The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/phillipmcknight09221 00:00 The Intro 03:49 Skill Share Information 04:36 The Results 07:26 My Thoughts 07:58 The End
I took this test today! 170 questions timed in 65 minutes. I scored well enough to get the job, but I did laugh at one of the questions because I literally had no idea what it meant at all. Spent almost seven hours with the Sweetwater team today and they were awesome and I cannot wait to get started in Sweetwater University in January! I watched this video about seven times over the last week while prepping for the test. Thats for the video!
Very impressive that they vet and train their staff that highly. I've had a few chats with my sales rep and he was always the most calm, polite and knowledgable person. This explains why. Thanks for sharing this Phil!
My sweetwater engineer is awesome, but knowing this, I think I've been going too easy on him. Time to make him step up his game, which just happens to mean I need to buy more stuff.
About a decade ago I had an interview with Sweetwater for a sales engineer position looooong ago, shortly following the release of my self-produced 4th solo album. I thought I would have aced these tests (and the interviews) with zero perspiration. I was wrong. Turned out I knew a whooooole lot about my particular areas of expertise but almost zero knowledge in many of the categories listed in the video. And after being interviewed by a couple of people I realized how little I knew. Did the experience turn me off from Sweetwater? Absolutely NOT. In fact, I'm even more of a fanboy now! Yes, they're the US' largest music retailer - but for a reason: they KNOW what they're DOING. I've never ordered anything from them or talked to anyone without walking away absolutely impressed. Thank you for making this video.
@@chris.a.1 No personal offense intended, but I'm tired of people inserting 'being totally honest' into many of their sentences. I don't need to know much about my gear because I am not making UA-cam videos about it. :)
You guys are great for taking the test and sharing the results. And Sweetwater, you're awesome for caring that much about your customers to invest in training your sales force to be competent representatives of your company and the Music Industry. Makes me want to shop at Sweetwater.
Many years ago (at least 30), I applied to work at one of the biggest and oldest, but still "mom-and-pop" music stores in the Baltimore area, and they had a similar test and investment in their employees. I was actually surprised by how much I knew about instruments outside my areas of "expertise" (keyboards, live sound, DJ, and lighting). While I ended up not accepting the position -- I was offered one in their sound and lighting department), it was a really interesting and educational experience.
Shoutout to Joey Bartoli and Jake Tillman, the two Sweetwater sales engineers I’ve dealt with. Both of them are super helpful and responsive, and it’s obvious how hard they work.
my sales guy is great! steered me right so many times with only 1 miss. those people know their stuff. once I asked a question and he said “let me check with one of my associates”. He didnt BS me. He went and got more info. Great company and service.
Excellent video. I can attest to the sales staff being top notch and going above and beyond what I ever expected. I haven't been able to purchase anything bass guitar related lately but I often search their site for things and they are my go to place for gear. I'm in the market for a used Yamaha John Myung 6er but not sure if they ever come across any as the times I've searched they don't list any.
I know Sweetwater because I work for a college that has a music dept including a recording studio, and they have always been great to deal with and answer questions on larger projects. Because of that, I started buying all my personal gear there. Shout out to my personal sales engineer Chris Jenkins. Thanks for the insight.
The big box music store you may be thinking of does offer a lot of training to all sales reps… they just don’t give you any time to do it aside from your regular hours when you are supposed to be doing lots of other things that take priority. 😐
Okay , this is a very telling video. Thank you Phil. I'm in Canada. Sweetwater is not really an option. Most recently I purchased my PRS SE Silver Sky from our Canadian Long and McQuade. The sales rep attempt to sell me a case when I picked the guitar up after a 7 month wait. I informed him it comes with a super gig bag.....he didn't know that. Training is beneficial.
I lived near Fort Wayne 20 years ago, and found Sweetwater by accident. I got to visit them and take a tour, and I've been a customer ever since. They really set the bar high for customer service and company culture - it's easy to see why they stand out from the typical "music stores". Every other shop seems to look down on their customers; they act like they're doing you a favor and know more than you. Sweetwater is the exact opposite - they love to talk to you at your level and will find every resource to help make you and themselves even better. There is no shame in saying "I don't know what I need." and if your personal (yes, *your personal*) sales tech doesn't know, they will say so and find someone who does. To all of the techs I've spoken to and everyone behind the scenes packing, shipping, stocking, etc. Thank you for making an amazing resource of like-minded gear-heads and musicians. And, if you see this Taylor @ Sweetwater - I'll be emailing you to order a module for my son's Eurorack unit, soon.
My current company doesnt have any employees right now but from experience agree with you. From past businesses I know that my employees have to be able to help the cuistomer just as much as I would be able to. I know a lot of small business owners dont want to invest in that part of it. Its so important to transfer your knowledge along with morals and ethics too
Thanks for this episode Philip! I’ve been at this location with my daughters. I slid on the slide, enjoyed the history and the cafeteria. The whole place was quite interesting and customer service was excellent! It kinda reminds me of the customer service training required by Time Customer Service in Tampa, Fl. I worked there for about six years. Enjoyable but lots of stress. Thanks again!
always great to see how a company works behind the scenes and it seems sweetwater is doing things right for sure there are a few big guitar companies that should take a few notes from sweetwater lol!
I was Tech Support for Loud Technologies in England U.K. supporting Germany & Austria cause clever me speaks fluent German (since Brexit I am now officially German) anyway as a hobby musician for some 30yrs it was a dream to at least once work in the Music Industry. Highlights were some of the calls I took from members of several well known British Bands with a classic being would there be a problem having a Mackie Mixing Desk serviced due to several faders not moving freely due to the amount of hash that had fallen into them lol. Loved the job and am sure these dudes at Sweetwater do too.
Thing is, I buy about $2K of gear every year on average from SW- this year $5K, and never had to ask my sound engineer anything but when will it be in stock. No sound engineer will be ever able to tell you if a piece of gear will work for you, or not-it's a crap shoot at best. However, Sweetwater needs to be commended for going above and beyond the level of customer service compared to other retailers. I purchased a lot of guitars, keyboards, and sound equipment from them over the years, and will say they are my first choice for guitar brands they stock, but for all other equipment I go by price and will say, if you call your sales engineer with an online link to a better price, they will beat it-over the years I have done that numerous times, but with most gear, everyone sells it at the same price.
For over 20 years I have worked with the same Sweetwater sales engineer, Paul Lea. I have always found him to be very knowledgeable and helpful! Sweetwater’s people are the best in the industry!
My Rep, Chris Lewis left Sweetwater couple months back, He was great. I loved dealing with him, a total pro. I wish him the best in his Life, A great guy
WOW. That is a pretty in depth screening test. It does help explain why the Sales Engineers do such a great job in answering any questions I have had. Big shout out for Skill Share! I got the 30 day free trial from Crimson Guitars and have really learned a lot from the classes that are offered.
Kind of along the lines of what you talk about at the end, I wonder if Sweetwater does/is willing to “sell” their training to other music stores? All music stores can benefit from a knowledgable sales staff and it is another way Sweetwater can make money
40-50% as a good score makes sense if it's multiple choice. If you just guessed everything with 4 option questions you wouldn't score over 25% I wonder if Sweetwater assigns sales people to the areas they excel at.
I live 10 minutes from Sweetwater and it's an amazing shopping experience everytime I go in everyone so nice and knowledgeable and amazing return policy
Matt Kreager from Sweetwater is a great asset whenever I need anything. Also, the other major instrument distributors do not do any kind of inspection. I will only use Sweetwater
I haven't bought a ton from Sweetwater, but I have bought amps, monitors, assorted gear, etc. Joe Perrone has been awesome with follow-up, and making sure I get what I thought I was getting. I am a retired sales engineer from a different industry (video security) and I respect the level of training these folks get!
They saved my ass with a delay pedal. I bought it, tried it for a few minutes, then put it away for 18 months until I had a gig coming up. To my horror I couldn’t save any presets. The one year warranty had expired. Sweetwater fixed it for free and had it back to me in plenty of time for my gig. I’m impressed!
Ironically, just watched this video this evening and across the room is a G and L Bluesboy that just arrived today from Sweetwater and is in the box "acclimating" until tomorrow. Great company!
Great video! I do appreciate much of what Sweetwater is doing. However, I'm not a big fan of phone calls with voice mails followed by a text message. Not to mention that I exchanged email with them last month about not calling me. They need to read the feedback they request. 🙂
I just ordered some quality of life type gear from Sweetwater for my first order and let me say, I never felt like a more important person. It was just a standard order, you get an email from a person, not a system. Even get a phone call to review the order. I'm a diehard customer now.
Id love an open online version of the test (even with different questions) just to see where I'm at. I've had formal training of some sort on all of those so just curious how specific it would be.
Love Sweetwater. My sales engineer keeps in touch at random, never pushes me to buy anything, and even got me free tickets to a Monuments show out there a few weeks ago. Their customer service is unmatched.
Good company and nice to see they are investing in employees. With all the online information and demos it's rare I even have a question about a product. I really miss walking into a store full of complete chaos and finding a gem after countless hours and playing around.
That was pretty cool and kudos to Sweetwater for ensuring their employees are trained up both technically and socially. Great vid Phil.... different, entertaining & enlightening.
they can be very very annoying. I got 4 calls from them checking on a $10 adaptor. If I want something more expensive I wont go through them because I dont want to be hassled
Why are some sales engineers hired on with no knowledge of the other musical equipment? If a singer knows the microphone and he/she knows nothing about the other instruments how can they be hired on as sales engineers?
It's not easy to call people every single day to ask them how they're enjoying their new strings and if they need any help with them, but nothing makes a customer happier than endless, nonsensical pestering.
I don't plan to ever buy from Sweetwater after my recent experience. I received an email with a $10 off $25 deal. I clicked on the link and it showed that I needed to create an account and I did. Then I clicked to use the offer and it changed from $10 off $25 to $10 off $50. That leads to a conversation with a sales engineer who pushed for me to buy more for an even better deal. It left a very bad taste. There are too many other places to buy (Guitar Center, Reverb, Amazon, Musician's Friend, etc.)
Did the sales engineer refuse to honor the $10 off $25 deal though, or was he just informing you of all the options available to you? I know it is pretty standard for businesses to offer better deals the more you buy. It sounds like he was just doing his job by letting you know everything that was available to you.
@@GearLover The sales engineer was I assume trying to make it right but the feel was wrong for me. It seemed more like a bait and switch and the Sweetwater setup feels more like buying a used car.
I was impressed with Sweetwater when I dealt with them. Told the guy I was looking for a limited run of pedals that was coming out. The guy reached out months later to tell me he had one. He remembered! They have an excellent customer service.
It's good to see at least SOME retailers take this seriously... as opposed to the store I used to shop at, where each employee knew some stuff about their area and f-all about anything else they sell (and that's a location of Canada's largest chain music retailer... I try not to shop there now).
Well, there goes my last hope of ever working there lol. I wish they would implement remote employment. I understand why they don’t but an online course would be fantastic.
Neural DSP archetypes, pretty much the only thing to challenge collecting amps and at a fraction of the price. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the new wave of amp modeling plugins vs traditional amplification.
Shout out to Greg Baum (pic at just before the 8:00 minute mark). I have to admit that I am a bit of a high-maintenance customer, full of questions and with sometimes very specific and unique goals, and Greg has been wonderfully patient with me. I love buying from Sweetwater and am fortunate enough to be able to road-trip it there on occasion. It is like a day of therapy!
i guess this raises the question who are the people who need their hand held so much when buying gear that they require that level of knowledge from a salesman
I bet I could pass it barely. lol I would certainly be a bit lost on the keyboard stuff. Do not know a whole lot about keys. Sound and lights, yes, guitars and amps yes. Keyboards NO!!!
I just want to give a shout out to my Sweetwater Sales engineer, Dave Dunsire. Very knowledgeable and helpful. I'm no pro, but at Sweetwater, I get great service!
ugh, flashing back to microsoft (comp tech) exams........ the tiny room, the stress.... :p usually i did pretty well but SO much study needed if you learn by theory and aren't good with straight up memorizing shite.
The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/phillipmcknight09221
00:00 The Intro
03:49 Skill Share Information
04:36 The Results
07:26 My Thoughts
07:58 The End
Loved making this with you Phil! Thanks again for letting me tag along - steve
Love your channel Keith..
As a former Sweetwater Sales Engineer, we had to take this intimidating test more than once; and many timed-tests during training.
Sounds ridiculous for such a low paying job.
@@MiamiVisor Any hint on the wages?
@@DimKAt21 Commission. There’s a base pay that descends over time. Most SE’s do well.
@@MiamiVisor If it's paid training (which it should be ...?) it's not actually that bad.
@@MiamiVisor “during training”
I don’t think you’d do well on the test.
I took this test today! 170 questions timed in 65 minutes. I scored well enough to get the job, but I did laugh at one of the questions because I literally had no idea what it meant at all. Spent almost seven hours with the Sweetwater team today and they were awesome and I cannot wait to get started in Sweetwater University in January! I watched this video about seven times over the last week while prepping for the test. Thats for the video!
Hey, I just had my first interview for the role today. Are you still at Sweetwater? If so, how was your experience?
Hope there is more Sweetwater content coming. I don’t know why but I really like the Sweetwater behind the scenes stuff.
Very impressive that they vet and train their staff that highly. I've had a few chats with my sales rep and he was always the most calm, polite and knowledgable person. This explains why. Thanks for sharing this Phil!
I love that Sweetwater actually does know their gear.
My sweetwater engineer is awesome, but knowing this, I think I've been going too easy on him. Time to make him step up his game, which just happens to mean I need to buy more stuff.
About a decade ago I had an interview with Sweetwater for a sales engineer position looooong ago, shortly following the release of my self-produced 4th solo album. I thought I would have aced these tests (and the interviews) with zero perspiration. I was wrong. Turned out I knew a whooooole lot about my particular areas of expertise but almost zero knowledge in many of the categories listed in the video. And after being interviewed by a couple of people I realized how little I knew. Did the experience turn me off from Sweetwater? Absolutely NOT. In fact, I'm even more of a fanboy now! Yes, they're the US' largest music retailer - but for a reason: they KNOW what they're DOING. I've never ordered anything from them or talked to anyone without walking away absolutely impressed. Thank you for making this video.
Phil, change your slogan to "Know at least 40-50% of your gear"
😂
Good one!!!
LOL!
Though, if we're being totally honest, how many of us REALLY know 40-50% of our gear?
@@chris.a.1 No personal offense intended, but I'm tired of people inserting 'being totally honest' into many of their sentences. I don't need to know much about my gear because I am not making UA-cam videos about it. :)
Good video Phil. I am a Sweetwater customer. Kudos to you and Steve for taking the test. Now we know why the are called Sales Engineers.
You guys are great for taking the test and sharing the results. And Sweetwater, you're awesome for caring that much about your customers to invest in training your sales force to be competent representatives of your company and the Music Industry. Makes me want to shop at Sweetwater.
Many years ago (at least 30), I applied to work at one of the biggest and oldest, but still "mom-and-pop" music stores in the Baltimore area, and they had a similar test and investment in their employees. I was actually surprised by how much I knew about instruments outside my areas of "expertise" (keyboards, live sound, DJ, and lighting). While I ended up not accepting the position -- I was offered one in their sound and lighting department), it was a really interesting and educational experience.
Shoutout to Joey Bartoli and Jake Tillman, the two Sweetwater sales engineers I’ve dealt with. Both of them are super helpful and responsive, and it’s obvious how hard they work.
Former sales engineer here.. the exams and training was tougher than any college test I ever took
my sales guy is great! steered me right so many times with only 1 miss. those people know their stuff. once I asked a question and he said “let me check with one of my associates”. He didnt BS me. He went and got more info. Great company and service.
This is the kind of training that made Sears great, and helped kill them when they dropped it while micromanaging.
Excellent video. I can attest to the sales staff being top notch and going above and beyond what I ever expected. I haven't been able to purchase anything bass guitar related lately but I often search their site for things and they are my go to place for gear.
I'm in the market for a used Yamaha John Myung 6er but not sure if they ever come across any as the times I've searched they don't list any.
I know Sweetwater because I work for a college that has a music dept including a recording studio, and they have always been great to deal with and answer questions on larger projects. Because of that, I started buying all my personal gear there. Shout out to my personal sales engineer Chris Jenkins. Thanks for the insight.
Cool! I’ve been looking forward to this!
The big box music store you may be thinking of does offer a lot of training to all sales reps… they just don’t give you any time to do it aside from your regular hours when you are supposed to be doing lots of other things that take priority. 😐
Okay , this is a very telling video. Thank you Phil. I'm in Canada. Sweetwater is not really an option. Most recently I purchased my PRS SE Silver Sky from our Canadian Long and McQuade. The sales rep attempt to sell me a case when I picked the guitar up after a 7 month wait. I informed him it comes with a super gig bag.....he didn't know that. Training is beneficial.
I lived near Fort Wayne 20 years ago, and found Sweetwater by accident. I got to visit them and take a tour, and I've been a customer ever since. They really set the bar high for customer service and company culture - it's easy to see why they stand out from the typical "music stores". Every other shop seems to look down on their customers; they act like they're doing you a favor and know more than you. Sweetwater is the exact opposite - they love to talk to you at your level and will find every resource to help make you and themselves even better. There is no shame in saying "I don't know what I need." and if your personal (yes, *your personal*) sales tech doesn't know, they will say so and find someone who does.
To all of the techs I've spoken to and everyone behind the scenes packing, shipping, stocking, etc. Thank you for making an amazing resource of like-minded gear-heads and musicians. And, if you see this Taylor @ Sweetwater - I'll be emailing you to order a module for my son's Eurorack unit, soon.
The amount of knowledge they have to have is really stunning. Props to them and probably why they are so well rated.
Great video Phil! Very interesting stuff. Highly impressed with Sweetwater.
My current company doesnt have any employees right now but from experience agree with you. From past businesses I know that my employees have to be able to help the cuistomer just as much as I would be able to. I know a lot of small business owners dont want to invest in that part of it. Its so important to transfer your knowledge along with morals and ethics too
Thanks for this episode Philip! I’ve been at this location with my daughters. I slid on the slide, enjoyed the history and the cafeteria. The whole place was quite interesting and customer service was excellent! It kinda reminds me of the customer service training required by Time Customer Service in Tampa, Fl. I worked there for about six years. Enjoyable but lots of stress. Thanks again!
My rep calls me more often than some of my kids
always great to see how a company works behind the scenes and it seems sweetwater is doing things right for sure there are a few big guitar companies that should take a few notes from sweetwater lol!
I was Tech Support for Loud Technologies in England U.K. supporting Germany & Austria cause clever me speaks fluent German (since Brexit I am now officially German) anyway as a hobby musician for some 30yrs it was a dream to at least once work in the Music Industry. Highlights were some of the calls I took from members of several well known British Bands with a classic being would there be a problem having a Mackie Mixing Desk serviced due to several faders not moving freely due to the amount of hash that had fallen into them lol. Loved the job and am sure these dudes at Sweetwater do too.
Thing is, I buy about $2K of gear every year on average from SW- this year $5K, and never had to ask my sound engineer anything but when will it be in stock. No sound engineer will be ever able to tell you if a piece of gear will work for you, or not-it's a crap shoot at best. However, Sweetwater needs to be commended for going above and beyond the level of customer service compared to other retailers. I purchased a lot of guitars, keyboards, and sound equipment from them over the years, and will say they are my first choice for guitar brands they stock, but for all other equipment I go by price and will say, if you call your sales engineer with an online link to a better price, they will beat it-over the years I have done that numerous times, but with most gear, everyone sells it at the same price.
For over 20 years I have worked with the same Sweetwater sales engineer, Paul Lea. I have always found him to be very knowledgeable and helpful! Sweetwater’s people are the best in the industry!
My Rep, Chris Lewis left Sweetwater couple months back, He was great. I loved dealing with him, a total pro. I wish him the best in his Life, A great guy
I wish you would have done about their guitar repair and set up process. Also show how they plek guitars.
That was super interesting
Thanks for sharing, Phil, and shoutouts to my SW rep Dan, who is in fact, the MAN
WOW. That is a pretty in depth screening test. It does help explain why the Sales Engineers do such a great job in answering any questions I have had. Big shout out for Skill Share! I got the 30 day free trial from Crimson Guitars and have really learned a lot from the classes that are offered.
That skillshare plug was very well done and didn't have any negative effect on the video for me. (You won)
Kind of along the lines of what you talk about at the end, I wonder if Sweetwater does/is willing to “sell” their training to other music stores? All music stores can benefit from a knowledgable sales staff and it is another way Sweetwater can make money
A nice idea but I doubt it will happen because Sweetwater's service is part of their brand
40-50% as a good score makes sense if it's multiple choice. If you just guessed everything with 4 option questions you wouldn't score over 25%
I wonder if Sweetwater assigns sales people to the areas they excel at.
Two fun facts: (1) you both took that test on my birthday, and (2) I took many tests along side Steve back in high school. 🤣🤓
I don’t know, based on my most recent experiences with sales “engineers” at SW, it’s hard to believe they are required to pass any test.
I live 10 minutes from Sweetwater and it's an amazing shopping experience everytime I go in everyone so nice and knowledgeable and amazing return policy
Matt Kreager from Sweetwater is a great asset whenever I need anything. Also, the other major instrument distributors do not do any kind of inspection. I will only use Sweetwater
I haven't bought a ton from Sweetwater, but I have bought amps, monitors, assorted gear, etc. Joe Perrone has been awesome with follow-up, and making sure I get what I thought I was getting. I am a retired sales engineer from a different industry (video security) and I respect the level of training these folks get!
They saved my ass with a delay pedal. I bought it, tried it for a few minutes, then put it away for 18 months until I had a gig coming up. To my horror I couldn’t save any presets. The one year warranty had expired. Sweetwater fixed it for free and had it back to me in plenty of time for my gig. I’m impressed!
The sales engineer I work with at Sweetwater when I buy bass gear always has answers to any number of questions I have. Awesome to work with.
Ironically, just watched this video this evening and across the room is a G and L Bluesboy that just arrived today from Sweetwater and is in the box "acclimating" until tomorrow. Great company!
I briefly considered a move to Glendale to work at the new distributon center, Sweetwater seems like a good place to work
Wow this was way better than I expected.
Great video! I do appreciate much of what Sweetwater is doing. However, I'm not a big fan of phone calls with voice mails followed by a text message. Not to mention that I exchanged email with them last month about not calling me. They need to read the feedback they request. 🙂
I just ordered some quality of life type gear from Sweetwater for my first order and let me say, I never felt like a more important person. It was just a standard order, you get an email from a person, not a system. Even get a phone call to review the order. I'm a diehard customer now.
Id love an open online version of the test (even with different questions) just to see where I'm at. I've had formal training of some sort on all of those so just curious how specific it would be.
Love Sweetwater. My sales engineer keeps in touch at random, never pushes me to buy anything, and even got me free tickets to a Monuments show out there a few weeks ago. Their customer service is unmatched.
Good company and nice to see they are investing in employees. With all the online information and demos it's rare I even have a question about a product. I really miss walking into a store full of complete chaos and finding a gem after countless hours and playing around.
They better be paying these people.
Salary around 78k
@@aaronvalure178 thats actually really good
That was pretty cool and kudos to Sweetwater for ensuring their employees are trained up both technically and socially.
Great vid Phil.... different, entertaining & enlightening.
they can be very very annoying. I got 4 calls from them checking on a $10 adaptor. If I want something more expensive I wont go through them because I dont want to be hassled
I can definitely see where that would be a problem.
Damn, it actually makes me respect that person in the box that pops up and asks if I have questions when I go to Sweetwater website now.
I've told my sales engineers they need to teach their customer service process to other industries. 2nd to none, top of the class, amazing...
Thanks to Phil and especially Sweetwater for the behind-the-scenes look at the operation. Two class acts.
I’ve been waiting so long for this video!!!
I’m surprised you assumed they were just hired. My sales engineers have been incredibly knowledgeable.
Thanks for sharing.
I've been waiting for this video since you first mentioned it..... Thanks! --gary
Thanks for finally getting us this video! Impressive!
Why are some sales engineers hired on with no knowledge of the other musical equipment? If a singer knows the microphone and he/she knows nothing about the other instruments how can they be hired on as sales engineers?
It's not easy to call people every single day to ask them how they're enjoying their new strings and if they need any help with them, but nothing makes a customer happier than endless, nonsensical pestering.
I only buy my gear at Sweetwater and every album I've made was with everything from Sweetwater. Love that place.
After this video SkillShare should have courses on applying for Sweetwater sales engineer position :).
I don't plan to ever buy from Sweetwater after my recent experience. I received an email with a $10 off $25 deal. I clicked on the link and it showed that I needed to create an account and I did. Then I clicked to use the offer and it changed from $10 off $25 to $10 off $50. That leads to a conversation with a sales engineer who pushed for me to buy more for an even better deal. It left a very bad taste. There are too many other places to buy (Guitar Center, Reverb, Amazon, Musician's Friend, etc.)
Did the sales engineer refuse to honor the $10 off $25 deal though, or was he just informing you of all the options available to you? I know it is pretty standard for businesses to offer better deals the more you buy. It sounds like he was just doing his job by letting you know everything that was available to you.
@@GearLover The sales engineer was I assume trying to make it right but the feel was wrong for me. It seemed more like a bait and switch and the Sweetwater setup feels more like buying a used car.
I was impressed with Sweetwater when I dealt with them. Told the guy I was looking for a limited run of pedals that was coming out. The guy reached out months later to tell me he had one. He remembered! They have an excellent customer service.
Great info...but now I want to know how Glenn Fricker would do on the test! 🤣
Forget the gear test, I want to see the personality test.
I bet Glenn would kick ass on that test.
He'd probably flunk their personality requirements though.🤔
It's good to see at least SOME retailers take this seriously... as opposed to the store I used to shop at, where each employee knew some stuff about their area and f-all about anything else they sell (and that's a location of Canada's largest chain music retailer... I try not to shop there now).
Great video. I wish Sweetwater was in Australia
Been waiting for this video to drop for months. Thought it wasn't happening, after all. Love It!
Dude that was awesome!!!
So crazy having sit at those exact computers multiple times.
So if you're expert in say, GUITAR, do you or can you be a rep solely in the guitar section or do you have to be smart in everything?
Naturally people will specialize in certain areas, but you need to have expertise across all categories.
Phillip didnt want this test to stay on his permanent record so he used his stage name instead: McNight.
What an excellent video idea, Phillip! Cheers!
Well, there goes my last hope of ever working there lol. I wish they would implement remote employment. I understand why they don’t but an online course would be fantastic.
I bought a Squier from then and then moved up to a MIM Strat. Love getting the sweetwater candy bag!
Neural DSP archetypes, pretty much the only thing to challenge collecting amps and at a fraction of the price. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the new wave of amp modeling plugins vs traditional amplification.
Cool! Now I want to take the test!!
Been dealing with Sweetwater for decades- never knew this about their processes but it doesn’t surprise me seeing how well run a business it is
Yeah when Chuck Surack was the CEO - now it's a different ballgame. Glad they kept Mitch G and Don Carr. I like those guys.
Wow....Steve is up on his shi.....stuff.
What's a good resource to study before this test?
That was cool! Thanks guy's!! I would hire you both.
Do they make you take the test with Nick D'Virgillio's little brother bashing away on the drums the whole time?
Shout out to Greg Baum (pic at just before the 8:00 minute mark). I have to admit that I am a bit of a high-maintenance customer, full of questions and with sometimes very specific and unique goals, and Greg has been wonderfully patient with me. I love buying from Sweetwater and am fortunate enough to be able to road-trip it there on occasion. It is like a day of therapy!
GREAT VIDEO, GOOD FOR YOU AND DIFERENT EXPERIENCE IN SWEETWATER, SALUDOS DESDE TAMPICO MADERO TAMAULIPAS MEXICO.
Sweetwater is an amazing company. Best customer service ever
i guess this raises the question who are the people who need their hand held so much when buying gear that they require that level of knowledge from a salesman
I think it's great that Sweetwater's test is so comprehensive and that they invest in there people !
I’m curious what format the test is in? Multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc?
Yes to all three
I bet I could pass it barely. lol I would certainly be a bit lost on the keyboard stuff. Do not know a whole lot about keys. Sound and lights, yes, guitars and amps yes. Keyboards NO!!!
I just want to give a shout out to my Sweetwater Sales engineer, Dave Dunsire. Very knowledgeable and helpful. I'm no pro, but at Sweetwater, I get great service!
Very interesting !!!
I was impressed buy the knowledge of sweetwater sales reps when I made some purchases.
ugh, flashing back to microsoft (comp tech) exams........ the tiny room, the stress.... :p usually i did pretty well but SO much study needed if you learn by theory and aren't good with straight up memorizing shite.