Werbin, the roundtable discussion, lead once again by NAMM’s John Mlynczak, asked simply “what’s next?” For Yamaha, Sumner said it’s all about engagement. “You know, we talk about it all the time, but I think one of the assets that we have is that during the pandemic, a lot of people had this extra time, and a lot of us sold a lot of musical instruments,” Sumner said. “But, the differences is that now we have about 25% of the people still sticking with playing an instrument. And before, you had maybe 10% stick with it. So, I think one of our big assets is that we’ve got this huge market out there that we need to collectively get out to. We don’t sell a controversial product. It’s not vaping or anything. We have to get out there and attract folks.” Like Yamaha, at West Music — an 83-year-old, full-line dealership based in Coralville, Iowa — the focus on engage- ment is also priority. “We’ve had this incredible growth that took place over the last three years, and we created all these new music-makers, but now as we pull back a little bit, and as the industry kind of finds its footing, we
can’t give up on the new market develop- ment,” Ryan West said. “And I think that’s ultimately what we do in the field as we’re serving our customers is we ask, ‘How do we inspire them? How do we give them the tools, the resources, the inspiration to get them excited about keeping with making music?’ We do so much school music stuff, and education is just hard. It’s just hard to be a teacher these days. So, what do we do is we try to keep the teachers inspired, keep them engaged and help them go another step further. We’re going to keep with that. I don’t think that that’s necessarily overly transformative or disruptive, but I think it’s about re- minding ourselves to work together, make things happen and we’ll keep growing the industry and keep that momentum that started a couple of years ago.” Outside of engaging current music- makers, Cassandra Sotos advocated cre- ating a welcoming atmosphere for those who haven’t yet discovered the joys of making music or haven’t yet begun a job in the industry. “I hope we can cultivate an atmosphere to bring more people into the industry,” Sotos said. “That’s what I think is next.” MI
S.H.A.R.K POINTS The NAMM NeXT keynote speech was held just after lunch on day two and fea- tured Daymond John, founder and CEO of apparel company FUBU and star of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” During his keynote, which outlined what John called his “S.H.A.R.K. Points” for business success, he broke down how he went from selling hats outside of a mall in Queens, New York, to running the $6 billion dollar clothing empire. He touched on the importance of establishing the right mindset and the importance of setting goals. “I always read my goals before bed,” John said. “And I read them when I wake up in the morning, so they’re the first thing I think about and the last thing I think about.” WHAT’S NeXT? The NAMM NeXT event concluded on July 18 with a closing Industry Leader Roundtable titled, “What’s Next for Our Industry?” Featuring Yamaha U.S. President Tom Sumner, West Music President Ryan West, AmpRX’s Cassandra Sotos, XCHANGE Music Platform’s Ray Williams and Elderly Instrument’s CEO and co-owner Lillian
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