CEO Observations, One Month Into Our Beam Global Rebrand
A little over a month ago Beam Global was born. Not a new company but one that certainly feels that way on every level. I ran Envision Solar for so long that I sometimes still find it difficult to change my old habits when I identify myself as the CEO of Env… Beam Global. But the difficulty is only superficial. I was then, and still am today, thrilled every time I say the new name. I love it. And I love what it says about us and the way that it has been received by everyone that knew us before, or is just getting to know us now.
I write this at 30,000 feet on my way back to San Diego from Atlanta, where I have been showing off our new Beam EV ARC™ 2020 at the Petit Le Mans racing event. Georgia Power, a new customer and one of the first exclusive to Beam, bought the EV ARC™ terminal and decided to show it off at the Electric Vehicle corral of this famous racing event before moving it to its permanent home at the Atlanta Technical College. Yes – you can do that with EV ARC™ EV charging terminals. I have been meeting with customers, investors, prospects, the press and officials; or live streaming on Facebook with Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols, a visionary who makes this sort of thing happen. The reaction to the name Beam has been fantastic. It fits so perfectly with what we do that it seems totally natural to those who have never known us by any other name. Those who knew us before are united in their congratulations for what they see as a very good move.
Our website, videos, sales materials and the new business cards that I carry all have the Beam logo and designs on them. So do the EV ARC™ units we are shipping. I love the logo and have heard nothing but accolades this week during the racing event. I remember the many hours spent working with our European based designers on choosing and refining that logo. I don’t know when they slept. At the time, we questioned whether people who were not familiar with us would understand and like it. I now know they do.
Our increased social media presence is attracting a lot of attention. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram – all are rebranded for Beam and all are vastly improved. Creating this increased presence helps our new PR company, the Bulleit Group, and it provides tools for the new sales people we are recruiting.
Our new ticker, BEEM is trading as (or more) actively than EVSI ever did. News stories about us cover the financial sites and our logo finds prominence there too. Investors and customers alike seem to have very quickly and very comfortably slipped into our new identity. Nine months of work went into the rebranding. I worried that it might take as long or longer for the new name to find its legs. No such delay has held it back. It’s as if we were always Beam and simply needed to crack the chrysalis.
The name Envision Solar held us back as people assumed that we were a low margin rooftop solar installer rather than a Clean Technology Innovator at the forefront of the electrification of transportation. Beam Global will have no such resistance. I’m thrilled that our most important announcements are still to come, and they will come under our new brand – Beam.
We are getting much more attention from the analysts now. Price targets starting at $25. But there are others who I hope will cover us and I am introducing our great value to them through phone calls and Zoom meetings. One such recent meeting, with an analyst I have long been chasing, confirmed how important this rebranding has been for us. At the beginning of the call he said to me, “if I had spent ten minutes on your website I would have taken a meeting with you long ago. But I saw ‘solar’ in your name and took a pass. I just don’t have ten minutes to investigate every badly named company”.
We’re not badly named any more. Beam Global speaks of where we are, and more importantly, it speaks of where we are going.
I’m thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to lead the fantastic Beam Team to that fantastic future.
Desmond Wheatley, CEO, Beam Global