We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dan Reeves a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

We work one-on-one with each customer. When you message us, you aren’t getting some automated response, you’re speaking directly to us. I think the real human interaction is something our clientele really appreciates about us, along with quick response times and timeliness in shipping out packages.

We’re also able to take custom requests, which a lot of larger companies can’t or don’t do, so there’s a lot of flexibility in being a small business in the fretted instrument business.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

509 Custom is a fretted instrument repair and luthiery business. We offer wiring kits (electrical components to guitars or basses), instrument cables, effect pedals, and soon will have our own builds available.

I first was introduced to guitars when finding my dad’s acoustic in the closet one day and playing around with it. Then hearing about other family members who play and seeing older kids who played influenced me to start taking lessons.

Fast forward to realizing I wanted to make a career out of repairing and building fretted instruments was when I found Southeast Tech here in Red Wing, Minnesota. Once I graduated with my degree I worked at a few music stores before starting my own at-home repair and luthiery shop.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Social media and word of mouth have been effective for us. A majority of the repairs come from word of mouth and the online sales mostly come from posting on social media.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We got started with social media because it’s really the best way to let people know you’re there and what you have to offer. We try to post as often as possible to stay visible to those interested in checking out the shop. I would say anyone trying to start a social media presence should try to post what would make them pause when scrolling through social media. If it interests you, then there’s other people it will interest as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://reverb.com/shop/509-custom
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/509customguitar/
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/danreevesguitarrepair
• Other: https://m.ebay.com/seller?sid=509custom&_trksid=p2349624.m3561.l49544