Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Bertrand.
Joel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Since 1983, Bertrand’s Music has been serving the needs of musicians and educators in Southern California. From humble beginnings, founder and retired music educator John Bertrand, Sr. started his first shop in San Bernardino California. His goal was to provide a store that offered quality music products, rentals, and wanted to help promote music education.
Since then, Bertrand’s Music has grown to 7 locations serving Southern California. Even more, our focus on music educational services have increasingly satisfied the growing needs of school programs throughout these areas.
Mr. Bertrand’s goal is to bring outstanding service and quality products to the students and families involved in their school music programs. This has been accomplished through their quality School Rental and Lease Programs and through the founding of the Free Summer HeadStart Music Program in 1996. In addition, thousands of scholarships have been granted to students who would otherwise never be able to learn to play a musical instrument and participate in their school music programs. Building partnerships and creating a positive experience is our goal.
Has it been a smooth road?
Being in business for 35 years always has it’s ups and down. At the beginning, we were growing fast and opening more locations in Hacienda Heights and Riverside. We had a lot to learn about managing multiple locations and eventually had to shut down our early expansion stores.
We ran into music programs discontinuing their programs which caused us to reinvest into expansion and also look into other revenue streams,
We continue to face some of these same challenges today especially with the internet boom and competition now online. We are more focused than ever on creating a memorable musical experience and offer many programs that our competition can’t offer.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our focus is Band and Orchestra sales, rentals, lessons, and repair. We are known for being the store of choice in the area of School Band and Orchestra. We have won several awards:
-NAMM Top 00 music store 7 years in a row.
-2012 Small Business of the Year in the 75th District
-2015 California Music Educators Associate (CMEA) MUSIC INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP AWARD
We are most proud of providing music to children and having positive impacts in our community. What sets us apart from our competition is:
-Best Instrument Rental Program & Benefits
-Free Summer Headstart Music lessons for all incoming 5th-grade students
-Employees share a passion for music advocacy and education
-Heavily involved in giving back to the community with scholarships, donations, funding of area music concerts.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
San Diego is a great place to live and work.
Contact Info:
- Address: 9906 Carmel Mtn Rd
- Website: www.bertrandsmusic.com
- Phone: 888-780-1812
- Email: joel@bertrandsmusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bertrandsmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bertrandsmusic
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bertrands-music-san-diego-5
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
