Trade Regrets: Fred Dee Hoyt

Fred Dee Hoyt, 71, passed away February 16, 2015 in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Dee, as he was known, was born in Dodge City, Kansas on July 26, 1943. He graduated from Ford High School where he was an outstanding athlete (basketball and track) and also played low bass for the band. He attended Fort Hays State College where he continued his interest in music by playing bass guitar for the band The Tornadoes, cutting a record and touring.  While making music and pursuing his college degree, he got the “call,” like so many others, to put down his instrument and pick up the sales side of the music products business. It started at Hays Music Co in 1963 where he was hired as guitar manager. This opportunity gave him the experience needed for things to come.  Dee spent the next 50 years selling instruments, designing new products (guitars, amps and accessories), building sales forces and developing marketing strategies for the music industry. His innovations were industry changing and led to unprecedented success for each company he worked for.

As a sideline in college, Hoyt started an electronics manufacturing company, building amplifiers and speaker cabinets for St. Louis Music Supply and other wholesalers. Another sideline for Dee at the time was a 10-band talent agency he named Sounds Unlimited.

A big break came for Hoyt in 1969 when CMI – Gibson/Olds/Reynolds/Wm Lewis/Maestro, et cetera – out of Chicago made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. It was off to the races and the road for the next 30 plus years for Dee Hoyt and what a long successful trip it was.

With CMI, he was a Road Rep first. He also developed new guitars and other products while becoming top salesman out of a field of over 50 other reps for three consecutive years. He took a $600,000 territory up to $4.5 million in less than four years and never looked back.

A huge CMI competitor, CBS – Fender/Rogers/Rhoads/VC Squire – finally got tired of competing with him and, in 1980, they made him another offer he could not refuse. CBS made Hoyt vice president of sales and national sales manager for Fender where he trained a 22-person sales force and provided the now famous Hoyt mojo to help the company increase sales over 8% each year for five years straight.

The next stop was national sales manager for Tokai USA where Hoyt was able to take a little known brand of vintage knock off guitars to national prominence.

Yamaha scooped up Hoyt in 1985 and made him a divisional sales manager where he set up Yamaha’s first telemarketing department for his, and every other division inside the company. He helped increase the bottom line profits of Yamaha over 12% per year.

Samick Music Corporation then recruited Dee as director of sales to help kick-start a new guitar program that made industry history by topping unit sales of over 139,000 annually.

From there, Dee Hoyt was made vice president of sales and marketing for Kanstul Musical Instruments where he developed marketing and sales that increased their business 66% in the first year. From there, he accepted a vice president of sales & marketing position with American Sejung where he was instrumental in taking the company up to $20,000,000 in sales in less than two years, making ASC the fastest growing company in the history of the music products industry.

Even in semi-retirement, he remained productive by landing at A&E Music Concepts out of Wichita Falls. At A&E, Dee Hoyt reached the top of the ladder by sourcing, importing, and selling container-loads of musical instruments to the big chain stores.  He also continued to design new guitars, amps, horns, and accessories that were friendly to the chain store atmosphere.  To the very end, a lean, mean selling machine.