Big Poppa
Well-known member
As I get older I sometimes look back to the times and eras and phases of the company from running the cash register at 9 in the store to getting hangnails putting backlabels at 12, to the shipping department and the dreaded after school box flattening, to the always hated inventory.....Going to work at 15 at Island Guitars.....off to Quilter Sound to run their retail at 17 (now known as QSC) to forcing the sales manager of Ernie Ball to let me take the Impala in the parking lot and go to work as a road rep for just commision..my dad didnt hire me and didnt know that I was doing it until he asked where the Impala was. The gas crunch hit and I had sold too much stuff to lay me off and I was put on the phones selling..there were three of us. Bill Reed and I.
Bill gave himself carpel tunnel bragging about selling strings to England and Japan and France. He said that was all the international business that was worth giving. I was moonlighting helping my godfather Tommy Walker ( who brings tears to my eyes thinking about him and what he taught me...RIP Tommy you were the class act) with the amps he designed and Leos new basses. In exchange for what I did Tommy had an Export Manager named Uschi Eastman give me a mailing list and I created a flier and after hours sent a solicitation for business in 22 different countries and got orders for all of them. BIll left pissed, ( he called when my dad passed and said that his only regret wasnt staying with us) and my dad told me at 24 that I seemed to have all of the answers and I would get a year to run the thing two possible alternatives...sink or swim. He told me that I would get a raise if I grew the biz ...fired if I didnt. With some great help we were able to increase business a third that year and I got a raise and the next year we doubled that...... I look back at decisions that I made so confidently and wonder what would have happended if I was wrong.....
I think back to Earthwood and then on to Music Man and meeting Dudley Gimpel and the pioneer days fo trying to figure out how to make Leos bass and what the hell we were going to do with all of the industry laughing at the Silhouette........How we kept on . How my dad sat Back and didnt say a word but allowed us to find our way
.
The hardest part was telling my Dad that the remaining contribution he did didnt work....Art director. I hired talented raw artists from Cal Poly and he said "Over his dead body and I said would he like the casket in mahoghany or stainless......
I got lucky and won the equilivilent of the oscar (communication Arts award) two of them in fact. From there I quit for a day and came back and bought the business but lost my brothers and sister over the deal. I have a relationship with one brother and my sister and I value that tremendously Employees started dropping like flies in the string part of SLo and the desedt move to my dad passing to watching my kids dive in and making sure that I did what my dad did for me but hopefully more important not doing many things that my dad did to me.
So here we are and I had to get that off my chest. Im so lucky in that all of my life from the cash register on I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Bill gave himself carpel tunnel bragging about selling strings to England and Japan and France. He said that was all the international business that was worth giving. I was moonlighting helping my godfather Tommy Walker ( who brings tears to my eyes thinking about him and what he taught me...RIP Tommy you were the class act) with the amps he designed and Leos new basses. In exchange for what I did Tommy had an Export Manager named Uschi Eastman give me a mailing list and I created a flier and after hours sent a solicitation for business in 22 different countries and got orders for all of them. BIll left pissed, ( he called when my dad passed and said that his only regret wasnt staying with us) and my dad told me at 24 that I seemed to have all of the answers and I would get a year to run the thing two possible alternatives...sink or swim. He told me that I would get a raise if I grew the biz ...fired if I didnt. With some great help we were able to increase business a third that year and I got a raise and the next year we doubled that...... I look back at decisions that I made so confidently and wonder what would have happended if I was wrong.....
I think back to Earthwood and then on to Music Man and meeting Dudley Gimpel and the pioneer days fo trying to figure out how to make Leos bass and what the hell we were going to do with all of the industry laughing at the Silhouette........How we kept on . How my dad sat Back and didnt say a word but allowed us to find our way
.
The hardest part was telling my Dad that the remaining contribution he did didnt work....Art director. I hired talented raw artists from Cal Poly and he said "Over his dead body and I said would he like the casket in mahoghany or stainless......
I got lucky and won the equilivilent of the oscar (communication Arts award) two of them in fact. From there I quit for a day and came back and bought the business but lost my brothers and sister over the deal. I have a relationship with one brother and my sister and I value that tremendously Employees started dropping like flies in the string part of SLo and the desedt move to my dad passing to watching my kids dive in and making sure that I did what my dad did for me but hopefully more important not doing many things that my dad did to me.
So here we are and I had to get that off my chest. Im so lucky in that all of my life from the cash register on I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
