As I’ve noted before, I first was introduced to Sweetwater when I was a regional manager for AKG, and Chuck was running his fledgling company, Sweetwater, out of his house. I admired his goal of adding value and his strong commitment to doing the right thing.
By the time I came onboard in ’96, he’d consistently applied this philosophy and built a healthy and rapidly growing business and moved into a larger space. I took responsibility for a great sales team of 26 Sales Engineers. Fast-forward to 2015, with our current team of 247 (including the folks going through Sweetwater University) and a sales increase of more than 10 times what it was my first year, and it’s obvious that we’ve continued to experience pretty dramatic growth over the years. On behalf of every employee at Sweetwater, I sincerely thank you for trusting us and allowing us to serve you!
The goal for me has always been to keep the “mom and pop” small-business customer-service-oriented culture at Sweetwater healthy and intact as we continued to build our business. The strong one-on-one relationships we develop with our customers and the deep relationships we have with our vendors allow us to provide an extremely high level of service that we refer to as the “Sweetwater Difference.” The best way for us to accomplish this is by keeping our team intact and here long term.
So, that’s all well and good, but how is the execution? Well, the average length of tenure for Sales Engineers here a year or longer (we added 37 Sales Engineers to the team last year and 73 over the last two years) is currently 6.2 years in an industry where tenure is often measured in months, so I’d say that things are working out very well! Beyond exceptional compensation (hey, the environment can be perfect, but folks need to pay their bills, too!), here are just a few of the things we’ve done to help ensure that our team has a great environment at work:
- A state-of-the-art sales floor with plenty of room, lots of natural light, acoustics conducive to a professional environment, and modern, ergonomic workspaces. Heck, we even have a huge slide between our second-floor sales area and the ground floor!
- Multiple large conference rooms and smaller meeting rooms for comfortable and convenient training sessions.
- Our in-house Downbeat Diner is much more than just a “diner.” Our head chef ran a collegiate culinary program, and every dish is made from scratch with a huge variety of dishes served each week. We also have an amazing pastry chef. The local newspaper’s restaurant critic wrote that she had “produced one of the best pie crusts [he had] ever had.”
- We recently opened the Crescendo Cafe in our expanded dining area, which includes a large lounge area with an awesome stage, a high-end coffee bar featuring locally produced Utopian coffee, and state-of-the-art equipment from Modbar Modular Brewing Systems, another very cool local company.
- Our local store is more than doubling in size and will be opening in June.
- We have a huge Gear Lending Library where Sales Engineers can check out and take home everything from microphones to PA systems to get hands- and ears-on experience in their studios and onstage.
I could list a lot more, but I wanted to hit a few of the high points. If you are ever in Fort Wayne, please stop by for a tour. We have an amazing concierge who will be happy to show you around and give you some ideas on the best restaurants and shopping in town, too!
Rock and Roll!
Jeff Radke
Executive Vice President of Sales
Chief Sales Officer