Alan Carruth wrote:
I used to do setups for a local store. The low-end factories they dealt with would ship the guitars with no tension on either the rod or the strings. The store would tighten the strings up and hang them on the wall. They often came back a year later or less with 1/4" action at the 12th fret and a neck that looked like the back of an old hoss.
I offered to show the help at the store how to do simple basic setups. The boss couldn't get past the fact that it would take a half hour or forty five minutes per guitar. Most days, of course, most of the help sat around a lot of the time anyway and played the guitars, so it would not have cost him anything. I did get to show one or two of the guys, and they'd take the time to set up the ones that looked most interesting. The problem, as one of them said, was that when they did, those guitars sold very quickly, so they never got the chance to play them. Again, the boss was aware of all of this, but didn't seem able to connect the dots. He came in from the wholesale end of the business, took over a thriving local store, and ran it into the ground in a few years.
I offered to show the help at the store how to do simple basic setups. The boss couldn't get past the fact that it would take a half hour or forty five minutes per guitar. Most days, of course, most of the help sat around a lot of the time anyway and played the guitars, so it would not have cost him anything. I did get to show one or two of the guys, and they'd take the time to set up the ones that looked most interesting. The problem, as one of them said, was that when they did, those guitars sold very quickly, so they never got the chance to play them. Again, the boss was aware of all of this, but didn't seem able to connect the dots. He came in from the wholesale end of the business, took over a thriving local store, and ran it into the ground in a few years.
We have a client who until recently would go to the Heritage f*ctory and hand pick the best of the lots and then bring them to us for set-ups. He would advertise that his stuff was professionally set-up by Ann Arbor Guitars and would use our name with our permission. He always sold out right away and this just further underscored that the value-add of a quality, professional set-up not only sells more guitars it also inspires confidence in buyers that things have been checked and rechecked beyond the capabilities of a f*ctory on the other side of the planet.
Music stores are inherently cheap and being privately held the principals often see every dime that leaves their store as coming right out of their pocket. Ernie and I have discussed this at length. Although there is some truth to this there is also the idea of having vision and confidence in one's own presentation of their wares and how they are received by the market.
After I retired from corporate America I made my living for a few years consulting with mom and pop stores in small chains as to how they can have a parasitic... relationship with the marketing spend of their Internet competition. I believed in my mind and heart that people WANT to buy from people and not a web site.
So although I never approached small music store owners it's my belief that they can do better in how they present their instruments/wares and that even though this may cost a bit more in the long run not only will we all be dead but they will sell more guitars before they are dead
Please note reference to Keynes quotation.So yes Al this was a missed opportunity for that store.