3 Keys to Brick-and-Mortar Success MLK Music Mall’s business owners Brad Boynton, Hank Failing and Ryan Lynn share their top tips for brick-and-mortar owners.
STOCK PROPERLY. “Pepper your shelves with high-margin, boutique and used gear. Consider sourc- ing your own OEM products and have some eye candy. All of these things will set you apart from the rest.” — Brad Boynton, owner of Rhythm Traders
CONSIDER SEO AT ALL TURNS.
“Make sure you leave com- ments on all online reviews — positive or negative — and think about SEO when you leave comments. For in- stance, reply to someone by saying something like, ‘Thank you for bringing in your guitar to sell to us in Portland.’ All those key phrases will come up in a search.” — Hank Failing, owner of Hank’s Music Exchange
Rhythm Traders, which is located in a former dry cleaners space, moved to this build- ing in 2008. In 2023, Boynton retrofitted the space to be 5,000 square feet, affording him another 1,000 square feet for Hank’s Music Exchange and Eastside Guitar Repair.
MI scene — one that all three owners described as collaborative and non-competitive. “When you think about all the music stores in the Portland area, and there really are a lot, they’re all really good,” Failing said. “When I went to Atlanta, which is a major market city, I asked where I should go shop for gear, and I was told Guitar Center. Here, we get 10 to 30 trade-in items coming in daily.” “There really are music store ‘deserts’ and repair shop ‘deserts’ in other cities,” Lynn added. “I’ve met people on tour from Los Angeles who have checked out my website and ended up shipping me their guitars because they’re starving for brick-and-mortar customer interactions with real people.” Lynn said the fact that the city of Portland supports indepen- dent artists, craftsmen and retailers means it keeps expertise in the community — and those experts like to share their col- lective resources. “The Portland market is pretty saturated with repair shops,” he said. “There’s my shop and then there’s Portland Fretworks, the 12th Fret and Portland Guitar Repair, and we’re all able to keep our businesses afloat. We’re friendly competitors. The 12th Fret and I have a free exchange of parts where we don’t charge each other. In fact, I’ll have a beer with Ray from 12th Fret, and we’ll talk shop.” According to Boynton, he has a similar relationship with Revival Drums, the “other” Portland drum shop. “Jose, the owner of Revival Drums, comes to my house for beers, and he’s literally my competitor — we’re the two drum shops in town,” Boynton said. “But, I know his kids, and he knows mine. We both feel the world is a better place with more drum shops. We have a camaraderie that’s almost unheard of outside of Portland. The passion that got Jose into owning a drum shop is the same passion that got me into it, and that supersedes margins.”
ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY.
“Reach out to your music community and involve yourself in it. I’m in a couple bands, I go to shows and people constantly ask me about guitars. I love what I do, so I’m constantly talk- ing to people and giving tips, but I also reach out to my competitors and form rela- tionships with them. If you’re doing brick-and-mortar, be involved with the commu- nity. Don’t insulate yourself.”
— Ryan Lynn, owner of Eastside Guitar Repair
40 I MUSIC INC. I OCTOBER 2025
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