A Little Rant. O.K. two rants, but they are related.

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So I was commenting on another thread about Stradivarius’s, and it reminded me of something I have had cause to fume about lately. Now, seeing as how I am anonymous here so that I can be a prick when I feel like it, could someone explain to me why so many professional guitar players are such unbelievably cheap assholes? Sorry to be so blunt about it, but professional violinist spend tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, some times even millions to buy an instrument which is of a sufficient quality to play professionally. A cheap professional BOW will cost you almost $10,000. So why is it, then, that a person who makes his living playing guitar will be down right insulting towards a luthier who is asking $3,000-$4,000 for a really nice guitar? I mean, you make your living with the damn thing. Get the best tools available.

I am not asking that what we do should cost what violin luthiers charge. They can build maybe a dozen instruments a year, maybe two dozen if they are REALLY good (or really sloppy, but that is not the kind of builder I am talking about). We can do more instruments then that without losing any quality, because what we do is more easily automated. All I am saying is that we have a right to make a decent living. I don't need a private jet or anything, just a house, a car (I don't even WANT a luxury car, just a way to get to the shop and back) and the ability to help support a family (and if I ever get married, I have no problem with her working. In fact, I hope she makes a lot more money than I do). Just a decent living for doing an honest, and not particularly healthy (dust, solvents, some heavy lifting, and my father has bursitis from polishing guitars by hand for the first ten years he was doing this) job.

If I have a guitar which I am asking $3,000 for, please don't ask me to sell it to you for $2,000. I have to pay for my shop, my insurance, my taxes, my supplies, my wood, my utilities (our phone bill alone is almost a thousand dollars a month). When you figure I can only make 30-36 guitars a year, given the overhead involved in a large shop (4 full time employees doing repairs, plus two builders), our profit margin is incredibly thin. In fact, the shop almost always loses money (which is one reason why I do stage hand work). If you can't afford it, fine, but don't ask me to shot myself in my foot for you, OK.

On another note/rant. I have a good friend who is the best know small shop builders in the world. Not one of the best, the best. He has many very famous people playing his guitars. As a result of this, he gets many more orders every year than he can actually complete. He is good too. There is no question he deserves his reputation, even if other builders who are jealous of him, or just vindictive or stupid, say other wise. If you know who I am talking about, please don't announce it on the board here.

Now, as I said, he receives more orders every year than he can complete. As a result of this, his guitars will fetch a very high price on the open market. This was particularly true a few years ago when he stop taking orders as a way of cutting down his backlog (he was two years behind, and that is a lot of deposits for his wife to pay back if anything happened to him). While he was not taking orders, he noticed something. He was finishing guitars and sending them to people, and a week later he would see that guitar on EBay for twice what he had sold them for. Now, any economist would call that supply and demand, and the market value of his guitars would reflect that. Having now caught up with his orders (not really, he is behind again), he is taking orders again, but has raised his prices to the market value.

All this being the case, why would you call him up (as has happened several times) and ask him to lower the price for you, "just this once." Even worse is the guy who, when he says no, start yelling at him that he has a responsibility to, "make instruments players afford." Do you really think that you will get him to do you a favor by yelling at him? He is just a builder working his ass off (he is probably the hardest working person you could ever met, and we all worry about him a great deal because of this) to do the best he can. He is great at his job, and got lucky with the people who play his guitars. As a result of this, he makes a better living than most builders. But it is his work that has created his situation, and he deserves it all. So don't get upset with him for the market value of his guitars. If you can't afford it, go to another builder.

Sorry to rant, but I needed to get that off my chest.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
You should do some work for him if hes backed up,or has a hard time meeting demand..Perhaps you could do his fret or elect. install or hardware ect..you get some more work for your shop and he meets his demand...Just a idea.





Don
 
I think you should tell us what shop you work for/own and let us decide if your guitars are whorth the bucks.
You may recall that I p.m.'d you a month or so ago asking about your shop and custom guitars,and you chose to remain ano-nymos.Not a good way to sell guitars,especially the kind that cost
a lot.
"Brave men never remain anonymos".(Sheppard)
 
My question is, why would someone pay hundreds of thousands, if not millions, for an instrument? I mean, other than as an investment. And how could they afford it, do classical musicians make that much? You have to remember most guitarists are trying to collect enough couch change to get the next six pack. I'm not saying that a custom axe wouldn't be worth 3 or 4 grand, it's just quite a bit of money for the average musician.
 
Grinder,most classical musicians have rich benefactors that give them instruments on loan.
 
SHEPPARDB. said:
I think you should tell us what shop you work for/own and let us decide if your guitars are whorth the bucks.
You may recall that I p.m.'d you a month or so ago asking about your shop and custom guitars,and you chose to remain ano-nymos.Not a good way to sell guitars,especially the kind that cost
a lot.
"Brave men never remain anonymos".(Sheppard)


I do recall. I am very public on other forums which are more slanted towards custom guitars. It is, however, nice to have a place to talk without risking the reputation of my shop, which I guard rigorously. We are well known as being nice people, but sometimes you just need to be a prick.

Mostly, though, I am not here to sell guitars (I do that elsewhere), I am here to give advice. And it is nice to have a release valve too.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light, I understand exactly where you're coming from. I think a lot of it has to do with the "Wal-Martization" of everything in general.

Folks seem to think because you can buy a DVD player for $29 that everything else in the world should be priced accordingly.:rolleyes: When Fender can punch out a gazillion Squier POS guitars for $129 from their overseas factories people get a seriously wrong impression about what it takes in terms of craftsmanship and tooling to build high-quality instruments.

People have also become accustomed to Moore's Law; you know, the one that says technology will cost half as much and do twice the work every 18 months. And in some ways lutherie has followed this same path. But certainly not in every way. And as we move into a much more highly automated society and economy most folks don't have the slightest clue as to what it takes to do just about any kind of handwork.

Beyond that, most folks have no idea how much the cost of instrument wood has soared in the last 20 years, or the price of good quality hand tools, either. What they see is Home Depot selling crappy Chinese tools for dirt cheap, and again they think everything else in the world should be available like that.

You're absolutely right not to give these assholes even the time of day. THEY DON'T DESERVE IT! Let them have their $79 condensors and $99 preamps. Eventually they'll figure out that the stuff is crap, and hopefully by then they will have learned that buying cheap really means buying twice.

My DREAM is to become a full-fledged luthier. After years in the construction biz working for assholes that don't care if I live or die I wanna build something that is going to be loved and appreciated long after I'm gone. I don't know if I'll ever get there, but even if it can't pay the bills for the first few years it would sure beat hell out of what I've been doing for the past 25.

I wanted to build violins when I was in highschool. I can't believe I was so stupid to chase dollar bills in construction rather than follow my heart.

So don't be downhearted. You're doing MY dream job. Stick to your principles and the folks that can't figure it out can just go fuck themselves!!!
 
Henri Devill said:
You should do some work for him if hes backed up,or has a hard time meeting demand..Perhaps you could do his fret or elect. install or hardware ect..you get some more work for your shop and he meets his demand...Just a idea.
Don


We already do all of his warranty work (one of only two shops in the country to do so), but it is important to him to do all of his work himself. Plus, having us do work for him would cut into his profit margin. We are not cheap. Besides, we already have too much work. We have been so busy for so long, it hardly feels like being busy any more. And February and March are historically our busiest months. We are looking at having guitars stacked three rows deep and turn around times of two to three weeks (which we hate. We want to get it done in a week tops for anything which we can). Time to start looking for a new repair person, if you ask me. But that is up to Dad.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
As a US citizen, I have the right to get whatever I can for as cheap as I can. Isn't that part of the constitution, you know, life, libery, the pursuit of happiness and get what I can for as little as I can.

Actually, it's just part of doing business. I guess what it comes down to is, what is a customer worth. Some, I will take a loss to keep them happy, others I will always charge full price.

You are in business to make money, you just don't have to on each sale. As a business owner, I would love to always charge full price. As a consumer, I know I don't have to pay full price, so why not ask and see what I can get away with.

It's not what it costs to produce a product, it's what the market will pay for the product (economics 101). That's what will drive the price.
 
That model depends an awful lot on your volume.

A guy building less than 40 fine instruments a year just doesn't have the margins to let even 10% of those sales go for below cost. It's the difference between buying groceries and starving to death.

That's Econ 101, too.:)

Folks are used to "discounts" because most of the MSRP's from huge corporations are over-inflated to begin with. Ever pay full price for a car? It's just a marketing trick, and nothing more. People think they're getting a great deal when in fact the big three are raking it in hand-over-fist. So much so that they can give you a 0% loan for 5 years AND a $2000 cash rebate when you take delivery.

Diversity is why Boeing can eat it in their commercial airline business for years on end, while their defense and space programs make major coin. Of course, there are no luthiers I'm aware of that have corporate welfare on the scale Boeing does.........

The guys that price their product at a true fair-market-value are at a distinct disadvantage.

Call Fender and get a price on a custom-made Strat. You'll lose your mind when they give you the figure...............
 
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Light, I found your stories interesting.

Guitar players are conditioned to negotiate on guitars; just about every shop seems to have room to move on price. Give a guy atleast one chance to ask politely for a better deal before sending him on his way.

There are jerks in every business; part of the reason they call it work. I would bet that the guitar customer base has well MORE than its fair share of cheap shady jerks. Dont get fuming mad over these types.
 
I respect what you're saying, Light, but I think your rant doesn't have any legs.
Capatalism is all about supply and demand. If people aren't willing to pay what you're asking, you can't beat them into it. You can try to educate them perhaps, but at the end of the day it's up to the consumer to decide if they're willing or not. Given all the marketplace shennanigans you listed, how can you blame anyone for trying to make sure they are getting the best possilbe price on anything they buy?
Trying to convince someone to spend 3 to 4 times as much for a guitar simply because it's hand-made is getting to be a tough sell. Lots of musicians are making great music everyday on sub-$1000 instruments. You have to market high-priced guitars in a different way I think: as luxury items. PRS has done this very well with their "10 top", birds, and glossy catalogues and such.
Besides, if you or your friend are so busy you can't keep up with your orders, what's your beef? Apparently your freind saw that he was selling his guitars under market value, raised the prices, and is now swamped again with orders. What's there to complain about?


A
www.aaroncheney.com

And by the way... 90% of guitarists are not making their living with their guitars.
 
Aaron Cheney said:
And by the way... 90% of guitarists are not making their living with their guitars.


Certainly, which is why I was talking about professional musicians, not amateurs. Though to be honest, the amateurs make up a huge part of our business.

We probably sell as many guitars to baby boomers who work in skyscrapers as we do to professional musicians. The baby boomer generation is at the peek of their earning power right now, and their memories of being younger frequently include guitars. People who have been getting by for years on their seventies Martins are choosing to upgrade to a custom instrument.

We have one guy (a professor) who has a guitar in every batch my father makes. That is where his disposable income goes. He is a fine guitar player, though he has never made any money at it. His real hobby though, is watching his guitars being built.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
Though to be honest, the amateurs make up a huge part of our business.

We probably sell as many guitars to baby boomers who work in skyscrapers as we do to professional musicians. The baby boomer generation is at the peek of their earning power right now, and their memories of being younger frequently include guitars.


And that's why I think that you have to market expensive guitars not so much as superior instruments, but as luxury items or status symbols.

For example: people do not buy a Rolex because it keeps time any better than a Timex. Sure, it's built better, but it keeps time just the same. Some may argue that it will last longer, which is probably true, but that's still not why people buy a Rolex.

With a fine guitar, besides the status factor you also have the nostalgia factor, which is why the vintage market has become so ridiculous.

A
www.aaroncheney.com
 
ohh.... and one more thing I forgot to mention before:

If you and your friend have raised your prices, and are still backlogged with orders, you need to raise your prices again. And if you do, and are still backlogged, you need to raise them again, and again, until your prices have reduced demand to a manageble level.
My wife owns a hair salon, and she just keeps raising her prices and people still just keep coming. IT's crazy...


A
www.aaaroncheney.com
 
Light, a very interesting rant. You have my sympathies completely. The only thing you have is time. When someone asks you to sell for less, they are taking away from you on many levels, but the main thing is that they are taking your time. You (and others who are artists or craftsmen or piece workers) should have no qualms on insisting that your business "purchase" your time, in addition to covering all of the costs of the business itself.

Whether or not to discount has to do with market position. I can't imagine a custom intstrument-maker offering (agreeing) to discount an instrument unless there was a problem with the instrument. (We've already read how you don't want the bad ones out there with your name on them.)

There are plenty of places where goods and services are exchanged without negotiation. I was in therapy once, and had a problem paying $60/hour, and my insurance was running out. The therapist had no sympathy, and would not meet with me if there was not cash on the barrel head. "Why should I lend you money?" she asked.

I was out of work, and wanted to get a good suit for job interviews. I went the the good-suit store. I wanted to come back when they were having a sale. "We don't have sales," they said. (There are sales at the not-so-good-suit stores.) Custom guitar shops are good-suit stores. It's a matter of positioning.

What about car dealers? Most of us are babes in the woods when it comes to buying a car. When I go into a car dealer, I have to approach the discussions with the attitude that if everything isn't just what I want, I walk. Likewise, if the dealer can't get the money they want, they keep the car and we don't do business. (Those who try to nickel and dime you--what kind of car are they driving? Even with top guitar prices, I bet you sell guitars to guys whose cars cost ten or twenty times what their guitar costs.)

We get to pick where we buy from, and we get to pick who we sell to. If a customer yelled at me (without reason), I would not do busineses with the customer. Sell to someone else. So, rant on, Light!. Sell to who you want to sell to, for prices that you feel compensate you for your time.
 
Aaron Cheney said:
ohh.... and one more thing I forgot to mention before:

If you and your friend have raised your prices, and are still backlogged with orders, you need to raise your prices again. And if you do, and are still backlogged, you need to raise them again, and again, until your prices have reduced demand to a manageble level.
My wife owns a hair salon, and she just keeps raising her prices and people still just keep coming. IT's crazy...


A
www.aaaroncheney.com



A good theory which, in our business, doesn't seem to work. Every time my friend raises his prices, he gets MORE orders. The other problem with this is that, there are a number of builders out there who, a few years ago, when the custom guitars business was really booming, raised their prices. Now the business has slowed down, and their prices are so high it is hurting their ability to get orders. It is a lot more difficult to LOWER your prices than to raise them. People wonder if your quality has suffered, or if it wasn't that good to begin with. I mean, if you guitars are that good, why did you have to lower your prices? We are very cautious about when, and how much, we raise our prices.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Yeah Light, I can understand your point on the price thing. I read a related article once about a guy that built and restored old jukeboxes, and how he made it through tough economic times with such a specialized biz. He said he raised his prices and marketed his biz directly at the affluent, because he figured people that had a lot of money to begin with would be the least affected by the ups and downs of the ecomony, and would always have disposable income.
Of course, if that were the only way to succeed in biz, none of us poor people would ever be able to afford anything. You're obviously going to know your market and biz better than I do, and it's really unfair for me to sit here as a spectator, lobbing out opinions like hand gernades...


A
www.aaroncheney.com
 
Light,

Professional guitarists are your lifeblood if you are a quality guitar builder.... If a pro guitarsist chooses to play YOUR axe... what better advertisment could you ask for??? Not only should you sell them guitars at a discount rate (about 10% above your cost/considered a PRO deal) You should consider giving them away to high profile players...

This may seem extreme, but consider the other 90+% of guitarists that are NOT pro players... see their hero (the Pro) playing YOUR axe... and you have your $3000-4000 sale in the bank faster than you can say Viola. (pre-qualified sale)

You can chalk these freebe guitars up as advertising expense... most successful businesses run roughly 33% of gross profit back into advertisment. (hint: I know some people in your area playing Savage Amps that didn't pay no $2,500-3,000 for them either).

Shred
 
Light,

Professional guitarists are your lifeblood if you are a quality guitar builder.... If a pro guitarsist chooses to play YOUR axe... what better advertisment could you ask for??? Not only should you sell them guitars at a discount rate (about 10% above your cost/considered a PRO deal) You should consider giving them away to high profile players...

This may seem extreme, but consider the other 90+% of guitarists that are NOT pro players... see their hero (the Pro) playing YOUR axe... and you have your $3000-4000 sale in the bank faster than you can say Viola. (pre-qualified sale)

You can chalk these freebe guitars up as advertising expense... most successful businesses run roughly 33% of gross profit back into advertisment. (hint: I know some people in your area playing Savage Amps that didn't pay no $2,500-3,000 for them either).

Shred
 
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