I've had the wonderful opportunity to work in a location where our band was serviced by up to 4 different music stores at one point.

Soon after I started that position I quickly learned what store was good at what service. I also could easily determine if the store was actually there to support our program - and generally interested in supporting the arts - or just there to get a bid/contract on our next major purchase.

Out of those four companies there was just one that really took the time to learn about our band and how they could help us. And, you guessed it, that's the store that generally got most of our business (and the business of our band members/families). There was also one store where the salesperson did what appeared to be everything that they could to get us to not do business with them.

A few days ago I happened to run across the salesperson that provided the 'less than great' service. I remembered the person's face, but had no idea what that person's name was. A bit later that day I was recounting these things to another director and mentioned that I could still remember the name of the sales person who took the time to get to know us - even though I haven't seen him in several years.

I'm curious to know your experiences with local music stores and their sales reps. 

Do those companies take the time to get to know you and your program? Do they do things to sponsor your program and support the arts in your area?

If you've had great experience with a company please give them a plug here and mention their name (and even the salesperson's name if you want).

We'd like to help you thank them by giving them a little free PR here on BandMusicRadio.com.

NOTE: If you have had bad experiences with a specific company, please don't list that here. It's a lot more help for the rest of us to just know about good places to do business (and the Internet is way too full of negative stuff anyway).

Add your stories to the comments area below. Be sure to give your city/state in your comments so we know if that great service/experience is something we can get for our bands.