RETAILER ROUNDTABLE ISSUE
SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
VOLUME 25 NO.9

THE MAGAZINE FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENT AND SOUND PRODUCT MERCHANDISERS

 

   
 

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FEATURES
-Our 25-year magazine retrospective begins on p. 20 and runs all of the way to (with some stories in between). Wow, a lot has happened in that time.
-Whoa Canada! Attendees were upbeat during MIAC, which took place in Toronto in October. Is the Canadian MI retailer different than the U.S. one?
-Percussion Pointers. We serve up some tips about how you can help band directors select the right percussion products for their schools.
-The Survey Says...Reader surveys always reveal a lot of information. This year is no different. Find out what you said about several topics, including how your holiday sales are expected to stack up this year.
-Rode to Success Rode Microphones made a big splash, literally, with the launch of Opal from its Event Electronics division. Find out much more about the Las Vegas bash and the studio monitor that packs 750 watts of punch.
-Under Lock and Key
In our third annual Independent Retailer Roundtable,
we gather more participants, who provide even more information. Which manufacturers are you happy with? Find out. Did Summer NAMM work out? Find out. What bothers you the most? Find out.

-DJ For Hire These manufacturer employees still find the time to perform DJ/lighting gigs.
-An Early Summer Night’s Dream!NAMM returned with a vengeance in Nashville. Learn what people were saying and why there could be a rebirth of independent retailers in the future.

-The Latest, Industry, Dealers, People and Product Buzz and Showcases.

COLUMNS
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The Music & Sound Independent RetailerWe honor Lou Kraus Music in Nebraska, celebrating 25 years of service and California's Zone Music, celebrating its 25th anniversary.
-Bags/Cases Update Marty Harrison of Access Bags and Cases, Agatha Gerutto of Road Ready Cases, and Jonny Edwards of Coffin Case give you tips on selling bags and cases in these brutal economic times.
-Special Guest EditorialMusic & Sound Retailer assistant editor Michelle Loeb reflects on her past five years with the magazine.
-Spy Travel & Leisure recently said Charleston, S.C., has the nicest people and best antique shops in the country. But, does it have the nicest store owners and best music instrument stores? Let’s find out.
-Five Minutes Hohner’s Scott Emmerman talks about the huge Bob Dylan harmonica launch and a whole lot more.
-Sales Guru.Gene Fresco explains why you MUST set goals as a salesperson.
-Veddatorial.Dan Vedda opened his store right around when the Music & Sound Retailer began. He takes a look back at how he became an MI dealer and reflects on his 12 years writing this column.
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MSR Anniversary —Lee Oskar.We take a look at 25 years of Lee Oskar by asking the man himself. We talk about how the company got started, what he thinks of the market now, and his times with the ultra popular band War.

FORMIDABLE FEMALES

-Vikki Hayward, Gator Cases marketing manager, was a huge fan of the company years before she joined it. Learn about her future goals, why she enjoys her job, and much more.
-Roxana Ramirez, Being in the music industry, you’re probably very aware of the soundtrack of your life. If Roxana Ramirez were to have a theme song, it would probably be “We Are Family.”
-Susan Lipp, is always busy. She helped break ground on the company’s huge future facility in Madison, Wisc., last month. She does NAMM Congressional “fly-ins” too

CURTAIN CALL
-Steve Stevens, Rock and Roll may be known for its wild behavior, but the genre has at least one law abider in Steve Stevens.
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Frank Black of the Pixies credits Haley's Comet for starting him on his career path?
-KT Tunstall dismounted from her horse and climbed out of her cherry tree to talk with us.
-Peter Frampton comes alive to tell us what guitars, effects, and amps he loves.
- John Flansburgh, They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh is a big fan of several independent dealers as well as a host of manufacturers.
-Matt Rubano the bass player for the red-hot band Taking Back Sunday. Even better, he likes to shop for MI gear.
-Paul English ,Willie Nelson has had four wives in 40 years, but only one drummer in that same time frame.
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FORMIDABLE FEMALES
Susan Lipp
[September 2008 - Page 1]

Susan Lipp fills some big shoes at Wisconsin’s Full Compass, but she does it with an even bigger heart. Every aspect of Lipp’s professional life is born out of love—love for her staff, love for her industry, love for her community, and love for her husband, Jonathan Lipp. In fact, 30 years later Lipp still gushes about first meeting her husband, who had just started Full Compass and also owned a recording studio.

“When I met Jonathan I was working for the Madison Reparatory Theatre [and] we needed radio commercials done,” recalled Lipp. “I went down to pick up the radio commercial one day, and walked out having forgotten the tape. So I called the guy I knew, Rick, one of [Jonathan’s] partners, and I asked him if there was anybody coming to the west side because I needed it for the next day. So he said, ‘Well my partner will be there tonight. He can bring it to you.’ I said, ‘Which one is your partner?’ and he said, ‘The guy who was engineering all the stuff you were playing with.’ I said, ‘Oh, the cute one with the mustache.’

“So Rick told Jonathan I thought he was cute,” she continued. “Jonathan got dressed up in his only decent outfit and came to the theater that night and asked me out…six months later we were married. Thirty years later, we’re not only together but we share an office. We’re attached at the hip.”

Higher and Hire
“I am a nurturer [and] I’m able to nurture a lot more kids now—the 160 of them who work for me,” said Lipp of her staff, many of whom give her the same loyalty back. “We’ve got a very long lifespan on our salespeople. The longest one we have is 27 years. Not bad for a 31-year-old company,” Lipp added. “I think the average length of tenure is about 11 years.”

How she keeps her staff current is with constant sales training, even for long-term employees, and how she keeps them happy is by rewarding their hard work—a lesson she learned during her own selling days.

“Over the last 30 years we’ve taken a lot of dealer trips, and I realized in 1981 when we went on our first trip with Electro-Voice that it was about the coolest thing in the absolute world that ever happened to me,” Lipp recalled. So she decided to offer the same opportunity to her staff. Anybody who did over $3 million in sales and grew their sales by five percent got a four-day trip for two to New York City. “The people who did $2 million got a trip to Chicago for three days. It was mostly the younger staff,” said Lipp, who chaperoned both trips, taking her staff to the theater, fancy restaurants, and other sightseeing locations.

Even though Full Compass deals in a mostly male industry—by Lipp’s own admission, most of the company’s clientele are men—Lipp hires many women for sales positions. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I can tell you exactly what it is [that makes women better salespeople]: they ask directions. They ask questions. I mean, there’s no posturing with women,” said Lipp. “In this business, you have to know exactly what it is people want. We have a very low return rate because of that.”

Taking Care of Business
Lipp’s role at Full Compass has grown and changed over the years, in part to an unfortunate incident almost 10 years ago.
“We had a very bad accountant who worked for us. We thought we were making a fortune and we were actually losing a huge amount of money. I had to give up my customers to the rest of the salespeople and just work on re-growing the business” Lipp recalled. “I had 150 employees at the time and we couldn’t let them just go out on the street. I needed to keep their families alive.”

The company did, of course, recover, and is actually in the midst of an expansion. “Think about what we’re doing,” said Lipp. “We’re building a building when we’re in the beginning of a recession.”

The new building, which had a groundbreaking ceremony on Aug. 4, is Lipp’s new pet project, a natural fit given she went to art school as a painting major with minors in both print making and sculpture. “I’m doing all the interior design [for] the new store, which is a huge undertaking,” she said. “It’s going to be about 140,000 square feet; at least that’s what we’re at right now, with the potential of doubling the space. We’re [erecting] an 80,000-sq.-ft. warehouse. That’s exactly double what I have right now.”

Lipp’s other pet project is charity. “I work for one reason—to give it all away,” said Lipp, who sits on 10 boards, including the University of Wisconsin School of Music, and does NAMM’s fly-in to Washington D.C. every year. “I want to be able to leave my city, state, and country a way better place.”

Most recently, Lipp joined the board of the Partnership for Wisconsin’s Economic Success, which focuses on early childhood education. “The earlier the kids learn, the earlier the kids are able to have opportunities,” said Lipp. “If they learn music and art and keep it nurtured all the way through school, they will be smarter. They will learn to learn, and they’ll probably all graduate from high school.”

Lipp remains committed to her family, her job, and her charity work, and expects to do so for many years to come. “I’ve told people I will never retire. I will die at my desk, and it’s true. I can’t even consider retiring,” she said with a chuckle. “I couldn’t possibly think of not working. I think I’d go out of my mind.”

 

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