@cmusicshop has been a member of the Seller Community since 2017. We caught up with them recently to learn more about their best business practices and how they stay relevant as a business.
Tell us about your business!
Campbell's Music Service started in 1964 by my father with my mother eventually coming to work here as well later on. He started doing repairs on stringed instruments in small home shop that he outgrew and the retail and music instruction parts of our business grew out of that. I've been working here since 1980 though I grew up literally (our home shared the building with the store) in the business. Time passed (as did my parents) and I've been the owner now for quite sometime but we've never changed locations although we did stop living here in the 1970's! We are proud to still be a local fixture and a real Mom and Pop type store. Repairs are still very important to us alongside our lessons and retail side.
What’s the best business advice you’ve received?
I learned the best advice through example rather than any formal speech and that is, treat people well, be courteous, fair and give them more than they expect when possible.
How do you stay relevant in your industry and community?
It is harder than ever with the internet eating into what we do sales wise but our repair service and our lessons are things that still drive people to us. We've also focused a lot on used instruments which has given us more variety in brands.
When did you start using Square?
About 2 1/2 years ago. Actually I had the reader quite a while before that but it was a hard sell getting people comfortable using it.
Any tips?
For using Square? Read the Seller Community posts, lots of good info there. Be open to change, I was concerned my customers wouldn't like being invoiced for repairs but the feedback has been great which in turn has me dipping my toes into the Marketing aspect as I've collected quite a lot of customers' emails.
For general business? Read the above advice, I cannot tell you how many times people have gone the extra mile for me because I treated them well.
What do you wish you knew on day 1 of your business?
Oh, so many things...I'm always learning after all these years!
