

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Huthmaker.
Hi Anna, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My life’s journey has been music, music, music. My parents were playing in a symphony when my mom went into labor with me, causing them to leave the stage to go to the hospital. I was three years old when I started to play and went on to spend decades studying, teaching, and performing professionally. ‘Cello and Double Bass were my life and everything I did was dictated by that.
I was in college when my father fell in love with violin restoration. He dove in completely and within a few years had expanded his own teaching and performing career to owning a small violin shop in Florida.
After graduation, I bounced around a few jobs…working in a department store and teaching privately, when I abruptly got laid off. Calling home in tears, my mother said, “We were actually wondering if you wanted to join us in Atlanta to open a family violin shop?” I really could not imagine us all working together but after some thought, I said, “I will give you one year.”
That was 31 years ago.
From the beginning, I loved the shop. I loved working in it and loved the constant learning that came with the job. As the years went by, we grew, expanded and thrived. There was strength and magic in the three of us. As my parents neared retirement, I struggled with anxiety. How could the shop survive without all of us? Did I have enough in me to be the sole-proprietor? I quieted the voices by studying as much about business as possible, taking classes, and securing mentorships with business coaches. And in the process, I fell madly in love with being a business owner. I found my purpose in being of service to musicians of every age and in dedicating myself to every part of being an entrepreneur.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The journey felt surprising easy for the first 20-25 years, which I suspect had something to do with the fact that my mother was shouldering the lion’s share of responsibility. Everything went fairly well but we couldn’t escape a simple fact…. We had zero business education. So, while Dad leaned more and more into the business of violin restoration and identification, my mother and I started getting an education about every aspect of business. We joined NAMM… the music industry trade association. While it was 99% guitars, drums and trumpets, they had an amazing series of classes dedicated to growing businesses and we dove in
Joining NAMM decades ago was our first small act of nonconformity and we have spent years learning how to sell violins from our fellow NAMM members. Be they electric guitar and drum manufacturers, sound amplification companies, or hearing-loss prevention specialists, we have learned from them all. In fact, we credit NAMM for one of our biggest lessons, which is to be open and learn from businesses that don’t look like us.
And then three years ago, I learned about the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program. It is a 3-month long intensive business class, much like a boutique MBA. And if you get accepted, it is completely free. It is an extraordinary program, along with their Black in Business Program and Women in Business. That catapulted me into a real business education and helped give me the confidence to believe that I could carry our family business further.
But I still had an ongoing challenge…..
As the years went by, we certainly did learn a lot, but when I took the business over from my parents, it became obvious that after 30+ years in the business, we still had a sameness to how we did things. We processed hundreds of rental instruments the same way we did in the beginning, and our repair procedures were still modeled after those of the old European shops we were patterned after.
And that was when things got more difficult. I was lost as to how to evolve both myself and the business.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The thing that I am most proud of is that I did not stay complacent. It would have been so easy to keep going the way we always had. If it isn’t broken, why fix it, right? Wrong. We are still housed in an 1880’s hotel, with the smell of varnish and sawdust in the air. We still use hand tools on hundred-year-old instruments every day and we still honor the traditions of the old European violin shops. But we also chose to innovate. We chose to step outside of the box that we knew and to learn from an industry that looks nothing at all like us.
I mentioned earlier that I was at a loss as to how to evolve. Luckily, the universe brought me the perfect answer in the form of a friend. Kim is a heavy-metal loving, tattooed corporate manager who knows nothing about the violin world. She has always been fascinated by everything we did and is an unerring source of support for me as I have been navigating taking over the business from my parents. Unbeknownst to me, she was also telling her father, Scott Weiler, all about us. Scott is a retired manufacturing genius. His career was to travel the world, as a hired consultant, fixing broken manufacturing systems and solving problems that were costing companies billions. Automotive plants in Japan, software building companies in Southeast Asia…. He found solutions and got results.
As it turns out, he may be retired, but he never lost his thirst for a challenge and during a visit in the spring of 2024, Kim brought him to see our violin shop. After looking around for a few minutes, he offered to help me. He would coach me a few times online and see if he could teach us to run things more smoothly and efficiently. The other day, I was asked what I was most proud of in the business…. I am proud of a lot of things, but I am extra proud that I said ‘Yes’ to this opportunity. I was completely in over my head, but I went for it.
That was a year and a half ago and we still have a standing Friday morning meeting.
In the beginning, he assigned books for me to read, starting with Goldratt’s “The Goal”, and kept piling them on from there. He assigned books for the staff to read, including “The Myth of Multitasking”, which really did make an impression on us all! He taught us about Kanban Boards, which we use daily, and Constraint Theory. He encouraged us to keep seasonal Management Flow Charts, taught us to minimize WIP in all its forms, and inspired us to 5-S the workshops, one at a time.
The Pareto Principle, Thru-Put, Prerequisite Trees, and Bench Marking all became part of my everyday language, but while the learning was compelling, it was the results that were particularly fascinating. We were still climbing out of COVID financially, and were in that difficult place where we had more customers, but not a lot of revenue coming in. Then our highest ranked luthier retired, and both my parents began to face serious health problems, forcing them to also fully retire. In a year, we went from seven employees down to four, without the resources to hire more.
1,000 rentals, dozens of schools that relied on us for repairs, and of course, all the regular customers that we serve…..
Four of us.
We had only been working with Scott for a few months, so I called a staff meeting and asked for everyone’s input. We collectively decided to commit to all that we were learning, and to see what we could do, just the four of us, for the next 12 months.
We are coming up on that year and thanks to everything we have learned, and thanks to the commitment of the staff, we are thriving. Our rental numbers are up, our Thru-Put is up and we have survived the summer’s school repairs and this fall’s rental season. All of that is because of the capacity created by the manufacturing processes we have implemented. Looking forward, Scott also taught us about entropy, which is where it is easy to sink back into old ways and ideas and to lose the gains we have made. So that Friday morning meeting on my calendar isn’t going anywhere. We still have a lot to learn and new ideas to apply.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Yes! Begin by learning from others in your industry, but quickly add in learning from industries completely different from you. An amazing thing happens when you open your mind to something different and non-standard. You not only find new and unique ways to do things, but there is a freshness to what you apply. How do you stand out from all the other people doing the same thing you are doing? Take a different path.
And while you are at it…… read every week. Read blogs, newsletters, and articles. Watch Ted Talks. Email entrepreneurs that you look up to and ask them for a coaching session. Apply to one of the Goldman Sachs programs. (Seriously…do that one today). Make the time to learn.
And then pick something to try and do it. Don’t study a hundred ideas without moving on them…. put something into practice. Motion is everything and you will be amazed at how your business will evolve if you commit to the forward momentum.
Pricing:
- To rent a violin? $20 a month
- To take some violins lessons? $30-45 a week
- To buy a better to support your education? $1,500-2,500
- Making your own music? Priceless.
- And for fun…how much are the instruments the Atlanta Symphony are plahing on? $35K-in the seven figures.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.huthmakerviolins.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/huthmakerfineviolins/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuthmakerViolins
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@huthmakerviolins551
Image Credits
Anna Huthmaker
Andy Clements (students standing in front of Huthmaker Violins Sign)
City of Suwanee (Huthmaker Violin Sign)
Dana Ballard (Photo of Anna Huthmaker)
Anna Huthmaker (Remainder of photos)