Every now and then I can’t help but reflect on life, both personal and professional. The impetus for my current reflection is the passing of our family dog, Tango (in his final appearance in the photo with me), who was with us for 10 years after we discovered him at our local animal care and control. While we’ll always have a big furry canine in our house, I sure miss this one. He was a great dog, and we were blessed to have him around for so long as part of our “pack.”
This led me to a reflection about my job. I love my pack here at Sweetwater. I’ve written previously about the great team we have here, but it’s truly an extraordinary group of talented, dedicated, smart, and like-minded people, and I’m honored to be among them. The effort they put into consistently providing great service and always doing the right thing for our customers is incredible.
I’ve been here since 1996 and have had the opportunity to see how the people of this company have weathered some very challenging times. The collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2000–2001, followed by the tragedy of 9/11, resulted in some pretty turbulent times. The recent Great Recession, from which we’re still recovering, led to even more difficult and challenging times.
It’s been humbling for me to see how well we’ve weathered these very significant storms. As a company, we had to take steps to control expenses, but I’m proud to say that we never had to lay off employees, and we never did anything to reduce our level of customer service. If anything, we worked harder and found more ways to provide a higher level of service. And while other companies were cutting their head counts, we continued to hire. Though we’re always competitive in terms of price, the true Sweetwater Difference is the quality of the people here. We have 22 Sales Engineers who have been at Sweetwater for more than 10 years — and even a few who have been here for more than 20!
Though our industry isn’t recession proof by any means, it does seem to be recession resistant — maybe “recession resilient” is a better way to think of it. It seems that most people truly connect with music at some primal level.
Here at Sweetwater, music is an important part of who we are. It’s true of our employees, and it’s true of our customers. Some of you are fortunate enough to make a living with your music. For others, it’s a deeply gratifying hobby. For many, it’s almost an obsession. As Ray Charles said, “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart — like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me, like food or water.” Nietzsche had something extraordinary to say about music as well: “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
The heart of this reflection is to thank you for coming to us when you have a question or a product need, and for sending your fellow musicians our way. I can’t express how much we appreciate this opportunity to serve you and earn your business, especially during the recent challenging times. Thank you. Here’s to even better days!
Rock and Roll!
Jeff Radke
Executive Vice President of Sales
Chief Sales Officer