| From ProSoundNews.com Web Bonus: Sweetwater's New HQ Open For Business
Ft. Wayne, IN--Two and a half years after breaking ground, Sweetwater is now officially occupying their entire new 150,000 square foot, $35 million dollar headquarters in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. "The company's now 29 years old and I started in a VW Bus," says Sweetwater founder, owner and CEO, Chuck Surack. A musician, Surack began Sweetwater as a professional recording studio (four-track!). As an early Kurzweil adopter, he developed a sound library that he began to sell, and that evolved into selling ancillary items and then further evolved into a full-on retail business. In 1990, the company moved into its first dedicated commercial space, occupying around 5,000 square feet, "and the next year, we had another 5,000, and then another 10,000, and we kept expanding and expanding until we had almost 50,000 square feet," Surack recalls. Realizing that a planned multi-story building at the original location would max out the possibilities there, Surack began looking for a new location with room to grow yet further. "We're sitting right now today on 14 acres but I bought 44, so there's plenty of room to more than double in the future if we need to, or add other features, whatever we want to do."
The open public "mall" area of the building is broad avenue with high ceilings, and includes Sweetwater's only physical retail space--effectively a store with an $8+ million dollar inventory in the warehouse. The retail store does about $6 million annually in business, out of a total expected gross of $150 million for 2008. The Downbeat café serves breakfast and lunch six days a week to staff and customers, with former country club chefs cooking up under priced meals underwritten by Sweetwater.
"If employees aren't happy," says Surack, "it's going to clearly show to the customer. So, from a pure financial point of view, it just makes good sense to take care of the employees, they'll take care of the customer." Surack says he's fortunate that he and his wife own the business outright and that they have the resources to do things the way they choose, including making cost a minor consideration in designing employee amenities into the facility. "We just knew we wanted to do it right for the employees. My benefit is that'll make better employees for the customers and ultimately we'll sell more gear, but that really wasn't our motivation" Sweetwater performs warranty service for everything they sell, and for just about anything else, from the spacious new service department area, which also includes the tech support phone bank. Internal services include a classroom style conference room, the guitar maintenance and evaluation shop, and a print shop. Three new studios centered around Digidesign's Pro Tools and Icon hardware, are busy with custom music, spot, jingle and message on hold work, and are tied to the huge 250 seat auditorium.
"One of our criteria for the projector was that we wanted to be able to read software menus in the back seat of the house," says Stewart. The room--and the studios--were designed by the Russ Berger Design Group to be "acoustically kind of neutral and sort of dead sounding," says Stewart, which is ideal for allowing the staff to hear "the nuances of product" and excellent for spoken word. The downside of that is difficulties "if you do want to do certain types of musical performances; it's not really a great environment for a string quartet to play in." Enter the LARES system, which allows the room acoustics to be tailored from subtle reverberation to totally, absurdly live through the use of 84 strategically positioned speakers and a boatload of DSP processing. An LCR "rock and roll" PA, a headphone system with jacks at every seat and a theater surround system round out the playback options. Just opened is the Sweetwater Academy of Music, with a full-time director overseeing multiple individual lesson rooms as well as larger spaces--$100 monthly will get students four to five 1/2-hour lessons. The auditorium is available for recitals, as it and other Sweetwater resources are available to the Ft. Wayne community. "We've told all of the non-profit arts performing groups they're welcome to use our space whether it's conference rooms, the theatre or the conference hall," explains Surack, with recent uses including a children's choir and the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic orchestra.
Of around 325 employees, 110 are sales engineers, up from 60 in about two years time. The current sales is remarkably quiet for a open cubicle design, with high ceilings and lots of natural light. Sales managers have mostly glass enclosed offices sprinkled throughout the space, which has a capacity around 190. Surack says the critical element in the success of Sweetwater "is really the customer service; our goal is really to get that communication going between our sales engineer and our customer." While some 30 percent of Sweetwater's sales are now internet driven, a Sweetwater sales engineer always follows up with a call to confirm customer satisfaction and thus begin a relationship. Surack compares the company's online presence to the Sears Wish Book, but cautions that in a given product category, it might not be obvious to the buyer what the best product is for their particular needs. Thus one aspect of the oft internally referred-to "Sweetwater Difference" is the development of a highly trained and knowledgeable sales force. "That's how our company grows--by training more good people--and that's how we differentiate ourselves, as part of that Sweetwater difference."
While Sweetwater did consider alternate locations, including other cities, when deciding to build the new campus, ultimately the commitment to existing employees and quality of life issues lead it to remain in Ft. Wayne. Affordable cost of living, good schools and a growing list of arts, sports and other entertainment options are among the benefits of the area, says Surack, adding that the "region is good from a shipping point of view." "One of the beauties that we have in this building with this culture," Surack says, is that "my salespeople only have to sell and take care of customers." Ultimately, he says, the new Sweetwater facilities are built with his overall goals in mind. "I'm interested in a long term relationship with the customers, and the long term employment of the employees." Sweetwater www.sweetwater.com
Copyright 2006 ©
CMP Entertainment Media, Inc.
|
