Running a successful music lessons program comes with its challenges, namely missed lessons and cancellations. At 2015 Summer NAMM, Carol Cook of The Music Room in Palatine, Ill., shared how she breathed new life into her program and business by revamping her lessons program and eliminating makeup lessons.

Is your music lesson program keeping up with changing buying and learning habits? At the 2015 NAMM Show, James Harding of Gist Piano Center delved into proven ideas for modernizing lesson programs. Find out how to reduce overhead, stabilize your income and build critical word-of-mouth advertising while reorganizing your program with a student membership model.

Rand and Cindy Cook of The Candyman Strings & Things have increased sales, gained loyal and long-term customers, and found a solution to the summer lessons lull, all while hosting a passion-producing, confidence-building program for the community youth. Their secret? An award-winning summer rock camp. Here, they share their guidelines for success.

Sooner or later, bad weather affects business. And when it does, you can take the day off with the rest of the world or get creative and turn it into an opportunity to market your music lesson program. Here, Mike and Miriam Risko of Mike Risko Music share five ways they've turned snow days and blackouts into a promotional opportunity.

Three years ago, Liane Rockley of Rockley Music made a calculated decision to gut her lesson program and rebuild it from the ground up. It’s now a successful, thriving program, as part of the new Rockley Education Center. And at the 2015 NAMM Show, she shared her strategy for making this happen.

At the 2015 NAMM Show, Donovan Bankhead and Misty Kristek of Springfield Music revealed proven strategies and tactics for creating a lesson program with sustainable profits. If you’re tired of music lessons just breaking even at your store, find out how to build a lesson program that customers will pay real money for—and make real money for your business.

At 2014 Summer NAMM, Gayle Beacock, co-owner of Beacock Music and NAMM’s 2013 Dealer of the Year, paid special homage to instructors in her lesson program. This high-energy session features tips and guidelines for building a successful lesson program—one that attracts and keeps great teachers. "We're nothing without our teachers," Beacock says.

At 2014 Summer NAMM, music lessons guru Pete Gamber distilled 35 years of retail and music lessons experience into a candid, tell-all session. It revealed his unique approach to building a successful lessons program—one with a staggering 2,000-plus students per week. Find out how he did it, and apply his best practices to your lesson program.

Rock camps have been part of the music lessons scene for years, but Menzie Pittman has taken the concept to a new level. At Contemporary Music Center, he not only hosts summer camps but also a year-round program that has put his store on the map. At the 2014 NAMM Show, Pittman shared what it takes to succeed with rock camps.

Susan Pascale is the founder and director of Pascale Music Institute, a nationally recognized children’s music lesson program and home of the Los Angeles Children’s Orchestra. In this series, she shares her proven ideas for building a successful lesson program. If you’re interested in growing your program, or starting one, learn from her tried-and-true best practices.