This week, Al is back in Ontario visiting his hometown of Bradford West Gwillimbury and a business he’s known intimately for over 30 years, Bradford Academy of Music. The music school started off in 1987 in the basement of Rita Hunt. Al was one of her early students. Over the next 30 years, Rita moved and grew the school eventually becoming a pillar in Bradford’s business community. In 2017 Rita was ready to retire, so she sold the business to one of her teachers Tyler Tossounian, a young ambitious entrepreneur. How did the young inexperienced Tyler do with the established business? Listen to find out.
You can learn more about Bradford Academy of Music at bradfordacademyofmusic.com.
Al Grego:
Hello, everyone. I'm Al Grego, and this is the Yes, We Are Open! podcast.
This week I'm back in Ontario visiting my hometown of Bradford West Gwillimbury. Bradford, as I knew it growing up, is situated in South Central Ontario, about an hour north of Toronto in Simcoe County. The village of Bradford was incorporated in 1857, named after Bradford, England. In 1871, it was almost completely destroyed by fire, but was quickly rebuilt, becoming a major center for the area in 1873 thanks to its main industry, agriculture.
This industry was built on the 2,900 hectares of organic muck soil of the Holland Marsh on Bradford's south border. Fed by the Holland River, the Holland Marsh is known as the heart of Canada's vegetable industry. Its unique soil conditions are well suited for root crops such as carrots, onions, parsnips, celery, and beets among others. Annually, the Holland Marsh generates in the range of 35 to $58 million in GDP contributing to 95 to $169 million of economic activity in Ontario.
Growing up in Bradford, the Holland Marsh was a big presence. My first job was packing celery in the marsh for $3 an hour. I was a kid working alongside adult migrant workers. Most were barely making more than me and sending most of that money home to their families.
In 1991, Bradford amalgamated with a number of neighboring communities, including West Willimbury and incorporated as a town of Bradford West Willimbury. Since then, it has grown from the village of 17,000 to a town of 42,000 today. Agriculture is still a big part of the economy, but manufacturing has overtaken it to become the single largest sector in terms of employment.
The business I'm visiting today has been a part of the Bradford business community for the past 36 years. It's a business I know very well because for a few of those years I was a student there. Back then it was a music school in the basement of then owner Rita Hunt. But the school has grown and moved a couple of times since then, and Rita has since retired. But the business continues as the Bradford Academy of Music.
Speaker 2:
Some months will be four.
Tyler Tossounian:
Some will be five, and then during Christmas season, it's like three usually.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yes.
Al Grego:
As I walk in, the owner, Tyler, is busy with a prospective customer, so I do what I usually do when I'm there. I check out the music store. Full disclosure, both my kids are students at the academy. My son is learning drums and my daughter is learning the bass. It's a modest storefront with music books, electric pianos, ukuleles, and other assorted instruments on display for sale. In the back corner, there's a humidity-controlled room with guitars hanging on all walls, basses, electrics, acoustics, and classical guitars of various brands.
I try a few out poorly until I notice the customer leaving. Then I come out to meet Tyler.
Hey, hey. How's it going?
Tyler Tossounian:
Not bad, you?
Al Grego:
Good to see you.
Tyler Tossounian:
Yeah, you too. Thanks so much for the later time. I totally...
Al Grego:
That's all right. It's okay.
Tyler Tossounian:
Totally double-booked myself. I was like, what the...
Al Grego:
Tyler leads me back into his office where we set up for his interview.
Tyler Tossounian:
My name is Tyler Joseph Hagop Tossounian, and I'm the president and owner of the Bradford Academy of Music.
Al Grego:
Okay. When did you take over the Bradford Academy of Music?
Tyler Tossounian:
So my official first day of ownership was September 1, 2017.
And my parents had just moved to Bradford in midsummer 2015. I'm originally from Markham. Over the holidays, my mom had gotten me some guitar strings for Christmas and I didn't recognize the price tag on it. I'm so used to being in Toronto, Markham, you go to Long & McQuade, you go to Cosmo Music. I was like, "What price tag is this?" And she's like, "There's a local music store in town." And at that time I was in my fifth year of university studying for a major in music, minor in business.
Al Grego:
Okay.
Tyler Tossounian:
So it was right up my alley. I was like, "Oh, interesting."
Al Grego:
Perfect combination.
Tyler Tossounian:
Yeah. I had reached out to Rita at the time, the owner and the founder of the academy. I had asked her if she was interested in hiring anybody on to assist with anything. She got back to me after the holidays and was like, "Yeah, come on in for an interview." And we interviewed and on the spot she hired me as a manager for the front and at the same time as a guitar and a drumming instructor.
So I took that on and that was like I said, January 2016. And then by March 2016, I was coming to the end of my university career. And it was March break for everyone else. I didn't have March break. So the studio itself was closed, but she wanted the store open. But Rita said, "You know what? I'm going to go away to Florida for that week, so can you run the store?" So I did all my classes and homework from here virtually at the time and I was running the store.
I'm checking the emails one day, probably midweek of March break, and I see an email from a real estate agent saying, "Hey Rita, whenever you're good to sell the business, I'm good to go." And I'm like, "Man, I just got this job. I'm loving it. I'm going to get shit-canned as soon as I can. I'm going to get trashed immediately, thrown away."
And I would say maybe two weeks after she had gotten back, she came to me because I guess she had finally seen the email and said, "So I guess you saw that email there." I told her at that point I was contemplating a lot in my life, being 23 and being a musician. I mean, my job opportunities was either be a starving artist and work your butt off until you make it or go into music business like what I was studying for.
It was an opportunity calling, an opportunity knocking on my door. And I said, "You know what? I would be interested in purchasing the business, but we'd have to get down to the right price. We'd have to look at things." And this was still, like I said, early on in 2016 and I didn't buy the company until September 2017. So it took a lot of time for us to kind of wage through everything, make sure everybody was good, and I had to make sure it was something I was truly dedicated to and interested in and I had to show that to Rita too. And I did.
She was getting offers from bigger studio companies and other music schools to take over it, to branch out into Bradford, and that's not something she wanted being the Bradford Academy of Music. The only thing she asked me to do in regards to purchasing the company was to keep the name. That was the only stipulation that she had for this.
So my official first day of ownership was September 1, 2017. And I remember the day well. I actually couldn't borrow one of my parents cars to come in. I had to walk into work on my first day. And it was really interesting. I felt like the big boss man. I woke up, I'm like, "This is day one of the rest of my life." And at that time I was only 23. And I asked my parents, I was like, "Hey, can I borrow the car?" They're like, "Nope, you're going to have to walk in." Fortunately, my parents house is not far from the academy.
Al Grego:
Did they think, oh, you think you're a big shot owning your own company now?
Tyler Tossounian:
That's right, exactly.
Al Grego:
You're going to walk in.
Tyler Tossounian:
That's right. They're like, "Take your briefcase that has all the cool stuff in it that you got just for this job and walk your tushie into your first day of work."
I was still living at home. I was just a couple months into dating my now current wife. And it was a whole different life style at the time. And I went from being the one showing up at two or three o'clock in the afternoon to find Rita here working to me being here and Rita showing up at two or three o'clock in the afternoon as she helps guide me in the first few months of ownership.
Al Grego:
So she was here for a transition over.
Tyler Tossounian:
Yeah. So she actually, technically in our contract was, I think it was a two-year transition period. But when things started to get really down to the nitty-gritty and stuff I found myself kind of wanting to push beyond that and kind of start doing things on my own and shifting how things worked. And because I wanted to change so much, she was just kind of like, "Hey, I'm just going to let you do your thing." And it ended up working out.
Al Grego:
When you took over, how many teachers did you have?
Tyler Tossounian:
At that time, I think it was only about 12. And I had to shift my teaching to one of my friends ended up coming on and joining on and taking over my students for guitar. And then another friend joined for the drums. And these were musicians I just performed with in different bands and various experiences and stuff like that. And they were my buddies outside of work. And at that time, I think we had about 250 students.
Al Grego:
And your main service was obviously lessons and you have the store upfront. Were there any other revenue streams?
Tyler Tossounian:
We did some repairs here and there. It was in a small space, but we still utilized it how we could. And that was pretty much it. We did offer rentals, but it was very minimal. Usually, it was on things like violin specifically. We did summer camps at the time too.
Al Grego:
Okay, summer camps.
Tyler Tossounian:
Which was really cool for the younger kids. We did about two years of that into my ownership as well too.
Al Grego:
You're buying a business, a well-known business in town from a well-known business owner in town. How did the community receive you?
Tyler Tossounian:
That's a good question. Fortunately, I was gifted with a fairly solid photographic memory, so seeing people's faces and relating it to the names in the system and stuff, I was able to start calling a lot of our customers by their first names, knowing their families, getting to know them. But yeah, I wasn't well-known in the town at all. Nobody knew who I was taking over. Only people who as they would come in would get to know me. And a lot of times, because we had two separate desks at the time, Rita was working at the front, at the administrative side of the lessons, I was more of the store and the repairs guy, people would go over and I would hear them on the other side with Rita being like, "Yeah, I just talked to your son on the other side." And because we both had these dark features, she's Italian, I'm Armenian. So we had a lot of similar features. So we always joked around about that.
But yeah, as the community started to grow and I became more well-versed, I started going to things like the karaoke events that would go on in town at some of the local bars, getting to know some local musicians and bands. And people would come in looking for gear. And because of the way I started to develop the store, we started to have that gear in stock. And these were customers who would tell me they'd come six years prior and say, "Oh, I wouldn't be able to find anything like this in here." And that was the major shift to some of the big brands like Epiphone, like Ivan, as Takamine, that I wanted to bring in. Stuff that wasn't just get the students started. It was stuff to serve the greater good of Bradford's music community.
Al Grego:
How long did it take for you to be comfortable as the owner of the business? Like, "Oh, I'm now in charge, buck stops at me, and we're doing well." At what point were you like, "Oh yeah, we're good"?
Tyler Tossounian:
Probably after my first summer of owning the business. Because the way our school year looks, September's a major start. It's right back into classes. Everybody's kind of good. And we push towards our Christmas concert. Christmas concert, big deal. That went really well and everyone was really happy. And then as we go into our spring and then into our summer where our summer slows down the most, I'm looking at the bank account now being like, "Are we going to make enough for payroll this month?" Or, "Are we going to do this and that?" And fortunately, my dad is my accountant, he's our main financial guy. He'd always come back to me and he'd reinforce like, "This is the trend. This is what it looks like. This is where we're at." But then he'd say, "Look, you're up. You're growing the business. It takes money to earn that money."
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Tyler Tossounian:
Right? So a lot of the times when I was nervous about this stuff, I'd go to him and he'd be like, "Don't worry about it." And we would move past it. And then at the end of that first summer when I got my feet wet, going into the September scheduling, getting everybody ready, resigning all the teachers contracts because they're all contracted annually, that was when I really was like, "Okay, I get it now. This is making sense. This is what we need to do. This is how we're going to progress." And it's a slow-growing process and I think that's the same with any sort of business owner right now.
Al Grego:
Let's fast-forward to late 2019. Let's look at the business. How many teachers did you have?
Tyler Tossounian:
We had 15 teachers at that time.
Al Grego:
Okay. And students?
Tyler Tossounian:
March 2020, we hit our highest students ever even to date.
Al Grego:
Oh, wow. Okay.
Tyler Tossounian:
I counted our students. We were at 425.
Al Grego:
Wow, that's almost double.
Tyler Tossounian:
Exactly.
Al Grego:
Yeah. So those first couple of years that you took over the business, I mean you were successfully growing it. Can I use the word thriving?
Tyler Tossounian:
Oh, absolutely.
Al Grego:
It was thriving.
Tyler Tossounian:
One of the things I guess that was really tough for me getting started was seeing independent teachers rising up in town sort of thing and becoming the name of the game for certain instruments...
Al Grego:
Yeah, so they're your competition.
Tyler Tossounian:
That's right.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Tyler Tossounian:
One of the things we would learn in business school was competition can be healthy.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Tyler Tossounian:
And I started to notice that when students would move over from those teachers being like, "We didn't really quite like this or we didn't quite like that." And I'm sure we had students leave from here and go to those teachers and say the same things.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Tyler Tossounian:
And that's when I started to realize, okay, you know what? It's not about being the best. It's about providing the best and showing them that we can do.
Al Grego:
Up next, Tyler has successfully taken over Rita's business and managed to almost double the number of students at the academy. But what happens when in-person music lessons are forced to stop indefinitely? Stay tuned to find out.
You're listening to Yes, We Are Open! Fresh out of university, Tyler Tossounian seized an opportunity to buy his boss out and become the owner of the Bradford Academy of Music, and it seemed to be the perfect fit for the music major who also minored in business. The transition happened smoothly and he was growing all aspects of the business, but he was about to face the greatest test in his young entrepreneurial career. How did he fare? Let's find out.
What's been your biggest struggle as owner of the Bradford Academy of Music?
Tyler Tossounian:
I mean, had to have been during the time of COVID for sure. There was always going to be little things, dealing with tough clients, things like that. But the week of COVID when I'd said we'd hit 425 students, I was in here when we were told to stay home. I was all locked up and I didn't even turn the lights on because I'm like, "I'm going to save as much electricity as I possibly can. I'm just going to be me and the computer and the phone and that's it." And I had to call all of the students of our 425 students and not necessarily beg them, but push them towards trying to do a virtual lesson with us.
Al Grego:
So online lessons.
Tyler Tossounian:
Online lessons.
We did it with Skype. And the thing was too is at that time, a lot of our teachers were older teachers who weren't as well-versed in online.
Al Grego:
Right.
Tyler Tossounian:
So I had to go develop Skype accounts, emails for each of these teachers that I had access to and control of for privacy stuff. Develop all these, get the teachers set up with it, develop a manual on how the teachers are to set themselves up if I couldn't go. I went to three teachers houses and set it up for them and then tested it at that time on top of being here and calling all these students and booking them in for virtual lessons.
So we went from 425 students to 165 in one week.
Al Grego:
One week.
Tyler Tossounian:
One week. It was I think maybe three days of calls, three solid days, eight hour days of calls. And we had that shift. And even during that time, a lot of parents that stayed of the 165 would say, "Well, we'll try it for a week and see how it goes."
Al Grego:
What's the lowest that number ever got?
Tyler Tossounian:
I think it was maybe 140. So to be at half of where I'd originally bought the company from or just above half was a nightmare for me. And at that time, I was still in the process of paying the owner off the rest of it. And fortunately Rita was very generous and was like, "Okay, we could push it back by a couple months," and things like that. But at that time, I went and saw our biggest year. Even still to today, we haven't even hit 425 students the way things were going at that time. And people had money at that time. Now people don't. We went from that 425 down to that 140, 160, 140, and I was really losing sleep at that point in time.
Al Grego:
Sure. Yeah.
Tyler Tossounian:
We opened for July and August, we closed for September and then I think October, and then we opened back up for November and then closed again in December. And it was always just opening and closing based on those cases at the time. Paying the rent, I mean, at that time, fortunately enough, our landlord was giving us a bit of a discount on things. He was like, "We'll pay 50% and you pay 50% of your rent." At the time, government supporting that, government wage subsidies helped. We didn't take CRA, but we did take the government guaranteed grant or whatever it was of the 60,000 and put it towards things that we needed to do, which included those plexiglass barriers, keeping things afloat. And we did it.
And during that time, I had to be like, "What are we going to do? How are we going to make things work?" And at that time, a lot of our teachers even realized they don't want to teach music anymore. And it wasn't that they don't love music, it was that it's such a volatile career to be in. They notice that how are we going to eat, make ends meet, how are we going to eat every day, how are we going to sleep every day knowing that our students aren't even fully able to come in to classes at that time?
I think we lost six teachers at that time.
Al Grego:
It's a lot.
Tyler Tossounian:
It is. So there was a major shift and I was only 26. Yeah, I would've been 26, 27 at the time. Still, I'm just still this young guy just coming out of university in my mind. Right? I'm still trying to figure it all out.
Al Grego:
Back to that accountant that always told you it's all good, it's all good, you're good, did you ever have any go, no-go meetings with him and say, "I can only make it for this long before we have to"?
Tyler Tossounian:
You know what? I'm very fortunate, my father is a very opportunistic and future-thinking kind of guy. He dealt with his major company during the 2008 recession stuff. I was a kid at that time living with my parents. But hearing him go through that with my mom, I know he wasn't going to bring that on, put that stressor on me the same way it was for him. Not once did he say, "You know what? We're not going to be okay." It was, "Keep making those calls, keep booking people in, work on the website when you're not doing that stuff," because it just gave me the opportunity to keep doing things virtually. And he said, "Keep yourself busy. Don't just sit around."
And I'm a pretty avid video game player. I was sitting at home playing video games a lot during that time. So that was something I was like, "Okay, I'm going to kind of stick away from this." And I would force myself to come into work. And at that time, I was actually living in Barrie with my then girlfriend, now wife. And I would drive in still, even though there was no need for me to drive in. I could do it all virtually from home.
Al Grego:
But just sticking to that routine.
Tyler Tossounian:
Stick to the routine, come in. I was here for three or four days a week at that time, but it was just in case, what if somebody needs to call me, answer the phone?
Al Grego:
How have you been able to bounce back?
Tyler Tossounian:
Well, one of the major things was getting more teachers in. Those same students that were struggling through university at the time, they came out of university, they were looking for jobs. So we brought on along a lot of these younger kids, 21, 22-year-olds that were studying music at York University, same as me. And I was just posting on their pages saying, "Hey, you looking for a job? You live anywhere from New Market, even Aurora, and you want a job? Let me know, we'll get you hooked up." That was the major shift was get the teachers back in, fill their schedules. And as people started to move further north, after the pandemic where the housing market started getting kind of crazier and crazier, we started seeing young families in here. They've got five-year-olds, six-year-olds, seven, eight-year-olds coming in taking classes.
I also ended up joining the Bradford Board of Trade at that time. It's a group that advocates for small businesses and helps with government affairs, things like that. And I joined on as a board member, and then I ended up joining on as... I'm being voted in as a director, and now I'm actually the VP of membership for them. So I help run membership. And that was the thing, basically following COVID was about me getting my name out there and selling myself as the academy to promote that side.
Al Grego:
So you're up from even before the pandemic in terms of number of staff?
Tyler Tossounian:
Absolutely.
Al Grego:
And what's your student count back up?
Tyler Tossounian:
Students, I mean, it's tough to say right now with the summer because the summer's usually a bit slower, but I'll give you what it was just before. I think our peak was, yeah, at about 350 in May.
Al Grego:
Okay. So I mean, that's not bad. You're at least at a number higher than when you first bought the company versus...
Tyler Tossounian:
Exactly.
Al Grego:
And you're well on your way to hopefully...
Tyler Tossounian:
Excelling and exceeding from that, right?
Al Grego:
Yeah. That's great.
Tyler Tossounian:
So fortunately, yeah, when we came back actually September of 2020, from March when all that happened, we got up to about 300 students. So as soon as we started developing our in-person system again, showing people the benefits of what we were doing, we shot right back up.
One of the major things Moneris did for me for sure was when I had originally purchased the company, got us into doing payments and everything online.
Al Grego:
Okay.
Tyler Tossounian:
So a lot of our students actually go through a Visa and MasterCard system through their merchant direct portal. And so we've been utilizing that from before then. But it was really nice and simple. I think one of the features they actually added onto that portal during COVID was, "Do you want to hold all payments?" It was easier for me to hold all 425 students and then re-add 160 back than to go through each individual one and hold them all one at a time. So that was really beneficial for us.
Al Grego:
Coming up after the break, we find out what the future holds for Bradford Academy of Music.
Speaker 4:
Success in business doesn't come without moments of struggle, moments when you had to face your challenges head on. As the proud partner of Canadian business, Moneris plays a critical role in empowering businesses with the payment processing tools they need to succeed. Together we are building stronger businesses where business owners everywhere can stand up to their challenges without slowing down. Moneris, proud partner of Canadian business.
Al Grego:
Welcome back to Yes, We Are Open! With a little counsel from his accountant and father, Tyler Tossounian has successfully navigated his business out of the pandemic. He's now eager to return Bradford Academy of Music to its previous highs and beyond. So what does the future hold for Bradford Academy of Music? Let's find out.
What does the future outlook for Bradford Academy of Music?
Tyler Tossounian:
Right now, I want to expand completely to have a space where we have a venue, full venue space, so people, we can start doing jam nights, we can start doing performances.
Al Grego:
So that means a change in venue, a change in...
Tyler Tossounian:
That would be the plan.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Tyler Tossounian:
So right now, this is just still a rental unit space, and what I wanted to do or what I've put in the mind of our landlord is get into one unit, start expanding from there. Otherwise, I would be looking at some sort of land and then building.
The good thing about being on the Board of Trade and being an advocate through the government itself, the municipal government, is that the people I know, the people I work with, the people I play in bands with all work closely with the town. And I know for a fact that music is being slept on in town. There's a lot of young musicians that have interest. They go to New Market, they go to Barrie to perform. And then therefore moving their money and the economy towards them. And we need them more centralized into Bradford.
So the plan would be to really start developing the school as its own independent entity, the store as its own independent entity, and then a venue space, maybe a cafe, something like that where people can come in, bring their instruments, play, and just go and enjoy themselves. We have a lot of people that, like I said, have recently moved to Bradford saying, "Hey, I want to start a band. I want to do this." Well, there's nowhere really in town where they can sit down and just start playing together outside of their garage or the basement or something. And even then, a lot of people don't want that at home anymore. They're looking for that rental space. They're looking for that venue space.
And since the pandemic, we've actually started to horizontally integrate into the arts in general. And with that being said, my father's major background when he was growing up was in picture framing and art, like visual artwork. And so what we've developed now is the Bradford Art and Framing. And so we do custom picture framing. We sell music art. We've been able to get our hands on blueprints of original Fender instruments, original marching drums, the blueprints of them, and selling those as nice little features to have.
Al Grego:
Cool.
Tyler Tossounian:
I even had a meeting earlier today, which unfortunately I had to delay ours with because I double-booked myself, from a lady who creates, they're a creative team that developed these ornaments and things like that that are instruments and they're going to be nice little novelties for the Christmas season. And then just trying new things like that and just putting the mindset of music into the town of Bradford more, whether it's with lessons, whether it's with instruments, or whether it's with performances or even little tchotchkes. Just kind of having an outlet for people to get all their music stuff in one location.
Al Grego:
How do you feel with what you've done, how you've grown the business, and how do your parents feel about it? How does your wife feel about it?
Tyler Tossounian:
My parents were super proud of me from day one. I'm the oldest of my two other siblings, and I was always the one kind of on set for working towards some sort of goal of doing something. And like I said, my dad came along and he helped me out with a lot of stuff too, but he always says, "You've got to be the one to make the final decision."
So all I did was write in this, I still have, it's right here, in this notebook, and I just put Bradford Academy of Music Ideas July 7, 2017.
Al Grego:
Wow.
Tyler Tossounian:
Okay? And all it is is these are the things I want to change. And I've done every single one of these. Those were the first things. And then since then we've kind of gone on and done more and more and I'm sitting here writing out this is what these people should make. This is what the rooms are going to look like and how to do this. But I still keep this around. It's still not full.
Al Grego:
Right.
Tyler Tossounian:
There's still a lot more that can be done.
My girlfriend at the time, now wife, she was like, "I love these ideas. I love just seeing you sit around and building on this." And at the time, she was still kind of figuring out where she was at. She was doing her schooling in a second program. I guess it allowed her to feel stable enough that if we were to move in, if we were to kind of move things forward, she'd be able to still do her schooling while I was able to run my business and keep moving forward with things. And now she has a career in the field she was studying in too.
COVID definitely took a major hit even on us, but we made it through. And it's funny that during COVID I ended up deciding I wanted to propose to her. And now I just got married last month.
Al Grego:
Wow. Congratulations.
Tyler Tossounian:
Thank you. It happens that fast. I'm just very fortunate. And the people who helped me out along the way, I'm very fortunate for them too. There's never a day that goes by where I'm not thanking somebody or something for happening that helped lead to where we are today. COVID was just a learning experience for me to realize that anything can happen at any point in time and you just got to be able to adapt to it and keep pushing forward and make things happen because nothing's just going to happen like that.
Al Grego:
Thank you so much for your time.
Tyler Tossounian:
Thanks, Al.
Al Grego:
Tyler, is Bradford Academy of Music open?
Tyler Tossounian:
Yes, we are open.
Al Grego:
Awesome.
That's the story of Bradford Academy of Music. I've said many times in the past on this podcast that starting your own business is not for the faint of heart. Not only do you have to start from zero with building your product or service and create the operations around it to make it available to customers, you then have to convince people that they need your product or service enough to part with their hard-earned money.
Buying an existing business might seem like a shortcut, and in some cases it is. But that can come with a whole other set of challenges, especially when you're buying an established business from a well-known and beloved owner in a small community like Bradford. Change too much and you alienate your loyal and longstanding customers. But don't make any changes, and you risk stagnant growth and being left behind by new competition. It seems Tyler did it the right way and has been very successful so far. He was even able to survive the pandemic. Rita has left her legacy in good hands. I've seen Tyler's book of ideas and I can attest, it's not nearly full. So I expect big things from Bradford Academy of Music and Tyler Tossounian in the not too distant future. And being a musician myself. I look forward to how that future will sound.
Yes, We Are Open! is a Moneris Podcast Production. I'd like to thank Tyler for taking the time to share his story. You can learn more about Bradford Academy of Music at bradfordacademyofmusic.com or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Bradford Academy of Music. And on Twitter, they're @BradfordACMusic.
Please support this podcast by writing us a review on Apple Podcasts, or rate us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a Canadian small business owner or know of one with an interesting story of perseverance to tell, I'd love to help tell it. You can contact me at podcast@moneris.com. Tune in next week for another story of small business struggle and survival on the Yes, We Are Open! podcast. I'm Al Grego. Thank you for listening.