a bedroom, a den,” he notes. “So we’ll bring people in and say, ‘Hey, for a second I want you to forget you’re sitting at a podcast table,’ and they get the point.” 

Ferlauto adds that the Artnovion acoustical treatments in the room — which they have installed “a huge amount of” — make the sound cozier and gives clients a sense of what to expect from the products. 

The tour also includes backlit equipment racks that exemplify SoundVision’s attention to detail, lighting creativity, and pride in their high-quality work. 

Recessed DMF lighting with wall wash trims adorn one hallway spotlighting the company’s CE Pro Home of the Year Awards plaques and other important recognitions, while another wall is lined with photos of in-progress and completed home projects, which speak to the company’s reputation and professionalism. 

When they return to the conference room table, at that point it is still a high-level discussion. Team members don’t bring up brands or what size TV, but whether a TV is in a room, for instance. Like they just did on the tour, SoundVision and clients go room-by-room and decide what technology is desirable or necessary. “We don’t do any proposal design presentation without the client coming here,” Simpson adds. 

“There’s not a lot of folks around here that have been in experience centers, but even if they’ve been in one, we’ve tried to be really unique in what we’ve built and we are meticulous about maintaining it and updating it — I think we’re on Rev. 3 of lighting design,” Simpson says. 

SEO Prowess, Service Techs Provide Invaluable Engagement

With a by-appointment-only showroom, in addition to referrals and trade partners, SoundVision attracts potential clients and generates sales leads via proficiency with Google and social media.  

“We do pride ourselves on being kind of the No. 1 five-star Google company [in our region],” Ferlauto says. “We do Facebook, Instagram. I’m an SEO nerd at heart, which has been great for us.” 

She notes that SoundVision has been able to maximize Google thanks to its service department because of the strategic use of the service techs to take on smaller jobs that come their way via the search engine. Jobs that the company would otherwise “have given away before now go to our service department,” Ferlauto says.  

“When we decided to launch a service department and do a dedicated one, we had one tech — and we told him he could never leave. He wasn’t confident it was going to work out and thought it was ridiculous, but as the service calls started coming through … we got him busy very quickly.” 

The service department now has three staffers, but the real boon is how they have been integrated across divisions. Technically the service techs are under the Mad Dog Security brand, but SoundVision also employs them to perform those smaller hang-and-bang jobs as well as to upsell customers in the field. 

“If a customer is looking to find a company and buy one TV and a soundbar and a pair of Sonos Ports, we’re not the company, but when you have a dedicated service department, it’s around a completely separate P&L,” she explains. “I go, ‘Hey, I’ve got this guy that called in. He needs a cable jack moved and a TV and a soundbar. Does the service department have bandwidth?’ Yeah, boom. Mad Dog takes care of it.”  

When it comes to growing the department and generating additional revenue, allowing service techs to upsell with the amount of customer touchpoints they have gives SoundVision another leg up.  

The company incentivizes the service techs with commission to sell the client upgrades. Who better than a service technician to let customers know that there’s a more advanced and larger OLED now or higher-resolution and smarter video surveillance cameras? 

Service technicians are sometimes selling $20K-$30K jobs, “which is unheard of” Ferlauto says.  

Adds Simpson: “I’ve been at this a long time and very few companies have a service department, and the ones that do pray that it breaks even.”  

Great Shape to Continue SoundVision’s Evolution 

It’s easy to see why SoundVision has fulfilled its goal of becoming one of the most prominent integrators in the Carolinas. DiPietro and his team of all-star specialists have formed a well-oiled machine that has established proven processes and continues to grow. 

He can look back now and joke about not having business savvy when he ran his first integration company. With SoundVision now, thanks to having the right people in the right places, he actually has time to learn more about business. 

“Back in the day, we had four vans and they all had huge loans on them; now we have 10 and they’re all paid for. We can sleep; we have emergency funds for emergency funds for emergency funds, and so we can invest, we can take advantage of opportunities,” DiPietro says. “But people that are doing day-to-day stuff who specialize allow me to do what my new passion is, which is business savvy.”