“Whoever brings a piano to a party?” says Bernd Klein­mann. He has been playing the piano ever since he was six years old, and even earned his pocket money in his youth as a church organist. But the guitar sets the mood at a party, and so he exchanged keys for strings.

In the mean­time, Bernd Klein­mann owns four guitars which he also plays at the camp­fire. But not the Taylor, which is too valu­able. “It hasn’t seen the light of a camp­fire yet,” he chuckles. Some­times he even has a guitar with him when he meets up with customers. Because he knows that music opens doors. “But the situ­a­tion needs to be right.”

Quality is when the customer comes back to us, and not the machine.

Bernd Klein­mann

Like once at a meeting with customers from Holland. Someone in the group talked about her passion for playing the guitar and singing. The right cue for Klein­mann: At the next meeting in a pub, he brought along his guitar. “I look after a lot of Dutch clients, and I can sing a lot of songs in Dutch.” It turned out to be a fun evening that strength­ened the bond with our customers.

Good customer rela­tions are impor­tant to Bernd Klein­mann. As Sales Manager, he not only wants to impress customers with his prod­ucts. He also makes sure that the product is right for the customer. This is the only way to build long-term busi­ness rela­tion­ships. “Quality is when the customer comes back to us, and not the machine”.

He would love to perform on the big stage someday along­side profes­sional musi­cians. Prefer­ably with AC/DC. “But until that happens, I still have some prac­ticing to do. Will Bernd Klein­mann ever get to sell AC/DC a machine then? Let’s just wait and see!