Big Poppa
Well-known member
Here is some responses to some of the questions.
Forum LE. There have been several posts but by my count only 19 people expressed interest and one of them (JimiD) is grounded. I doubt all nineteen of you could agree on a model and I also doubt whether all of you would actually buy one.
The poster that said something about the "suits" hasn't been to our company. I own one and it usually doesn't fit.
As you probably can tell Im a pretty direct guy. It is very difficult really telling the whole story as far as the state of the guitar business because in doing so I could very easily alienate Guitar Center, independent retailers, foriegn distributors, young endorsees, old endorsees, bass forumites, guitar frorumites, guitar magazine publishers and editors, fellow competitors and any combination of the above. I must be crazy, but here it is in no particular order.
As a rule guitar players have the image of the general public of being very wild and openminded. Ask anyone who has tried to move the envelope forward with innovative new guitar designs and if they are honest they will tell you that guitar players play it very safe. Bass Players on the other hand are usually more open to something new. That is why we chose the bass sector to dare to be different with our collaboration with BMW with the Bongo.
In order to tell our story as far as selling our guitars you have to know the story. You can't tell the story if you don't know it. It is almost impossible to get a big box retailer to spend the time to teaching the high turnover clerks the story. The kid can either choose to try to explain our instruments and invest a lot of time and his lost commissions, or he can sell strat packs and hit his production numbers. I'm not sure that a boutique line like ours is the best fit, but it is a catch 22 for us. Our line is very difficult for an independent retailer as there are so many choices that inevitably what they have in stock is not exactly what someone is looking for.
You guys mentioned the dealers collaborating and sharing. Middle East peace might be more attainable. Our solution for this was to create the worlds first custom build website. We had that before car manufacturers. We did that to help the dealers. All they had to do was let us know electronically when they sold a piece. Less than one third of our dealers update the pages. This is one reason why it is not a high priority to update the build section of the website. The reality is that over one half of instruments sold domestically are sold via our customer service referral for the benefit of our dealers. The dealers that invest in product that GC doesn't stock has a good chance of moving it.
What is interesting about the build site. We were averaging about 25,000 builds a week two years ago. We are now in the low thirties.take a wild guess what they build:
Black Stingrays, Pearl blue Sterlings, Luke Blue lukes, Mystic dream JP's, Amber axis's
pink burst Alberts. Kind of funny. The poster in the car business said that black was his number one seller. The number one color in the automotive business is white. If the dealer just stocked white they would go broke. As part of the buying experience the customer needs to see the different choices, and a few break free and buy a unique color.
The general public typecasts you. Gibson is a guitar company, no matter how hard they try they have had a historically hard time selling basses, same with PRS. Paul builds a really great bass, but is also primarily a guitar company. Music Man is considered a bass company that sells guitars. Ernie Ball is an electric guitar string company. Our acoustic strings are as good if not better than anyones, but we sell quite a few but nowhere near what we sell in electrics. Would Martin like a chunk of our electric sales? Probably as much as I would love a chunk of their acoustic string business. Internationally you sell four guitars for every bass you sell. We are around 50/50.
I have sat with buyers of major chains (ok chain) that said the reason why our guitars are slower is because our endorsee's are too good. He also went on to say that our basses sell because of the quality of players that play our basses. He is now selling real estate. I asked them to show me a spreadsheet of total sales of American made bolt on electric guitars between $1,000 - $1,500 and we were 20%! That's one fifth for you non new math guys. I said why aren't you calling on the other 8 companies in this price point and asking them how they can get their numbers up to 20%. In basses we were 90%! China and other companies has put so much price pressure on our industry that our price point is very rare air. There is just not much demand or action in our price point.
I remember a meeting about six years ago with Larry Thomas, the then CEO of Guitar Center. He was gravely concerned about the guitar and that there was no new guitar hero on the horizon. I disagreed with him. Guitar had become too intimidating, self indulgent, and so far out of reach for the wanna be beginner. They were missing the first step. Bands like Blink 182 like them or not made the guitar easy and desirable. Acutally it probably started with Enter Sandman...kids could play that opening riff. It is a numbers game, baby. Because of the ease of learning popular songs coupled with the affordability of good entry level equipment you have a recipe for a guitar boom. It is so booming it is not funny. There will be new guitar hero's. The cycle is much the same as the early sixties. Its funny you can't turn on TV without some major company advertising with a guitar as a cultural icon. Ernie Ball benefits today, Music Man will benefit tommorow.
I gotta go.....I'm sure that I've stirred something up.
Big Poppa
Forum LE. There have been several posts but by my count only 19 people expressed interest and one of them (JimiD) is grounded. I doubt all nineteen of you could agree on a model and I also doubt whether all of you would actually buy one.
The poster that said something about the "suits" hasn't been to our company. I own one and it usually doesn't fit.
As you probably can tell Im a pretty direct guy. It is very difficult really telling the whole story as far as the state of the guitar business because in doing so I could very easily alienate Guitar Center, independent retailers, foriegn distributors, young endorsees, old endorsees, bass forumites, guitar frorumites, guitar magazine publishers and editors, fellow competitors and any combination of the above. I must be crazy, but here it is in no particular order.
As a rule guitar players have the image of the general public of being very wild and openminded. Ask anyone who has tried to move the envelope forward with innovative new guitar designs and if they are honest they will tell you that guitar players play it very safe. Bass Players on the other hand are usually more open to something new. That is why we chose the bass sector to dare to be different with our collaboration with BMW with the Bongo.
In order to tell our story as far as selling our guitars you have to know the story. You can't tell the story if you don't know it. It is almost impossible to get a big box retailer to spend the time to teaching the high turnover clerks the story. The kid can either choose to try to explain our instruments and invest a lot of time and his lost commissions, or he can sell strat packs and hit his production numbers. I'm not sure that a boutique line like ours is the best fit, but it is a catch 22 for us. Our line is very difficult for an independent retailer as there are so many choices that inevitably what they have in stock is not exactly what someone is looking for.
You guys mentioned the dealers collaborating and sharing. Middle East peace might be more attainable. Our solution for this was to create the worlds first custom build website. We had that before car manufacturers. We did that to help the dealers. All they had to do was let us know electronically when they sold a piece. Less than one third of our dealers update the pages. This is one reason why it is not a high priority to update the build section of the website. The reality is that over one half of instruments sold domestically are sold via our customer service referral for the benefit of our dealers. The dealers that invest in product that GC doesn't stock has a good chance of moving it.
What is interesting about the build site. We were averaging about 25,000 builds a week two years ago. We are now in the low thirties.take a wild guess what they build:
Black Stingrays, Pearl blue Sterlings, Luke Blue lukes, Mystic dream JP's, Amber axis's
pink burst Alberts. Kind of funny. The poster in the car business said that black was his number one seller. The number one color in the automotive business is white. If the dealer just stocked white they would go broke. As part of the buying experience the customer needs to see the different choices, and a few break free and buy a unique color.
The general public typecasts you. Gibson is a guitar company, no matter how hard they try they have had a historically hard time selling basses, same with PRS. Paul builds a really great bass, but is also primarily a guitar company. Music Man is considered a bass company that sells guitars. Ernie Ball is an electric guitar string company. Our acoustic strings are as good if not better than anyones, but we sell quite a few but nowhere near what we sell in electrics. Would Martin like a chunk of our electric sales? Probably as much as I would love a chunk of their acoustic string business. Internationally you sell four guitars for every bass you sell. We are around 50/50.
I have sat with buyers of major chains (ok chain) that said the reason why our guitars are slower is because our endorsee's are too good. He also went on to say that our basses sell because of the quality of players that play our basses. He is now selling real estate. I asked them to show me a spreadsheet of total sales of American made bolt on electric guitars between $1,000 - $1,500 and we were 20%! That's one fifth for you non new math guys. I said why aren't you calling on the other 8 companies in this price point and asking them how they can get their numbers up to 20%. In basses we were 90%! China and other companies has put so much price pressure on our industry that our price point is very rare air. There is just not much demand or action in our price point.
I remember a meeting about six years ago with Larry Thomas, the then CEO of Guitar Center. He was gravely concerned about the guitar and that there was no new guitar hero on the horizon. I disagreed with him. Guitar had become too intimidating, self indulgent, and so far out of reach for the wanna be beginner. They were missing the first step. Bands like Blink 182 like them or not made the guitar easy and desirable. Acutally it probably started with Enter Sandman...kids could play that opening riff. It is a numbers game, baby. Because of the ease of learning popular songs coupled with the affordability of good entry level equipment you have a recipe for a guitar boom. It is so booming it is not funny. There will be new guitar hero's. The cycle is much the same as the early sixties. Its funny you can't turn on TV without some major company advertising with a guitar as a cultural icon. Ernie Ball benefits today, Music Man will benefit tommorow.
I gotta go.....I'm sure that I've stirred something up.
Big Poppa
