MUSIC GO ROUND: SAN ANTONIO, TX
Owner, Matt Orenstein, shares his Winmark journey.
How did you come to own a Winmark franchise?
After leaving the corporate world of television & film in LA, I planned to open up music rehearsal studio in San Antonio where my family had moved. However, I then found MGR thru an old colleague of mine. I researched Music Go Round/Winmark and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Minnesota for Discovery Day.
What is one thing you know now that you wish you had known when you first opened your store?
Besides knowing a pandemic was going to hit four months after we opened, I wish I had better financial counsel to get through the "pre-open to buy" and "open to buy" timeframes where money and resources were not optimized (read: wasted) causing start-up costs to rise above what was expected. Operationally, Winmark & Scott Savage were very helpful during all phases and up to the present day.
2020 was, without a doubt, a challenging year. What was one way you evolved your business that you will keep utilizing in 2021?
The most important thing we did was to make sure all of our gear was posted to our eCommerce site and to Reverb. Selling online saved our ass during the pandemic and demonstrated that customers want to buy instruments sight unseen, as they do with many other products. As a new store working to establish itself locally, while working to generate revenue and cashflow, online sales were, and continue to be, critical. (If we could only find an efficient way to buy gear online...)
The Text for Estimate tactic that originated with franchisee Skott Moriarty in Wisconsin, proved to be very valuable. First as a safe way to conduct buys and sales and second as another way to expand our customer service and third as another communication channel. It generated incremental buys and customer contacts. It was/is especially easy for those selling heavier, bulkier gear (speakers, drum kits, keyboards) that didn't want to lug it around town. With the pandemic waning, safety as been replaced with simplicity and ease. We will continue with this tactic. (Contact Us if you’d like to learn about enabling Message for Estimates on your Facebook page!)
And should the media inquire... my favorite guitar is a 54 telecaster, my band has been described as "more entertaining than good" (true), and my daughter has no interest in taking over the business... yet. She's waiting to see the revenue and cash flow picture improve.
