Music Retail Consulting

My previous article, “Keepin’ It 100,” really hit a nerve with my readers. I had an outpouring of responses from folks who have been, or who are currently, in that exact situation. Some worked through it, as I did. Some trudged on. Some quit. In this article, I’m going to reveal some of the things I worked on to turn myself around and embark on the journey to become the leader my employees and my business deserve. My goal is to help those who are struggling, so you don’t quit but, rather, thrive . You might remember me telling you how I had experienced burnout. I had lost my “why.” I was spending all my time trying to manage the results of my business, and I had quit spending time thinking about why I was even in the business. When a business coach asked me why I was involved in MI, I couldn’t even remember. It took me a few minutes to remember why I had gotten into this in the first place. Then, it all started to come back to me, like a flood! I had gotten into it because I loved

Keep it 100.  That ‘s what the cool kids say nowadays when they are saying something that is 100% real, unfiltered, sometimes brutal, truth.  That’s what I’m going to do with this article. From an outsider’s perspective, it might appear that I have my shit together and I have the music industry by the balls.  My company is in the top 1% of our industry, we are one of Inc Magazine’s Fastest 5000 Growing Companies, I’m a frequent NAMM presenter, a past and present board member for a few different industry organizations, now a columnist for one of my favorite trade magazines… But I know the truth.   When my company has doubled in size the a few years ago, I wasn't the leader that my company needs.  And deserves. That’s keepin’ it 100 - real talk. As my company grew, I wanted to keep doing what I had always done.  But it became apparent that wasn’t what the company needed from me now.  But I didn’t know what it was that I should be doing. So I would run around and put o

Hey friends… I just wanted to let you know about a BRAND NEW FREE Master Class from the folks at WhizBang! Retail Training. In it, you'll take your first step to accelerate your business in 2019. Join the Master Class:  How To Create A Compelling Vision For Your Business  to clarify your concept of success and catapult you toward your goals! Click here to register…  http:// WhizbangTraining.com/af/mc?af= 1686481 The LIVE class is taking place on Wednesday, November 28 at 3:00 PM Eastern time. Make sure you register even if you know you won't be able to attend live because it will be recorded and available to watch for 48 hours. I’ll see you in class! Donovan

In my opinion, the number one problem facing most music retailers today is inventory.  They have too much of the things that aren’t moving and not enough of the things that are.  In this brief article, I’ll try to explain how I look at inventory, some key pitfalls to avoid, and how to identify the winners and losers in your inventory. First thing, if you are serious about being in the music business, you’ve GOT to have a quality POS (a point of sale, not the other POS - you probably have too much of that - which is why you’re reading this article!).  You can do everything I’m going to share with you without a POS, but the amount of time you’d spend compiling data would EASILY pay for a POS! I recommend Tri Technical System’s AIMsi. In fact, I have no idea why you’d use anything else - almost everything I’m going to show you is just a click away in AIMsi... We are going to look at a few stats to determine our inventory position: GMROI, Average Inventory, and Inventory Turns.

Do you find yourself saying things like "I have too many things to do to worry about being productive!"  In this article, I’ll show how I use a few online tools to stay ahead of the curve. A combination of resources like Gmail, Google calendar and other apps keep me on track, even in a sea of responsibilities.  Managing your time is easier than you think - it will change your day-to-day experience, and impact your bottom line. Let’s start with some of my favorite tools: Google Chrome Gmail (with Right Inbox & Inbox Pause extensions) Hangouts Google Calendar Google Drive (formerly called Google Docs) Google Apps for Business Chrome:     www.google.com/chrome The Chrome browser from Google is fast and built to work with all of the Google products.  You can create multiple users for the same browser (one for Personal, and one for Business, for example), and then sync your bookmarks, passwords and extensions by user!  This is a huge time saver,