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At the 2018 NAMM Show, music lessons authority Pete Gamber schooled the audience on making more sales from your music lesson program. Gamber remarked that he’s in one retail store after another teaching six days a week, so he’s seen tons of lesson rooms and music lesson programs. Gamber shared that you need to create a strategic plan to sell to your students, implement the plan and let your students know about it, especially during the holiday selling season. According to Gamber, it starts with shifting your mindset toward your lesson program as revenue stream. Here are his conce

At The 2018 NAMM Show, Instrumental Music Center (IMC) co-owner Leslie Faltin shared her best tips for creating an outstanding customer experience. Faltin commented that her store had recently received Best Customer Service and Best Sales Staff from Music & Sound Retailer magazine, highlighting that customer service continues to drive her business. Here are the biggest takeaways from her NAMM U session. (Watch the video for the complete presentation.) Your Store Is the Stage for the Experience• Tell your customers they are in the right place. Faltin tells customers, “You’ve c

At The 2018 NAMM Show, Instrumental Music Center (IMC) co-owner Leslie Faltin shared her best tips for creating an outstanding customer experience. Faltin commented that her store had recently received Best Customer Service and Best Sales Staff from Music & Sound Retailer magazine, highlighting that customer service continues to drive her business. Here are the biggest takeaways from her NAMM U session. (Watch the video for the complete presentation.) Your Store Is the Stage for the Experience• Tell your customers they are in the right place. Faltin tells customers, “You’ve c

At The 2018 NAMM Show, Tim Spicer of Spicer’s Music shared his best tips for hosting events that help drive business. As a NAMM Top 100 retailer and winner of Best Marketing and Promotions in 2017, Spicer offered best practices, his formula for success and valuable lessons learned along the way. Here are session highlights. (Watch the video for the full presentation.) PLANNING AND COORDINATING EVENTS 1. Decide why you want to hold an event. Is it to create sales and new customers, showcase a new product, or build name recognition? In 2017, Spicer’s Music held 28 in-store events,

The future of retail is right now. So who is winning in this new reality and why? That was the focus of “Retail Innovators,” the opening NAMM U Breakfast Session at 2018 Summer NAMM. Hosted by NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond, the session featured discussions with some of the most forward-thinking music retailers of today. They shared how they’re thriving with innovative, effective, even unconventional business models—and, in some cases, disrupting the industry as we know it. The session kicked off with Lamond commenting on the latest future-forward developments in retail. “This

Cosmo Music’s Mark Hebert has seen tremendous growth in his company’s CosmoFest, an all-out music and gear festival, with 14,000-plus registrants this year alone. During “Retail Innovators” at 2018 Summer NAMM, Herbert shed light on the event’s success in an interview with NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond. Hebert explained that the recent CosmoFest featured 160 brands, big-name artists and clinics. The result has been an event that galvanizes the music community and creates a spike in residual sales. (Including vendor reps, more than 400 people worked on CosmoFest.) “A lot of peo

Scott and Monique Robbins of G-Brat’s Guitars built a $2 million-a-year music retail business from their home—without employees—using online selling platforms, such as Reverb. During “Retail Innovators” at 2018 Summer NAMM, the husband-and-wife couple revealed their success strategy in an interview with NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond. According to Scott and Monique, reputation is everything when selling through third-party platforms, as it removes the fear of buying from the consumer. “You’re paying somebody a lot of money that you’ve never met for a guitar you’ve never touched

During “Retail Innovators” at 2018 Summer NAMM, Tony Schreiber of Pedal Genie discussed his company’s unique business model with NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond. Founded five years ago, Pedal Genie is a subscription-based effects pedal service. (Think Netflix for pedals.) It’s also part of Florida-based music retailer Gear Hero HQ. According to Schreiber, Pedal Genie’s model works because of a deep, shared pedal inventory with Gear Hero HQ. Also, pedals are small, durable and, as he put it, “value-dense.” In other words, they’re readymade for a subscription retail model. “And co

In 2013, Randy Shayler purchased Zeswitz Music, a 90-year-old school music retailer. Since then, the company’s sales have increased more than 40 percent, and the number of schools served has nearly doubled. During “Retail Innovators” at 2018 Summer NAMM, he discussed how Zeswitz achieved that growth by overhauling its systems and creating what he called “a vast advantage.” Here are highlights from his interview with NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond. On overcoming obstacles: [We had] one of the most inefficient warehouse layouts I’d ever seen. I went and talked to the folks who we

At The 2018 NAMM Show, Lee Anderton of Andertons Music, NAMM's 2018 Dealer of the Year, shared tips for getting noticed on YouTube. According to Anderton, he grew his online business from $2 million to more than $30 million annually in seven years, and YouTube was critical in making that happen. Andertons Music currently employs a full-time video staff of three and eight regular part-time presenters. The company releases at least one video per day across four channels. Early on, Anderton contacted guitarist Rob Chapman to do a couple of videos for the store. Anderton eventually mi

Does your website need an all-out makeover, or are you just looking for some do’s and don’ts to update your site? At 2017 Summer NAMM, Tracy Leenman of Musical Innovations, NAMM’s 2015 Dealer of the Year, and panelists Dan Fugate of Blues Angel Music and Allen McBroom of Backstage Music shared what they’ve learned through their recent experiences with website redesigns. McBroom and Fugate were both forced to do complete revamps when their websites crashed. Likewise, Leenman did a makeover to her site. Her advice: Do it before you have to. Here are their tips for a successful webs

For music retailers, eBay presents another online selling opportunity. At the 2018 NAMM Show, Matthew Stoecker of Quinn the Eskimo shared the basics of selling on eBay and expert tips that helped him grow into a $6 million e-commerce business — in large part because of the platform. During his session, Stoecker shared that the majority of active eBay buyers (168 million individuals) generally know what they want, and it’s up to you to offer it to them. And with new lower rates for guitars and basses, it can be easier to sell these items. GETTING STARTED There are two types of eB