Guitar Center seeks a Director / GM of Woodwind & Brasswind (Frederick, MD 21703)

• One click ordering;
• A state-of-the-art website that gets smarter about its users with every click;
• MAP pricing;
• Free shipping in the guise of Amazon Prime (incentivized by free streaming content);
• and an endless aisle.

Several weeks ago I interviewed a very senior executive from Amazon for a CEO search. I asked this executive to tell me a success story about his impact on product sourcing at Amazon. His response …

“Oh, we have robots for that.”

“Robots?” I asked.

“Yes, Amazon has special software that scours the Internet 24/ 7 looking for products for sale, and constantly reconciling those offers against what is currently on Amazon’s website. When the software finds something that is not for sale on Amazon.com, it will bounce back out to the World Wide Web to find 4 other suppliers of that product.”

“When the software has 5 suppliers total, it will crawl all 5 websites, inhaling the names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers (if available) of the relevant parties who might list those products on Amazon.com. That spreadsheet is then automatically forwarded to our buyers who follow up with each of those companies.”

Anyway, several years ago I handled my first search for Guitar Center’s MusiciansFriend brand (IR #44). At the time, I was working with a VP of Marketing whom I asked during the project kickoff call “Who are your top three competitors?”

His response was “Amazon and eBay. I can’t remember who’s third.”

He had reason to worry. I have been a drummer since I was 11 years old. After college, I played professionally for several years before getting a real job. Marketing gurus will tell you that these days, every consumer has one area of their life where they spend rich. My area is drums.

I have seventeen 22 inch ride cymbals in my basement. Paiste. Istanbul. Zildjian. Sabian. Plus little known brands like Pasha and Ottaviano. $5,000 worth of metal just laying there waiting for me to beat it with a stick. Six of my cymbals came from eBay. The others came from MaxwellDrums.com, a niche marketer of drums and cymbals geared towards the professional jazz player.

Steve Maxwell is a model of trust and credibility for guys like me. A former management consultant, Steve understands that the only way to compete in retail is to have an emotional bond with your customers; to love the product and the niche so much that everything you do is essentially a labor of love. Everything this tiny little retailer does is a celebration of the artistry of jazz drumming. I could watch Steve’s content all day long. It’s almost like he runs a media company …

Is Steve worried about Amazon? Not at all. “Amazon is like a Coke machine. It’s convenient, but they’re not going to make anyone feel special. I’m not building a personal relationship when I buy from them.” Ebay is another story, but I have seen Steve buy foolishly priced drum sets on ebay and relist them on his site.

Whatever Steve tells me to buy, I buy. If he gets a 22” pie that he knows I’ll love, he’ll send me a text and hold it for me until I respond. If I have a question about the diameter, age, origin, weight, or make of a cymbal on a particular record (like Pot Luck by Wynton Kelly), Steve will know. And so will his employees, who are excellent players in their own right.

I’ve learned to trust their judgment, and they’ve never abused that privilege.

That’s pretty much the direction music retail is headed in. The only thing more information intensive than a musical instrument is the relationship a player has with that instrument. It’s an intensely personal thing, and only a trained educator or merchant who knows both the player and the instrument is qualified to provide the player with informed and unbiased advice as to which instrument to buy.

Most musicians get their start in grade school or high school. According to First Research, there are more than 130,000 K-12 schools in the United States. Aside from a brief scare in 2008 when music programs and arts education were threatened with cuts, the future of public arts education looks very promising. In fact, there is growing sentiment in Washington around having more humanities in schools and teaching creativity rather than technical expertise.

At one point, the business generated more than $90 million in sales, although the brand has seen a decline in the last couple of years. The brand was acquired out of bankruptcy by Guitar Center in 2007, and GC’s management has engaged top-flight business leaders to revive the brand.

Management seeks to return WWBW to what made it compelling in the first place: Deep knowledge of the category; knowledge of the key influencers; and a sales model that focuses on relationship driven selling as opposed to leveraged buying power and logistics (a la Amazon).

A significant portion of WWBW’s revenue is generated through schools by purchasing and/or band directors. Another large chunk of business is generated from consumers purchasing for their own use. For these private consumer purchases, WWBW believes that there is a significant amount of influence being wielded by band directors and private music instructors.

Obviously, one area of focus for WWBW will be to develop deeper relationships with the educators who are loyal to the company. Additionally, WWBW seeks to attract new educators an effort to extend its influence on the market.

Based on my 90 minute kickoff call with the hiring committee, the band and orchestral marketing process involves many of the same fundamentals as strategic selling:

1. There is an economic buying influence, i.e. someone who writes the check for the instrument.
2. There is a technical buying influence, i.e. someone who screens out unworkable brands and endorses the best ones.
3. There is an end-user, i.e. the grade school or high school musician who will actually play the instrument.

Each of these buyers has their own hot buttons, and each must be involved in the selling event. Some of these instruments are incredibly expensive and involve monthly payments, so the cost of making a bad purchasing decision is very high.

But there are ways to market to these constituencies such that each person feels included and appreciated. For example, each year WWBW in Columbus, OH, WWBW sponsors on event called Horns Aplenty that works like this:

WWBW representatives go out to local area schools, letting the educators know that for one day only, WWBW will have insanely great deals with special financing and an expanded assortment of instruments for students to audition and hopefully purchase. Manufacturers reps bring in extra inventory and a wider assortment.

A student might encounter 6 saxophones, 6 trombones, 5 trumpets, 4 flutes, and much more. Unless they lived in New York, Chicago, or LA, many of them would never see this many shiny new instruments at one time under one roof. It’s a very big deal — and it’s a ton of fun, too. Plus these events create a buzz around the participating schools’ music programs (which is precisely what these educators CRAVE).

WWBW will ask band directors to go through the inventory and recommend specific instruments to specific students. Appointments can be made to audition the instruments, and band directors are encouraged to join students during their audition. If a student has small fingers, or has trouble blowing into the horn, or prefers a baritone to an alto, etc. then those issues are identified and managed on the spot.

As someone who studies marketing, I can’t tell you how impressed I am with this strategy. It positions WWBW with the real decision-makers at the point of purchase. It enables WWBW to spot customer attitudes that can kill a sale, and it provides an excellent way to ensure happy customers and enthusiastic referrals. Additionally, “sales momentum” builds during the event and prevents sales from being sabotaged by naysayers. Plus, the event can be templated and rolled out in other markets.

If you would like to apply for this role, simply ask yourself “What’s the strategy for going after private piano teachers or guitar teachers? What is involved in hiring and training the WWBW relationship managers who will reach out to educators around the country? There are tens of thousands of them! What third-party service providers must be involved? How can I use mobile, social, and web technologies to support these and other multichannel grass-roots marketing initiatives and amplify the buzz?

Think about it. Then apply below.