We recently connected with Ryan Newcomb and Creighton Bowman and have shared our conversation below.

Ryan & Creighton, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

We have so many amazing moments with our Rewind customers that every interaction feels like a success! One of the most common things we hear is that walking through our shop is like a walk down memory lane. However, there have been a few encounters that have left both of us speechless and near tears. Ok, there were tears! Actually, one of those moments happened today. A young woman approached the counter with two items that didn’t seem to be that extraordinary but the interaction that came next definitely was. The first item was a record, and the other was a Disneyland mug with a name engraved on the front, so I asked about the significance of the name. She paused and said, “My brother. He just passed away a few days ago.” She told me she initially saw the record (which happened to be her brother’s favorite show’s soundtrack) and then looked to her right and saw the mug with his name. And then looked behind the mug and saw a glass with his favorite cartoon character. Her pain was almost tangible at this moment, but she kept smiling and talking about how wonderful her brother was and that she just had to have these items. We continued talking for a while and that led to us discussing music and our label, In The Q Records. Her brother was a musician who recorded a few songs, and she was interested in having them cut to vinyl. I gave her some information on the process and some contact info for a company that could help her out with that. She told us that she felt as if her brother brought her to our shop today and that she was so thankful to have stopped in. It felt incredible to give someone a little happiness in an otherwise sad time in their life. That to us is a customer success story we’ll never forget.

Ryan & Creighton, 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?

We are Creighton and Ryan and we are new small business owners! The pandemic brought about many changes in our lives. We moved from LA to Phoenix and gave up our longstanding and successful careers: Creighton had been a freelance and celebrity hairstylist for some 25 years and Ryan worked in TV Production for the last 15 years. We had talked about starting a record label and opening a record shop for several years but the right opportunity never presented itself. Everything fell into place once we got to Phoenix. Our mission with both Rewind and In The Q Records is to have people want to do business with us, whether it’s a customer at our shop or a musician with whom we are planning a vinyl release.
At Rewind, our ultimate goal is to make a profit so that we can keep the lights on, however, we do not want to take advantage of our customers. Just because something is “worth” a certain dollar amount, we take into consideration how much we paid for the item and then price accordingly. We also do as much research as possible on every item that goes out on the floor because we want to be competitive with online shopping. More often than not, our prices are lower than what can be found online and there are no shipping charges!
As for ITQ, we just want to put great music on vinyl records. We have many musician friends that have had less than stellar label experiences and we simply don’t want that for our label. We believe that no musician should have to give up ownership of their music and we have no interest in owning anything we release. Financial transparency is very important to us, and we have no issue with sharing that information, at any time. It’s just the two of us which means we can keep our overhead low so that more of the profit goes to the artist. We also believe the creative direction of the physical release should be driven by the artist because, ultimately, it’s their vision and we want that to be seen. At the end of the day, we’re doing this for the love of music!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source for new clients has been referral-based. Our shop is located on 7th Ave in the Melrose District of Phoenix, which is an area known for vintage and antique shops in addition to numerous bars and restaurants. There is a lot of synergy that happens between all of the businesses located in this immediate area and we all help each other out. We are competitors but each shop specializes in something different and if we don’t have what someone is looking for we suggest other shops! Additionally, we were very lucky to have been featured on the cover of North Central News, a very popular monthly paper that is delivered to a large population of people. That article gave our shop a massive amount of exposure and we are very grateful to them!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We’ve been open for only a few months and still fostering our reputation but it all boils down to a couple of things. First, we are extremely welcoming to each and every person that walks through the front doors. We spend the majority of our time at the shop and it’s become our home away from home. We want nothing more than for our guests to feel welcome! And second, we do not want to take advantage of our customers so we price things as reasonably as possible. Numerous people have commented on this which leads to good word of mouth.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rewindon7th.com www.intheqrecords.com
• Instagram: @rewind_on7thave @intheq_records
• Facebook: @rewindon7thave @intheqrecords
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/rewind-vintage-and-antique-phoenix