NASMD Marks MI’s Return to In-Person Events

Marks MI’s Return to In-Person Events

By Brian Berk

(L-R) Gator Cases' Crystal Morris speaks while Hal Leonard's David Jahnke and Cannonball Music's Tevis Laukat look on.

“I have heard the comments that retail is dead. Retail is not dead, and I hope it will never be dead.” —Gayle Beacock

Spirits ran high on July 13 at the Hilton Nashville Downtown as many in the MI industry saw each other for the first time in 18 months as the National Association of School Music Dealers (NASMD) show commenced.

Whitney Grisaffi, president of NASMD and Ted Brown Music, kicked off the event by stressing that it is especially important for people to gather in person after such a difficult year. “Some of the best business is done when people sit around the table where vendors and retailers meet,” she said in her opening remarks. “You have a chance to make those connections you would not make otherwise.”

Following a Power Hour breakfast, the retailer-manufacturer connection was further solidified via “Vendor Partnerships: Working Together Makes Us All Stronger,” a breakout session moderated by Beacock Music’s Gayle Beacock. Before even discussing these all-important relationships, she expressed discontent with any notion that retail’s future is bleak. “I have heard the comments that retail is dead,” said Beacock. “Obviously, retail is not dead, and I hope it will never be dead if you are good [at what you do]. We can be good with the help of our vendor partners.”

Joining Beacock on the panel were Hal Leonard’s David Jahnke, Gator Cases’ Crystal Morris and Cannonball Music’s Tevis Laukat. Jahnke was asked what Hal Leonard does to help their retailer partners. “We have two programs,” answered Jahnke. “One is called PROF-IT (Preferred Retailer Online Fulfillment Through Technology). It allows people to order products on our website and support the music retailer of their choice. It was a way, when the pandemic hit, to support the retailer. We also have a fulfillment provider program, also for online. We are a firm believer: we want our sales to go to retailers.” Jahnke added Hal Leonard also has a Digital Retailer Program, which gives retailers access to a huge amount of digital content online at their stores. “So there is never a product that is out of stock, because it can be downloaded digitally,” he said.

Laukat noted when he and Sheryl Laukat founded Cannonball 25 years ago, brick-and-mortar retailers were their main focus and have been the “backbone” of the business ever since. “We totally believed the school music dealer is going to be there forever,” said Tevis Laukat. “When I was a kid, there was a hardware store on every corner. You could get a hammer and a set of nails. But that changed. A hammer is a hammer. You can find it anywhere. But a musical instrument is an individual, personal item. People name their instruments because they are so personal.

“People have always been amazed we do not sell online,” Laukat continued. “We only sell to music instrument retailers, and to this day, that still is our philosophy. Brick and mortar is here to say.”

If retailers still have any difficulty selling Cannonball products, Laukat stressed they should pick up the phone and call him. “Those that know me know I have a passion for this,” he said. “I can get on the phone and help you close that sale. You cannot have something on the wall and hope it sells. Feel free to reach out to me.”

If all else fails, retailers should ask manufacturers for anything they need, Beacock relayed. “Ask manufacturers how they can make step-up season more successful or rental season more successful,” she said. “That’s what dealers not here [at NASMD] are missing. They do not have that connection. That is why is important to still meet in person.”

“What can we do to support you and make your business grow?” added Laukat. “As manufacturers, we have to be flexible to make it work for your situation.”

Looking ahead, Morris said Gator Cases is focusing on what it can do as a

NAMM's Zach Phillips (right) interviewed NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond.

Bill Phipps of Willis Music (left) and Manhasset Specialty's Dan Roberts Jimmy Blackmon delivered an entertaining speech.

company both virtually and in person. “We found there are a lot of things we can really do well virtually,” she said. “For example, we have put on shows where we debut new products. We found we did that very successfully virtually. But the personal relationships and conversations you have are things you cannot do virtually. So, we are actively discussing how we can blend the two to continue relationships and networking. We want to focus on relationship building while also taking advantage of all of these new ways to conduct business.”

Gator Cases is additionally focused on the challenging supply chain. “As suppliers, we have to make sure [retailers] have products to sell. We have make sure everyone does well every year. The hurdle keeps changing every year, but we need to come up with creative solutions.”

Lamond Talks Leadership

In his first in-person interview since the beginning of the pandemic, NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond on July 13 spoke at the NASMD meeting to offer his take on leadership. He first remarked that he highly respected people who appeared at the event. “We could not be here last year,” he said at the Hilton Nashville Downtown. “A lot has changed since then, but it took a lot of bravery to be here.”

Lamond reflected back to a year ago, when NAMM had to cancel The NAMM Show for the first time since World War II. “First, you have to get your ego out of the way about how bad it is to cancel the show,” he recalled. “But then you realize this is going to happen. We then proceeded to get everyone back their money instantly and make sure we took care of all of our members.”

Once the decision was made to cancel the show, Lamond said NAMM quickly pivoted to hosting a virtual show, something he acknowledged it had no knowledge or experience of, nor any financial budget for. “When we shut down the winter show, it was a loss of 90 percent of our revenue,” he said. “Always make sure you can recover if you have something catastrophic happen.”

NAMM’s president and CEO equated the experience to flying an airplane. “In a plane, altitude is your friend,” he stated. “I use the analogy that if both of your engines go out, you want to be 10,000 feet in the air. I don’t want to be at 1,000 feet. I want to have plenty of time to look for a safe place to land. The altitude for us was to make the right decisions at the right moments and know that we will live to fight another day.”

Early on in the pandemic, news headlines were scary, and if you watched the news often, “you were often led down wrong places,” stated Lamond. “The media was seldom right, but never in doubt. I heard there will never be live events again. There will never be a reason to go to a trade show again. To believe that, I would have to believe that 8,000 years of human experience had suddenly changed. I would have to believe people would not want to come together for trade. … I figured some of these things could be true, but not all of them are true. This setting is the perfect example. We all came together in Nashville not (continued on page 43)