To kick off The 2020 NAMM Show, NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond presented singer-songwriter Jason Mraz with the Music for Life Award, honoring his commitment to music and arts education. Mraz then sat down with Lamond during the show’s opening educational session, “Breakfast of Champions,” to discuss the importance of music and arts education in driving his career, along with his work as a music-education advocate via the Jason Mraz Foundation.
Don’t let common crises in your music lesson program hurt your student retention. In this session, Melissa Loggins of Music Authority offers practical tips to help you address the five biggest customer-service crises in a lesson business without losing your cool. She covers everything from handling late fees to parents who are unhappy with a cancellation policy.
In this NAMM U session, Will Mason of Mason Music covers four simple but incredibly effective techniques that will help you better train and empower your team to run the business for you. Mason leads a team of 60 people at four different locations, and he attributes his company’s growth to developing this team to lead. Discover how to step out of the daily grind and focus on the big picture, creating opportunity for long-term planning, goal setting and business growth.
At the 2019 NAMM Show, Eileen Tan of 7 Notes Music School shared her tips on how to hire the best teachers for your lesson program and business—and avoid bad hiring decisions. Tan guaranteed that you’ll save yourself time and mistakes by following these tips.
Robert Christie, president of A & G Central Music, took home NAMM’s Dealer of the Year Award in 2017, in large part because of how he’s built the retailer into an indie school music powerhouse. Here, he shares 20-plus years of lessons learned to help you grow your own school music business. Christie looks at how to keep a rental program new and relevant and make it a service your customers can’t live without.
What products, services and technologies are likely to be a big deal and drive the industry in the year ahead? At “Best in Show,” the popular closing NAMM U Breakfast Session at The 2020 NAMM Show, Frank Alkyer, publisher of Music Inc. and UpBeat Daily magazines, hosted a panel of retail gear experts who shopped the far corners of the exhibit floor to bring you their picks. They revealed not only the biggest products at The NAMM Show but also sales tips and potential customers for this gear.
Do you want your Instagram posts to have a greater impact? Are you baffled by some of the platform’s new features? Do you wonder how on earth you can boost your follower count? Here, Mallory Nees, social media manager for music gear marketplace Reverb, shares new Instagram power tips—proven, expert tactics for increasing your influence and engagement on the platform.
How do you create and retain great employees? How do you keep them consistently performing at their very best? It starts with your company culture, and more than ever before, it’s critical to the success of your business. In this session, Jimmy Edwards of Marshall Music offers five proven strategies that he’s used to maximize morale, job performance and retention at his seven-store retail chain.
We’ve all heard that people are your greatest resource, and when it comes to building a successful lesson program, that goes double. The teachers you hire greatly affect sales and your business’ reputation. So, what makes a great music teacher? What should you look for when hiring or recruiting new teachers? Where and how do you find them? Jonathan Shue of Dusty Strings Music Store & School weighs in.
At 2019 Summer NAMM, the opening NAMM U Breakfast Session explored what might be the biggest issue in music retail: disruption. NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond, the session host, opened the morning by inviting everyone to think of disruption not as good or bad but as an opportunity to adapt and continue to lead the industry into the future. Afterwards, he spoke with a team of thought leaders to explore this concept.