Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Music Trades

Peter Wolf: the marketing virtuoso who made Paul Reed Smith guitars a truly global brand, and his unique set of skills.

Article Excerpt
THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT sent shock waves through the retail industry on September 1, 1974, when it voted to permit German shopkeepers to sell products below a manufacturer's suggested retail price for the first time. Overnight this legislative bombshell transformed the German retail environment. Inadvertently it also helped launch Peter Wolf on a varied career path in music that included stints as a musician, retailer, sound contractor, distributor, and culminated in his current post as director of sales and marketing for Paul Reed Smith Guitars.

Wolf grew up in a musical household in Koblenz, Germany, on the banks of the scenic Rhine River. After playing the piano, violin, and drums, he took up the guitar in earnest at age 16. By 1974 he was a full-fledged struggling musician, and like his counterparts around the world, was long on ambition but short on funds to buy the gear he wanted. But while the average musician was content to complain about problems buying equipment, Wolf instinctively looked for entrepreneurial solutions. When Germany abruptly legalized discounting, he sensed an opportunity to simultaneously serve his fellow musicians and get the stuff he wanted for himself. That year two of his future partners (Wolf had to finish his time in the German army) opened Prosound Music Center in Koblenz, with the then-novel concept of "everyday low prices." To stock the fledgling store, Wolf and his partners took their VW bus and made the 12-hour drive to London's Shaftsbury Avenue,...