Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sean Burget. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Sean thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I never wanted to own my own business. My father owned his own business, and seeing behind the scenes led me to conclude that owning a business was a great source of aggravation. A distraction from the actual work you would choose to pursue. I knew I was an artist early in life. And at a very young age I realized that I needed to do my work and keep the logistics of running a business separated; Ideally, letting someone else own and operate a business. The down side being that in that scenario I wouldn’t get to decide for myself what projects to work on.

In my late teens a serendipitous event fell upon me. I was taking private guitar lessons and my teacher had a guitar that he had a neck custom made for it. A beautiful birds-eye maple, with scalloped frets. That was the moment I realized I would be willing to own my own business. If I could use my artistic and woodworking skills to repair and build guitars; and customize and personalize them for people… That was so exciting to me. That was a business I would be willing to own.

From the beginning of pursuing that type of work my focus has been on helping people to be inspired to create music. To have an instrument that moves them, and inspires them; and instrument that is unique to them as an individual. To play on an instrument that is theirs alone, and stirs in them enthusiasm to express themselves.

Sean, 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?

When I first realized that I wanted to become a guitar tech, or luthier, I had no idea where to begin. And going back 30-plus years ago… There was no internet yet. Or, it was in its infancy, maybe. I was still living at home with my parents, and we didn’t even have a computer in the house. So, I let my fingers do the walking! (That’s from an old “Yellow Pages” ad) I perused the phone book and called every local guitar/music shop. I got – essentially – the same reply from every store: “No time to train somebody. Do what I did… figure it out.” One guy was kind enough to give me the name of a luthiers supply company. I wish I had gotten his name. Although he too was too busy for some kid calling around, his demeanor was much more kind overall. I’d like to extend a “thank you” to that man. His simple advice provided enough direction for me to begin a new career that has actually turned into something substantial. Turns out, that at about that same time in my life I met a young lady with whom I fell in love. She is my wife today. It just so happened that her father was an RPT; a Registered Piano Technician with the Piano Technician’s Guild. Once Arnold could see that I’d be sticking around for a while he offered to teach me how to tune and repair/rebuild pianos. Piano tuning currently makes up the lion’s share of my workload. I also continue to do all phases of piano repair, and have continued the guitar repair aspect of the business as well.
What I love about what I do is that the options are limited only by one’s imagination. Do I want to tune pianos only? I can make a living doing that. Am I getting interested in moving pianos too? Do I want to do straight forward guitar repair work? Or, would I like to add customizing and personalization? Any single aspect of this trade can provide meaningful work.
As I mentioned earlier, I am an artist at heart. I expect I always will be. This business provides enough straight-ahead repair oriented work to provide a lucrative income. And golden opportunities to help people customize, personalize, and otherwise embellish their instruments. A creative outlet tied directly in to my technical skills.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Reputation is a major component of building a small business. When I first began my trade I was very fortunate to ride the wave of my father-in-law’s reputation. His family has a long history in the county. And he had been already been serving the county as a piano technician for about 4 decades. Arnold is just about – if not flat out – the hardest working person I’ve ever known. He chose not pursue his family’s business (farming, and owning/operating an orchard) and struck out on his own teaching piano at first; then moved into tuning, repair and eventually rebuilding. So, although he had a family history locally, he had to build his reputation from the ground up in relation to servicing pianos. When I came along he was well established. Arnold was very supportive. I can’t think of anything he didn’t do to encourage me to stay the course. He shared business concepts as well as technical training. In addition, I have to give due credit to my own parents. My father, as I alluded to earlier, owned and operated his own business. Although he worked very hard and ran the business successfully, I’m not sure it came naturally or easily for him. So, I do not think of my family as very business minded people. Not inherently so. But, I was taught to not shy away from hard work. I was taught to embrace things that are difficult and to appreciate that life is not always cooperative. I was raised to be honest, and fair, and to stick to your word especially when things didn’t turn out as expected.
So, my early upbringing coupled with the training I received from my father-in-law happen to have been very complimentary. It seem now, as I look back, that my family training taught me to plow through whatever I may face, however difficult. The brute strength approach, if you will. While the advice I received from my more formal training in the specific trade I chose to pursue helped me fine tune (see what I did there?) my dameanor and interactions with my clientele.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

How do I pick just one. I’m going through a growing spurt – business-wise – right now. And I have to ask myself: Do I restrain myself, and keep the business a small, one-man-show? Or, do I let nature take its course and follow the prompts that indicate it’s time to grow and expand? It’s a much tougher decision to make than an outsider may realize. And whichever decision I make I’ll have to be ready to accept the consequences – good and bad – that go along with that decision. What I really think is of import in answer to this particular question is more about the beginning of things. I’m only 50 years old now. So, when I began I was younger than 25! So, if you think about the image you have in mind when you call for a piano tuner to come to your home – maybe and older gentleman, retired maybe. Well seasoned and experienced. Then I show up. A child, which is how I guess many of the older clients perceived me. My parents taught me that everyone is entitled to be shown respect. And that I should especially show respect to older ones. Now I can understand someone being surprised, maybe even disappointed when a kid shows up to care for the family piano. But some of the ways I was treated really tested my capacity for showing respect to people regardless of how they treated me. The work itself could be trying. But I really believe some people thought it was their place to tell me how I was supposed to run my business. And that was the hardest part for me.
Fortunately, situations like I described in the previous paragraph were very rare. Arnold always found an encouraging perspective on these matters. He always found a way to build me back up and get me back on the horse. Eventually – and I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing – eventually you have enough of these experiences that you can say to yourself “This has happened before. And I’m still here.” And just move forward on your own accord. There have been those whom I have, in effect, fired as my clients. I always worry about my reputation in such situations. I always extend myself beyond even what’s reasonable in the customer’s behalf. But, I’m still here. I’m still growing the business. I never want to take that for granted. I never take customer loyalty for granted. I consider every service call, every job I do, an audition for the next job. No matter how many times I have worked for a particular client. And I just keep my head down, nose to the grind stone, and I do my best to provide honest service at a fair price.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SoundHole.biz
• Instagram: pinchdog72
• Facebook: Sean Burget – Burget’s Piano & Guitar
• Youtube: How often does a piano need tuning?