Even successful music retailers make common website mistakes—often unknowingly. Discover the top five website blunders and how they impact your online success. Most importantly, find out how these mistakes get made and how they can be corrected. Join Sean Roylance, founder of Rain, who will walk you through problems with website content and design.

In this NAMM U session, Brian Reardon reveals how a year-round promotions calendar can help create steady traffic and a balanced cash flow for his store, Monster Music. He also shows examples of what types of promotions he hosts during particular times of year to generate store traffic, sales and cash flow. Discover how this applies to your music retail business.

Is your store’s website working for you? Want practical tips to take your online presence to the next level? Here, Mike Ross of Sweetwater Sound offers seven simple ideas you can use to improve your website right away. Find out how to give your website an upgrade, straight from a retail leader.

In an eye-opening NAMM U session at 2015 Summer NAMM, Robert Christie of A & G Central Music revealed the many benefits of offering maintenance agreements. He covered the nuts and bolts, from putting together a maintenance agreement to possible pitfalls. Discover how maintenance agreements might help your retail business.

Creating a succession strategy takes time and outside help. In fact, most music retailers will require a team of professionals to help them design and implement their succession-planning strategy. Here, Jaimie Blackman, president of BH Wealth Management, outlines the necessary talent for a succession-planning team. If you're a store owner, get started today.

In eight years, Noel Wentworth of Wentworth Music has grown his lesson program from 88 to 800-plus students. He credits his student concert events as a key factor in this growth. Here, Wentworth shares how he did it—and how you can, too. Find out how he's used these events to give back to the community, create a go-to music school and give students a life-changing experience.

At 2015 Summer NAMM, Chrissy Hansen of Chicago Music Exchange and Reverb.com revealed why a successful YouTube channel is one of a music retailer’s most powerful marketing tools. In two years, Chicago Music Exchange's YouTube channel went from 30,000 to more than 125,000 subscribers. Here are her essential tips for building a successful YouTube channel.

Is your store’s profit in line with your expectations? Financial gurus Alan Friedman and Daniel Jobe of Friedman, Kannenberg & Co. make it their business to help music retailers plan on profitability. At 2015 Summer NAMM, Friedman and Jobe gave retailers easy steps for building a working budget.

What happens when customers get behind on instrument rental payments or rental instruments aren’t returned? At 2015 Summer NAMM, Robin Sassi and Kimberly Deverell of San Diego Music Studio gave music retailers the lowdown on collections for rental instruments. Sassi and Deverell spoke frankly from 21 years of experience in business and shared valuable tips on how to avoid pitfalls, improve collections and help the bottom line.

Shipping is more important than ever to your customers and your business. In the past decade, the shipping wars between major carriers UPS and FedEx have resulted in substantial price hikes. Tariffs for ground and air shipments will keep increasing.