Ecommerce Entrepreneur
Sayer Payne uses Leadpages to connect customers with retailers.
In many ways, Sayer Payne is the man in the middle: discovering guitar pedal manufacturers, developing their brands, and distributing their work to a marketplace of musicians. In a hyper-competitive industry in which manufacturers, distributors, and retailers share responsibility for driving brand awareness— Mas Distro is making waves.
See how Sayer uses Leadpages to help guitar pedal brands connect with consumers in a way that resonates.
Q&A with Sayer
You formerly managed a vintage music store, how did you get from there to here?
I’ve been in musical instruments since 2004, managing a store and selling guitars for $2,000-10,000. During the ’08 recession I saw our customers drop off but I knew that they would still be after something to soothe their gear addiction—just something at a lower price point. So I formed my own FX pedal company, which eventually became Mas Distro.
How do you choose which pedal manufacturers (musical tinkerers) to work with?
My rule is that the more normal the person, the less I’m going to like the product. The more “normal,” high-school football game-winning guy, doesn’t often have the experience that leads to working in the basement with electronics for 10 years until you have this type of complicated, technical skillset.
Let’s imagine you wake up on a Tuesday morning...what happens next?
My personal day operates on a global time table. So when I wake up, I am cleaning through correspondences that have come in from Asia. After I drop my son off at school I’m working on Europe from 8-10 AM, then US guitar stores open at 10 or 11 AM so I am with them until 4-5 PM. During that time I would be intermittently communicating with our manufacturing partners and our own staff. My day is, by design, sales and strategy for every minute I can make it so.
You never win when you don’t put the chips down on yourself at the right time.
Sayer Payne • CEO
Owner, MAS Distro
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
I have always sought as much wisdom as I could from people with more experience than myself both in and out of industry. The advice that’s best served me is that in the end, time is our most treasured resource and not to spend such valuable time on things that don’t express who you really are and what you really want to be.
Another thing I try to offer as advice is that business is about taking the right risks. You never win when you don’t put the chips down on yourself at the right time.
[Permission to brag] — What’s one thing you absolutely rock at?Â
I can quickly assess what is valuable to the person I am working with. I’ve spent so much time working on the phone with people that I feel like I can hear what their face looks like. I find that every single detail of what a person says is key—especially long term—and I pay attention to the nuances.
What’s one thing you’re actively trying to learn?
So much of my business is in my head, I’ve been on a path for the last couple years to learn how to transmit my vision to others and let them both enact and modify it based on their perspective. My team operates with great autonomous freedom, which means our candidates have to be superstars.
Learning to recognize the traits that lead to success both in the candidates and my own messaging with them is something I work to learn every day.
“I got tired of not having access to the most important tools that were limiting my ability to sell.”
How Sayer uses Leadpages
Mobile Responsive Templates
Grow your audience
Representing dozens of brands requires professional-looking landing pages that can quickly be customized to fit each business’ unique vibe. That’s a cinch with more than 200 templates to choose from and the easiest builder around.
Free Leadpages Domain
Unlimited publishing
With a growing portfolio of brands to represent, unlimited page publishing is critical for Sayer and his team. With Leadpages, he won’t pay more for his success or worry about hitting upper limits on his account.
Video Landing Pages
Multimedia Content
Showcase the story of your brand and highlight key features with images, videos, and multimedia. Drag and drop your content into position and our mobile-responsive builder will display beautifully on any device size.
“What we really want is customers to choose retailers that match their culture and their idea of service—not necessarily the retailer that spends the most on marketing or is the most aggressive.”
Sayer Payne