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Well said Hesh., totally agree. From a business perspective it makes very little sense to do commissions unless one is financially solvent, and your cash flow is sufficient enough that you can go for lengths at a time without being paid and have sufficient cash reserves that can afford you the time/luxury to build that commission. Or you have a wife/partner who has a real job and can keep the monthly bills paid. The lutherie articles in colourful magazine articles rarely discuss the the financial side of lutherie, and IMHO do a disservice to budding young luthiers with stars in their eyes hoping to bag that next commission with a famous musician.

I've sold most of the guitars I've made through my repair shop as well. It's a good way to go, plus in my case the repairs were what paid the bills anyway. The guitar making at minimum wage was just for fun, experience and to hopefully one day get known. That never happened for me but I'm totally cool with it too

As was mentioned a difficult part of the commission is getting everything right. We all know that no two guitars sound alike and if you don't get 'that tone', the one that sounded just like the one in that Youtube video, out of the commissioned guitar then you will have an unhappy customer. So one thing I never do on a commission is build something I am not familiar with. I might take on some fancy inlay or something like that but not ever say a fan fret for example since I've never done one before.

I would suggest you only do them for people you feel completely comfortable with. The one I'm working on right now is a commission. It was a referral through a store I sell through. He was a friend of the owners. It's been a a very positive and enjoyable process with this customer. After he selected the back and sides and a few other details I told him this guitar wild evolve along the way and there will be a bit of artistic licence in it. Rarely do I build a guitar with every detail worked out in the beginning. These days, with texting, it's so easy to keep him in the loop almost daily. I've made changes along the way and we briefly discuss them.

He said in the beginning he was a "sucker for shell inlay". I made some suggestions and made the mistake of telling him to have a look at the Depaule website. The positive outcome is I did manage to keep his guitar from looking like a banjo.

Something very important. If you are taking on a commission from someone other than a close friend you need the chops to be able to deliver the goods. Things could get messy otherwise.

All The Best,
Danny

What a great and timely conversation. Thanks for all your input.

This conversation has been a great reminder to keep the hobby running like a hobby, and to be patient in selling the guitar that's been ready to go for the past year.

I want to offer this perspective from my paying profession. I'm a lawyer, and I am one of the lawyers that provides legal services to my law firm (i.e., when a law firm needs a lawyer for itself). Of the things that can cause a law firm to need a lawyer for itself, the most common is a PITA client. The usual script for a PITA client is that the client is very enthusiastic at the beginning of the representation, but a few months into the representation, after the bills start rolling in (at the agreed-upon rates, and within the predicted budget), the PITA client starts short paying or not paying the bills, starts complaining about how much everything costs, starts trying to micromanage the work in ways that inevitably lead to larger, and more expensive problems, and starts failing to keep promises to the court and/or the other side of the case that must be made in order for the work to progress. This happens all the time. ALL THE TIME!!!

My point in bringing it up is that there are worse things than turning down work, and there are worse things than firing a client. We have learned over the years that keeping a PITA client is far, far more expensive and stress-inducing than getting them off the bus. When I catch the whiff of a PITA client, the best advice I can give to my client (i.e., my law firm) is to get rid of the client and let them be some other law firm's problem to solve. If it is a bad relationship, then staying in the bad relationship is money down the toilet every month.

In like manner . . .

There is already a thin margin in building guitars. I'm willing to bet that, as with the law, keeping a PITA guitar building client is probably one of the fastest ways to lose money you could find. If you have a PITA client, get them off the bus. Stop the bleeding, heal, and move on.

I may have missed it in an earlier post, but I believe a critical piece missing from the discussion is a contract. If these guitars are being sold for more than $500, there needs to be a contract in order for any agreement for a commission to be enforceable. Don't think about the contract as a negative, think about it as a guiding document that helps you both understand the procedures and processes of giving life to the guitar. Your contract should contain the price and payment schedule, the final description of the guitar to be made, a relative but not fixed timeline. It would also be helpful if it contained a term that allowed "development" (changes) only up to a certain point in that timeline. And it needs to be signed.

This would help with a lot of the headaches I see being described because not only is it legally necessary, it would help you both understand how things will be done. Let's say a client wants to make a change after that piece of the timeline passes. Refer to the contract and say unfortunately we're past that point. If they persist it may be your warning that you have one of Don's special clients, or you could decide to be gracious and make the change, change the contract, send it to be signed again, and hopefully going through all the hoops again prevents any more changes.

Without a contract, of course it's going to be frustrating because you're setting yourself up to solve problems in the heat of the moment. It's like taking on a plumbing job and running into a problem smack dab in the middle of it and not knowing the solution. Just make it easy on yourself by thinking through the way things will work before hand.


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I quit taking commissions a few years ago for several reasons.
1. I do repairs for my local market @ $60 per hour. I work fast, I make happy customers, and the bills get paid.
2. I can pretty much "time" when I will be building guitars, based on several years of figuring out when repairs will slow down.
3. One too many commissions where the customer wanted constant communication, lots of pictures, change orders, and pressure to finish.
Now I enjoy building exactly what I want, out of wood that I have stored up over the years. I build faster and happier, and it fills in the gaps in my shop schedule.
I generally sell my guitars within a few weeks of finishing them, as I have a pretty good "street cred." Street cred is hard to get, I count myself blessed.

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I think it is important to objectively gauge the quality of your work.

How consistent are you?
How good is your fit and finish?
Are there any aspects of your work that a discriminating buyer/player might take issue with?
How does your work compare to Taylor/Martin? How about Collings, Santa Cruz, McPherson,or Huss & Dalton.

I've encountered only a handful of builders whose work sounds incredible AND looks incredible AND has the highest standard of fit and finish. I've played many guitars from luthiers who make incredible sounding instruments but are not able to achieve the same level of perfection as a company like Collings. I've also played guitars that looked very nice but couldn't blow away a Taylor - something most players expect from a luthier built guitar. This situation is even more likely to be noticeable with relatively inexperienced or hobbyist builders. Guitar building is hard and it can take years to perfect the diverse skill set needed in lutherie.

In my fairly short life, I've discovered that very few individuals are truly objective about themselves. Negative critique is not fun but it is necessary to improve. How many negative things can you recount people telling you about your guitars? If nothing comes to mind then go out and seek true honest feedback from knowledgeable players because you haven't gotten it yet. I would never tell another artisan what I thought could be improved because most people only want to hear praise. So I find things I like about their work and compliment them on those things.

The short tangent above is an important prelude to my advice concerning commissions. You need to be able to accurately convey the quality of your work to potential customers. So many hobbyist builder websites are designed to sell rather than inform the customer. This does you a massive disservice unless the quality of your work matches what you describe with your marketing. Above all else with commissions, you need to objectively gauge whether you can satisfy the customers' desires and requirements.

Please note: This doesn't mean you have to build a guitar to Collings level fit & finish standards to please a customer. You just need to make sure that the customer has a solid idea of the product they will receive at the start of the build process.

"Above all else with commissions, you need to objectively gauge whether you can satisfy the customers' desires and requirements."

That's true, and it ties into a central reason (already described by some folks above) why commissions can be a lot of trouble, even when you have a paying client: A lot of the client's desires are subjective and hard to communicate. If they want the guitar to look a certain way, that's easy enough to communicate effectively. But communicating how something should sound can be darn hard. "I want it to sound more brown." Ah. I see. That's so much clearer than "I want it to sound like chocolate ice cream tastes."

But, of course, the client is paying a whole lot of money for a custom made instrument. It is reasonable for them to expect that they will get what they want in exchange for the money they are paying. Imagine how it would feel to pay $5,000.00, wait several months, and then get an instrument that is disappointing.

No sirree Bob; if and when I ever build instruments for sale, I will just build them and let people buy what actually comes into being. That way, they will know exactly what they are paying for.

I think its an interesting discussion.... It's kinda funny that reading this - you would believe that most luthiers build on speculation and then sell.. But it's not really true.... The vast majority build on commission.... Thats the way the business works for a whole lot of people.... And both the builder and customer have a lot of skin in the game that way...

And thats the same for most building and art sort of trades.... Most build on commission... And trust me - there's absolutely no way I would let a tile guy or painter go make me a bathroom on speculation... "Well - if you like it, you can buy it for such and such..." Nope - doesn't work that way... The fellow does the work you commission him to do.... If he does it to the agreed upon specification and you don't like the color or design you picked - you can pay him to redo it.. And if he provides "Workmanlike" professional quality work - the court will side with him.... There's no free lunch...

And while I build as a hobby, not for sale - I ended up on a deadline on my last 2 guitars.... With both of them gone within 1 day of finishing them... And I didn't like it... Its not fun for me to go through the hoops and push hard towards the end like that and then not get to play it and gloat for a couple weeks... While I enjoy the fun of knowing they are being played - I didn't get to be part of that...

Watching Michael Greene's video really was an eye opener for me.... They live in mortal fear of a scratch or ding for those final post-finish days until the guitar ends up in the owner's hands.... One scratch or ding could result in a refusal or a significant price reduction..... No thanks... I dont need the money to support my family... So I choose not to be in the BUSINESS of guitar making...

But... That's part of the BUSINESS... And it is a business!... And if you want to be in that business - you have to learn how to do it!

Car dealers live with the same.... A paint chip or even slight damage to a new car's interior means significant give-back or customer refusals.... I returned a NEW car (not used!) in the day after I bought it because I found a bullet lodged in the interior as well as a giant (and well hidden) pile of broken glass... A previous new car dealer had replaced a couple windows, vacuumed it out, and sent it down the road to another dealer unknown..

Toonces post is a good one.

When, at the suggestion of a friend, I first took a couple of instruments to The Podium, an iconic boutique instrument store in Minneapolis they gave me a very honest critique of my work. Some good, some bad. The bad was mostly fit and finish. They said they would hang them once I brought everything up to their standards which basically meant, in addition to decent tone, fit and finish and playability comparable to brands like Martin, Collings, Bourgeois, etc.

It took me a couple of years but eventually I had guitars on their wall. I ran commissions through the store as well, and continued to get invaluable honest critiques from the staff and some of the great players that hung out there. I was with the store for 11 years until they closed this May and their honest input had everything to do with the evolution of my instruments.

They told me they had quite a few builders bring stuff in and after an honest assessment they were insulted and left in a huff. They told me I was one of the few that actually took their advice.

Eventually I came to believe that commissioning an instrument may not be the best way to buy a guitar. Every one is unique even from an experienced builder.

( I sure know that feeling of handling a new guitar with kid gloves before delivery living in fear of that scratch or ding that will require a tedious repair before delivery!)

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Elderly's in Michigan, still one of the best and still in business -- just takes a commission, you adjust your price accordingly. I don't think they beat you up either knowing custom guitars have a special client base -- the value of a guitar speaks for itself. IE I've played some plane Jane hand built's that knock your socks off.

Most stand alone shops that sell used will do this, the down side is, if it does not sell you get back a shop wore instrument.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

There are some advantages to building on commission, most important is that you can get a higher price for your guitar. But the higher price brings the time spent on communication, which is hard to account for and put a price on. My estimation is that I can't charge enough for all the communication time.

With a "build and sell" model there is no communication until the guitar is finished, and you are selling it. A well written description and pictures on the website takes care of a lot of questions up front. The sale has a simple formula, get the money, ship the guitar. The buyer gets a set amount of time to either accept or return the guitar.

I have to note the "trial period" is a normal feature of the "commission" model also. So you go through all the communication, and you still have to have your guitar "judged".

I work so much better with no one looking over my shoulder.

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I charge a non-refundable deposit and when the guitar is finished I ship it to the customer. There is no return policy and we've never had a customer request it. I love communicating with my customers, it makes the whole process much more personal and enjoyable. My main complaint with the whole process in general is the lack of communication, it's wonderful to talk with my clients about what they want and expect and to try to fulfill they're expectations. We've been building and selling for over 50 years, I love making guitars and am constantly fascinated with the whole process.

Yes, the non-refundable deposit, I had forgotten about that.
In 42 years building I have had only one guitar returned, and I got to keep the deposit, then moved the guitar on later.

I had a commission, the customer kept a steady stream of changes & additions, even changing the size (model) of the guitar at one point. I kept adding to the price as he added features. When I finished (a year later) the customer refused to pay the balance, "why is it so much?" he asked. I got to keep the hefty deposit, and sold the guitar a while later. Though I lost no money on the build, it was the last commission I took.

My repair work pays much better than building, and now I enjoy building so much more.

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I don't mind building on commission, although I prefer to build to my own desires. One bit of advice that I will give: if you think it's going to take 4 months, give an 8 month (at least) lead time and start it the very next day! Try take some of the pressure off.
With commissions I only do what I'm comfortable with. I have set parameters, for scale length, fretboard width and inlay/aesthetics. if they don't agree with those parameters then I refuse the commission (or it's a sale but no return). At least that way I have a very good chance of selling the instrument if they truly don't like the sound. You really do need to set out the ground rules first, in a clear manner.

Do you find a difference working with customers in the classical/Flamenco world vs. steel string?

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I wouldn't know since we only build classic and flamenco. My philosophy has always been "build what you know/play".

In my experience classical/Flamenco players insisted on French Polish.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I do about 20 % of my builds as commissions
you have to decide. I can tell you that doing commissions for me is a very good thing
I only do about 20 guitars a year

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I thought in South Carolina a bullet in the car was a BONUS!

We're approaching our 500th guitar and have used lacquer on every one.

Wow, good discussion.

We landed in the position where we will do commissions but only with a contract, a deposit to pay for the materials, and limited input once the initial design is agreed upon, no time constraints (within reason). I can't do this full time, maybe when I retire, so I'm not as solvent as others. While I like getting paid for my work, I build because it's an artistic expression of my skills learned over many years.

Everything else is built because I want to go that direction, my work almost always sells, but I build with the idea that it could be hanging on my wall. For instance I'm starting to plan a harp guitar, I'm pretty sure it will take a while to sell, if at all. But it's something I really want to do...

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I've done both selling off the rack, and on commission the last 40 years.... I can tell you this, you MUST be happy, so find what you like to do and don't deviate from that. Also, I'm aware that money isn't everything - so I never was afraid to tell a client NO, or worse.... that he was full of it. Good luck in your endeavors!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

One thing I forgot to mention is that Social Media is a great place to show your work, I've been showing pictures of my progress on the Ukes, and already have gotten a buyer for one. Others are watching, and when they interact all their contacts see the posting. I have another one who is interested and once I put it in his hands I'm positive it will be gone, he actually asked me if I could have by the 17th of this month, and I told him no way, I'm not playing that game, it will be done when I feel it's done

I've been able to sell Longboards and other projects off of there and get orders, for me the best feeling (not just guitars) is that in the last three years my shop has started to earn money. I just bought a new spindle/edge sander from my last order, money coming in is being used to upgrade tools and purchase things that I really need.

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars