BOUTIQUE - Music Inc. Magazine

{WILLCUTTGUITAR}
“That quote was one of the
things that drove me,” Willcutt
said of starting his business, Willcutt
Guitar Shoppe. “[My father]
also said, ‘A craftsman wrought
with greatest care each unknown
and unseen part, for God sees
everywhere.’ So if I would reset
a bridge on a guitar and there
were clamp marks on the inside,
I would go in and sand out the
marks. Nobody would see it, but
God sees everywhere.”
Customers have noticed,
too. In the course of 42 years,
Willcutt has built his Lexington,
Ky.-based dealership from a local
guitar shop into a premier
online retailer. Willcutt Guitar is
now a three-building campus —
a 5,000-square-foot retail facility,
an Internet sales center and corporate
offices, all of which offer
ample warehousing space — but
Willcutt still considers it a momand-pop
operation.
“I owe a lot of my success to
my dear wife, Pennye, who besides
bearing me three wonderful
children has used her accounting
skills and insight to keep me
focused.”
54 I MUSIC INC. I JANUARY 2011
He empties the trash himself
and spends most of his day at the
repair bench, which also doubles
as his office, complete with an
iMac within arm’s reach and a
simple barstool.
“Ninety-nine percent of the
stuff that goes out I put my hands
on and verify, and I still do a
lot of the setups,” Willcutt said.
“Nothing goes out the door —
whether it’s new, used or on consignment
— unless it’s perfectly
clean, restrung and in perfect
shape, even if I don’t make any
money on it. A $99 Squier Mini
will run through the shop and
get a $100 setup. People might
ask why you’d do that on a cheap
guitar. I want the kid to be able
to play it!
“On a consignment piece,
where you might only make $50
or $100 on the deal, I’ll still do
the whole treatment on it to make
sure it’s right. It builds trust and
a reputation.”
‘THEn THE inTErnET HaPPEnED’
Building that reputation has
taken time, effort and patience.
After 42 years in business,
Bob Willcutt
preps a guitar
in his office
‘you pay your
suppliers,
employees
and business
first. you pay
yourself last.’
— Bob Willcutt
Willcutt’s reputation for offering
quality products and exceptional
service is well-known around
Lexington. A customer recently
walked into the shop with two
guitars he was considering buying
from another dealer and wanted
a second opinion. (He offered to
pay Willcutt for his advice, but
Willcutt refused to accept the
man’s money.)
In the 1980s, when Willcutt
decided to expand his store’s
reach beyond the local market,
he’d head to nearby Rupp Arena.
There, Van Halen, Heart, Prince,
The Rolling Stones and Kiss
would roll through. He’d make
sure to bring his own version of
an all-access pass: a rare guitar,
such as a ’52 Tele.
“At that time, you could find
vintage instruments at really low
prices, and a lot of the rock musicians
would buy those as investments,”
Willcutt said. “Security
was not as tight as it is now. You
could go backstage and talk to the
roadies and sometimes the musicians.
That was your chance to
reach out when they came to you.
And then the Internet happened.”
Willcutt launched a website in
1998 and has been active with it
ever since. Eighty percent of his
business comes from the Internet,
and everything is handled
in-house. He has two full-time
online sales employees, Brandon
Bowlds and Eric Cummins, and
his operations manager, Tom
Jones, has a degree in computer
science.
Jones helped integrate a POS
system with the store’s website
and inventory charts. He also
helped with organic search terms
— a Google search of PRS Guitars
yields Willcutt’s website at
the top of dealer results. For a
number of its smaller, boutique
brands, Willcutt comes up first
after the manufacturer.
Jones also helps turn a lot
of Willcutt’s ideas into reality.
“Bob fancies himself as not being
terribly tech-savvy, but he
is really progressively minded,”
Jones said. “He’s always coming
in saying, ‘I don’t know how you
do this or how they did this, but
this is on X site and it’s cool.’ He
is way out front on technology.
And guitars are his passion, so
he stays on top of it. He’s pushed
really hard to get the site where
it is today.”
Willcutt’s site stands apart
from most with its focus on
photography and art, which
integrates into the site’s overall