Liquid Metal Guitars….

CUSTOMER COMMENTS

“Hey Stu,

I just thought I’d drop you a line and let you know how pleased I am with the LMGT! Everyone who has seen it so far has had to play it, and every last one of them has said it’s one of the best guitars they’ve ever played! There’s definitely something magic about these aluminum bodies that makes the guitar sound fantastic — there’s no question about it! Honestly, though, the neck is the thing that I’m most happy about. Sure, the technology behind the body deserves accolades, but in my mind I guess I expected the rest of the guitar to be an afterthought. Not so! This guitar has one of the best necks I’ve ever played, and the construction of the guitar is such that it takes advantage of all of the cool “new-school” parts (like the graphite nuts, bridges, etc. that we’ve all been afraid to put on our vintage-style guitars) to great effect! All-in-all, this guitar is everything I’ve been looking for in a T-style, and leaves nothing to be desired. At practice it was really inspiring to play, and when I broke it out today to play through the Orangutan, I was *completely* happy with both what I was hearing and how the guitar felt to play! Just awesome!

Thanks again, Stu, and give my thanks to Mike Ayers for all of the help he has been. You guys are the best, so keep up the good work!

Regards,”

Brian S.
Raleigh, NC

Go See FatSound

Share on Facebook

phil the business

I find myself in an interesting business model.  When we had finished our proto-typing, getting the things that didn’t work so well out of the bones of the guitar, the $#@%&* melt down hit.  (I still read the New York Times and get all righteously violated wired up by the crazy greedy shit that caused the problem.. but I digress and but … one more thing… just kidding.. ) back to how the meltdown changed my life..

The thing is, that even in good times it is tough to get a retailer to take on a new  guitar. Now even more so when they are backed up with six months to a year in inventory of stuff that usually sells but sales stopped, boom, like that when the fiasco hit.

Talking to them has been okay, they listen, nicely and offer a few insights, pieces of advice and a mild encouragement. All of us still  get off on talking about guitars for sure but get onto the subject of the retail business today and the dark clouds coming looming in.

They for the most part like what we are doing, they are impressed with what we have done, love the look, the idea and who we have working with us.  But the economy changed and they’re just hanging back, they are polite but no thanks, not right now.

So, this forced me to find an alternative selling venue and that was online.  I have to tell you, it is truly an amazing space. It has vast amounts of information and 10 million ways of delivering information and the speed of evolution of the ways of delivering that information is stunning. Not only does it work, but it is a blast.

It is the place where everyone goes for info on something they are about to purchase, you think about it, you google it, find out what you can, this is from cars, cameras, everything.

I initially set up Facebook. Right out of the chute, first month, Super cool, met Travis Toy of Rascal Flatts who has one of our guitars and brought me along to their show when they were here playing to 17,000. That was the first big venue play for us. It was as cool as you can imagine standing in the crowd watching your guitar being played on stage.

But more importantly, the Facebook presence resulted directly in sales and they keep coming. With FB, we have now over 1,200 fans and friends that are watching what we are doing getting updates on the company and things like this blog entry. That is exceptional.

The next in line place was Linkedin, this is more for professionals, and this venue for us, is FB on steroids. Great exposure and good guys coming along and seeing what we are doing, asking appropriate questions and I guess, comfortable enough after talking to me and buying  things  online, that they say “ wrap it up and send me one”

The other thing that has worked is going to the various forums on guitars and jumping into the conversations. Not being belligerent and aggressive about sales, but yakking about what we all like, guitars.

Now this is where the magic is for a company like us, there was a guy on there, wild funny poster, had lots to stay and lots of opinions and was well regarded. So, I contacted him directly, turns out he has a crazy collection of les paul juniors and owns a guitar shop in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania.

We get to chatting on the phone, after a few emails,  he listens to my story and says “Okay, send me one. I do and he is now on top of the mountain shouting out our name. Loved the guitar.  This is what he said:

and i can say that i am blown away. killer neck, killer fretwork and the carved out aluminum body works. the duncans are perfect in this guitar. as a wood snob, i expected it to be brash and brittle sounding. i was a james trussart dealer for a while, and dismissed these guitars as the same thing. boy, was i wrong. it’s resonant as hell and a wonderful sounding and feeling guitar. are we going to have to start talking tonemetals?

Now this is what gets me all amped up, this is incredible. We are working together, online and on the street, He has a guitar now for folks to touch and play and get excited and as well continue with the online buzz.

This is perfect, I  continue on line branding and marketing our guitars and now with FB and LinkedIn, I can micro target our online advertising and send ‘em to Greg in Lemoyne PA.

This gives us all  great focused presence.

Share on Facebook

phil the business

I love what I do.. absolutely love it.

Yesterday a pretty well known collector  phoned me up and said he was in town and would I have some time to meet with him and chat.

Hmmm, let me think?

Ah sure… lol

Anyways, I went and met him, nice guy, knows his guitars and equipment , wildly well.

It was great talking to him for knowledge, folk lore, stories about guitars, guitar companies. We talked for hours and spent a long time talking about Veleno and the stories about these guitars that came out in the 70′s.

I  have talked about it before in the blog because it is was Veleno’s success that really caught my interest and prompted me to push LMG into existance.  I like that he went to shows and nighclubs and showed the guitar off and people bought them. That he did something cool and that folks appreciated what we was up to.

From Vintage Guitar Magazine:

Veleno’s first sale came shortly thereafter, as he polished the guitar at a T-Rex sound check. Mark Bolen walked over and fell in love with the guitar. Before the night was over, he’d bought one for himself and one as a gift for Eric Clapton (who Veleno had never heard of!).

I know who Clapton.

The reason the collector  wanted to meet, is that he wanted  know if I could build him a gold LMG T, similar to the gold veleno that was on an old Johnny Winter Album. He has other nice finishing requests and was adamant that he gets # 0001 of the 18k Gold Tele.

He was so excited that I would do it, he really was, totally dig that.

and for me,  it was a great way to start a new year.

Happy New Year All….

Share on Facebook

phil the business custom telecaster, gold telecaster, johnny winter, veleno

Tonight was great.

All the minds, craftsmanship, knowledge and energy that make our guitars happen, come together and sit over a damn good steak dinner and talk about….guitars, making guitars, playing guitars and whose playing guitars.

Who was each’s favorite guitar player came up….

Older Guys : Dave Gilmour, Jeck Beck

Young Guns: Joe Bonamassa, Adam  Dutkiewicz and Dave, the guy who works upstairs.

It is a very cool, great group of skilled men who love what they do. Damn handsome lot too.

Left to right Gerry Hughes, Kevin Fast, Phil Cook, Paul Iverson, Fritz Cronjaeger, Bernie Koestlmaier

Missing James Wilton.

Share on Facebook

phil the business Adam D, dave gilmour, jeff beck, Joe Bonamassa

We just finished the assembly of our new look T’s. I like this option, gets us  us back to our black and chrome. The logo on the headstock is chrome. It also makes the metal body jump too.

Here is a quick pic before they are packed up and shipped all around the world.. Holland, England and Virginia.

Share on Facebook

phil the business black headstock, chrome logo, custom guitar, custom telecaster, liquid metal

I talked a while back about our guitar being taken up to Seymour by a friend and how Seymour  was intrigued by what we are doing. So intrigued that he set about matching a pick up set to the unique characteristics of our guitar.

Well, yesterday we got our first bulk shipment of them, all hand wound in the custom shop and now those are going into the guitars that are about to be shipped. For us it is a great collaboration.

What he did was to make the sound of our LMG “T” better. We have  a clearer, cleaner tele sound out of the bridge pickup. He didn’t deviate from the traditional sound, it is not something that you have to get used to, but rather totally enhanced what we have all come to know as the tele sound.

The bridge pick ups are made with 1/4 lb magnents and wrapped to a hot 15,5k. I know, it is hot and that is what Seymour found out too, that the characteristics of the guitar allow for a hotter pick up to deliver a cleaner sound.

I like that we have an old school tele player making our guitars, as good as they can be.

Share on Facebook

phil the business custom telecaster, custom wound pickups, Liquid Metal Guitars, seymour duncan, tele bridge pick up

We got the cover and an exceptional review. They totally got what we are about and nailed the things that we have been saying all along – “It’s metal but the guitars sound fantastic”

Have a read..I will make a believer out of you as well.

Share on Facebook

phil the business Guitar Buyer, seymour duncan, telecaster

I read a couple of blogs a day about business , particularly web 2.0 things, as we are working our way out into the world. One I read is Derek Sivers, he is the man that started CDbaby, and he is pretty good, definitely knows his way around he web and a day or so ago he recommended the book by  Hugh Macleod called …yep you guessed it… IGNORE EVERYBODY.

I went to Hugh Macleod’s web/blog site and totally enjoyed it. I get why Derek liked what he had read. Below is an excerpt from the start of the book. Pretty good common sense or at least if you thought about it, you would say… well of course.  But it is good to read through it.

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever.  Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you sud denly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Ever yone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kin­dergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with com­panies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented some body is, the less they need the props.

11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it can not hurt you.

13. Never com pare your inside with some body else’s outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most impor tant thing a crea tive per son can learn professio­nally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.

18. Avoid the Water cooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for your elf.

23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is get ting used to it.

31. Remain frugal.

32. Allow your work to age with you.

33. Being Poor Sucks.

34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.

35. Savor obscurity while it lasts.

36. Start blogging.

37. Meaning Scales, Peo ple Don’t.

37. When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams.

Share on Facebook

phil the business cd baby, derek sivers, hugh macleod, ignore everybody, web 2.0

A big thing for us, a small company without a vast advertising budget and resources to pay for a massive public relations campaign, is to get the word out about the quality of sound of guitars or our company in general.

About a month ago, I was talking to one of my friends, who is the marketing guy for the pro football team in town and he says ” you have to get onto facebook”

I go “I am, I have a profile, with my face and my family pics,  but I just don’t get  it. I mean all these people typing about their days and stuff, how the hell is that going to market my guitars.”

“Advertise, use the facebook advertising” he says “it is amazingly focused, you can target exactly who you want and when and where and  you can spend what you want, couple hundred or a thousand or more.”

Now,  we have worked with Adwords before, as a way of marketing, every couple of years I run out another campaign. I can see the theory behind it, but for the money I just didnt see the return, you can see the click throughs, as a stat increase, the stats are done 72 ways to sunday, but it didn’t  translate into conversations or ongoing involvement.

Facebook advertising did, I picked a city, focused on the city and key words that I know attract guitar players.. like guitar..:) and lo and behold, I was involved in a bunch of conversations with folks asking about the guitars and the way we build them and the sound etc. It is fantastic and it continues on today, I have a bunch of guitar players  that quite fired up about our guitars and talking to others and you can feel the excitement building. And that is only a week.

I like this, this form of interaction, time consuming yes, but I think you get a bunch of people who know about your product that can talk intelligently about it and that is good. And you the cool thing is that , there is a pretty damn good form of camaraderie thats ensues from being a facebook friend or fan. It is so human,  it is like hanging around back stage talking about the show or the clubhouse after a game.

I was sitting yakking with a producer/cameraman , about a video shoot we have coming up and was telling him about this, about who I have talked to ( more on that later, have to see if it pans out first ) and it struck me that the way I am able to interact with potential customers is amazing, absolutely amazing. I kept hearing about face book, about it being this amazing way to be in touch with people.  I thought it was more for my kids and their pics of all their pals sticking their tongues out and making devil horns with their hands..

I am amazed once again. for it is  in my lifetime , a very big change in how we do and will interact, I can certainly see this type of networking is going to be much of what we do day to day in the future.

For now, new as I am, I am enjoying the conversations, they are great and I will let you know how it all pans out business wise.

Share on Facebook

phil the business adwords, custom guitar, facebook, marketing, PR, telecaster

I was sent a link to a video about creative genius, Elizabeth Gilbert was the speaker. I originally thought  that she was the girl on Little house on the prairie and thought “sheeesh, this is going to be good. Paaaahhh, can I have some wisdom? …..But it turns out it was not, it was the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert. You can tell eh? that I am not one of the creative geniuses..lol.

I will put the TED video of Elizabeth at the end of my spiel  for you to watch, if you like. Of course you know that if you are reading this before you watch it, I will of course slant your perspective.

She, Elizabeth, talked about the anxiety of the creative process, about how most “successful” creative people are tortured, tortured by the appellation of genius and how they get caught up in thinking, stressing really  that their last work was their best, the best they would ever have.

I do understand what she is talking about in some ways, I think that people who put stuff. creative or not,  out there are always a tad afraid of judgement, of ridicule, not measuring up.  She spent most of the talk on this theme, that creative folks, like writers and musicians, are dead in headlights waiting for the muse.

But what struck me, what she touched upon briefly, was her work ethic, her “muleness”, she got into the chair to write each day a 7 and wrote. This is not as interesting as the angst of being creative, I guess. But is seems to me that those that are creatively successful, work hard at.

I have a friend who is a writer, successful, and he keeps getting asked what it takes to be a writer. I have seen him asked that question like 20 times now and he says this “write” 99% of the people who tell him they want to be a writer don’t write, they are waiting for “it” to happen and “it” doesn’t happen till you make it happen he says.

When he goes at it, he writes as a job, not a in search of muse wandering ne’er do well, but a sit in the seat fiction writer, from 8 till 5, 6-7 days a week and if you ask him out for lunch during is several month writing process he’ll say  No, I’m writing.

And same with some of the business people I know now, that have built great companies, it is not so much that a lightening bolt hit them and their companies took off, but more, just like Dave Dunwoodie at Graphtech Labs, who started and ran his business off of his kitchen table. When things didnt work out, as is the way of a start up, he stayed at the table and kept at it. Now, he has a great business that is thought of as tremendously innovative.

I dont know that these guys would think of themselves as tortured, but more.. one foot in front of the other and you will get to where you want to go.

Creative genius, what I know today, is working at it and we can all do that.

Share on Facebook

phil the business custom guitars, Dave Dunwoodie, Elizabeth Gilbert, Graphtech