The Independent Music Store Owner (iMSO) association has named new board members, including Don Tegeler of Tegeler Music (Clinton, Iowa) as president.
“I first want to thank Gordy Wilcher of Owensboro Music Center for all he’s done for the group,” Tegeler said of the former president and co-founder. “He’s made a lot of positive things happened, and I hope to build on that.”
Also named were vice president Chris Basile of South Jersey Music of South Jersey Music (Sewell, N.J.); Secretary Allen McBroom of Backstage Music (Starkville, Miss.); and treasurer Jeff Nixon of Instrumental Music (Ludington, Mich.). Lisa Kirkwood of Clark’s Music Center (formerly Discount Music, Jacksonville) is now the group’s media contact. Jim Destafney of Blue Angel Music (Pensacola, Fla.) is the NAMM liaison.
Tegeler aims to refocus back to the group’s roots, which is the forum available for members to share ideas and tips with the overall goal of effectively promoting music making. “A lot of people look at us as a buying group, which we’re not,” Teleger explains. “We did experiment with an ‘iBuy’ program, but we recently disbanded it because the cost of running it wasn’t worth the results. We would put together deals, but not enough members would take advantage of them.” Tegeler will be having meetings with manufacturers and suppliers, and they still have their “preferred vendor” program, which recognizes those vendors who are especially indy-friendly.
“I believe I was selected as president because of my faith in our core beliefs, which boils down to sharing best practices between independent dealers through the forum,” he says. “Promotions that work, hiring tips, products that are doing especially well, vendors who are especially good to work with – those kinds of things. We are stronger united then we are separated.”
As an example, several members staged Labor Day Benefit Concerts with great success. Tegeler raised over $10,000 at theirs for Wounded Warriors. “But besides that good cause, I’m supporting live musicians – in two days I gave 20 bands a professional public environment to show off in 30-minute sets.”
He adds that when he first joined the group, there were 50 members, and today there are over 500.
For more information: www.musicstoreowners.com
