For all of our friends and customers outside Moore Music’s immediate area who couldn’t be here, our Grand Opening at our new location last week was a smashing success! If our relocation a few miles down the road is news to you, let me briefly fill you in. Moore Music acquired another locally owned independent music store, Opus 1, in April of this year. Long-time Opus 1 owner, Cathy Buxton, was ready to retire, Moore Music needed room to continue growing, and a more amicable transition could not have taken place. The timing was perfect, both companies came in on the “1” and the band was tight, tight, tight! Both Opus 1 and Moore Music customers have a new place to call home and after the remodel, the new showroom is nothing short of amazing!
The herculean task of moving our inventory took place over the course of a week. We only shut down in-store operations for one day; the calendar was our friend with Independence Day falling on a Tuesday this year. Our soft-opening was Wednesday July 5th and after the physical and mental stress of the move, our Grand Opening was a grand party that included food, a cash bar, and live music from local musicians. The entertainment included Evansville, Indiana’s own Andy Timmons as the headliner. A world-renowned guitar virtuoso, Andy has been a friend of the store for years, grew up and went to high school here. It’s always a good time when he’s in town visiting family and friends. About 40 people were surprised to see him sit in with a local blues band later that evening because that’s what he does for kicks when he’s not doing his own thing!
Just to give you an idea, this move wasn’t accomplished with a professional moving company. The only pros involved were the piano movers who did the heavy lifting for fixtures, furniture, and stuff like that. Everything, and I mean everything, was handled and schlepped by the Moore Music staff, two teenage boys, as well as a couple of friends. Amazingly, not a single piece of equipment or merchandise was harmed in the process. After all was said and done, the sweat equity our staff poured into this effort was a tremendous team building experience. Corporations spend a lot of money sending employees on retreats for what our staff accomplished through teamwork, and we are all the better for it.
This paragraph may be edited, but I’m gonna write it anyway. This endeavor could not have been accomplished without the effort, vision, and leadership of Moore Music’s owner Brett Mulzer. Brett is down to Earth and not a fan of the spotlight; he worked, sweated and put in more hours than anybody else, hands-down. He’s also not one for receiving compliments for just doing what you’re supposed to do and does not tolerate @$$-kissing. However, as a serious student of history and with many years in management, this is my observation: Brett’s effectiveness in a project with this many moving parts lies in his ability to break down complex tasks into small manageable ones. Organization, lists of to-do-tasks, time tables, productive meetings, individual accountability, and the ability to adapt to the unexpected, were the order of each day for weeks before the move. When confronted with limited resources of time and manpower, he assigned the right people to the right tasks. Objectively speaking, this is a hallmark of effective leadership and this entire project was an example of how you Get. Shit. Done.
It’s clear that Moore Music is bucking a trend of shrinking retail operations and store closings. We are all heavily invested in something that is held together by the most tenuous of threads, and that is you, my friend. The economy, global events, cultural trends…these are fluid forces that are beyond any one person’s control. However, we know that the one thing we will always have an impact on, and must be managed, are the individual relationships we have with our customers. Like all relationships, they are a work in progress, and like the individuals at the center of those relationships, no one person is perfect. I know that I can’t be everything to everybody and coming to terms with that reality, as a company, allows each of us at Moore Music to cover each other’s weaknesses and accentuate our strengths. Our team excels in this regard.
A very interesting fact of the Grand Opening for me concerned observations that were made repeatedly by our customers, some I’ve known for many years. As awesome as this new store is, “it feels kinda weird,” and, you know, I get it too. A space is more than just four walls and a roof. For everything about Moore Music that is new, there are years of memories and experiences associated with our former location of 30+ years and that unfamiliar sense of the “other” was being shared with me. I felt it too, but it was at that moment that I realized, it was these familiar faces, friends of the store, our customers, acquaintances, bandmates, and even our fellows in the business community that helped make the unfamiliar, familiar. The newness of this space was made a home by the community that came out to participate in this event we created. More than four walls and a roof, indeed.