Canadian Music Trade - February / March 2020 | Page 18

Faces
JESSICA
LEMIEUX
By Andrew King
W
hen Jessica Lemieux
entered the workforce at
18, she took a job in sales.
When she later enrolled in
college, it was to study sales and market-
ing. She’s sold cell phones at Future Shop,
appliances at The Bay, even furnaces and air
conditioners for a myriad of customers. But
while she always enjoyed the sales process –
and got quite good at – the right fit at the
right company seemed to elude her.
Then, in 2013, she decided on a whim
to apply for a position at Levy’s Leath-
ers’ Winnipeg office. “I just happened to
respond to a small ad that [founder] Dennis
Levy put in the newspaper; I had no idea
Levy’s existed until then,” Lemieux tells
Canadian Music Trade. “I love music and
have always loved everything about music,
so being a part of the industry seemed like a
great opportunity. It was definitely the best
sales job I ever had – way better than selling
air conditioners [laughs]!”
She joined the company in an inside
sales capacity and was soon thriving. That
led to a string of promotions that culminat-
ed in her appointment as Canadian country
manager for Levy’s Leathers’ Music and
Outdoor divisions in late 2019.
“Levy’s has always felt like family, and
Gator Cases is the same,” she says about
her employer and, as of 2018, its parent
company. “Gator is very family-oriented –
family-owned and family-run. Everybody gets
along and it makes it so great to go to work.”
In her new role as Canadian country
manager, there’s no such thing as a “typical
day.” “It’s a little bit of everything,” she says
with a chuckle before listing off some of
that day’s agenda. “I’m working regularly
on projects with our key accounts, coordi-
nating with our sales teams, getting orders
sorted… And I still get to make some sales
calls myself, which is nice. I like getting to
speak with clients I’ve worked with since the
beginning. It’s great to get to catch up, hear
18 CANADIAN MUSIC TRADE
how they’re doing, and find out how we can
help them.”
She’s also on the road relatively frequent-
ly these days. Right after The 2020 NAMM
Show, she was en route to another trade
event in late January, and had another in the
days following her interview with CMT in
early February. That’s in addition to regular
visits with key accounts across the country
on a year-round basis. “It’s a lot of airplanes,
but I don’t mind airplane food,” she jokes,
emphasizing her easygoing demeanor.
She and her team at Levy’s are current-
ly riding high after a strong showing at
NAMM. “As always, it was an amazing show
for us. Loud, but great. We had a lot of our
clients out this year, which was awesome,
did record sales again, and even won Best in
Show for our innovative Strap Packs,” she
proudly enthuses. “I especially love NAMM
because the days are so busy and exciting,
but then you get out in the evening with
people you spend all this time with on the
phone and get to know them better.”
The annual show is also emblematic of
the passion she sees throughout the musical
products community. “Getting to see all the
people behind the music is such a highlight.
A musician doesn’t play without a guitar or a
set of drums. These things have to be creat-
ed, and I love how everyone comes together
and shows off their best – the things they’re
obviously passionate about that help people
make music.”
While Levy’s Leathers has moved the ma-
jority of its operations to its manufacturing fa-
cility in Antigonish, NS, Lemieux works from
home just outside of Winnipeg, where she was
born, and not too far from the adjacent small
town where she grew up. She and her fiancée
live on a five-acre rural property that gives her
plenty of opportunity to indulge her green
thumb in the warmer months.
“Most of our fun comes from taking care
of this place – gardening and landscaping
the yard. I just love to plant flowers and
we keep a pretty big vegetable garden,” she
shares. “Then, in the winter, we basically
vegetate ourselves [laughs]. It’s too cold to go
outside, so we stay warm watching movies
and enjoying each other’s company.” Having
gotten engaged in the summer of 2019,
they’re also keeping busy with wedding plan-
ning ahead of their September nuptials.
Until recently, the pair was sharing their
home with their two daughters; however,
her fiancée’s daughter graduated from high-
school in 2019 and is currently amidst her
first year of university. Meanwhile, Lemieux’s
daughter is finishing her last year of high-
school now and getting ready to head off for
post-secondary studies in the fall.
That said, Lemieux catches herself
partway through a comment about their
soon-to-be-empty nest. “Well, we can’t really
say that, because we have two big mastiffs
in our house,” she laughs – “a French and a
French-English cross, and they take up a lot
of room.”
Looking ahead, Lemieux says she and
her team have been working on some special
projects that should be exciting to their
Canadian customers, like the ability to do
custom digital printing on Levy’s’ series of
gig bags so that stores can put their own
logos on the products. Beyond that, she says
it’s about “making sure all of our clients have
our new products to refresh their displays
and keep their customers excited.”
Sales has long been her strong suit, and
now, Jessica Lemieux is more than happy to
put her skills to work representing a compa-
ny she’s proud of in an industry she loves.
Andrew King is the Editor-in-Chief of
Canadian Music Trade.