Dean Sales Representatives

Today I visited one of the remaining “local” stores I had not personally seen: 8th Street Music. They have a small retail store presence in Philadelphia, but sell many instruments on line both through e-bay and amazon.com. The bulk of their sales seems to come through on line sources, and they advertise themselves as the original internet music instrument retailer. Their history appears to support that claim.

So I went to the store because when I have looked for unusual guitars, like the Parker Fly or the Dean Soltero, their store always comes up as a dealer. I was unimpressed by the physical retail store, but I was impressed by the employees within. I had conversations with two of the workers, and mostly spent time with the second. He was able to find a Leslie West Standard, a one-pick-up version of the Soltero for which I have been searching. We talked about guitars, the local guitar market, the market for instruments in Philadelphia, and Dean guitars.

What I learned was that Dean has quality control issues, dealing with Dean is not easy, and the Dean sales representative was given much of the responsibility for the difficulty in selling their guitars. After playing the Dean, I decided that I liked the playability of the neck. But the guitar was poorly set up from the factory, and required some adjustments to the pickup, so it wouldn’t contact the high E string. The guitar was strung with 9’s, and while they certainly were easy to bend, the guitar had a thin tone that might have been caused by the strings. Or it might have been caused by the fact that it was a $600 single-pickup guitar. But I didn’t learn of the price until I was home, because nobody could find out how much it cost! I agree that Dean should provide their dealers with enough info that price should never be an unknown, but it was.

I plan to return to the store, perhaps next week. They have a Dean Soltero, American made, two pickups, in their NJ warehouse, and plan to get it to their store so I can play it. I’ll be interested in its tone, and hearing how much of a difference the second pickup makes in the variety of tones I can squeeze out of the Soltero. In the meantime, it was a nice way to spend an hour this morning. Its just a shame that parking in Philadelphia set me back $13.50 for 90 minutes. Ouch!

Dealer Phone Calls

Why don’t retailers follow through on sales leads? I’ve marvelled at this phenomenon in the past, and it continues to amaze me. After expressing an interest in the Dean Soltero guitar, but wanting more information on the different models, the owner of Springfield Music Store took my name, phone number, and some information about what I was looking to learn. He promised he would talk with his Dean sales representative and contact me.

That was about 2 weeks ago. I’ve not heard anything from him. And at this point, I don’t expect to. Its a shame, as the info on these guitars available on the internet is confusing, at best. I’ve posed questions to sellers on e-bay, but their answers make no sense. So its one more guitar that I won’t be buying any time soon

The last time this happened, I was i the market for a Michael Schenker autographed Dean Flying V, but wanted to see one before spending the $2K+. I had the same result then. In the past, I’ve attributed it to the store owner. But perhaps the Dean sales representative may share in the blame. Except that if the store owner was truly responsive, then he should call me to let me know that he was unable to get me the information.

I think this is taught in customer relations 101. Or Retail Store Management 101. It certainly should be, if it isn’t. its this type of behavior that makes me think I could riun a store better. But I still can’t make the economics work.

Guitar Blog Testing

I?m testing out Mac Journal for use posting to this blog. Safari is not friendly to the formatting in wordpress, so I am hoping this will be better.

One of the problems with Safari is it won?t allow paragraph breaks.

And other formatting is also not an option.

Anatomy of a Sickness

My latest obsession continues to get worse. Last night, several times during the night I dreamed of the Dean Soltero guitar. I’ve noticed that in the past, this is the next-to-last-step before buying the guitar sight unseen from either e-bay or some other internet retailer.

Hoping to stave off the inevitable, I stopped by Springfield Music. Springfield Music is owned by the owner of Swarthmore Music, about which I’ve already written too much. The owner himself was in today. I asked about the Soltero, and he indicated that he thought he might have heard of it. Then he said he had some Deans at his other location, and called to check . Then hung up. A good 5-10 minutes later, he called back to find out if they had any. So this “inventory check” took between 10 and 15 minutes. I tried to walk out twice, but he stopped me both times with promises of things to come. Finally, he took my name and phone number, and wrote down what I wanted to know into a computer that must have been 15 years old. It shouldn’t have been hard, but I had to repeat it several times:What is the difference between the $3500 model and the $400 model ($3100, said the keyboard instructor overhearing our conversation).

So now I’ll wait and see if he calls me back. I hope he does, so I have some reason NOT to spend the $3500 on the expensive version (which has a beautiful figured maple top and is made in America).

Dean Soltero

This guitar reminds me of my experience looking for a Parker Fly. In both instances, my search started with dealers so that I could find, and perhaps purchase, the instrument. In the initial phases of an obsession, I tell myself how important it is to play the instrument before buying. In both instances, I visited the manufacturers website to identify local dealers. In both cases, I contacted theose dealers through the e-mails provided by the manufacturers. And in both cases, I heard nothing from the store(s).

The next step is to visit the surrounding large chain stores. Around here, that means Guitar Center and Sam Ash. When I did this looking for a Fly, none of them had any in stock. Although they both did have examples of the new Parker Strat-like guitar that has been reviewed well in magazines, but has a bolt on neck and other significant differences from the Fly I was after. So no sale.

I will shortly start to make the rounds of Guitar Center and Sam Ash. My daughters are on vacation this week, so running out to look at guitars is more problematic than usual. Still, it is the next step.

In both cases, it is about this time that I start wondering how important it is to play an instrument before buying it. I am an intermediate level player (on a good day) so some of the subtleties between individual examples of a particular model are often beyond me. But not always. But if I tell myself this, then I can start also looking on e-bay.

In the case of the Parker, I quickly concluded that almost all Parkers on e-bay, unless new, have a chip somewhere in the carbon fiber body coating. Some are pretty bad. And the new ones all cost the same. After several months of watching, I was able to find an example that had no chips, and had been rarely used. What’s more, I was able to get it for a fair, but not great, price. I’ve been very happy with the Parker.

But the Dean is a new guitar. It hasn’t been made long enough for gently used ones to start showing up on e-bay. As a new instrument, I also feel a greater need to play it before buying it. While I may not be able to notice certain subtleties, I also know there are some guitars that just don’t work for me. Surprisingly, a genuine Gibson Les Paul does nothing for me, but I have no such problems with Epiphone Les Pauls (go figure!).

And again, it is the difficulty I experience finding an example of this guitar to play that leads me top the conclusion that there is an untapped niche of guitar players in the Phialdelphia area that must be having the same difficulty as me. Surely others are interested in playing a Dean Soltero guitar. but are there enough? And if they find me, and play my Soltero hanging on the wall, will they go home and order it off the internet?

Wish I knew the answer…

Guitar store

Sometimes, even when all the evidence suggests I should give up on an idea, I can’t. i find it is that way with my idea of opening a guitar store So I continue to think of possibilities for what a successful store might look like.

In the last issue of Music Trades, there was a column written about older, but still active, Americans adopting new hobbiew in later life. The example the author chose was of a gardening club, and how many of the people there are there as much for the company and learning experience as because they always wanted to garden. The author wondered if something like that existed for music, and was disappointed to discover that, at least in his big city, it didn’t.

I suspect my answer would be the same. i know it would be if I was answering for my small town of Media. but I also think that my answer would be no for Philadelphia. Since Philadelphia is enjoying an inflow of empty-nesters seeking to enjoy a more urban life, I am thinking that they might represent an untapped demographic of potential customers.

I’ll write more in future posts about what a store might look like. It should help me clarify whether the idea has any legs to it.

Guitar Blogging

I took my advice and reserved a domain name for AdultGuitar. And then, lo and behold, life intruded. First came the holidays and then came my wife’s health procedures. But now, I look back at the past several months and try to learn something.

What did I learn? I find it very difficult to work completely unstructured from November through January. In the past, this has manifested itself in a long period of not playing my guitars at all. By February, the pent-up music making bursts forth and reasserts itself as a priority, and IU return to playing. In many years, February is also the month I have purchased a guitar. This has happened enough that my two daughters asked me several times during February if I was going out to buy a new guitar. I have not bought a new guitar. But, for the record, I have been practicing since the beginning of February. Not just practicing, but practicing with concentration and purpose that I often lack. Using a metronome, focusing on learning some theory, not just looking to play another song at my current skill level.

But the acquisition bug is never far away. These days, my longing seems focused on two Dean guitars: the Leslie West Signature model, and the rest of the Soltero line. Unfortunately, my nearest dealer is the dealer I love to hate: Swarthmore Music. I’ve put in an e-mail, through the Dean Guitars website, but have not yet had a response after two days. And I’m not surprised.

Blogging for Money

I subscribe to the RSS feeds for several blogging blogs. Sites that post daily on how to improve your blog and make money. So why is the first thing i did for my AdultGuitar blog to set up a Word Press blog? Because one of the first things I learned was that Word Press forbids including advertising, or any significant chunk of e-commerce? So I have a choice between using the blogging features provided by register.com or perhaps using my google blogger account. Or re-read some of those business-of-blogging posts.

Starting a Website

After my last post, I decided it would be wise to invest a few bucks to grab my proposed domain name: adultguitar.com. In the harsh light of the day after, I have second thoughts about the name: does it sound too fuddy-duddy for my target market, which may be trying to recapture some of their youth? Regardless, the name is mine.The experience of establishing a domain name was quite easy, as I expected it to be. Domain registrars have had years to perfect the process. I went with Register.com, and am glad I did. buried in the fine print at the bottom of their website is info referencing awards they won from J. D. Powers for quality of customer service. As a newbie to setting up a site, I had opportunity to find out how good their customer service might be…..In mid-December, I switched to an iMac after having Gateway PCs for more than 10 years. Most of the switch has gone painlessly, with the exception of my Quicken program. But setting up a mail account for the mailbox at my new domain wasn’t happening last night. So I left a message for technical support at register.com. The form letter told me to expect help within 24 business hours. With the holidays, I wasn’t optimistic they would meet that time frame.So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to find my answer waiting for me. It was a simple thing I was doing wrong, but their standard on-line documentation wasn’t helping me figure it out. With the help of their e-mail, I was up and running in minutes. Even before my first cup of coffee! The only thing missing was a return address to send my compliments on a job well done.

Starting a Guitar Website

I have been thinking more about the idea of starting a website related to guitars and guitar playing. The working title is “Adult Guitar” and my early research shows this name is available (I’d better go register it!). The idea would be to offer articles to help those of us that want to play, or play more, as we get older. It might include reviews and links to instructional resources, on-line and otherwise, as well as gear reviews. Money would be earned through advertisements and perhaps selling instruments. Unfortunately, most manufacturers are not interested in internet-only dealers, and I’ve just about ruled out a storefront at this point. It is just too hard to make the economics of a store work well. At least as important as to what the site would do is what it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t sell Gibson and Fender guitars. It wouldn’t have instructional videos, guitar tabs, or resources for bands (like MySpace has developed). It may have forums for musicians to connect with others to play together, and could sponsor meet-ups if the geography of visitors was conducive to off-line meetings. Most importantly, it would offer resources for integrating music into family and work life, which have become so hectic for most.I guess the first step is spending some money getting a domain name.