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The PIANO
as Fine Furniture
What Phil Clay Said
to Alex McDonald
Philip T. Clay
(NOTE:—This is the gist of a conversation be-
tween Philip T. Clay, president of Sherman, Clay
& Co., and Alex McDonald, of Sohmer & Co.,
which took place in San Francisco, April 26, 1929.)
H E fine furniture appeal of a piano is
one of the most effective of sales ap-
proaches, and one that is almost entirely
lost sight of by everyone in the industry
—manufacturer, dealer and salesman.
It is time to wake up and realize that in
every well-furnished home, however modest,
a piano is an integral part of its furnishing.
It should be the furniture piece-de-resistance
of the living room. It is the first thing in the
living room to attract the eye, and it should
be the central motif of the furniture scheme of
the home.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. In no
way am I decrying the piano as a musical in-
strument of superb possibilities. Its position
as such is impregnably established. I am con-
cerned about the business of selling pianos. No
merchant or manufacturer can control the mo-
tives that prompt people to buy. The wise
merchant is the one that capitalizes every buy-
ing motive to his own advantage; pride;
vanity; "keeping-up-with-the-Jones"; the desire
to have the newest and the latest,—these are
all strings upon which the wise merchant may
legitimately play to promote sales.
Group instruction, public school classes and
all other methods of stimulating an interest in
piano playing, as sponsored by our organized
efforts, are not prompted by altruism. They
serve an altruistic purpose to be sure, but the
primary object we have in view is to make a
market. Making a market for pianos is our
most important problem to-day. It is not that
we do not know how to sell the market—our
difficulty is that the market is too limited. It
is right and proper, therefore, for us to con-
T
sider and promote any other source of sales.
I maintain that every well-furnished home
requires a piano, even though no one in that
home can play it. It belongs there as an in-
dispensable article of furniture, and its very
presence will stimulate interest in playing.
Let's get the piano into every home—no matter
under what guise, and then we can turn our
attention to ways and means of creating a use
for it.
The strides in home building throughout all
of America in the last ten years have never
been equaled in the history of the world.
Everywhere you turn—in every city and town
in America—you are amaze-d at the new and
lovely homes that have been built and are
constantly being built.
The furniture trade has abetted this trend
and capitalized it—the better homes movement
and the model homes erected all over the coun-
try have given a marvelous stimulus to the
furniture business. Further, they have made
people realize that the home can serve all its
useful purposes and be beautiful to the eye at
the same time. They have established the fact
that the aesthetic and utilitarian may be twin
sisters in adding to the joy as well as the
comfort of life.
For the same reasons the piano belongs in
every home. No one can deny that many of
the better pianos of to-day are encased so
beautifully as to challenge the best that the'
furniture experts have developed—in fact some
piano cases have incorporated such beautiful
furniture ideas that it would seem a man in
furnishing his new home should be sold the
idea of buying his piano first and choosing
his furniture afterward to fit around it.
Much is being said about pianos lasting too
long. That is inherent in the instrument. The
very things that go to make it a beautiful musi-
cal instrument are the things that make it dur-
able. Good furniture is also durable. It will
outlast the lifetime of its owner. Does that
discourage the furniture trade? Not in the
least. They pay no attention to durability as
a sales deterrent. By propaganda and style ex-
hibits they sell the idea that every few years
the home should be refurnished—made over.
And they get away with this idea splendidly.
What is our cue? This should be our sales
talk: "Sure your piano is not worn out; musi-
cally it is just as good as new, but it no longer
fits the furniture scheme in your home or the
new one you are building. Bring your piano
up to date as you are doing with the rest of
your furniture which you are so carefully se-
lecting; make it the big decorative feature of
your home instead of a misfit where everything
else is harmonious."
The American people have the money and
the disposition to buy good things—the best
of everything. The diffusion of wealth is so
10
great that there is an unlimited number of peo-
ple to whom any worth-while thing can be sold.
It is time to wake up. It is time to realize
lh:it we have something wonderful to sell—
both as a musical instrument and as fine furni-
ture. It is up to us to realize the value of this
marvelous furniture appeal of the piano. It is
time to concentrate our selling energy on the
people who have the price and the will to buy
any worth-while object that is worthily pre-
sented.
There is no royal road to successful piano
selling—it is a matter of intelligent hard work,
but it is the intelligence that is put into that
hard work that tells the tale of success or
failure.
Intelligent business men everywhere are
scanning their markets—they are analyzing
population, purchasing power, social habits, and
above all, they are trying to discern buying
motives; they are seeking to discover every
emotion that may be utilized to prompt buying.
It is no longer enough to have a fine store, fine
goods and a fine reputation. They are an es-
sential background. The modern merchant,
having all these, must be intelligent enough to
know every possible buying motive, and be
alert enough to take advantage of them. In
Alex McDonald
this era of super-competition between indus-
tries we must be able to discern every possible
selling approach and be energetic enough to
take advantage of them.
The piano is essentially of the home, and the
home is, and always will be, the most impor-
tant of human institutions. No longer is it
merely a place to live—it is something of which
to be proud because of its beauty and its com-
fort. The piano not only adds to its culture
but it can add more to its beauty than any
other article in it.
We, in the piano trade, need to be sold on
this idea. We must realize its importance and
significance. We must then take off our coats
and make it effective with energy and intelli-
gence.