2. 3 Promotions That Changed My Business Stats that I heard recently that reinforced challenges to traditional retail. Universal premise…create more opportunities for transactions to take place. We now have 600 students at Monster Music, and I consider those 600 opportunities to make a sale each week.

3. Promotion #1: Free Guitar Deal Origins: Every year in late may, a significant % of our students would stop for the summer. My teachers still need to eat over the summer. How do I incentivize people to take lessons at a time of year when they otherwise don’t normally wish to take them?

4. Details of the Free Guitar Deal Buy 20 weeks of lessons — at my store I charge $450 — and I will give you a brand-new acoustic guitar for free. KMC, Stagg and the Music Link are just some of the companies that I buy guitars from that I use in this promotion. Me to my sales rep: “How would you like to sell 50 guitars today”?

5. How do I sell it? For $450, you get 5 MONTHS WORTH of lessons, PLUS a guitar with a perceived value of $200.

7. How do I sell it? For $450, you get 5 MONTHS WORTH of lessons PLUS a guitar with a perceived value of $200. The Catch? You start taking the lessons NOW. The deadline to sign up is Memorial Day because this is the day where there is a profound change in mindset.

8. More Details… Some people don’t actually take the lessons. They sign up, pay the $450, take the guitar with them, and I never see them again. Most people take the lessons, and it creates a seamless bridge to back-to-school. Many of the new students don’t get halfway through the cycle before they start looking at the expensive acoustics and think about trading up.

9. Bottom Line: This Program Creates Customers Many can’t wait to sign up again. “Time for me to sign up for another 20 lessons”! Another special? Me: “I gave you a free guitar last time, but how about a $50 gift certificate.” Huge number of my BEST CUSTOMERS began doing business with me, and 1/3 of my active students began with a free guitar deal.

10. Promotion #2: Free Use of Any Band Instrument for the Summer With a hard deadline of mid-June, if you sign up for 12 weeks of lessons on a specific band instrument, I will give you free use of that same band instrument for the entire summer. Every store that rents instruments has a GIANT pile of instruments that generally settle in for the entire summer before getting rented out after Labor Day.

12. Put them to a better use! Ask the question, “What instrument have you always wanted to play?” Here is a cello…take it with you…how about really expensive instruments, like the oboe or the upright bass? Many people fall in love with their new instrument… “Can I rent this for the whole year”?

13. Promotion #3: Layaway Madness

14. Layaway Madness Every music store has a layaway program…nothing novel here…but… HUGE INCREASE IN AWARENESS as major retailers were aggressively promoting layaway. When Walmart advertises layaway, it is less an advertisement for Walmart and more an advertisement for layaway.

15. Sample Coupon

16. Build awareness

17. The Ultimate Silent Salesman

19. Psychological Impact As with the lesson program, people see 25 people in the store at any one time…not sure what is going on here but something sure is! Big layaway section screams unconsciously, “You better put something down if you want any chance at owning this instrument!” And yes, you ARE obligated to buy.