Succeed by Going Above and Beyond

This issue of MMR – much like many August (sometimes July!) editions in my tenure with the magazine – focuses on the relationship between MI retailers and suppliers with area music students, schools, and music programs. While certain initiatives such as “Back to School” sales remain evergreen, low-hanging fruit for dealers and vendors, the effectiveness of such tried and true methodology, as well as the mechanics of connecting with kids and their parents (the ones who actually make the big purchases) continue to change at a rapid clip. School music reps visiting districts is still an impactful strategy for many, but perhaps not for all, or not as much as in decades past. E-commerce and ready access to an overabundance of (often suspect) information about specific models of instruments and gear represent challenges as threatening to the maintenance and expansion of retailer/student/teacher connections as school budget cuts and larger economic trends.

“It’s just too easy to get online what you used to need to come to a music store for,” observes Drew Parker of Lewisville, North Carolina’s Separk Music Company in the current Dealer Survey (page XX). “The problem with the typical beginning band family is that they don’t know what they don’t know. The guidance they get on a website cannot duplicate what they get from a concerned and caring music store staff. But in many cases now, we are their second choice after being disappointed by what they got online. We need to do whatever it takes to keep that customer coming back to us.”

Supersonic Music’s (Topeka, Kansas) Derek Sharp adds, “[Today’s] culture posits that individuals can become ‘expert’ in anything on the other end of a Google search (‘research’ they call it), and those individuals have heard so many wackos sound off there that they’re suspicious of anyone purporting to actually know anything about a topic. Therefore, trust in what store employees/sales folks have to share – regardless of how many years’ worth of experience such folks have had with the very topics at hand – is very low. My pseudo-sociology ends there, so I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe the tide will turn someday and experience will be valued again.”

What to do, then, when formats that have worked for ages upon ages seem to suddenly no longer carry as much weight within the zeitgeist? Believe me, as someone who committed his professional life to “print media,” I can relate…

As the experts we spoke with for this issue’s Spotlight feature (page XX) seem to agree, it’s a situation where strategy is of utmost importance and a case of “slow and steady” wins the race. “We suggest to think long-term,” advises George Quinlan, Jr. of Quinlan & Fabish. “Perhaps develop a five year plan to replace or enhance existing school-owned instruments… It’s important that we focus on providing the best educational tools for the students as the benefit of this project. ‘They don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.’”

NAMM president and CEO John Mlynczak concurs that relationship-building – and not necessarily chasing “today’s sale” – is key to long-term success: “You have to invest early, you have to invest in the relationship piece of it long before the money comes. Because if the relationship’s there, the money is going to come and that’s going to be the easy part.”

Parking-lot sales, knowledgeable in-store staff, and one-on-one meetings may be under fire from YouTube and TikTok clips, half-baked social media posts, and click-and-purchase convenience, but at the end of the day most folks – be they the parent of a new violin student or the music director tasked with upgrading an entire district’s synth labs – prefer doing business with people they know and trust.

As Rich Ghinelli of CutTime, and formerly educational support manager for Conn-Selmer, puts it, “Is the dealer sending a rep to the school every week to pick up/return repairs, hand deliver accessories, to update them on products, etc. Are invoices accurate, payments applied appropriately, et cetera? A lot of loyalty can be gained by a dealer rep going above and beyond to make sure the director is taken care of in the best way possible.”

Here’s to going above and beyond. Has there ever been a more impactful business model?