We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jay Richard a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jay thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business
I had a gentleman show up with a guitar that wanted to be repaired for his girlfriend. It was an electric guitar that had the incorrect neck on it. I said ‘that’s kind of odd. Do you know what happened to it?’ He said that he wasn’t sure. His girlfriend knew a bunch of musicians when she was younger and this one guy gave it to her. The customer said he thought the musician had broke it on stage or something, he wasn’t sure. I explained that I could get it back together and in working condition.
Then….. the customer pulls out an old polaroid picture from the case and says ‘This is the guy!’
I chucked, ‘Yeah, right’.
He said, ‘no, it’s really the guy that owned this’.
I said, ‘you really don’t know who this is?’
It was a picture of Randy Rhodes, the legendary guitarist of Ozzy Osbourne that died in a plane crash, holding this same guitar body.
He literally had a piece of rock and roll history that is probably priceless.
The customer had no idea.
Jay, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My background is a typical story of corporate America. I started at a low level job for a fortune 500 company and worked my way up. Eventually I worked my way up to IT management surviving mergers, reorganization, layoffs and buyout. One day after 17.5 years, I guess they decided I was making more that I was worth and they let me go. In all this time, I was a woodworking hobbyist, mostly furniture but even making a guitar or 2. After my corporate job ended, I tried a few things but notice there weren’t many options for instrument repair in my area. I trained under a guy that had lots of experience and opened a shop in my area. It’s truly a niche market and takes a while to build clientele, but I’ve been successful. Musicians are very particular about their instruments and really want someone they can build trust There are some other shops in Denver, including a big well named store, but I’ve build my brand on a couple of unique features. When you call or text, I’m the one that answers the phone. Customer’s love the fact that they know they will talk to me directly. Secondly, I have a really fast turnaround. Musicians know they can call me with an emergency and I will do my best to help them as soon as possible. I’ve heard the other shops do really great work, but customers say that my turnaround time will beat most places.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
My best source of clients are musicians. Musicians know other musicians. I’m at the point where I’m getting 3 and 4th hand recommendations. I even have guitar and bass teachers that I’ve never met recommending me to their students.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Every person that is thinking about being and entrepreneur should read ‘The E myth’. The book explains that are 3 types of entrepreneurs. The first is the technician, like Leo Fender. Leo couldn’t play the instruments he made, but he was a great builder and innovator. The second is the Dreamer. He sees it all: pie in the sky, giant factory and huge success. He dosen’t know how he’ll get there, but he will. This might be Elon Musk. Finally, there’s the manager. I’m the manager. I observe, analyze and work a plan. The greatest thing about being a business owner is the freedom. When my son was young, I didn’t have to ask a boss if I could leave at 2 in the afternoon to go to a soccer game. I can go fishing on Friday if I want. The side most people don’t understand though, is that it’s hard. It’s really hard. I describe it as always being ‘on’. I’m always thinking bout my business, I never stop. For some people, including me, it’s difficult to manage and not let it be stressful. Customers don’t just fall into your lap, you have to always be consistent , disciplined and innovative at the same time. For a lot of new people staring up, they have a hard time learning the difference between revenue and profit. Running a business is not only time consuming but also costly. My recommendation is to do an objective business plan. If you don’t know how, find or pay someone to help you. People think business owners just put their feet up on the desk and the money rolls in. That is the exact opposite of how it happens.
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Jay Richard