Welcome to a special episode featuring Mark from Guitar Guitar, who joins us to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary. Hosted by Ian Jindal, Editor-in-Chief of Internet Retailing, and Georgia from Adobe, this episode dives deep into the evolution of Guitar Guitar and its unique approach to music retail.
Mark shares the history of Guitar Guitar, from its humble beginnings to becoming a significant player in the music retail industry. He discusses the company's commitment to providing a personalized customer experience, both online and in-store, and the challenges and triumphs they've faced over the years.
The conversation touches on the innovative ways Guitar Guitar has integrated technology to enhance customer interaction, the importance of maintaining a physical store presence, and the company's recent transition to an employee-owned business model. Mark also highlights their efforts in music education and community engagement, reflecting on how these initiatives align with their core values.
Join us for an insightful discussion about the past, present, and future of Guitar Guitar, and learn how they continue to make music more accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
-- Run time: 33 minutes
INFORMATION:
[ 🖥️ ]
Guitar Guitar - https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/guitar-guitar-limited/
[ 👨👧 ]
Mark McKenzie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mckenzie-uk/
Georgia Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiajones1/
Ian Jindal: www.linkedin.com/in/ianjindal/ and www.twitter.com/ianjindal
[ 📷 ] (c) Ian Jindal / www.instagram.com/ianjindal
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Mark is the most tolerant, helpful, flexible person when it comes to planning.
Is what you're really saying here that you've messed Mark around a lot?
That's exactly what I'm saying.
I've messed Mark around and he's still here. And he's still here. I have no comment.
That's a yes, he has messed me around. I'll make it for you.
(00:22):
Thank you very much. You're welcome.
Hello, welcome back to the studio. I'm here, Ian Jindal, Editor-in-Chief of
Internet Retailing with Georgia.
Hi, I'm Georgia and I head up marketing at Adobe.
But mostly importantly, joining us over the internet wires is Mark from Guitar Guitar.
So Mark, I've said half the intro there, so tell us about you,
(00:45):
tell us about Guitar Guitar and welcome to the studio.
You firstly thank you for for having us yeah it's
a big year for guitar guitar this year that's our 20th anniversary
so we get an opportunity to look
back at the last 20 years and celebrate making music better for everybody involved
and with the business but also get to look forward a little bit as as well so
(01:07):
i joined as you said earlier before we started this 17 years ago to build our
online business before i joined we didn't sell online and the company's original
vision back then where i mean music retailing was
really dark and dingy had a really poor experience
you had a really poor selection and two founders decided hey we can do this
(01:29):
better let's let's just put a thousand guitars on the wall have a little bit
of fun and see how we get on with that so that was that was the seed of the
idea i guess yeah so 20 years and you've been there There are 17 of them. Yeah.
How did they cope with the first three? I know. Well, they didn't,
which is why they had to bring them in.
But also, you know, if we think about music, the early internet selling was
(01:54):
dominated by easy products, books, you know, publicly available catalog.
Small, handleable, stackable, postable, easy.
Online grocery, very difficult, arguably not, well, lost making for a long time.
And apparel with varying levels of success.
(02:15):
So along you come and think, oh, we are going to send through His Majesty's
Postal Service a delicate guitar.
Someone hasn't picked that has to be insured plus
a plectrum and some strings this sounds to
me like one of those problems that if someone offers it to
you over dinner you just politely leave and
(02:37):
delete their phone number so what made you say
yes to this difficult task
well there's a few jokey conversations before it
all came came to pass but um
i had a history i grew up in the music and television industry had
no musical talent no no acting talent
i may add as well i was always into how things things worked
(02:58):
and a few jokey conversations turned into some serious ones in you laugh and
you talk about the smaller goods the first product we sold online a long time
ago was a 699 pound taylor acoustic guitar which would be the hardest thing
you would think to ship yes Yes.
But what we did at the very early days and still kind of emanates through what
(03:21):
we believe in today and about kind of engaging with the customer is we did things
like picking up the phone.
We phoned the customer and thanked them for their order.
Back then you had Amazon and other things going on that didn't do that. It was very faceless.
We had to try very hard to make it less faceless and actually connect with that.
But sorry, you've skipped the bit between the ring, the customer,
(03:43):
and actually get 700 quid's worth of guitar to them without it being matchsticks.
Do you remember carbon copy?
Yeah, I am old enough, George is. No, I have no recollection whatsoever.
So you would go as far as writing the actual delivery note in the parcel number.
(04:05):
Now it's all scanned to dispatch and all the rest of it. Yeah,
very early days you were.
You were essentially with the neatest handwriting guys were
actually writing the delivery address to the customer and making
sure it was right as well because tracking wasn't the
same it was pre sms text messages i am i am actually joking because i i actually
(04:25):
started in in fashion pr where i was shipping products and outfits across the
globe with just the levels of anxiety that i I think only maybe Mark can understand
on, I don't know where this thing is.
We had these amazing, over the years, I mean, we've gone, like Think Above and
Beyond to look after the customers, but we've got great stories of phoning up
(04:48):
depots when there's been snow, asking them to go in the back of trailers.
Can you find this 7,000 pound guitar, please? The customer's going away on holiday the next day.
It's going to be out in the cold for five days. Can you help us out?
He's called Sting and he lives up the corner.
Yeah so we've dived in some detail there
(05:10):
but can we just zoom out a bit or pan out
if we're being a media and talk about
the business overall because there was a time
last century where most major towns would
have a guitar shop and there
was a time last century when there were music lessons
in schools so you know there was a
(05:32):
sort of an old-fashioned analog music experience if
we track forward now then you know the music industry has exploded especially
with lockdown with people becoming djs doing digital production multi-instrument
etc so just help us understand how guitar guitar fits into the world as a retailer
(05:53):
what is your offer where are you positioned shouldn't.
It kind of stems back to the original premise of what we did online.
We did try, and still to this day, try to differentiate ourselves.
It's not about being a faceless box-shifting company.
All of our staff are musicians to some degree or another as well,
so we won't sell something that we wouldn't buy ourselves.
(06:15):
And within that, you get this trust with the customer, and it's about experience,
and we sell a product that people want to touch.
Research we come back to the very seeds of
it these stores you talked about would maybe only have eight
guitars on the wall would maybe only have 100 or 200 they
were trying to serve the whole music industry whereas what guitar guitar started
(06:37):
life out as is actually just about the musician the guitarist itself and then
we diversified over the years but it was really about okay what does that experience
look like on on steroids what does that look like because
the range that you can actually get into it is vast.
I mean, we've got over 3,000 electric guitars in stock, thousands of acoustic
(06:58):
guitars, and that's what we've always believed in, and that's how we've differentiated
ourselves, but also through multiple stores as well.
That's a big bit. And is it six you've got now?
Six at the moment. We have had a venture in other parts.
We had a pre-Brexit venture in Belgium, which washed its face and did reasonably
(07:19):
well, but unfortunately the powers that be.
Set that on a different on a different yes well you get
a prize for mentioning brexit first which is which
is good so a question though i get wanting a
bigger bigger range especially if from the
digital side you know you happen to want
a gibson 307 dash a antique with whatever
(07:40):
so that whole mega catalog but until
you play the guitar you can't really appreciate the
feel the sound the why i should
pay 7 000 rather than 700 rather
than 70 so the physical store and
the physical experience still has a real part in
(08:00):
if you like education and experience so just tell me how the stores work and
then how you balance the store and online from a customer perspective it's a
great question and i was doing a talk two years ago now and i remember and i
mean There was a lot of people there from other, other retailers at the time.
(08:21):
And everyone kept on talking about pure play, competing with the pure play competing
with on online, if you actually zoom out a little bit, a lot,
especially in the UK, a lot of the very successful internet retailer all have stores.
Stores is a, is a key part. It's about being local, having that support.
So yes, we want customers to come in store and many still do.
(08:44):
Do most still do that in fact but also the convenience
of on online you can have it next day you can
reserve the last one of a product to collect tomorrow
or have delivered to your work knowing that you've got
the local support and backup you can speak to us on the phone live chat all
of these essentially modern technologies that people have really got accustomed
to over the pandemic makes it a lot easier to actually engage with with the
(09:08):
customer so you're speaking with With musicians and advisors online,
you're doing the same in-store.
And really, the advice you should get online and in-store is very similar.
Yes, you don't get to feel it, but you can when you're at home.
And you know what? If it's not right, we'll exchange it or look after you.
And it's not about sending it out and getting it wrong. We actually don't want
(09:33):
any customer having a product.
They don't like right exactly yeah because then they
won't come back and you it's this longer term relationship because music's supposed
to bring joy and especially in the early years a lot of musicians don't stick
at it it's not instant gratification the djing other other kind of areas are
(09:53):
very kind of instantaneous you can have a result by pressing a few buttons.
Can i just say for the avoidance of doubt i have
not had any results at all for pressing any buttons
i'm at that age where
all of my male friends grow beards and
they don't already have them and then start offering to
dj at every party and so you're always bouncing off saying look i love you as
(10:18):
a friend but please you're looking anywhere near anything yeah in a party they
hurt so i just want to say that talent isn't as equally spread as is internet
access i mean i think we're We're all in agreement of that.
And equally, no shade thrown on budding DJs. None at all. Especially those who sing.
(10:39):
Speaking of which, sorry, Georgia, I was going to ask about this,
because the whole music production side has grown enormously.
And I say this sitting in our wonderful studio, surrounded by tech that somebody
else has put together and made it work.
We're talking over the airwaves on a sort of digital studio.
So there's been an explosion in that. So from the guitar-guitar beginning,
(11:02):
how has the music, sound, production-making scene expanded for you,
or are you still mainly four- and six-strings-based?
So as you grow as you as you run a
business you you do have to diversify and that
forces you to look at other opportunities a
(11:23):
big part of what we sell is replicating music from the 60s and onwards but sadly
when you get maybe the festivals you'll see it yourself on television you don't
get those many there's not as many artists these days fronting with a whole
band set up access to The music is different,
what people are into it is different, and there's trends, but a lot of it's
(11:47):
reliving the 90s, the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc., and different genres as well.
And people want to escape to those genres, so to speak, as well.
They want to get away from the now, and that's what music delivers,
I suppose. Away from the now.
That's nice. on your website there are two things i wanted to ask you about
(12:09):
one was the school's education.
Which strikes me slightly wholesaly b2b so
interesting market and you also have this
trade in second hand thing going on so let's start with schools first talk to
us about the school's market is it a teacher rings up and says can i have you
(12:30):
know a brass band 40 guitars you know we're doing a play about the Beatles and
I need 37 left-handed bass guitars.
How does the school market work from your perspective? It'd be wonderful if
that was the phone calls you would get.
I really feel for the education, the whole sector.
(12:52):
With everything, I think it's fair to say across all sectors,
there's cuts and everyone has their cost pressures, so to speak.
So we'll tend to sell products that we, again, going back to we buy ourselves,
but they're against these challenges of price points led by policies,
whether it's local council.
So trying to serve that market well and look after the education institutes
(13:16):
is a real challenge. It's a challenge I don't think any retailer has been able
to really crack and help.
There's obviously help to buy and schemes that you can help pupils with,
but they are overly complicated and very costly to administrate.
Teachers, school systems are probably enough pressure as it is to then try and
(13:42):
navigate helping students find affordable.
They've got the best of intentions but the support is
very it's a very difficult and challenging marketplace even
more so over the recent years the first sadly
one of the first areas that always gets cut is music education
it's the it's sadly the easy target because it's
(14:03):
it doesn't necessarily get the recognition that it
deserves and so what do you offer to them so
i came to your site as a a harried but
passionate teacher and i log onto the site is
there a special or different service for education whether
parents or teachers how does that work there's we
don't change we don't have any um hidden sections so
(14:24):
to speak or these used to maybe exist about a
decade ago a little bit more but what we
give is it's more about kitting out
a classroom or more bespoke offering or
recommendations yeah but a lot of it is maybe
in the future as well and there's obviously students looking to
buy products and we can always help with that they can
(14:46):
buy through the school and there's that incentives to
save the vat on certain goods some manufacturers
we deal with will give additional discounts to look after
the educational side because if you start.
On a particular brand or or on a particular instrument
you're very likely to continue isn't correct
exactly so yeah there's a lot of investment in
(15:07):
that space and some of it is served very very well but it's a very difficult
market and the funding for that's always changing and what it can end up coming
like the real you get people phoning up asking for one string not a set of six
strings but actually a string,
and having in your like look just send them out and yeah after them um that's
(15:31):
the type of level some schools are dealing with.
And do you feel, because I mean, just hearing you talk about it, it sounds like this is.
From where you are with your values as a business this
is all part of kind of how you can stay connected
to the communities to the people in
the the towns that you're based and and do the best that you can to kind of
(15:52):
stay connected to to music and i guess the people that are hopefully the future
of it yeah and we do a lot of musical therapy as well and charity yeah but but
it's It's a very challenging space to operate in, full stop.
So thinking about difficulties, then, let's talk secondhand,
(16:13):
because I saw a secondhand trade-in tab as well.
Is that mainly for people wanting to upgrade, so an upgrade path,
or how does that work, and how do you manage to assess the product.
Both for trade-in value, and then, of course, the challenges
of selling a slightly used but
(16:33):
loved product trading it's
probably been part of them whether you see it online or not but it's a big part
of of music retailing generally and it has been for for a while so it is people
do have aspirations they want to upgrade and they want to to progress so it
gives you that vehicle to to do that trade we do a lot of trade-ins
(16:55):
online we do that in store it's a bit of bread
and butter of of what most musical and is
that manually done so i emailed you a picture and you
look at it and think and mail me back or is there some
clever systemization because we see a lot for example
in fashion with re-commerce we see
a lot of validation it really is you know
(17:17):
this guitar rather than a cheap guitar with
a label stuck on it so just talk to me about the
processes behind that is it human and expert
or is it cunning and tech or somewhere in between it's a bit of both we've we
have a lot of data on on a lot of things over the years but you've got people
trading things in that we've never sold maybe before we even existed as well
(17:42):
as some stuff that people bought two years ago so we do we do have.
Systems in place to accommodate that and we do have
a team of people that look after that as well but it comes
back to this we want people to come into the store we want
you're trading something in well what are you really looking
for is what you're looking for the right fit for
you is it going to give you the expectations that you
(18:04):
want because the last thing you want anybody to do is trade in
a product and then they get the
new product and it's not better than what they've just let go of as
well so there's it's not fashion it's not an iphone
it's not a serial number on a website and then
you've it's really it's not really transactional in nature somebody's trying
to progress to to the next part of their musical journey that's twice now that
(18:27):
you've said we want you in store so i'm kind of take it back interested obviously
you kind of got bought in a few years in to really look at the digital presence
and and the kind of multi-channel journey but.
We keep harking back to the store. So I'm interested in kind of,
what is your strategy around this kind of multi-channel approach?
Like, do you, have you mapped out what these kind of customer journeys are?
(18:49):
Do they tend to start online, then in store, then back online?
And how are you connecting the pieces? Because you don't have stores everywhere.
You know, so are they sometimes finding guitars in other places,
but you want them to buy them with you?
Like how, how are you kind of really balancing your offline
and your online in that that way well do you remember back
in the day when you used to have other retailers have dual
(19:12):
pricing yes yes so we didn't
partake in any of of that and that
kind of ethos at the very beginning kind of set the stall
up right for what we do as a business today the buzzwords
have been out through the year multi-channel on the channel but we've
always just been about come to guitar guitar are
they'll look after you wherever you want to connect with us
(19:34):
and having the stores and online gives us that flex
the stores and our online presence helped because we could
do distributed dispatching and actually look after all all the staff we might
touch on that that later but going back to to the stores we've always had real-time
stock we were the first in our industry to to do that so everything you're looking
at and interacting with is one ecosystem yeah so So customers coming into the store,
(19:59):
their profiles and everything are available online and vice versa.
We've kind of holistically connected that.
And that makes servicing those customers a lot, lot easier.
If we receive an email from a customer automatically, we can look up their history,
whether they've been in store, whether they're online, what were they interested
in in store? Who did they speak to in store?
(20:20):
And connect the dots from the very get-go.
Yeah maybe been easier for us to to do
that because we've been smaller in size but that's always
been what what we've been about and we've always
used technology to drive that yeah so to speak yes that's interesting so you're
usually sometimes people talk a lot about you know how they work in harmony
(20:40):
but you are very much talking about it is coming in store and the the online
presence is in support of that and allows you to flex and maybe have greater
reach well you give I'll give the great example,
so we run hundreds of initiatives a year across all the different business units
and during the pandemic obviously everybody stores shut and I know peers of
(21:04):
mine had real challenges, what's the priority?
All we did, and it sounds quite simplistic in nature, is everything that was
store related that was already.
Tagged as such we just dropped out of our our focus and
we reassessed one or two things and then we just got on
with it pretty much the next day because we were operating in that fashion thinking
(21:25):
about what we're doing in store thinking about what we need to do online where
we want to get to but also then what we're doing for every other business area
and technologies in this wonderful place that gets to push the business areas
but also support what they need as well
yeah so you've mentioned you know the commitment to
the customer and you've also mentioned staff a
(21:45):
couple of times which is great because you know we love seeing the recognition
especially for frontline staff but i was reading that you are an employee owned
business so that's you and john lewis great company to be in of course so tell
us a bit about the employee ownership
and why and then i'm just
(22:06):
going to invite you to reflect on whether you think that helps you
with this customer focus and service rather than maybe another structure so
employee ownership just describe that for us a good target so we're in our second
year of employee ownership we're still very much finding our feet but the key
to it is about sustainability of the business
(22:28):
and and what we do in in the market if you'd gone down a route as various routes
you can go down whether it's merger acquisition listing and all the rest of
it would really probably.
Dissected and cut up what the business was about and two
years ago when we were going through that journey one of our
suppliers who probably was the seed of the idea for
(22:51):
us a company called taylor guitars in the states did a similar thing it's not
quite the same in america compared to the UK but they used a phrase that has
resonated with me ever since was you already were operating like an employee
owned company or employee kind of slash family to be able to do that transition,
(23:11):
to actually become that it wasn't that it was you were suddenly anointed employee
owned and then next year it all changed.
We were already probably operating. So that's interesting because some people
set up employee-owned businesses from political or moral conviction.
Others would go to it maybe for longevity or because they're doing B Corp and so on.
(23:33):
But it's not usual that something's been set up in a capitalist share-owning
structure then moves towards that.
So what was the conversation, the dear old memo?
Demo it sounds like it's a lovely collegiate place
to work so people come into the office one day and they
open their they open their inbox and it says dear all from
(23:54):
the management team we are going to be an employee of business how do you break
that news and what was the response i would like to think through that our short
conversations you'd realize it probably wasn't the way we did also because i'm
just making a really embarrassing concession which is when When Ian sent me the notes,
and he's like, well, we'll talk about, you know, because we do actually prepare.
(24:17):
We've just started preparing for
these offers. And it said, employee-owned business, you and John Lewis.
I thought you meant that it was owned by two employees, you and a guy called John Lewis.
And as you were talking, I went, oh, that makes so much more sense.
(24:39):
This just proves a preparation is not a good thing oh it's very funny anyway
so you and the company just not yeah i'm going to repeat that when i'm on the way home and the car,
it's like that's great one of my blonder moments thank you yeah we're at the
dear all moment so it's hard to like go down with staff and you're making that transition,
(25:03):
It was great. So there was a lot of preparations. As you'd imagine,
as a board, you're brought into the loop pretty early on.
And some of us were brought in probably a year before the event,
because you've got to put the feelers out there. Is this the right direction? How would it be taken?
But once that kind of pathway was set, we spent a lot of time and effort getting
(25:24):
that communication right, more
than we've ever done on anything else beforehand, because it's a big deal.
A lot of staff will have questions a
lot of staff and some some of us don't understand
or didn't understand some of the nuances with
regards to that are is it costing them in it like really.
Really yeah the basic bread and butter stuff
(25:46):
correct so so we spent a lot of time prepping
that we delivered screens to all
of the stores we had a big presence here in
hq and in the warehouse house we put on
a big stage we broadcasted it to all the
stores simultaneously so everybody as many people
in the company found out about it at the same time
(26:07):
it wasn't a tour it wasn't somebody found out
late we did it all all in one in one go
and we also invited
questions and three of us stood on stage and gave
the news and it was it was wonderful
to be able to do and it's very privileged to be able to do that
and we thought there was going to be five minutes of questions we
(26:28):
thought people have just asked five we could have been there all night
and you understand why but and we did about an hour
of questions and and there were great questions and everything everything from
our and there's this fine line between we're still operating as a business and
and it's sustainable that way but we're now doing it for the benefit of all
the employees which is totally it's not run by the employees albeit the employees
(26:50):
have a big say it's for the the benefit of all the employees.
So it's not every decision is not suddenly made by a committee and all the rest of it.
We're doing it with the best of intentions for people.
People that benefit from it and what that did though was we've already you're already making,
whether it's tactical decisions or
(27:10):
something a bit more more strategic or a large expenditure
you're already making those decisions with
some scrutiny but when you start to think
about it well we're making these decisions this is this
is the whole board and it's going to affect 165 employees
we better just make sure that it's right we better
make sure we're going in the in the right direction which is
(27:32):
still the same questions you would ask but there's
a but the appetite for risk is slightly different when it's privately owned
because you know what we'll go for that we'll have a punt on that
versus well let's just make sure
we're okay and then that's kind of followed us through and i always remember
one of the girls asking us afterwards because we did beers um wine pizzas and
(27:54):
everything afterwards just as a bit of a celebration and they went so are we
paying for this kind of but don't don't don't overthink.
So the ownership model kicks in pretty quickly
that was quite one that was that was
wonderful and um and that's and that's
how we how we run it and so if you had to just you
(28:17):
know someone asks you in passing what one difference do you as a director see
now that you've made this change is there anything that happens now that didn't
happen before I've thought about this a lot and I've.
It is about empowerment. In some way, we've always had that in different business areas.
(28:41):
But really, whether it's stepping up or wanting to be accountable to their peers,
but it is about empowerment.
And people are thinking about their suggestions a little bit differently or
how the customers interact in slightly different ways in some places, other places not.
But customers do resonate with that.
(29:04):
That we are all here helping them on their journey but
that's connected with with helping what we do as
well it's not it's not a faceless corporate it's a
company that that's kind of ran
by musicians for musicians or however you want to just like that that's the
kind of the optic that goes out from the customer we're on this positive moment
(29:26):
the wind of progress is under our wings so So let's use this moment to look ahead 20 years.
How are you celebrating it? Just to round off our time today.
And are Ian and I invited? Of course you're invited.
He said pizza. We have more than pizza, but we have celebrations throughout the year.
(29:49):
It's not just a birthday. It's the whole year we're celebrating 20 years.
I did a joke with one of my other colleagues. Hey, we should put a time capsule
in the ground and pick it up in 20 years' time.
Just to see what it looks like see what our predictions were
back then we i think
you'll you'll look ahead we've got a whole year of
(30:09):
celebrations planned out with people that suppliers customers
staff that have been with us that that whole time so
that that's what we're looking forward to this year
we do have some other things up our sleeve that i would love to share with you
guys but i can't oh he's teasing us so maybe we should catch up in another one
well i think mark what's happened is you're so excited about having featured
(30:33):
in the 2023 european top 1000 ranking.
But he's trying now to make sure he gets a space in 24 and 25.
I spat my coffee out when I read it last year. It was a lovely thing. That's so good.
I mean, most importantly, I've now realised that I should also celebrate my
birthday for the whole year.
(30:54):
I'm just celebrating, you know, the year of turning 22.
This is all part of ownership and empowerment. I'm turning 22 as well this year.
Ownership and empowerment. Yeah. Well, Mark, on that lovely note,
we will wish you a happy year-long birthday. That goes without saying.
And a massive thank you for joining us in the studio.
It's lovely to hear about the growth of a specialist retailer.
(31:17):
But with all this connection to the consume, the support for people's musical
journeys, and of course the staff engagement, it's just a very lovely story.
So from our side of the studio, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. Absolute pleasure speaking to you both as well. And thank you for
having us. And yeah, we could have talked all day, I think.
We'll do part two when you can tell us what the sequence is.
(31:39):
They better be good. But you've got to spoil those secrets. No pressure.
Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Mo. Lovely to see you. Thank you very much.
Do you play guitar? Good God, no. I play piano.
I own several guitars, none of which I can play. I would love to be able to
play because I sing, but I only tend to sing jazzy songs, which all seem to use bar chords.
(31:59):
And it turns out I just physically can't. I can't do it. I can't get that finger
to just stay in one place while the other. It's just not possible.
This is what he means by instant gratification. Maybe if I continued forever, I'd get it.
Well, I play the piano because there's instant gratification. Yes, exactly.
Yes, the piano I can do. The guitar is a whole other optic.
Mark is the most tolerant, helpful, flexible person when it comes to planning.
Is what you're really saying here that you've messed Mark around a lot?
That's exactly what I'm saying.
I've messed Mark around and he's still here. And he's still here. I have no comment.
That's a yes, he has messed me around. I'll make it for you.
(00:22):
Thank you very much. You're welcome.
Hello, welcome back to the studio. I'm here, Ian Jindal, Editor-in-Chief of
Internet Retailing with Georgia.
Hi, I'm Georgia and I head up marketing at Adobe.
But mostly importantly, joining us over the internet wires is Mark from Guitar Guitar.
So Mark, I've said half the intro there, so tell us about you,
(00:45):
tell us about Guitar Guitar and welcome to the studio.
You firstly thank you for for having us yeah it's
a big year for guitar guitar this year that's our 20th anniversary
so we get an opportunity to look
back at the last 20 years and celebrate making music better for everybody involved
and with the business but also get to look forward a little bit as as well so
(01:07):
i joined as you said earlier before we started this 17 years ago to build our
online business before i joined we didn't sell online and the company's original
vision back then where i mean music retailing was
really dark and dingy had a really poor experience
you had a really poor selection and two founders decided hey we can do this
(01:29):
better let's let's just put a thousand guitars on the wall have a little bit
of fun and see how we get on with that so that was that was the seed of the
idea i guess yeah so 20 years and you've been there There are 17 of them. Yeah.
How did they cope with the first three? I know. Well, they didn't,
which is why they had to bring them in.
But also, you know, if we think about music, the early internet selling was
(01:54):
dominated by easy products, books, you know, publicly available catalog.
Small, handleable, stackable, postable, easy.
Online grocery, very difficult, arguably not, well, lost making for a long time.
And apparel with varying levels of success.
(02:15):
So along you come and think, oh, we are going to send through His Majesty's
Postal Service a delicate guitar.
Someone hasn't picked that has to be insured plus
a plectrum and some strings this sounds to
me like one of those problems that if someone offers it to
you over dinner you just politely leave and
(02:37):
delete their phone number so what made you say
yes to this difficult task
well there's a few jokey conversations before it
all came came to pass but um
i had a history i grew up in the music and television industry had
no musical talent no no acting talent
i may add as well i was always into how things things worked
(02:58):
and a few jokey conversations turned into some serious ones in you laugh and
you talk about the smaller goods the first product we sold online a long time
ago was a 699 pound taylor acoustic guitar which would be the hardest thing
you would think to ship yes Yes.
But what we did at the very early days and still kind of emanates through what
(03:21):
we believe in today and about kind of engaging with the customer is we did things
like picking up the phone.
We phoned the customer and thanked them for their order.
Back then you had Amazon and other things going on that didn't do that. It was very faceless.
We had to try very hard to make it less faceless and actually connect with that.
But sorry, you've skipped the bit between the ring, the customer,
(03:43):
and actually get 700 quid's worth of guitar to them without it being matchsticks.
Do you remember carbon copy?
Yeah, I am old enough, George is. No, I have no recollection whatsoever.
So you would go as far as writing the actual delivery note in the parcel number.
(04:05):
Now it's all scanned to dispatch and all the rest of it. Yeah,
very early days you were.
You were essentially with the neatest handwriting guys were
actually writing the delivery address to the customer and making
sure it was right as well because tracking wasn't the
same it was pre sms text messages i am i am actually joking because i i actually
(04:25):
started in in fashion pr where i was shipping products and outfits across the
globe with just the levels of anxiety that i I think only maybe Mark can understand
on, I don't know where this thing is.
We had these amazing, over the years, I mean, we've gone, like Think Above and
Beyond to look after the customers, but we've got great stories of phoning up
(04:48):
depots when there's been snow, asking them to go in the back of trailers.
Can you find this 7,000 pound guitar, please? The customer's going away on holiday the next day.
It's going to be out in the cold for five days. Can you help us out?
He's called Sting and he lives up the corner.
Yeah so we've dived in some detail there
(05:10):
but can we just zoom out a bit or pan out
if we're being a media and talk about
the business overall because there was a time
last century where most major towns would
have a guitar shop and there
was a time last century when there were music lessons
in schools so you know there was a
(05:32):
sort of an old-fashioned analog music experience if
we track forward now then you know the music industry has exploded especially
with lockdown with people becoming djs doing digital production multi-instrument
etc so just help us understand how guitar guitar fits into the world as a retailer
(05:53):
what is your offer where are you positioned shouldn't.
It kind of stems back to the original premise of what we did online.
We did try, and still to this day, try to differentiate ourselves.
It's not about being a faceless box-shifting company.
All of our staff are musicians to some degree or another as well,
so we won't sell something that we wouldn't buy ourselves.
(06:15):
And within that, you get this trust with the customer, and it's about experience,
and we sell a product that people want to touch.
Research we come back to the very seeds of
it these stores you talked about would maybe only have eight
guitars on the wall would maybe only have 100 or 200 they
were trying to serve the whole music industry whereas what guitar guitar started
(06:37):
life out as is actually just about the musician the guitarist itself and then
we diversified over the years but it was really about okay what does that experience
look like on on steroids what does that look like because
the range that you can actually get into it is vast.
I mean, we've got over 3,000 electric guitars in stock, thousands of acoustic
(06:58):
guitars, and that's what we've always believed in, and that's how we've differentiated
ourselves, but also through multiple stores as well.
That's a big bit. And is it six you've got now?
Six at the moment. We have had a venture in other parts.
We had a pre-Brexit venture in Belgium, which washed its face and did reasonably
(07:19):
well, but unfortunately the powers that be.
Set that on a different on a different yes well you get
a prize for mentioning brexit first which is which
is good so a question though i get wanting a
bigger bigger range especially if from the
digital side you know you happen to want
a gibson 307 dash a antique with whatever
(07:40):
so that whole mega catalog but until
you play the guitar you can't really appreciate the
feel the sound the why i should
pay 7 000 rather than 700 rather
than 70 so the physical store and
the physical experience still has a real part in
(08:00):
if you like education and experience so just tell me how the stores work and
then how you balance the store and online from a customer perspective it's a
great question and i was doing a talk two years ago now and i remember and i
mean There was a lot of people there from other, other retailers at the time.
(08:21):
And everyone kept on talking about pure play, competing with the pure play competing
with on online, if you actually zoom out a little bit, a lot,
especially in the UK, a lot of the very successful internet retailer all have stores.
Stores is a, is a key part. It's about being local, having that support.
So yes, we want customers to come in store and many still do.
(08:44):
Do most still do that in fact but also the convenience
of on online you can have it next day you can
reserve the last one of a product to collect tomorrow
or have delivered to your work knowing that you've got
the local support and backup you can speak to us on the phone live chat all
of these essentially modern technologies that people have really got accustomed
to over the pandemic makes it a lot easier to actually engage with with the
(09:08):
customer so you're speaking with With musicians and advisors online,
you're doing the same in-store.
And really, the advice you should get online and in-store is very similar.
Yes, you don't get to feel it, but you can when you're at home.
And you know what? If it's not right, we'll exchange it or look after you.
And it's not about sending it out and getting it wrong. We actually don't want
(09:33):
any customer having a product.
They don't like right exactly yeah because then they
won't come back and you it's this longer term relationship because music's supposed
to bring joy and especially in the early years a lot of musicians don't stick
at it it's not instant gratification the djing other other kind of areas are
(09:53):
very kind of instantaneous you can have a result by pressing a few buttons.
Can i just say for the avoidance of doubt i have
not had any results at all for pressing any buttons
i'm at that age where
all of my male friends grow beards and
they don't already have them and then start offering to
dj at every party and so you're always bouncing off saying look i love you as
(10:18):
a friend but please you're looking anywhere near anything yeah in a party they
hurt so i just want to say that talent isn't as equally spread as is internet
access i mean i think we're We're all in agreement of that.
And equally, no shade thrown on budding DJs. None at all. Especially those who sing.
(10:39):
Speaking of which, sorry, Georgia, I was going to ask about this,
because the whole music production side has grown enormously.
And I say this sitting in our wonderful studio, surrounded by tech that somebody
else has put together and made it work.
We're talking over the airwaves on a sort of digital studio.
So there's been an explosion in that. So from the guitar-guitar beginning,
(11:02):
how has the music, sound, production-making scene expanded for you,
or are you still mainly four- and six-strings-based?
So as you grow as you as you run a
business you you do have to diversify and that
forces you to look at other opportunities a
(11:23):
big part of what we sell is replicating music from the 60s and onwards but sadly
when you get maybe the festivals you'll see it yourself on television you don't
get those many there's not as many artists these days fronting with a whole
band set up access to The music is different,
what people are into it is different, and there's trends, but a lot of it's
(11:47):
reliving the 90s, the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc., and different genres as well.
And people want to escape to those genres, so to speak, as well.
They want to get away from the now, and that's what music delivers,
I suppose. Away from the now.
That's nice. on your website there are two things i wanted to ask you about
(12:09):
one was the school's education.
Which strikes me slightly wholesaly b2b so
interesting market and you also have this
trade in second hand thing going on so let's start with schools first talk to
us about the school's market is it a teacher rings up and says can i have you
(12:30):
know a brass band 40 guitars you know we're doing a play about the Beatles and
I need 37 left-handed bass guitars.
How does the school market work from your perspective? It'd be wonderful if
that was the phone calls you would get.
I really feel for the education, the whole sector.
(12:52):
With everything, I think it's fair to say across all sectors,
there's cuts and everyone has their cost pressures, so to speak.
So we'll tend to sell products that we, again, going back to we buy ourselves,
but they're against these challenges of price points led by policies,
whether it's local council.
So trying to serve that market well and look after the education institutes
(13:16):
is a real challenge. It's a challenge I don't think any retailer has been able
to really crack and help.
There's obviously help to buy and schemes that you can help pupils with,
but they are overly complicated and very costly to administrate.
Teachers, school systems are probably enough pressure as it is to then try and
(13:42):
navigate helping students find affordable.
They've got the best of intentions but the support is
very it's a very difficult and challenging marketplace even
more so over the recent years the first sadly
one of the first areas that always gets cut is music education
it's the it's sadly the easy target because it's
(14:03):
it doesn't necessarily get the recognition that it
deserves and so what do you offer to them so
i came to your site as a a harried but
passionate teacher and i log onto the site is
there a special or different service for education whether
parents or teachers how does that work there's we
don't change we don't have any um hidden sections so
(14:24):
to speak or these used to maybe exist about a
decade ago a little bit more but what we
give is it's more about kitting out
a classroom or more bespoke offering or
recommendations yeah but a lot of it is maybe
in the future as well and there's obviously students looking to
buy products and we can always help with that they can
(14:46):
buy through the school and there's that incentives to
save the vat on certain goods some manufacturers
we deal with will give additional discounts to look after
the educational side because if you start.
On a particular brand or or on a particular instrument
you're very likely to continue isn't correct
exactly so yeah there's a lot of investment in
(15:07):
that space and some of it is served very very well but it's a very difficult
market and the funding for that's always changing and what it can end up coming
like the real you get people phoning up asking for one string not a set of six
strings but actually a string,
and having in your like look just send them out and yeah after them um that's
(15:31):
the type of level some schools are dealing with.
And do you feel, because I mean, just hearing you talk about it, it sounds like this is.
From where you are with your values as a business this
is all part of kind of how you can stay connected
to the communities to the people in
the the towns that you're based and and do the best that you can to kind of
(15:52):
stay connected to to music and i guess the people that are hopefully the future
of it yeah and we do a lot of musical therapy as well and charity yeah but but
it's It's a very challenging space to operate in, full stop.
So thinking about difficulties, then, let's talk secondhand,
(16:13):
because I saw a secondhand trade-in tab as well.
Is that mainly for people wanting to upgrade, so an upgrade path,
or how does that work, and how do you manage to assess the product.
Both for trade-in value, and then, of course, the challenges
of selling a slightly used but
(16:33):
loved product trading it's
probably been part of them whether you see it online or not but it's a big part
of of music retailing generally and it has been for for a while so it is people
do have aspirations they want to upgrade and they want to to progress so it
gives you that vehicle to to do that trade we do a lot of trade-ins
(16:55):
online we do that in store it's a bit of bread
and butter of of what most musical and is
that manually done so i emailed you a picture and you
look at it and think and mail me back or is there some
clever systemization because we see a lot for example
in fashion with re-commerce we see
a lot of validation it really is you know
(17:17):
this guitar rather than a cheap guitar with
a label stuck on it so just talk to me about the
processes behind that is it human and expert
or is it cunning and tech or somewhere in between it's a bit of both we've we
have a lot of data on on a lot of things over the years but you've got people
trading things in that we've never sold maybe before we even existed as well
(17:42):
as some stuff that people bought two years ago so we do we do have.
Systems in place to accommodate that and we do have
a team of people that look after that as well but it comes
back to this we want people to come into the store we want
you're trading something in well what are you really looking
for is what you're looking for the right fit for
you is it going to give you the expectations that you
(18:04):
want because the last thing you want anybody to do is trade in
a product and then they get the
new product and it's not better than what they've just let go of as
well so there's it's not fashion it's not an iphone
it's not a serial number on a website and then
you've it's really it's not really transactional in nature somebody's trying
to progress to to the next part of their musical journey that's twice now that
(18:27):
you've said we want you in store so i'm kind of take it back interested obviously
you kind of got bought in a few years in to really look at the digital presence
and and the kind of multi-channel journey but.
We keep harking back to the store. So I'm interested in kind of,
what is your strategy around this kind of multi-channel approach?
Like, do you, have you mapped out what these kind of customer journeys are?
(18:49):
Do they tend to start online, then in store, then back online?
And how are you connecting the pieces? Because you don't have stores everywhere.
You know, so are they sometimes finding guitars in other places,
but you want them to buy them with you?
Like how, how are you kind of really balancing your offline
and your online in that that way well do you remember back
in the day when you used to have other retailers have dual
(19:12):
pricing yes yes so we didn't
partake in any of of that and that
kind of ethos at the very beginning kind of set the stall
up right for what we do as a business today the buzzwords
have been out through the year multi-channel on the channel but we've
always just been about come to guitar guitar are
they'll look after you wherever you want to connect with us
(19:34):
and having the stores and online gives us that flex
the stores and our online presence helped because we could
do distributed dispatching and actually look after all all the staff we might
touch on that that later but going back to to the stores we've always had real-time
stock we were the first in our industry to to do that so everything you're looking
at and interacting with is one ecosystem yeah so So customers coming into the store,
(19:59):
their profiles and everything are available online and vice versa.
We've kind of holistically connected that.
And that makes servicing those customers a lot, lot easier.
If we receive an email from a customer automatically, we can look up their history,
whether they've been in store, whether they're online, what were they interested
in in store? Who did they speak to in store?
(20:20):
And connect the dots from the very get-go.
Yeah maybe been easier for us to to do
that because we've been smaller in size but that's always
been what what we've been about and we've always
used technology to drive that yeah so to speak yes that's interesting so you're
usually sometimes people talk a lot about you know how they work in harmony
(20:40):
but you are very much talking about it is coming in store and the the online
presence is in support of that and allows you to flex and maybe have greater
reach well you give I'll give the great example,
so we run hundreds of initiatives a year across all the different business units
and during the pandemic obviously everybody stores shut and I know peers of
(21:04):
mine had real challenges, what's the priority?
All we did, and it sounds quite simplistic in nature, is everything that was
store related that was already.
Tagged as such we just dropped out of our our focus and
we reassessed one or two things and then we just got on
with it pretty much the next day because we were operating in that fashion thinking
(21:25):
about what we're doing in store thinking about what we need to do online where
we want to get to but also then what we're doing for every other business area
and technologies in this wonderful place that gets to push the business areas
but also support what they need as well
yeah so you've mentioned you know the commitment to
the customer and you've also mentioned staff a
(21:45):
couple of times which is great because you know we love seeing the recognition
especially for frontline staff but i was reading that you are an employee owned
business so that's you and john lewis great company to be in of course so tell
us a bit about the employee ownership
and why and then i'm just
(22:06):
going to invite you to reflect on whether you think that helps you
with this customer focus and service rather than maybe another structure so
employee ownership just describe that for us a good target so we're in our second
year of employee ownership we're still very much finding our feet but the key
to it is about sustainability of the business
(22:28):
and and what we do in in the market if you'd gone down a route as various routes
you can go down whether it's merger acquisition listing and all the rest of
it would really probably.
Dissected and cut up what the business was about and two
years ago when we were going through that journey one of our
suppliers who probably was the seed of the idea for
(22:51):
us a company called taylor guitars in the states did a similar thing it's not
quite the same in america compared to the UK but they used a phrase that has
resonated with me ever since was you already were operating like an employee
owned company or employee kind of slash family to be able to do that transition,
(23:11):
to actually become that it wasn't that it was you were suddenly anointed employee
owned and then next year it all changed.
We were already probably operating. So that's interesting because some people
set up employee-owned businesses from political or moral conviction.
Others would go to it maybe for longevity or because they're doing B Corp and so on.
(23:33):
But it's not usual that something's been set up in a capitalist share-owning
structure then moves towards that.
So what was the conversation, the dear old memo?
Demo it sounds like it's a lovely collegiate place
to work so people come into the office one day and they
open their they open their inbox and it says dear all from
(23:54):
the management team we are going to be an employee of business how do you break
that news and what was the response i would like to think through that our short
conversations you'd realize it probably wasn't the way we did also because i'm
just making a really embarrassing concession which is when When Ian sent me the notes,
and he's like, well, we'll talk about, you know, because we do actually prepare.
(24:17):
We've just started preparing for
these offers. And it said, employee-owned business, you and John Lewis.
I thought you meant that it was owned by two employees, you and a guy called John Lewis.
And as you were talking, I went, oh, that makes so much more sense.
(24:39):
This just proves a preparation is not a good thing oh it's very funny anyway
so you and the company just not yeah i'm going to repeat that when i'm on the way home and the car,
it's like that's great one of my blonder moments thank you yeah we're at the
dear all moment so it's hard to like go down with staff and you're making that transition,
(25:03):
It was great. So there was a lot of preparations. As you'd imagine,
as a board, you're brought into the loop pretty early on.
And some of us were brought in probably a year before the event,
because you've got to put the feelers out there. Is this the right direction? How would it be taken?
But once that kind of pathway was set, we spent a lot of time and effort getting
(25:24):
that communication right, more
than we've ever done on anything else beforehand, because it's a big deal.
A lot of staff will have questions a
lot of staff and some some of us don't understand
or didn't understand some of the nuances with
regards to that are is it costing them in it like really.
Really yeah the basic bread and butter stuff
(25:46):
correct so so we spent a lot of time prepping
that we delivered screens to all
of the stores we had a big presence here in
hq and in the warehouse house we put on
a big stage we broadcasted it to all the
stores simultaneously so everybody as many people
in the company found out about it at the same time
(26:07):
it wasn't a tour it wasn't somebody found out
late we did it all all in one in one go
and we also invited
questions and three of us stood on stage and gave
the news and it was it was wonderful
to be able to do and it's very privileged to be able to do that
and we thought there was going to be five minutes of questions we
(26:28):
thought people have just asked five we could have been there all night
and you understand why but and we did about an hour
of questions and and there were great questions and everything everything from
our and there's this fine line between we're still operating as a business and
and it's sustainable that way but we're now doing it for the benefit of all
the employees which is totally it's not run by the employees albeit the employees
(26:50):
have a big say it's for the the benefit of all the employees.
So it's not every decision is not suddenly made by a committee and all the rest of it.
We're doing it with the best of intentions for people.
People that benefit from it and what that did though was we've already you're already making,
whether it's tactical decisions or
(27:10):
something a bit more more strategic or a large expenditure
you're already making those decisions with
some scrutiny but when you start to think
about it well we're making these decisions this is this
is the whole board and it's going to affect 165 employees
we better just make sure that it's right we better
make sure we're going in the in the right direction which is
(27:32):
still the same questions you would ask but there's
a but the appetite for risk is slightly different when it's privately owned
because you know what we'll go for that we'll have a punt on that
versus well let's just make sure
we're okay and then that's kind of followed us through and i always remember
one of the girls asking us afterwards because we did beers um wine pizzas and
(27:54):
everything afterwards just as a bit of a celebration and they went so are we
paying for this kind of but don't don't don't overthink.
So the ownership model kicks in pretty quickly
that was quite one that was that was
wonderful and um and that's and that's
how we how we run it and so if you had to just you
(28:17):
know someone asks you in passing what one difference do you as a director see
now that you've made this change is there anything that happens now that didn't
happen before I've thought about this a lot and I've.
It is about empowerment. In some way, we've always had that in different business areas.
(28:41):
But really, whether it's stepping up or wanting to be accountable to their peers,
but it is about empowerment.
And people are thinking about their suggestions a little bit differently or
how the customers interact in slightly different ways in some places, other places not.
But customers do resonate with that.
(29:04):
That we are all here helping them on their journey but
that's connected with with helping what we do as
well it's not it's not a faceless corporate it's a
company that that's kind of ran
by musicians for musicians or however you want to just like that that's the
kind of the optic that goes out from the customer we're on this positive moment
(29:26):
the wind of progress is under our wings so So let's use this moment to look ahead 20 years.
How are you celebrating it? Just to round off our time today.
And are Ian and I invited? Of course you're invited.
He said pizza. We have more than pizza, but we have celebrations throughout the year.
(29:49):
It's not just a birthday. It's the whole year we're celebrating 20 years.
I did a joke with one of my other colleagues. Hey, we should put a time capsule
in the ground and pick it up in 20 years' time.
Just to see what it looks like see what our predictions were
back then we i think
you'll you'll look ahead we've got a whole year of
(30:09):
celebrations planned out with people that suppliers customers
staff that have been with us that that whole time so
that that's what we're looking forward to this year
we do have some other things up our sleeve that i would love to share with you
guys but i can't oh he's teasing us so maybe we should catch up in another one
well i think mark what's happened is you're so excited about having featured
(30:33):
in the 2023 european top 1000 ranking.
But he's trying now to make sure he gets a space in 24 and 25.
I spat my coffee out when I read it last year. It was a lovely thing. That's so good.
I mean, most importantly, I've now realised that I should also celebrate my
birthday for the whole year.
(30:54):
I'm just celebrating, you know, the year of turning 22.
This is all part of ownership and empowerment. I'm turning 22 as well this year.
Ownership and empowerment. Yeah. Well, Mark, on that lovely note,
we will wish you a happy year-long birthday. That goes without saying.
And a massive thank you for joining us in the studio.
It's lovely to hear about the growth of a specialist retailer.
(31:17):
But with all this connection to the consume, the support for people's musical
journeys, and of course the staff engagement, it's just a very lovely story.
So from our side of the studio, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. Absolute pleasure speaking to you both as well. And thank you for
having us. And yeah, we could have talked all day, I think.
We'll do part two when you can tell us what the sequence is.
(31:39):
They better be good. But you've got to spoil those secrets. No pressure.
Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Mo. Lovely to see you. Thank you very much.
Do you play guitar? Good God, no. I play piano.
I own several guitars, none of which I can play. I would love to be able to
play because I sing, but I only tend to sing jazzy songs, which all seem to use bar chords.
(31:59):
And it turns out I just physically can't. I can't do it. I can't get that finger
to just stay in one place while the other. It's just not possible.
This is what he means by instant gratification. Maybe if I continued forever, I'd get it.
Well, I play the piano because there's instant gratification. Yes, exactly.
Yes, the piano I can do. The guitar is a whole other optic.
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