Guitar MAN.As chairman of the nation's largest retailer of musical instruments, Larry Thomas caters to superstars and upstarts willing to pay big bucks for the right sound In 1977, Larry Thomas was a struggling musician in need of a steady gig. To make ends meet, he took a job as an accessory salesman at a small Hollywood-based chain store called Guitar Center. It was a step that ended up changing his life. By 1992, he had moved up to president and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. , and then became chairman and co-CEO of the company. Under his leadership, Guitar Center, now headquartered in Agoura Hills, has gone public and grown from eight stores to 80, making it the nation's biggest musical instrument retailer. Thomas said he gave up a career as a musician to become "a student of retail." Question: You cater to professional musicians and wannabe rock stars, as opposed to the beginners. Was that the strategy from the beginning or has that evolved? Answer: We lucked out because one of our first stores was right here in Hollywood, right at about the beginning of the guitar craze in 1964. So by default we became the Guitar Center. The founder of the company, Wayne Mitchell Wayne Mitchell is a Southern Gospel singer. He has sung tenor for The King's Servants and The Kingdom Heirs (1981-1987) He was a founding member of the Kingdom Heirs. , who was a tremendous mentor to me, had a company called the Organ Center, which sold home organs. Wayne, really by accident, got into the guitar business because the guy that sold him Thomas Organs was selling this new line of guitars and amps from England called Vox. The two of them did a deal where Wayne would rent him the space and the other guy would create the sign and put in all the gear for sale. That was about 1964, and the Beatles hit and Vox was an instant success. Q: How did the Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades. location help in terms of who shopped there? A: Being in Hollywood as the guitar craze was catching on, we were catching a lot of bands as customers because the Sunset Strip The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile and a half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's east border with Hollywood at Marmont Lane to its west border with Beverly Hills at Phyllis street. was so popular. I started at Guitar Center in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden and in those days we were already doing professional clientele business because we were bigger and had a better selection than other stores. You can buy just one set of strings anywhere, but a lot of the traveling bands in the '60s would go in and buy four dozen sets of strings. I came to work there as somebody who had been out playing professionally, so I understood the needs that professional musicians had. Over time, we realized that if you cater to the professionals you could bring all the wannabes Wannabes is an online interactive soap and game created for the BBC by Illumna Digital. Wannabes follows on from Jamie Kane, the BBC's previous foray into online interactive drama. The show/game consists of 14 10 minute episodes released twice a week. into the store. We had people like Stevie Wonder and all the rock stars. We had the Starship's account and the Grateful Dead's account. We realized that you can't be all things to all people, and we knew that if we were giving 9-year-olds guitar lessons, it would chase the pros out of the store. Q: Guitar Center was the first to go large-scale in musical instrument retailing. With Office Depot Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) is one of the world's leading suppliers of office products and services. The Company's selection of brand name office supplies includes business machines, computers, computer software and office furniture, while its business services encompass copying, and others so successful in other sectors, why hasn't large-format been embraced by other musical-instrument retailers? A: The U.S. musical-instrument store count of about 8,000 stays very consistent from year to year. Music stores go out of business every year and music stores open up every year, because musicians open up most music stores when they stop chasing the dream (of hitting it big as a performer). These tiny shops are all across America. It keeps the rejuvenation Rejuvenation Aeson in extreme old age, restored to youth by Medea. [Rom. Myth.: LLEI, I: 322] apples of perpetual youth by tasting the golden apples kept by Idhunn, the gods preserved their youth. [Scand. Myth. and entrepreneurial spirit in our business alive. Also, if we look at who makes our products, like Martin, Gibson or Fender -- these are hand-made, so you can't bring on Office Depot style and buy carloads because only so many are built. Musicians are also looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. information from qualified salespeople sales·peo·ple pl.n. Persons who are employed to sell merchandise in a store or in a designated territory. . Q: Is that why stores like Target and Sears sell almost everything except musical instruments? A: When you get into more-complicated instruments, like our keyboards, the salespeople in those stores wouldn't be able to sell them. The one thing about Guitar Center is that we have 3,000 employees and 2,000 of them are just like me -- musicians that couldn't catch the star playing, so they took their passion and they did something to make a life for themselves. It is kind of like a ski bum 1. bum - To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night bumming the interrupt code. who lives in Aspen aspen, in botany aspen: see willow. Aspen, city, United States Aspen (ăs`pən), city (1990 pop. 5,049), alt. 7,850 ft (2,390 m), seat of Pitkin co., S central Colo. and will do anything in the summertime just to be there in the wintertime to ski. Q: But aren't musical instruments essentially just another product type, like cars or washing machines (storage) washing machine - An old-style 14-inch hard disk in a floor-standing cabinet. So called because of the size of the cabinet and the "top-loading" access to the media packs - and, of course, they were always set on "spin cycle". ? A: In this business, you are really selling dreams. If you look at the wall on our guitar floor you see Hendrix over there; there are huge pictures and portraits of (music stars) because they are people we aspire to aspire to verb aim for, desire, pursue, hope for, long for, crave, seek out, wish for, dream about, yearn for, hunger for, hanker after, be eager for, set your heart on, set your sights on, be ambitious for be. Interestingly enough, when I go to Wall Street and do road shows, there are analysts across the table who at nighttime are Hendrix wannabes or Stevie Ray Stevie Ray may refer to:
Q: Do the customers come in and ask for their certain salesperson? A: Professionals are in the store two to three times a week. sometimes. They are coming in, not just for supplies, but for knowledge and to check things out as far as the latest gear. We have an artist relations manager who deals with the recorded bands, the signed bands, the up-and-coming artists and the record companies. Mostly he deals with personal relationships. This business is all about personal relationships. I would tell you the personal relationships are probably why I am still here today. This is a wonderful industry to grow up with people and get old with people. And for me, those people are drum makers and guitar makers, as well as the artists. Q: The average Guitar Center generates around $9 million a year in sales, which is pretty hefty for a retail outlet retail outlet n → punto de venta retail outlet n → point m de vente retail outlet retail n → . How is that level achieved? A: The sales are huge. It is because the items are bigger-ticket and because of the frequency that those people are in the store buying. There were some guitars on the stage downstairs in the vintage room and one of them is going to sell for $70,000, another is going to be sold for $25,000. I think they are both selling today. Sometimes we sell lighting and pro-audio systems in the $20,000-to-$100,000 price range. We sell drum sets for $10,000. And the pros want the best because they want something that is not going to break down. The wannabes stay up too because they are pushing the dream of playing at the Roxy, or maybe they want to be a recording engineer, so they will build a home studio in the hopes of getting someone over to record there. Q: Is that large army of big-ticket merchandise what separates Guitar Center from all the "mom and pop Mom and Pop An adjective denoting a small-scale and family-like atmosphere, often used to describe these types of businesses and investors. Notes: A mom-and-pop business is typically a small family-run business. " stores? A: Yes, we can afford to show more and have a greater selection because we have a big, established business going here. But I think the mom-and-pops first get confused about what business they are in. Are they in the music business or are they in the retail business? I realized early on in my career at Guitar Center that I was in the retail business, and that separated me from a lot of people. With some mom-and-pops, the guy owns the store, but is playing three nights a week at the local bar with his band. He is playing to midnight, so he drags himself in the next day and barely gets open by 11 (a.m.). For us, we learned how to merchandise our stores and advertise. We learned how to build a mailing list An automated e-mail system on the Internet, which is maintained by subject matter. There are thousands of such lists that reach millions of individuals and businesses. New users generally subscribe by sending an e-mail with the word "subscribe" in it and subsequently receive all new 20 some years ago. Combined with our catalog division, we have over 5 million customer names. Q: Guitar Center has a huge collection of vintage instruments for sale. Is that an important segment? A: Yes. Some of these instruments are historical. There is only one No. 1 (the first made) D28. That is a guitar that Joan Baez made famous way back. It is a guitar that Stephen Stills Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young). collects like crazy -- he has a huge Martin Guitar collection. He is somebody else that we can call and say, "Do you want to buy the first one." And people will do it. There is so much money in the economy today. The rock star guys, the big ones, have always made money, but today I think they are keeping it longer. Q: Does Guitar Center have the largest collection of vintage instruments in the world? A: I think for sale, most definitely we do. We don't even have everything on display. Larry Thomas Titles: Chairman, Co-CEO Company: Guitar Center Inc. Born: Texas, 1949 Career Turning Point: Realizing he could be creative working at Guitar Center just as he was seeking to be creative in music Most Admired Persons: Sam Walton Samuel Moore Walton (March 29 1918 – April 6 1992), born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma was the founder of two American retailers Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. He was the patriarch of the Walton family, one of the richest families in the world. and Eric Clapton Hubbies: Playing music, collecting musical instruments, fly-fishing, competing in equestrian equestrian a rider of horses. events, golfing, dirt bike riding Personal: Married; five children (all musicians) |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion