Lesson programs need constant fine-tuning to stay relevant and successful. During the past 23 years, The Music Room has regularly refined its program to keep up to date with customer trends while also protecting its bottom line. Here, company owner Carol Cook shares her biggest takeaways and hard-earned wisdom from more than two decades of working and reworking her program.

Discover how some of the best-looking and most successful music stores in Nashville merchandise and design their showrooms—and what you can take away from their examples. Tim Spicer of Spicer’s Music moderated this panel discussion at 2017 Summer NAMM with the best of the best in Music City. They shared their most innovative and effective store design concepts and discussed how they made these ideas a reality.

Video storytelling establishes credibility and tells your story like no static picture or text can. How can you take advantage of this powerful tool at your music retail business? In this NAMM U session, Grant Billings of Steinway Piano Gallery Naples, John Fowler of Shoreline Music and Will Mason of Mason Music reveal their top promotional videos and best practices.

At The 2017 NAMM Show, Kevin Cranley of Willis Music hosted a who’s who panel of music retailers, who weighed in on the biggest issues affecting business today. Panelists included Sammy Ash of Sam Ash Music, Cindy Cook of The Candyman Strings & Things, Pat Averwater of Amro Music, Whitney Brown Grisaffi of Ted Brown Music and George Quinlan Jr. of Quinlan & Fabish.

While some independent retailers have given up on Black Friday, Plum Grove Music has turned the Thanksgiving weekend into a record-setting sales event. Here, Rick Thacker, company owner, walks you through how he did it. Find out how one independent retailer made Black Friday a big deal for his business.

Sometimes, making just one big mistake can stall a lesson program. Here, lessons guru Pete Gamber lays out the biggest mistakes that impede a program’s success. He also shows how fixing any one of these “big mistakes” can transform a weak lesson program into a growing program that differentiates your business from the competition.

Don’t let your store look like yesterday! At this NAMM U session, Tim Pratt of Dietze Music shared effective and proven store design ideas you can do on a dime. Find out what he discovered while opening, designing and redesigning his stores, including how to remerchandise to get more sales from existing departments.

At the 2017 NAMM Show, Cris Behrens of Summerhays Music revealed his favorite social media campaigns from fellow music retailers. He chose Instagram and Facebook promotions that highlighted different approaches, from product to humor to advocacy. Discover what you can take away from these examples and best practices.

How the customers of tomorrow interact, engage and buy may look very different from what you see today. At The 2017 NAMM Show, award-winning marketing executive and author Larry Bailin hosted this NAMM U Breakfast Session to help NAMM members future-proof their businesses. Prepare for the customers of tomorrow by building better connections with the customers of today.

In this NAMM U session, Robert Christie of A&G Central Music discusses changes he’s made to his repair shop that have improved the customer experience and the bottom line. Get ideas on improving purchasing, inventory management, and selling repairs and maintenance agreements that can help your repair operation right away. Take control of your bottom line now.