Last week, I had a great lunch with an up-and-coming luthier from the North Georgia area. He is young and restless, but his talent is undeniable. He is still finding himself in this difficult business, and had asked to meet with me for a little marketing advice at the "cheap and dirty" level. In previous years, he had spent a lot of money on some different types of advertising, but none of it worked, and he wanted to know what I thought, since I've had a backlog of some type for a little over 20 months.
I prepared a small list with definitions of what I thought he should do, and we met for about two hours. At the end, he was impressed, and did find that there are definite areas he needed to work on. I also showed him how to create an online presence without spending the bank. He just shook his head in amazement when I told him what my website cost, and how many hits I take a week. He paid way more for his, and gets way less hits...
Being older, and not too rich myself, I was always taught to do things myself. I can remember my parents telling me that knowing how to speak and write correctly would carry me further than almost anything I could do. Well, maybe not be an M.D., but certainly in most worlds, one of the first things people recognize is your ability to communicate correctly, and how you communicate with folks. It has always been tough for me to listen. I still fight that. But on the other hand, I am pretty good these days at keeping myself in a positive mood, no matter what. That goes a long ways in working with customers, and for sure, when performing detailed tasks on building guitars, it often helps me get it right. I also am well schooled, at least at this point in my life, at working my way through things in a logical step-like manner. Even things I might not be an expert in.
It's funny, but these days, I meet a lot of young people who are very smart in one arena, but once they get into another discipline, they are totally lost. Like programming a website, really good. Changing a tire or learning what noises in a car are bad, not so good.
A long, long time ago, I can remember it not being that way. People had to do things for themselves. At least people without much money, like my family. With no cell phones, pagers, or any advanced communications sometimes it was just all up to you. Here's a good example. If your car acted up, you could walk, hope for someone to come along and help you, or fix it yourself enough to keep going.
I can remember one time, traveling with my parents, we had trouble with our car between Wickenburg, Arizona, and Phoenix. I can tell you back then, that was sheer desert, no interstate, not a good place to be stranded. And we found ourselves a little short on gas, since it turned out our gas gauge was wrong on our Oldsmobile. We needed about ten miles, best that I could tell with our Shell gas station map. (No GPS, either)
My father, MacGiver that he was, remembered that he had a couple gallons of whiskey in the trunk he had bought at a discount. You guessed it - as much as he hated to do it, in the tank it went!
After much choking and spitting, the motor adjusted well enough to the "blend", and we got going, just far enough to make the next gas station. Little herky-jerky, but we smoked and choked that car right up to a gas pump!
My father filled up completely with hi-test gas, enough to dilute the remaining whiskey, and we sailed on home, safe and sound. Total lost time? Maybe 45 minutes.
How many would do that today? Or would you just simply dial 911 on your handy-dandy cell, or hit the Onstar button? It may sound safer, but that technology we depend on has taken away our ability to help ourselves out of pickles, and that is bad.
In my shop, I often do these kinds of strange things. When I told my luthier friend that I cut my neck pockets with a hand router and carving tools, he could not believe it. No jig? Blasphemy!! A few days later, holding my latest build up by the neck, with no screw holes even in the body yet, he finally believed. He pretty much didn't think I could do it...until he held it. Because he can't do it. At least not yet.
He asked me how long it took to make that pocket. Amazed again when I told him about 40 minutes, start to finish. But when you've designed ways to do things for years, and you handle multiple types of necks, it's almost reverse to have to build multiple jigs to do the same thing. So doing it by hand, learning to cut it straight and true, in the end is more rewarding and more valuable than depending on a jig.
So every time you get a chance to learn a little something new...take it.
Every time you see something that slightly interests you...take a look, get curious!
Even in today's world, Knowledge is Power. And being multi-talented is way better than being a one-trick pony.
Tsunami
No comments:
Post a Comment