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22
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, FEBRUARY, 19.W
Clinic
(CoH t in ued from page 20)
the piano in dollars and cents. It is an instru-
ment of beauty, culture, refinement, happiness,
pleasure." Try to sell this piano on those
bases.
"I am not trying 1 to get him down to a
lower priced piano. If necessary, that evil
comes in again. Some people think it is an
evil; I think it is a blessing. Terms! Stretch
the terms in order to get this piano. In other
words, when a customer comes in, we have to
assume the idea that we are the doctor and
this customer has an ailment. We must be able
to sit with him and talk and find from him
what he must have, and to serve him best. I
am sure that you will definitely make a very
fine friend in the person that purchases a
piano!"
Mr. Rice then said: "I think perhaps that
opens up a couple of schools of thought about
the presentation of an instrument. In the old
days I was taught to show the cheapest one
first. After you have shown that instrument,
say, 'Well, Mrs. Jones, if you were to buy a
piano today, how much money would you
spend?' Now, by that school of thought—I
mean there is some psychology in showing the
most expensive one first. Personally, I don't
know that I agree with that. If you show the
most expensive one first, there may be a possi-
bility that you do burn your bridges.
"As Mr. Fink has stated, he would show the
most expensive one first, working on the psy-
chology that I did them a favor and flattered
them by showing the most expensive one first.
I think that is a delicate point in selling, I
think you gentlemen who are out in the field
on the firing line must have some ideas and
thoughts on this subject. You must first find
the customer's pocketbook, which is what we
are fundamentally interested in.
"This piano selling is like the washing
machine business. You advertise one for $35
but you chain it to the floor. Perhaps the $195
Spinette and the $147 Spinette are also chained,
so we have to raise them. What is your idea—
to start them low, find the customer's pocket-
book, or start them high and retract? I would
like to hear some conversation on this."
Low Price Piano on the Floor
Mr. McCall of Philadelphia said: "On De-
cember 1st we had five cheap Spinnettes on our
floor, national advertised for $185 or $195.
We advertised them and got an awful lot of
inquiries on them. I am very glad to say that
those five were still on our floor on December
31st.
"We sell a lot of used pianos and give a
three-year full-trade-in value; better than 50
per cent of the time it eventually leads to a
new sale. That is an idea that might help
somewhat here.
"Another thing, people come in to look at
a piano and say, 'We wish we could buy it but
we can't. We don't now whether the child will
take an interest in music. We don't want to
invest two or three hundred dollars.' So we
have a rental plan, renting a piano for a dol-
lar a week up. We rent an old upright for a
dollar a week and the Spinnette for eight dol-
lars and the cheap grand for twelve dollars.
All the rental we put against the purchase
price of that or any other instrument.
"Our experience has been that in over half
of the cases where rentals are made, a sale
is made. We don't lose anything because we
don't consider the rental paid as income. We
deduct it on our books from the wholesale
cost of that instrument, so if we do have to
take it back and sell it as a used instrument,
we still have an opportunity for making a nice
profit on it.
"Those are just three ideas that 'we have
found very successful."
Evening Session
At the evening- session a Dinner was
held in the Grand Ballroom at 6 o'clock,
and over 200 people sat down to eat.
Lawrence H. Selz presided, and after
the Dinner was over he introduced Miss
Helen Koues, Architecture, Building
and Decoration Editor of Good House-
keeping Magazine.
Miss Koues spoke very intensely on how
interior decorators and the piano manufac-
turers had been working together in recent
years, and on the subject of the attitude of
the average woman towards the buying of a
piano. She said, "The woman who is a
musician, and I know many of you are musi-
cians yourselves, wants a piano. She wants
an instrument, she doesn't care whether the
piano is too big for the room or too small for
the room, or what it is. She wants a piano
because she is a musician, and she will buy it.
"Then I believe there is the woman who
wants a piano because she play a little, she
wants the children to take music lessons, but
she wants that piano to look well in the room
where she is going to place it.
"Then there is the woman who wants a
piano the way she wants a decorative piece
of furniture or a cabinet. She wants some-
thing beautiful to make a house more beauti-
ful, to make her a better hostess, and it seems
to me always in dealing with many of my
readers that the very feminine and personal
attitude of whether you are a good hoestess or
whether you can do something to make your
parties better is an approach that we find is
very successful.
"So, in considering these three types, you
men who deal with women all the time will
know which you have to deal with. I do think,
as a woman myself, that it is sometimes well
to let a woman browse about a little, find out
gradually what it is that she wants. Some-
times she only makes up her mind as she looks,
as she goes, and by trying to give her too
many impressions of what you think she
wants, you may confuse her. She is looking-
for something, she is not quite sure what it is,
but she will soon declare herself, you will
soon know which one of these three types she
belongs to.
"As you all know, the piano industry has
been doing a wonderful thing in the styling
that has been done in the last few years. I
don't have to tell vou what a tremendously im-
portant thing styling is in our life today. The
power of style is perfectly stupendous, really,
in what it does. It influences people in the
smallest as well as the largest things that they
buy or in the planning of their houses, and so
forth. So style is going to play a very big
part.
"Just think of it in centuries. Remember
that the sixteenth century was oak, and think
what oak means. It means Queen Elizabeth's
time, it means the South American countries
at their great period. It is solid, it is massive,
it means bare walls, great silken curtains. It
is a massive piece of oak furniture, made of
solid wood. Of course, they didn't have pianos
in those days, but we have built houses of that
kind somewhat since.
"Seventeenth century brought us walnut,
and the walnut went through the Queen Anne
period. It was more refined. It was made
into chairs. Everything was a little more lux-
urious in the seventeenth century.
"In the eighteenth century mahogany came,
and mahogany found, of course, the great mas-
ters in cabinet work, Hepplewhite, Chippen-
dale, and I think most of you are all familiar
with what the eighteenth century did for fur-
niture design. During that same century, of
course, the walnut of the preceding century
went on side by side, with the fruitwoods,
painted furniture. But we had more refine-
ment in design, more delicate, and yet this
shows a very definite personality as the
mahogany age.
"The nineteenth century brought us the Vic-
torian era, the ebony piano, and that is so
close to us we all know it.
"Now, with the twentieth century, we have
had modern come, and modern has brought us
lightwoods.
"So in thinking of these various periods, it
may be helpful to you if you can place the
woman or get the woman to express to you
the type of house she has. Then you will be
better able to suggest to her what she wants or
what she thinks she wants.
"Now, in coming to that, it always seems to
me that it is necessary to find out, if you can,
the arrangement that she wants, if she will
talk with you. You have the grands, you have
the uprights, you have the verticals. If you
can take her or lead her to the type of piano
which is going to fit into her house or her en-
vironment, you of course have helped her.
"I felt that possibly if I showed you how
we have used pianos in the various Good House-
keeping settings—I don't suppose you are
familiar with the fact, but we have had ex-
hibits in a great many parts of the country
in this past year. We had them at the New
York World's Fair, in San Francisco, and at
the World's Fair in Chicago some years back,
and we have been showing pianos and found
the women very much intersted.
"In the smaller houses where we also have
had Good Housekeeping exhibits, rooms which
were furnished and decorated by us, we have
used your verticals, and women have been sur-
prised that they could get a piano into the
room, and have said so to our hostesses. So I
am going to show you these cards."
Miss Koues then displayed a series of large
poster cards in which she showed the various
methods of setting a piano in a room, both
grand and console.
At the termination of her address, Mr. Selz^
introduced W. Howard Beasley, President of
the National Association of Music Merchants,
who addressed the audience on the "One Price
Policy." (Mr. Beasley's address appears on
Page 17.)
The meeting adjourned at 9 o'clock and was
considered one of the finest Clinics that has
been held thus far since this innovation has
been introduced into the piano industry.
AMPERITE
perfects amplifier for pianos for
radio connection
The Amperite Co., New York has per-
fected what they term a Kontak Mike
for the purpose of amplifying piano
tone. The company states: "With this
unit and an auxiliary called a 'booster
transformer' piano tone can be ampli-
fied through a home radio set. Amplica •
tion with the Kontak Mike through the
home radio set gives a natural sounding
result. No changes in piano or radio-
set are required. The contact is made on
the sound board of the piano. The con-
nection to the radio is made to the
phono input: or in sets not having a
phono input, it is connected across the
volume control to the grid cap and
ground of detector amplifier tube. With
wireless phono players it is connected
across the pick-up." The Kontack Mike
is reasonable in price and is now being
handled by many musical instrument
distributors.
New Ansley Vice-President
Arthur C. Ansley president of the
Ansley Corp., New York has announced
the appointment of Ernest J. Adams as
vice president and general manager of
the company.