We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brian Stevenson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brian, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.
The Band Instrument Industry is a wide-array of income levels. Many people play instruments as a hobby and spend thousands of dollars on the newest and latest instruments and accessories, or they seek out vintage and antique horns and bring them to us to restore. On the other end of the spectrum is the student in a low-income school district that is lucky to have access to an instrument that is at the border of functional. We opened our business to serve school programs. My wife, Deanna, and I were both working as band instructors and saw first-hand how the quality of the instrument and the level of it’s maintenance could affect a students ability to excel.
When we decided to go out on our own, we crafted our business to provided the services that we had wanted when we were teaching. Whether that be education on maintenance, knowledge beyond just the sales specs of things, and always having a teacher’s mentality about how we do business.
This translated into a passion for serving the underserved student community of music. We go into schools and see their stock of instruments for kids that are woefully in disrepair. We do inventories and estimates to help make long term plans for their meager budgets and make them stretch as far as possible. We provide data on maintenance costs that can help a teacher advocate for a sustainable budgets with their administrations, and we have both created and partner with existing charities to make music as accessible as possible to anyone that wants to.
The largest charity we work with is called Bringing Music To Life. This organization, over the last 14 years has impacted thousands of students by collecting, repairing and distributing donated band and orchestra instruments to Title 1 School all across Colorado. We’re proud that we provide Logistics support by picking up all the donations, sorting them, and inventorying them. We also do all the repairs on the brass and woodwind instruments. We’re just a small part of their much larger puzzle, but the impact is truly astounding.
In addition, 4 years ago we started our own internal program that has come to be known as “School Secret Santa”. During COVID, our industry was at a literal stand still, and we as business owners were struggling to find a reason for people to come in and shop with us. In a moment of desperation I had an idea. Maybe if people didn’t need supplies for themselves, they could come in and get something for a local school instead. It started small; we’d ask people to buy an extra small item like some reeds or a valve oil and donate it to the event. We initially thought we’d be able to collect a few small “goodie bags” for some of our favorite teachers and give them a little gift, while at the same time, actually selling something. Well, apparently people thought it was a good idea and that first year we were able to collect over $10,000 worth of merchandise including a few instruments. We got the teachers on a zoom call and let them “draft” what items they needed the most.
After that first year of success we decided to keep it going and over the last three years we’ve given away over One-Hundred THOUSAND dollars in instruments and supplies to 35+ band programs all over Colorado. We’ve been recognized by the National Association of Music Merchandisers for our efforts and plan to disseminate the information to other music stores around the country so they can hold their own events and make an even bigger impact.
We’ve personally seen and experienced how access to band and music can change a child’s life. We’ve heard stories of how students say they might not be here today or might not have graduated high school had it not been for their band family. Whatever we can do to provide that opportunity for growth, learning and fun to any child, we’ll do it. Music is a lifelong activity and pursuit, and we want to be here for every step.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Brian Stevenson, and I am the owner of Rocky Mountain Music Repair in Broomfield, CO. We are a brass and woodwind store specializing in repair, rentals and sales. We service everything from minor cleanings and maintenance to major damage and restoration work for beginning students, professionals and everyone in between.
When we first opened our business our focus was primarily on repair and serving the schools along the front range, but over the last 11 years we have expanded to include a full line of retail, accessories and a ton of quality new and used instruments.
I got into repairing instruments after seeing the negative effects a poor instrument could have on a student’s ability to enjoy, learn and excel at music. I’d speak to students who had decided they weren’t good enough or talented enough, only to find out that the clarinet they were given was in such disrepair that even the most talented player would fail with it. I was always the kind of person that liked to fix things and build things so I sought out an apprenticeship and learned from the ground up.
Now our shop is nationally recognized and I personally present clinics to other technicians all across the country at repair schools, other shops for Regional Clinics and at the National Convention of NAPBIRT (National Association of Band Instrument Repair Technicians). I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without the support and genius of my wife, Deanna. She’s the glue that holds our business together, and reigns me in when my ideas are too crazy. She also tells me when my ideas are good, and tells me to go for it.
What sets us apart is our genuine care and concern for our customers. Music isn’t just a hobby, it’s a way of life for so many of our clients. You can only play football for so long before your body gives out, but we’ve got many people who are still playing everyday well into their Nineties. We love being able to support people at whatever stage of their musical journey they are on. From their first Notes, to wherever it takes them, they know that we’ll be here for them. I’m often quoted at saying that we want “10 year customers, not 10 minute customers”, and we mean it. The most rewarding moments of my tenure as a business owner come when we see a student we helped find their first instrument in first grade, playing in college. Or when we have helped a student for years and now they are our client with their own band at a school. These transitions connect us to our community and to our customers in a way we hope they feel the impact of.
We’re band geeks all the way. I found the greatest friendships of my life through band. I found the greatest love of my life through band, and I found my calling and purpose through band. Yes, we’re a business, but we’re so much more than that as well.
Have you ever had to pivot?
It’s been a constant battle to keep up with the demand of our business. There are very few people that have the knowledge and expertise to do the jobs that we do, so we have had to pivot numerous times to keep up with demand.
We first opened on a tight budget with a small family loan in a really small location. We thought we’d just be the two of us (my wife and I) fixing some horns for the local community. We were able to do repairs in a 24 hour turnaround at the beginning when no one knew us and we just did repairs, with very little retail sales.
Our illusions of a quiet lifestyle sitting at my bench with a saxophone were quickly shattered as we found ourselves getting calls and Emails asking if we could service schools and clients all over the place. Eager to please, we said yes to everything and quickly found ourselves struggling to stay ahead of the demand. Customers related the need for supplies and rentals and deliveries and instruments to purchase, and were overwhelmed. After just 3 short years in our first location, we quickly realized we needed to move. This i a terrifying propostition for a business just starting. There were expenses for moving and we were planning on expanding the space, and our offerings. We decided that we were just going to go for it and doubled the size of the shop.
We could never outgrow this “giant” space surely and we’d be able to finally settle in and just work. We were obviously wrong and the calls kept coming in for schools that needed help and people looking for a better place to shop and musicians wanting an alternative to bog box stores and online to shop at. We decided we needed to expand again and doubled the size of the current location to accomodate once again adding warehouses and a larger shop and more than doubling our retail area. We acquired dealerships with three of the best quality instruments makers and bought a ton of new inventory.
This all was done in March of 2020, about 2 weeks before the world shut down. Now we were sitting on a ton of space and literally nothing to do with it. It was terrifying and we were counting our pennies every day. WE decided to not throw in the towel, and thought “there’s no way we’ll ever outgrow this place” As COVID started wot wane, we found that students and people had missed the joy that band had brought them and many students that were denied that opportunity during the pandemic were excited to start up again in earnest. We’ve since filled every inch of our current space and have hired more people than we ever expected to need and probably need more. Our existance has been anything but serene and peaceful. You have to roll with what’s served to you and pivot.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I really never planned on owning a business as fast I did. I had left a previous job, and was contemplating doing contract work for other businesses from home or working for someone else, when all the pieces kind of fell into place.
We had been conceptually planning on owning our own shop “one day” and had scoped out a few general areas in town that seemed like they were far enough away from competitors to be viable. We decided to drive around and look at commercial properties on a whim and found a location that was actually within our non-existent budget and in a perfect location.
We ran our personal numbers and found that while we could probably sign that initial lease and make do, we did not have the money to buy anything to put in the building such as tools, furniture, parts and repair supplies.
We were lucky enough to have family that believed in us. They weren’t just going to write us a check though. We had to make a proper business plan, and a plan for repayment, and we had to present it to them in order for them to be on board. After a nervous dinner, we presented our plan. We budgeted on the tightest of shoestrings as to show our seriousness and responsibility with the hard-earned money we hoped they’d entrust us with. After we presented everything and they asked a lot of questions, they said “Let me look it over and I’ll get back to you” That was the most nerve-wracking 12 hours of my life. We were waiting to sign a lease and hoping another tenant wouldn’t jump on it, and if we wanted to open soon we needed to get orders into our suppliers for the specialized tools and products we needed.
The next day they called us back and said that they were in. WE had a plan to pay them back and we were the biggest cheapskates and spendthrifts you can imagine. All of our cabinets and workbenches cam from Habitat for Humanity ReStores. All of our other furniture came from Craigslist and Goodwill. We borrowed DVDs from the public library to learn how to do book keeping and Quickbooks. Our shop probably looked like the most hodge-podge ramshackle thing in the world, but it was a dream come true for us
I remember the first day we opened. No one came in, but I was sitting at my own workbench in my own shop. We were able to pay off that entire loan in only two years and have run our business entirely debt-free since. We’ve since upgraded (some) of the furniture, and it still feels like the castle that my wife and I built together. We’ll never forget the people that helped make our dream a reality though. We were VERY lucky to have been able to lean on our loved ones and are eternally grateful for the faith they showed in us back then.
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Contact Info:
- Website: www.rockymountainmusicrepair.com
- Instagram: @rockymtnmusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RockyMountainMusicRepair
- Twitter: @rockymtnmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rockymountainmusicrepair5177
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/rocky-mountain-music-repair-broomfield?osq=Rocky+Mountain+Music+Repair
- TikTok: @rockymtnmusic