Real World Retail

Main Location: Lake City, Fla.

Number of Locations: One

Square Footage: 3,000

Type: Traditional Retail

Number of Employees: Two

MAIN FOCUS: 50% Car Audio, 28% Marine Audio, 14% Powersports, 10% Accessories

KEY STAFF

Owner: Joey Knapp

Store Manager: Brian Knagge

As someone who’d always been fascinated by car audio, Joey Knapp helped out at a friend’s shop while attending community college in 1989. He earned his master’s degree in elementary education, but stayed with car audio. During the 2008 recession, the owner of the shop he worked for decided to pursue a different field, so Knapp took the opportunity to use his degree and taught for about five years.

Now, he’s owned Pinnacle Autosound in Lake City, Fla. since 2017, where he’s been balancing a heavy workload with shop manager Brian Knagge. The business started out as Sound Line Design, and Knapp purchased the car audio side from the company and renamed it Pinnacle Autosound, he said, adding that Sound Line Design continues business in home theater, security and surveillance.

When the business was housed in a smaller building, Knapp said they handled some golf carts, boats and cars. Moving to the current location about a year before he purchased it “made a huge difference,” he said. “Our big bay can fit anything. We have a number of people bring us boats because now they can stay in overnight, and we couldn’t have done that at our old place.”

Car and marine audio are the shop’s most profitable categories, with backup cameras as a frequent add-on to radio sales. An investment which has paid off many times over, according to Knapp, is an Echomaster backup camera display. Backup camaras were an every-now-andthen item until the shop incorporated the display. In the last year, sales have skyrocketed across the board, he said, adding, “I purchased the business because I was working side-by-side with Brian as an installer for five years. I knew his morals, ethics and capability. I knew I could trust him.”

While things are busy for now, Knapp doesn’t feel comfortable enough to bring someone else into the fold: The economic future remains uncertain as the effects of COVID-19 wind down. For now, the shop will remain a two-man business.

Pre-pandemic, Knapp was traveling to Milpitas, California about once a month to do fabrication work at Simplicity in Sound with Bing Xu. He initially got involved with the west coast shop when Xu decided to move his business from his personal garage to a retail location.

Since then, Knapp has divided his time between Simplicity in Sound and Pinnacle Autosound.

Whenever Knapp was in California, he said Knagge knew someone he could call as a part-time worker if he needed help. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, it’s just been the two of them.

Last March—the beginning of the pandemic—marked his most recent trip out to California. “My initial plan, because I was still going back and forth, was for Brian to handle everything so I could invest in the business,” he said of Pinnacle Autosound. Now, it’s expanded, and both men balance responsibilities in the day-to-day.

“We focus on filling the customer’s need, and see if they can benefit from something additional,” he said. “Neither of us are stellar salespeople because our background is in installation.”

When he first took over the business, Knapp said they did their best to collect names, email addresses and how a customer heard about them. But it became difficult for the two of them to stay on top of it, he said, and he hopes to return to the practice at some point in the future.

In the past, the shop would also send thank-you cards to anyone who spent

over $1,500, but the practice stopped after the business moved to its current location.

Both men will take part in the conversation if a customer is looking for more of a high-end system. If supplies get low, Knapp handles ordering and bookkeeping. “Other than that, we both clean, install and answer the phone.” It’s possible they might be leaving some money on the table when it comes to sales, he admitted, “but people are typically happy and comfortable with the results. In the future, sales could be an area of growth for us.”

The goal was always to keep more inventory so the shop could handle sound system jobs without having to wait for orders to come in, according to Knapp. With such high demand, he wanted to stock more inventory to handle walk-ins. Product shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged him to learn more about inventory management and stocking. Knapp said Pinnacle Autosound will continue to keep more inventory even post-pandemic. Lately, he’s been spending more time making sure the shop has kits, harnesses and other equipment, while in the past, he added, “It wasn’t that big of a deal.” Now, the shop has five times as much inventory as it had when Knapp first took over.

“Most of our stuff is just-in-time ordering,” he said, adding, “We keep some radios and speakers on hand.” Since the product shortage has brought focus to the issue, Knapp said he’ll continue stocking inventory instead of relying on the justin-time model. This past year, creative acquisition of products has been a focus for many shops.

“It seems like kits and harnesses are a little better now, but at one time, I would start with distributors, move to Amazon if they didn’t have it, then eBay—and the worst-case scenario was a business-to-business account with Crutchfield,” he explained. “That was the last line of hope because it’s the least profitable option.”

However, he added, the important

thing was ensuring the harness would be available in order to complete the install.

While Knapp has taken advantage of many online trainings during the pandemic, he said he would like to see trainings that focus more on stocking inventory and inventory management. Such trainings would be geared toward “just-in-time shops” that aren’t as familiar with managing stock, he added.

While the shop has some walk-in clients, everything is generally scheduled. Knapp said the shop is booked about three weeks out. While both are able to do just about everything in the business, Knagge usually handles direct interaction with clients.

“A potential customer will come in

and ask a question, and we do our best to qualify them,” Knapp said. “We have a display with functional product, so we can go over something they might be interested in and schedule the appointment.” Going out to look at the client’s car with them, he added, is one of the first steps in the process. For larger builds, the shop keeps in touch with the client via cell phone and follows up to ensure everything is working properly, and to see if the client has any questions or concerns.

While they each have cars that can be used as demo vehicles, Knapp said it isn’t often necessary. “Dave MacKinnon helped me set up my switching system for the display, and I told him it probably needs to switch and play for only about 10 seconds,” he explained, laughing.

He said that Pinnacle Autosound’s

customers aren’t usually interested in high-end sound quality. “I think some of our client definition is formed by the economics of our rural area. There isn’t a lot of money here.” Generally, he said, the shop focuses on trying to provide the best quality possible for the client’s budget.

If there’s ever an economic slump, Knapp said he feels Pinnacle Autosound is in a good position because the shop only has two people on payroll—himself and Knagge—and he can also rely upon other skills and tools for additional income. This past year, the shop was commissioned by a local bank chain to fabricate displays for customer service areas, and another local business hired them to make free-standing tablet holders for payroll, and for employees to use for clocking in and out of work.

“I didn’t seek out these jobs, but they found me, and they helped boost revenue during COVID,” he said. “I could have initially blown it off, but I said yes and it paid off big.”

Recently, Knapp was contacted about making acrylic laser pieces for a wedding. Regarding any similar requests, he said, “If I can help, I will. And if things slow in car audio, I can try to market it and grow that side of the business.” He continues to keep a library of photographs of work he’s done on the laser. “I just have fun with it now, but if I had to lean on it, I could.”

He advised other retailers to keep an open mind to unexpected opportunities, even if they’re outside the categories the shop ordinarily handles. “It was different. I wasn’t putting a radio in a car or building an enclosure,” he said. “I’m confident—but I’m also not. Be willing to step outside your comfort zone. Those things didn’t keep the lights on, but they still gave us the best year we ever had.”

While they’ve set their first sales goal for the year, Knapp said he can’t be certain the economy will continue to be in their favor. In the future, he added, he’d like to see a continually full schedule. “Because of the challenging job market,” he noted, “I would like to keep maximizing the output of our two-man team.”

During the pandemic, Pinnacle Autosound has faced backorders and stocking issues like many shops. According to Knapp, one of the business’s reps has been instrumental in assisting with these difficulties.

“Bill Freeman is our rep for Morel, Kenwood and now Rockford Fosgate, and he’s pushed me on the inventory side of things and helped me plan my backorders. He helped us get as much equipment as we could.”

Freeman assisted wherever Knapp didn’t have as much experience, he said. “He suggested strategies to [help us] order more heavily than ordinary, to keep us going for a while.” He also advised him on staying more aware of stock levels.

A couple of months ago, Pinnacle Autosound signed on with Rockford due to availability issues with other brands. Rockford’s dealer portal—which shows which products are in stock and which ones aren’t—has been very helpful, according to Knapp.

Word-of-mouth marketing has continued to bring new customers to Pinnacle Autosound over the years. The original shop’s customer base was already established, which provided momemtum in moving forward. People knew where to go and told their friends. A lot of customers who visit say they heard about the shop from someone else, according to Knapp.

The business relies mostly on its website, Facebook and Instagram pages, though Knapp admitted he doesn’t do as much as he should. This year, he wants to get more content onto the website and keep up with social media.

Any money spent on marketing ordinarily goes toward community engagement, like sponsoring kids’ sports teams.

Earlier in the year, the shop provided local school Pathways Academy with water bottles for all the children, since they weren’t able to use drinking fountains due to COVID-19. [See February issue of Mobile Electronics magazine, Retail News.]

Currently, Pinnacle Autosound is preparing videos for different product categories that will be shared on Facebook and YouTube.

Knapp will also be adding related videos to articles on the business’s website, to improve content marketing efforts.