Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
JANUARY 1, 1927
Tne Music Trade Review
A. G. Gulbransen Tells of the Growth
and Development of the Gulbransen Co.
Interview in Sales Management Describes Methods That Have Made That Company's Volume
—Personal Career Subject of Article in the American Magazine
A G. GULBRANSEN, president of the Gul-
•**•• bransen Co., Chicago, during the past
month has been the inspiration for at least two
articles on his business career and on the
progress of his company, which have appeared
in national magazines. In the December issue
of Sales Management there appeared a most
interesting article by Mr. Gulbransen under
the caption, "The Lone Hand vs. The 'Me,
Too,' Policy in Sales Tactics," in which he told
how the Gulbransen Co. had forsaken trade
tradition in launching its business and adopted
new methods. In this article Mr. Gulbransen
said, in part:
"In 1916, when we bought out a tottering
piano business and announced to the trade
that we were going into the business of
manufacturing pianos, two courses were open
to us. We could swing into step with the in-
dustry itself, appropriate the industry's methods,
terms and policies, and operate a business along
the traditional lines followed by more than
150 other piano manufacturers.
"The other course open to us was to take all
the piano manufacturing and selling traditions
and throw them overboard and build a set of
policies and operating principles of our own.
"At first glance the more traditional policies
seemed the safer and the easier. It always
seems safer to travel with the crowd than to
buck the current. But if we accepted the first
course we would be just another piano com-
pany, hungrily scrambling for business when-
ever and wherever we could get it, taking what
was offered to us on the buyers' terms.
"We chose the second policy, and after ten
years of following our own plans and policies
I am confident our business would not be one
fraction of its present size if we had chosen
any other course.
"Prior to 1916 we had been manufacturing
and selling player actions to many of the lead-
ing piano companies in the country. Our
product was different from the product of
other manufacturers. We had a prosperous,
growing business, but no identity with the
consumer. We wanted a business where our
product would be known to the public, and
where we could build up good-will and a reputa-
tion which would be one of our greatest assets.
How Volume Has Grown
"In 1916, the first year we made and sold
pianos, our volume amounted to only 3.1 per
cent of the total piano production of the coun-
try. In five years we had more than doubled
this for in 1921—considered a bad year for our
industry—we sold 6.5 per cent of the industry's
total. In 1926 this percentage had increased
to 9.8 per cent of all the pianos made and sold
in the United States. As this article is being
written, in early December, it seems safe to
say that our sales for this year will be more
than one-tenth of the total piano production
of the country. There are about 140 piano
manufacturers in the United States.
"In enumerating and commenting on the dif-
ference between our policies and the policies
of other manufacturers, I want it understood
that I am not criticizing the policies of fellow
manufacturers. Many of these manufacturers
have enjoyed long and successful careers by
operating under entirely different methods from
ours. It is natural that we believe our policies
to be best for us, just as these other manu-
facturers think their policies are best for them.
So I want to emphasize that it is not with
a spirit of criticism that I contrast our policies
with those of others.
"One of the first points where our policies
diverge from the generally accepted method in
the piano industry is the matter of terms. Many
piano manufacturers sell on consignment.
Others sell on terms of twelve months; some
allow two years, and occasionally a manufac-
turer will ship pianos to a dealer and give him
three years to pay for them.
"With this practice firmly entrenched in the
field it is easy to sec that when we announced
A. G. Gulbransen
terms of thirty days net, with 6 per cent in-
terest if the account is not paid, there was
considerable astonishment in the industry. We
shipped no pianos on terms of more than four
months, requiring a trade acceptance if the
account was not to be paid in thirty days. We
grant a one-half of one per cent discount if
the account is paid in ten days.
"This policy forced us to sell only to the
strongest dealers. The weak dealers who would
not go out and sell pianos were automatically
eliminated from buying. We obtained the
cream of the dealers from the very start. It
was nothing uncommon for our salesmen to
accompany dealers to a banker and sell the
banker on our proposition so that he would
get behind the dealer and finance him. In order
to do this our salesmen were forced to study
and learn the piano business thoroughly, so
they could sell not only the dealer, but the
banker as well.
One-Price Policy
"The second step in breaking away from
established tradition in the piano business came
when we announced our national price plan.
We told our dealers that Gulbransen pianos
would be sold at uniform prices in all parts
of the country. To insure adherence to this
policy we branded the price into the back of
every piano that left our plant. With this one
stroke we challenged one of the most deeply
rooted practices in the industry.
"Buying a piano had always rivaled horse
trading when it came to price bickering. There
were no established values. The consumer
could not tell a five-hundred-dollar piano from
a seven-hundred-dollar piano. So when he
went into the market for a piano he - did so
with the idea that he would have to bicker
and trade until he battered down the price,
Most dealers spent more time dickering with
buyers than they did in creating business.
"It was not easy to do away with this prac-
tice. But when we explained to our dealers
that it was for their protection as well as for
the protection of the consumer, they began to
fall into line. This made it possible for us
to have many dealers in the same city because
under this plan the dealers did not cut prices,
and one dealer had as good an opportunity to
sell as another. To-day we have forty dealers
in Chicago alone. Under the old policy of per-
mitting the dealer to set his own price, we
would have had to furnish dealers with dozens
of brands for our pianos. But as it is they
all sell the same brand at the same price and
devote their time to creating new business
rather than in thinking up tricky schemes to
attract customers.
"Most piano manufacturers make from six
to a dozen or more models of instruments.
This policy, it seemed to us, would add to manu-
facturing costs, burden dealers with extra
stocks and complicate selling. We decided to
make only four styles and by sticking to that
intention we have simplified manufacturing to
the point where we can use the highest quality
materials in low-priced pianos and make up
the difference through the savings in manufac-
turing on a larger scale.
"This policy of making many different
models was paralleled by the practice of sten-
ciling pianos with different brands. It is
nothing uncommon for a piano manufacturer
to turn out many different brands of pianos.
A manufacturer will sell to one dealer a piano
under one brand and permit the dealer to
charge what he pleases for the instrument.
Across the street another dealer may be selling
identically the same piano, except with another
name stenciled on it, at prices ranging from
fifty to two hundred dollars higher.
One Brand Name Only
"Since we announced our national price policy
in 1916, not one piano has ever left our factory
without the Gulbransen name. We have never
made pianos for mail order houses or for other
dealers under any brand other than Gulbransen.
In this way we protect the dealer and ourselves
against the claim that a certain piano is made
by a certain factory and the same as one of
a. famous name, but branded differently.
"One of the most important differences in
policy between our company and that of the
industry in general is our plan of advertising.
Since the Fall of 1916 there has never been
a month in which Gulbransen advertising did
not run in at least one national publication—
that is, a national publication of major im-
portance. Our advertising has been continuous
rather than spasmodic, which is the rule of
the industry. There may have been times
when other piano companies indulged in
splurges which apparently overshadowed our
program, but for steady, continuous national
advertising no other company has approached
us We have tried to prove (and we have met
with considerable success) that the piano in-
dustry need have no great seasonal sales peaks.
Our confidence in the sales possibilities oi
pianos, as shown by our steady month-in and
month-out advertising programs, has helped
convince dealers that pianos can be sold in
good times and bad. In 1921, when sales were
slow and many plants were shut down, we did
not stop advertising and our sales held up
remarkably well, even though some of our
friends urged a retrenchment policy.
Gulbransen Advertising
"The entire theme of Gulbransen advertising
has differed largely from customary piano ad-
vertising. We have endeavored to sell music
—its beauty and its value in the home, rather
than contenting ourselves with trying to sell
our piano as an artistic creation. We believe
the average person buys a piano because he
wants music, not because a piano will last a
lifetime, or because it is made by workmen
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