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-Improving next month's NAMM Show is like making the 1972 Miami Dolphins better. But NAMM is certainly not resting on its laurels.

-We reveal all of the manufacturer nominees for Music & Sound Awards to be handed out next month at The NAMM Show.

-Counterfeiting on MI products, particularly guitars, may have received minimal national press, but the problem is real and not going away.

-Find out how to sell products your customers are probably not looking to buy.

-M&SR features its second annual independent retailer roundtable. What's on dealer's mind's this year. Are things better than last year?

-Females playing musical instruments now outnumber males, according to a NAMM/Gallup survey.

-Industry leaders paved the way for the next 10 years.

In this story, learn:
• General advice for selling pro audio products
• What to focus on if the customer still isn’t convinced
• How to overcome the problem of having some products behind the counter
• Why you should consider installations for houses of worship
• Future trends in the pro audio industry

Selling pro audio products is certainly no amateur effort. Ringing up sales on any item can be a challenge today, especially ones with pleasant margins. Pro audio is no different. In fact, a definition of what a pro audio product is can even be debated. For our purposes this month, we’ll discuss microphones, speakers, and installations, although many more products are under the broad pro audio auspices. We invited a group of manufacturer panelists to serve up advice. Our panel comprises Cliff Castle, co-founder, Audix; Trevor Gibson, North American sales manager, Peavey; Gil Soucy, outside sales manager, Behringer; Dawn Birr, product manager, Sennheiser; and Ken DeLoria, product manager, Community Professional Loudspeakers.

Castle began by talking about an industry trend he’s noticed. “The one recurring theme is that salesmanship in the pro audio market is a dying art. In other words, there really aren’t any young salespeople coming up through the ranks who specialize in pro audio. That’s the biggest problem we face as a supplier of pro audio gear. That’s the most important point we can make. That lays the groundwork for how we proceed in marketing our products.”

Castle added he has seen this at both large and small MI retailers and he said education and training of store salespeople has become his company’s primary focus.
But let’s say you do have a pro audio specialist in place, or perhaps you have a smaller store and you’re the pro audio specialist. What tips can our panel provide when selling pro audio products?

“It’s certainly good to know the customer and their basic needs,” said Birr. “First, you must know what their goals are. What’s the application they plan to use it for? What budgetary boundaries do they have?”

“Listen to your customer and properly qualify the customers’ needs,” added Soucy. “Once you’re comfortable with what the customer may or may not know about pro audio, give them information or your sales pitch in a way that is clear and precise, and in terms they understand. For example, not every customer looking for a compressor or a power amp knows exactly how they may work, so keep it simple for them, and only as they become more educated should you start using a more technical approach.”

“We spend a lot of effort getting out into the field and working with the guys on the shop floor of the retail environment—the managers and the guys who are out there in the trenches every day—we do our best to educate them as to why we believe our products have better attributes than competitors,” said DeLoria. “That helps tremendously. The more equipped the salesperson is with information, the better the chance they have of hitting a home run.”

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