Interview with Marty Minui of Motor City Guitar - Waterford, Michigan

Marty, first of all let me thank you for taking the time to do this interview.

Thanks so much for asking us, Kirk!

I'd like to know more about the beginnings of Motor City Guitar, when did the store first open, What were your goals and how long have you been serving such a broad scope of musicians?

We opened in June of 1988, which seems like yesterday. Our goal as a store was to create a place where people could go a just feel welcome to try out cool music gear and get a good deal without a hassle or pressure. We've always had the goal of trying to take care of people as individuals with individual tastes, which is one of the reasons why we carry so many different varieties of products. It's not all about what we like, it's about what you like. As far as personal goals, my girlfriend Melissa and I were trying to get steady jobs so we could get married, which we did a year after we opened Motor City .

Who were the ones who began the store? And what is the size of your staff now?

Melissa and I pretty much did everything ourselves for the first few years, except for lessons. We've always had a pretty minimal staff, where everybody wears a lot of hats. Right now there are 9 of us plus 14 teachers and our repairman Scott.

When you began did you think that you would be as successful as you are now?

We've never really thought about success in any sort of tangible, financial, or other measurable way, we just keep doing what we’ve always done and being grateful for being able to do it at all. What makes me feel successful is anytime a customer leaves with a big smile on their face, or when they comment that one of our guys really helped them out, or when they hand me a CD of music that they created that we played any small part in helping them with.

I really enjoy the atmosphere of the store, it lends itself to trying out the instruments and the personal growth of your clientele. What do you attribute this to?

Thanks! These are great questions. I remember the days when a lot of music stores kept everything out of reach and practically required you to prove you were going to buy something before they would even let you touch anything. I never understood that backwards way of thinking – how in the world is somebody supposed to even know if they like something unless they can check it out without pressure? We’ve always considered ourselves lucky when people come in and check out our store, and we don’t want anybody to feel under any kind of pressure to buy anything. We want to give them a chance to check out some cool gear, have some fun, and hopefully consider us when they do decide it’s time to pick up some new toys.

Tell me a bit about the expertise of your staff and instructors.

We are extremely proud of the Motor City crew, they are our extended family. We couldn’t ask for a greater bunch of people to work with, and the place would be nothing without them. The majority of people who work here and have ever worked here over the years are customers of the store who have an obvious passion for music and music equipment – in other words, certified “gearheads”. And people that we feel will treat customers with kindness, appreciation, respect and honesty. Those are the types of things we look for, the types of things that a person can’t really learn in training. As for our instructors, we have different people from different backgrounds who specialize in different styles of music. They are all absolutely incredible musicians. We try to match each student with a teacher that is right for them and will help them move in the direction that they want to go in. We also have a really talented guitar repairman named Scott Kenerson who really takes a lot of old-school pride in his work.

I understand that you do your best to offer great pricing on all instruments, how has that made you different from other guitar establishments?

I can honestly say that we sincerely want to give people that come to our store the best deals possible. If we didn’t, why should we expect them to come back? We’ve always been more concerned with long term relationships and hopefully making people happy so they come back and tell their friends. In the early days of our store it was not common at many other music stores to offer discounts unless they were having a sale, everything would be tagged at the manufacturers’ list price and you had to negotiate for a better deal. As a customer myself I never liked that, I don't feel like people should have to haggle for a discount. So we discounted everything as much as we could right off the bat. We figured that by offering lower prices we wouldn’t have to advertise, that word-of-mouth and hopefully repeat business would keep us around. Luckily, when things like mail-order and the internet came around, it wasn’t a shock to us as it was for many other places, we were already discounting heavily so it wasn’t a big deal. We stay on top of what other stores are doing and always try to make sure we are offering the best prices, that’s the least we can do.

What were the greatest challenges you've had along the way?

The biggest challenge by far is finding the time to get everything done that we need to. Our website is the most obvious example, we’ve been trying to get a great website going for years but it is taking much longer than we’d hoped. What we have planned is going to be sweet though, hopefully it will be worth the wait. Another hurdle was a recent expansion of the store that we went through, we had quite an ordeal with a shady contractor but thankfully that is over now and we can finally start enjoying and making use of the extra space.

When you think of the store itself what is the most successful area of sales Electric guitars, equipment or Acoustic guitars?

Things go in waves, sometimes electrics are more popular, sometimes acoustics are. Ukeleles are even big right now all of a sudden! And then there are days when there are more drummers or bass players in the store than guitar players.

Over time who are some of the Artists you have had the privilege to serve?

We deal with all types of artists everyday that we are privileged to serve. Everybody from little kids taking lessons to internationally touring bands. Michigan is and always has been a hotbed of incredible music and there are unsigned artists here that in my opinion blow away a lot of the stuff you hear on the radio these days. One week we had 2 very elderly WWII veterans come in that both wanted to start playing guitar again, it was a special honor to serve them. As far as famous people go, we've served some Detroit legends like Bob Seger, Kid Rock, and members of The Silver Bullet Band, The Romantics, The Rockets, The Mitch Ryder Band, Sponge, and The Black Dalia Murder. We had to provide a wall of amps for Ted Nugent to play on New Years Eve one year. We also serve a lot of artists that come through town on tour - one of my favorites was selling a couple of cowbells to Blue Oyster Cult so they could do the "more cowbell" routine onstage at DTE. One time we provided guitars for Steve Vai when his gear truck broke down, and we provided all the instruments for the Deftones when their gear truck was stolen from their hotel parking lot. Our repairman Scott sometimes goes out on the road as a guitar tech for some major artists. We’ve also been privileged to have worked closely with some landmark Michigan clubs like St Andrews Hall and the Crofoot Ballroom who ordered their PA systems through us.

What do you personally like about Motor City Guitar and your clientele? And why would you recommend this store to others?

It’s a fun place to work and hopefully a fun place to visit. There are tons of cool people that come here that keep things interesting on a daily basis. Our customers are more like friends, and a lot of them are literally like family to us. People often say that we should have a TV show up here because there is usually something interesting or funny going on. Personally I also take a lot of pride in knowing that simple principles like treating other people like you would like to be treated yourself are enough to keep a company in business. As far as recommending our store to others, all I can say is that I promise you that you will be treated with honesty and appreciation, and that we will always do everything we can to bring you the biggest selection of the best gear we can find.

Thanks again for taking time from your busy schedule for us and doing this interview.

Thanks so much for having an interest in Motor City Guitar, Kirk! It's been an honor!

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