Building Guitars Professionally

[letsgocoyote]

Sorry if this is not the correct forum to post this in, but it seemed like the best fit to me. Feel free to move.

Just a couple questions for those luthiers and builders who build guitars for money.

1) Did you always plan to build guitars to sell, or did you start strictly as a hobby and it happened from there?

2) How did you start selling guitars and/or what was your first sale?

3) How long have you been doing it?

4) What style of guitars do you build in? Do you build completely custom guitars to a clients wishes, or customized versions of your own models to clients specs? Do you sell guitars with no client in mind?

5) How much do you sell your guitars for, and why?

I'd appreciate a variety of responses. I'm just curious mostly. I'm building my 2nd guitar now, after building the first was pretty fun, and I wanted to make it much better. I think if I can develop enough skill (particular I want to get better at finishing, which is half the reason I am building a second!) I could maybe want to do this kind of thing for a career (or on the side).

[thegarehanman]

I don't build as a career, but many people who come to this board have aspirations of building full-time. Let me just tell you what I've seen and know. The custom guitar/bass market is VERY COMPETITIVE. For this reason, unless you are very well known(and often unless you have cheap labor or cnc assistance), you will not make a huge profit margin. It may take you years to just earn enough to pay your general bills, much less live well. Generally, it's accepted that if you don't know how much to sell your guitars for, you shouldn't be selling them. This stems from the idea that when you're ready to sell, you'll have an idea of how much you want to earn hourly, how much parts and wood will generally cost you, and how much time you'll have to invest in any given instrument. Some builders sell guitars after they've built only one or two, some people wait to sell until they've built 10 or 20. However, a general rule of thumb is that the more s*** you send out your door in the form of guitars, the more s*** you'll have coming in your door in the form of angry customers. So DO NOT sell anything that you feel even remotely dissatisfied with. If you want the opinions of guitarists about your builds, let them play them, not just look at them on forums. More importantly, to get honest opinions from them, don't only ask them what they like about your builds, ask them what they don't like or would change about your guitars. This could potentially reveal some flaws in your builds that you had not previously seen or given attention to.

While there are tons of custom solid body builders. It seems that there is a greater demand for custom acoustic or custom archtop builders, or at least that trade is more profitable(I could be wrong, but I seem to remember hearing this on a few occasions). The problem here is that the quality of your instruments tone will rely much more heavily on your building quality and style than a solid body wood. This means that it may be harder to sell your instruments until you get a buzz going about how good your instruments sound. Of course, the opposite holds true for your instruments if they're built poorly and sound terrible.

I'm sure I've missed some things, and remember that this is just what I've gleaned and think. So take it with a grain of salt, but do give these things some consideration.

peace,

russ

Edited March 18, 2007 by thegarehanman

[postal]

Good post Russ.

[letsgocoyote]

excellent points. i agree with all you have said.

[Robert Irizarry]

Very insightful, Russ. Thanks for your input. It's hard to develop a good reputation but easy to damage one. While I can certainly appreciate someone's desire to become a professional builder, it's in one's own best interests to take the time and be sure that you truly have a worthy product to sell.

There's also the importance of having some business acumen. If you start selling instruments, you are running a business as well. That means accounting, dealing with both happy and unhappy customers, trying to make a profit etc. For some, these sorts of things can take the joy out of the process of guitar building.

Regards,

Rob

[Southpa]

I still build for myself, tried to market a few guitars but no takers (Buy and Sell online ads), I'm not offended. I make a few bucks on the side fixing them, mostly for friends. I just repaired a side split on my friend's $1000 Larrivee D-03 acoustic as well as fret work and setup. Hes happy with my work and thats what counts, so I say "Tell your friends!" I do it more for the experience than anything else, they might throw me a few bucks and at the very least, recoup my expenses for parts, strings etc. Now a friend of his wants me to setup his saggy little EKO acoustic. Every time I get one of these jobs I roll my eyes but I guess nobody else would do this sort of work. NOBODY in his right mind would bother with repairs that cost more than the guitar's worth. I look at it as more of a challenge than anything else with the mindset like, "If I can get one of THESE to play like butter then I MUST be doing something right! Yeah I know, I'm nuts..so whats your point?

[Vinny]

If you start selling instruments, you are running a business as well. That means accounting, dealing with both happy and unhappy customers, trying to make a profit etc. For some, these sorts of things can take the joy out of the process of guitar building.

Regards,

Rob

Yup, that will kill anything you enjoy doing, well......almost anything. .-Vinny

[GregP]

Seemed to have killed of Tom Anderson's joy; hence his somewhat recent-ish decision to fly solo again.

[fryovanni]

I figure when my guitars are good enough they would sell themselves(or I should say people will approach me with the request). I have no intentions of building for a living, and have no need to build them for the income. If I am asked about a guitar I have built or if someone has a need/want for a guitar and it strikes me as something I want to do. I can decide on what I want to do. Honestly, I want to keep it just like that so it remains my entertainment not my job. Money and deadlines just has a way of ruining the joy in a hobby.

But, if you are truely interested in building as a job. Look to working for or under the instruction of a successful builder. It will be the most direct path to learning your skills and how the business works. That will at a minimum give you a starting point and some point of reference. I think we have a few members who have worked for or are currently working in such a manner. They could give you some insight. There are a couple members who have made a go of it from scratch, and I am sure they would have plenty of examples of hard learned lessons and tight times to get where they are today.

Peace,Rich

[erikbojerik]

Tom Anderson couldn't delegate. Training good people, and retaining them, is the key to successful delegation. If you're smart about hiring people for the business side, and invest time in training people on the floor, there's no reason you can't be the company CEO and have your hands in the sawdust at the same time.

[rhoads56]

Tom Anderson couldn't delegate. Training good people, and retaining them, is the key to successful delegation. If you're smart about hiring people for the business side, and invest time in training people on the floor, there's no reason you can't be the company CEO and have your hands in the sawdust at the same time.

And while your out on the shop floor, the office staff are slacking off (they ARE employees) and the accountant is dipping his hands into the funds to pay for his new house...

Of course, you havent allowed for the fact that 10-15 people had to be trained. If they each stayed at the job 12 months, you'd have more than one person leaving PER MONTH. Try keeping up with that employment schedule, and train them too. Not to mention interviews (you wouldnt delegate that would you?), etc.

Then add in that he MUST keep an eye on the accounts, to make sure everything is running smooth, keep and eye on orders, production, incoming goods, backorders, staff training, advertising, web updates, taxes, wages, superannuation, insurance, rent, machinery maintenance, tools, etc etc etc. SURE, you can delegate every one of those jobs to someone (who had to be trained) but ultimately YOU are the one to make the final decision. Bank account looking a bit slim? Hold off on timber purchase. Timber stocks low? Damn, scale down the hardware order to save a few funds. Superannuation is due, damn finish off that batch of guitars for the larger dealer, to get the cash coming in... oh, and there are three people on hold who MUST speak to you before they place an order for one guitar...

You cant run a business the size he does, keep your eye on the books, answer the phone when people ring, AND concentrate on building guitars. Its extremely rare to find someone more dedicated to a business than the owner. After all, to most people, its just a job. How many people do YOU know that dont really care about their job?

Im not anywhere near the size of Tom Anderson. Im one guy, with a part time assistant, that im slowly bring up to 3-4 days a week. I know what i have to go through, each week just to build some guitars. I cant imagine how much worse it is for Tom.

[Phil Mailloux]

Mike Tobias runs MTD's custom shop with him and two other guys. The two guys do most of the work and Mike helps out and does the finishing. He also answers every single phone calls. They pump out about 25 instruments per month in the $3000-$6000 price range each. His two guys have been there for years.

If you are to employ "builders" with you they'll obviously need to be "into" guitars and get paid more than minimum salary if you want to keep them. I once read that 70% of Maton's staff (hundreds of people) are musicians. I wouldn't hire an apprentice carpenter who doesn't know anything about guitars to be one of my builders. I'd rather hire a guitarist that is motivated to learn.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Phil Mailloux

[mammoth guitars]

If you start selling instruments, you are running a business as well. That means accounting, dealing with both happy and unhappy customers, trying to make a profit etc. For some, these sorts of things can take the joy out of the process of guitar building.

Amen to that.

[Supernova9]

Seemed to have killed of Tom Anderson's joy; hence his somewhat recent-ish decision to fly solo again.

He's changed that one. The massive outcry at the possibility of Anderson scaling back means he rethought his decision and will be changing the way he works instead.

[GregP]

Oh yeah? Didn't know that.

[Supernova9]

Oh yeah? Didn't know that.

Yeah, I heard from TGP (The Gear Page), and it's on the front page of his website. To be honest, I was surprised at how quickly he changed his mind - with the name he has, even scaling back and raising prices to compensate, people would pay the prices he asked to get one, so it would have made life easier for him. But hey, guess he just wants to keep people happy.

[brewu22]

Tom Anderson couldn't delegate. Training good people, and retaining them, is the key to successful delegation. If you're smart about hiring people for the business side, and invest time in training people on the floor, there's no reason you can't be the company CEO and have your hands in the sawdust at the same time.

And while your out on the shop floor, the office staff are slacking off (they ARE employees) and the accountant is dipping his hands into the funds to pay for his new house...

Of course, you havent allowed for the fact that 10-15 people had to be trained. If they each stayed at the job 12 months, you'd have more than one person leaving PER MONTH. Try keeping up with that employment schedule, and train them too. Not to mention interviews (you wouldnt delegate that would you?), etc.

Then add in that he MUST keep an eye on the accounts, to make sure everything is running smooth, keep and eye on orders, production, incoming goods, backorders, staff training, advertising, web updates, taxes, wages, superannuation, insurance, rent, machinery maintenance, tools, etc etc etc. SURE, you can delegate every one of those jobs to someone (who had to be trained) but ultimately YOU are the one to make the final decision. Bank account looking a bit slim? Hold off on timber purchase. Timber stocks low? Damn, scale down the hardware order to save a few funds. Superannuation is due, damn finish off that batch of guitars for the larger dealer, to get the cash coming in... oh, and there are three people on hold who MUST speak to you before they place an order for one guitar...

You cant run a business the size he does, keep your eye on the books, answer the phone when people ring, AND concentrate on building guitars. Its extremely rare to find someone more dedicated to a business than the owner. After all, to most people, its just a job. How many people do YOU know that dont really care about their job?

Im not anywhere near the size of Tom Anderson. Im one guy, with a part time assistant, that im slowly bring up to 3-4 days a week. I know what i have to go through, each week just to build some guitars. I cant imagine how much worse it is for Tom.

I have been in management posistions, and you cound not of said it better. I was working in a totally different trade, but it all applies the same for business.