O ur annual Excellence Awards issue has always been a favorite for our staff and readers alike. Since the awards’ inception in the early 1990s, the December issue has highlighted the year’s best and brightest in MI retail, supply and products. As such, it’s also perennially an issue that’s full of better business ideas from some of the sharpest minds in MI. From discussing how Yamaha’s sales enablement team maintains consistent dealer com- PERSPECTIVE I BY KATIE KAILUS A YEAR OF MAKING MORE MUSIC MAKERS
munications to breaking down why Guitar Center gave all 13,000 employees ChatGPT licenses, this year’s issue is no different and will surely spark some MI ideas to take into 2026. But technology and sales enablement aside, nearly all 10 companies profiled in this year’s awards coverage cited a similar company mission: to make more music makers. Our 2025 Retailer of the Year, West Mu- sic, a full-line dealer based in Coralville, Iowa, is heavily involved in its local school music scene, servicing some 343 school districts in the area. In 2020, it launched its Music Construct- ED program to help educate and support music teachers.
“We came together to create professional development resources and a lot of virtual resource opportunities to build an ecosystem for the education community,” Ryan West, company president, says in the coverage that starts on page 36. “Over the last five years, we’ve tried to partner with various teachers all over the country to have them create content that’s really useful and been practiced in the classroom.” Ultimately, this initiative has helped grow the number of students inter- ested in making music. The retailer’s slew of early childhood music classes do the same. “Our tagline is ‘play now, play for life,’” West said. “I really like that because it captures the idea of supporting a music maker from the very beginning of their journey all the way to wherever it might take them. With our focus on elementary education, we’ve worked hard to put real emphasis on that area through our music education catalog. It’s all about creating a great pre-K through eighth-grade general music experience, one that sets up a lifetime of making music.” Sweetwater’s CEO Mike Clem, Eastman’s VP Ryan Richman and Guitar Center’s CEO Gabe Dalporto all touch on the same idea in their individual write-ups, with Clem mentioning creating more music makers is a large part of the online giant’s 2026 plan. Read these companies’ stories and take their insights with you into 2026. And remember: the real prize is creating more musicians. More musicians means more music is being played, and that’s a win for the entire industry. MI
8 I MUSIC INC. I DECEMBER 2025
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