Music Trade Review
Issue: 1923 Vol. 76 N. 19 - Page 9
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MAY
12, 1923
THE
MUSIC TRADp: REVIEW
9
Points in Player-Piano Salesmanship
T. / . Mercer, of the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., Chicago, Tells the Music Dealers of Texas Some of the
Reasons Why the Average Dealer Does Not Sell as Many Player-Pianos as He Should—An
Address Before the Annual Meeting of Texas Music Dealers' Association
Several years ago there was a merchant in
a city not more than a thousand miles from
Dallas who got the why habit. He got to look-
ing into things that concerned his business and
he wanted to know why this or that worked
out or didn't work out.
One thing that interested him early in his
investigations was that the player sales didn't
produce much in the form of more business.
There had been some players sold, but they
didn't seem to stir up enough public interest
to bring more people in to buy players. He had
one or two salesmen who* could sit up to a
player and shake their heads and sway their
bodies and give a pretty fair muscular demon-
stration with some musical effects thrown in,
and occasionally these boys would land a player
deal and then promptly forget it.
When this merchant got his think tank busy
on the why of the player business he decided to
root out the cause of the inactivity himself.
Me sorted out the- names of about twenty-odd
people who had bought players from the firm
and he went out and called on all of them.
Did Not Know What They Had
In practically every instance he found that
the people did not know what they had. Their
knowledge of player operation consisted of put-
ting a roll in, setting the tempo, throwing the
lever over and pumping for dear life. There
wasn't much music to reward their efforts. He
also found that a good many of the players
were out of regulation and the pianos out of
tune. Not much chance there for musical en-
joyment.
When he had convinced himself of the reason
why the player business was not taking on
speed he did two things. He sent the best
Inner and adjustment man in the shop out to
each of these places and put those instruments
in the pink of condition. Then he followed up
personally with a few simple tuneful rolls and
taught someone in each family how to get the
best possible results out of the player.
And meantime he started in on the sales
organization, taking each salesman through an
indiyidual course of player work, simplifying
demonstration and putting more stress on teach-
ing the customer how to play and how to under-
stand music rolls. For he had grasped the idea
that the customer was not particularly inter-
ested in what the salesman could do with the
player—not one-third as much interested in that
as in what he or she could do with it. That
is what the customer buys a player for.
Now, things began to happen in that busi-
ness, just as they always will happen in any
business where a practical idea takes hold and
an organized effort is put forth to make it work.
A Growing Public Interest
• The twenty-odd player owners that the mer-
chant himself had taught how to use their
players became the nucleus of a growing public
interest that soon began to manifest itself. They
look pride in their player skill, they took de-
light in showing what they could do and in
getting their friends interested. And it wasn't
long before the canvassers out looking for pros-
pects, when they mentioned player-pianos, in-
stead of hearing "I wouldn't have one of I he
darn things in the house, they're too mechani-
cal," began to get responses that if they could
get a player and learn to handle it like so-and-so
they might be interested.
And from that time on no customer was ever
permitted to leave the store after signing up
for a player without the salesman teaching him
how to use that player, how to get the melody
out, how to use the feet and hands to bring it
out and make the playing sound like real music.
1 could tell you a lot more about how that
organization went after player business from
that time on; how it even got the professional
musicians and teachers of the town to under-
stand the possibilities of the player so that they
quit knocking it; how they held special recitals
in which a prize was* awarded to the player
owner who played a certain selection the best;
how it got player owners to boost its players
and the store, and how it coached player owners
in the selection of music, helping the roll de-
partment to make a profit. I am not painting
the picture too vividly, for that player business
grew and grew until last year that merchant
sold over five hundred Gulbransen players.
Teach them to play, teach them to play well.
It is the best kind of work you can do. And
see that their players are kept in first-class
condition—in adjustment and in tune.
A Real Weakness
That has long been one of the weaknesses of
the piano business. Salesmen have dodged the
question of upkeep. They haven't had the nerve
to tell the customer in a common-sense way
that a piano and a player require attention if
the best of musical results are desired. In fact,
there are still a few places in the United States,
possibly some of them in Texas, where sales-
men will tell customers that a piano or player
will never need attention. Just the other day 1
heard one that was so old that it sounded new.
I heard a salesman say to a customer that the
piano he was selling her would never need
tuning—that it was lock-tuned before it left the
store.
This, of course, is getting to be ancient stuff.
Hundreds of dealers are now telling customers
the simple truth about the upkeep of their in-
struments and are selling tuning contracts along
with the instrument, not free tunings, but tuning
contracts, that get the customer into the habit
of paying for upkeep. And these dealers are
running service departments that pay for them-
selves and yield a profit, besides insuring the
customers' continued satisfaction with their in-
struments.
It is estimated that there are between two
and three million good pianos and player-pianos
now in service in the homes of America. Esti-
mating only $5 per year per minimum expense
of upkeep, the piano dealers and tuners of Amer-
ica have in sight from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000
annually in service revenue as the reward of
a little common sense in salesmanship.
The Dominant Position
Getting back to the main subject of selling
a player by the instruction or teaching method,
it is surprising how this system applied in a
straightforward way puts the salesman in what
the advertising agencies call the dominant posi-
tion on such simple matters as price, terms and
trade-in valuation.
Speaking" of prices, the piano business gen-
erally is getting so well sold on the idea of
one-price that it isn't much use to argue that
point except to say that one-price is the greatest
time and energy saver that has ever come into
the piano business. I could cite you so many
examples to prove this that it would be tire-
some to gentlemen who are already convinced
of the benefits of one-price operation as a time-
saver and the basis of sounder, safer financing
through the banks or otherwise.
Terms are another question. I never think
of terms but what I think of the old story about
the Swede who went into the savings bank in
Chicago and wanted to draw $300 out of the
account he had been building up slowly and
patiently for several years. The teller knew
him well enough to ask him what he was going
to do with that much money in a lump.
"Going to buy a piano" was the reply. And
he got his $300 and went' out. About three
hours afterward he came back and deposited
$290.
"Didn't you buy the piano?" the teller asked.
"Oh, yes," he said.
"How come you bring all this money back,
then?"
"Piano man only wanted $10" was the reply.
This, of course, was an extreme case, but
considering the nothing down and five years
to pay advertising and sales talk that is in-
dulged in, is it any wonder that people get the
idea they don't need cash when they go into a
piano store.
Then He Paid Cash
This reminds me. Three or four years ago I
was in a store up in Minnesota and saw the
dealer close with a farmer for a player on note
settlements running over two years. The dealer
had to get busy with another customer just
afterward and I wandered down the street after
the farmer. He went into a*n automobile place
and I followed. I saw him peel off $850 from
a roll as big as your leg and pay cash for an
automobile. I went back and told the dealer
what I had seen and that the farmer had money
left. He lost no time in going out to find him
and he succeeded in getting the farmer to cash
his own notes. And he said the farmer told
him he could have had the cash as well as not
in the first place, only he thought "You piano
fellows didn't need money."
The Trade-in Problem
One of the hardest mouthfuls for some piano
salesmen to masticate is the trade-in, especially
on competitive deals.. They will let the prospect
bamboozle them into a scare and then it is all
off with common sense. The prospect is hold-
ing an auction of an old piano. Two salesmen
are the bidders and they get to going so strong
sometimes that the old piano goes to one or
the other at about twice what a good new piano
can be bought for.
A year or so ago I happened to be in a city
where an old boyhood friend of mine settled
some years ago and prospered as the years went
by. Two or three years ago he built a fine
home. I called him up while I was in town
and he invited me to come out in the evening
for a visit.
In the course of the evening he said to me:
"Mercer, what in the dickens is the joker in
this piano game?" I said: "What do you
mean?"
"Well," he said, "after we built this place we
spent considerable money fixing it up inside,
rugs and draperies and new furniture and all
that, and then came the question of a piano.
I had been reading ads about these reproducing
grands and my wife and I thought one of them
would be just about the caper to top off the
home equipment, musically speaking. So I went
in and called on an old friend of mine who is
in the piano business and who sold me that
old upright over there in the corner about ten
years ago.
"He showed me a fine reproducing grand
and gave me a soul talk along with it that had
me coming his way. Then I told him I still
had the old upright he sold me. He diplomat-
ically got next to what it was and what I paid
for it—$500—and then he graciously told me
that he would take it at that figure in trade
on the new reproducing grand, which came to
(Continued on page 41)
MAY
12, 1923
THE
MUSIC TRADp: REVIEW
9
Points in Player-Piano Salesmanship
T. / . Mercer, of the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., Chicago, Tells the Music Dealers of Texas Some of the
Reasons Why the Average Dealer Does Not Sell as Many Player-Pianos as He Should—An
Address Before the Annual Meeting of Texas Music Dealers' Association
Several years ago there was a merchant in
a city not more than a thousand miles from
Dallas who got the why habit. He got to look-
ing into things that concerned his business and
he wanted to know why this or that worked
out or didn't work out.
One thing that interested him early in his
investigations was that the player sales didn't
produce much in the form of more business.
There had been some players sold, but they
didn't seem to stir up enough public interest
to bring more people in to buy players. He had
one or two salesmen who* could sit up to a
player and shake their heads and sway their
bodies and give a pretty fair muscular demon-
stration with some musical effects thrown in,
and occasionally these boys would land a player
deal and then promptly forget it.
When this merchant got his think tank busy
on the why of the player business he decided to
root out the cause of the inactivity himself.
Me sorted out the- names of about twenty-odd
people who had bought players from the firm
and he went out and called on all of them.
Did Not Know What They Had
In practically every instance he found that
the people did not know what they had. Their
knowledge of player operation consisted of put-
ting a roll in, setting the tempo, throwing the
lever over and pumping for dear life. There
wasn't much music to reward their efforts. He
also found that a good many of the players
were out of regulation and the pianos out of
tune. Not much chance there for musical en-
joyment.
When he had convinced himself of the reason
why the player business was not taking on
speed he did two things. He sent the best
Inner and adjustment man in the shop out to
each of these places and put those instruments
in the pink of condition. Then he followed up
personally with a few simple tuneful rolls and
taught someone in each family how to get the
best possible results out of the player.
And meantime he started in on the sales
organization, taking each salesman through an
indiyidual course of player work, simplifying
demonstration and putting more stress on teach-
ing the customer how to play and how to under-
stand music rolls. For he had grasped the idea
that the customer was not particularly inter-
ested in what the salesman could do with the
player—not one-third as much interested in that
as in what he or she could do with it. That
is what the customer buys a player for.
Now, things began to happen in that busi-
ness, just as they always will happen in any
business where a practical idea takes hold and
an organized effort is put forth to make it work.
A Growing Public Interest
• The twenty-odd player owners that the mer-
chant himself had taught how to use their
players became the nucleus of a growing public
interest that soon began to manifest itself. They
look pride in their player skill, they took de-
light in showing what they could do and in
getting their friends interested. And it wasn't
long before the canvassers out looking for pros-
pects, when they mentioned player-pianos, in-
stead of hearing "I wouldn't have one of I he
darn things in the house, they're too mechani-
cal," began to get responses that if they could
get a player and learn to handle it like so-and-so
they might be interested.
And from that time on no customer was ever
permitted to leave the store after signing up
for a player without the salesman teaching him
how to use that player, how to get the melody
out, how to use the feet and hands to bring it
out and make the playing sound like real music.
1 could tell you a lot more about how that
organization went after player business from
that time on; how it even got the professional
musicians and teachers of the town to under-
stand the possibilities of the player so that they
quit knocking it; how they held special recitals
in which a prize was* awarded to the player
owner who played a certain selection the best;
how it got player owners to boost its players
and the store, and how it coached player owners
in the selection of music, helping the roll de-
partment to make a profit. I am not painting
the picture too vividly, for that player business
grew and grew until last year that merchant
sold over five hundred Gulbransen players.
Teach them to play, teach them to play well.
It is the best kind of work you can do. And
see that their players are kept in first-class
condition—in adjustment and in tune.
A Real Weakness
That has long been one of the weaknesses of
the piano business. Salesmen have dodged the
question of upkeep. They haven't had the nerve
to tell the customer in a common-sense way
that a piano and a player require attention if
the best of musical results are desired. In fact,
there are still a few places in the United States,
possibly some of them in Texas, where sales-
men will tell customers that a piano or player
will never need attention. Just the other day 1
heard one that was so old that it sounded new.
I heard a salesman say to a customer that the
piano he was selling her would never need
tuning—that it was lock-tuned before it left the
store.
This, of course, is getting to be ancient stuff.
Hundreds of dealers are now telling customers
the simple truth about the upkeep of their in-
struments and are selling tuning contracts along
with the instrument, not free tunings, but tuning
contracts, that get the customer into the habit
of paying for upkeep. And these dealers are
running service departments that pay for them-
selves and yield a profit, besides insuring the
customers' continued satisfaction with their in-
struments.
It is estimated that there are between two
and three million good pianos and player-pianos
now in service in the homes of America. Esti-
mating only $5 per year per minimum expense
of upkeep, the piano dealers and tuners of Amer-
ica have in sight from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000
annually in service revenue as the reward of
a little common sense in salesmanship.
The Dominant Position
Getting back to the main subject of selling
a player by the instruction or teaching method,
it is surprising how this system applied in a
straightforward way puts the salesman in what
the advertising agencies call the dominant posi-
tion on such simple matters as price, terms and
trade-in valuation.
Speaking" of prices, the piano business gen-
erally is getting so well sold on the idea of
one-price that it isn't much use to argue that
point except to say that one-price is the greatest
time and energy saver that has ever come into
the piano business. I could cite you so many
examples to prove this that it would be tire-
some to gentlemen who are already convinced
of the benefits of one-price operation as a time-
saver and the basis of sounder, safer financing
through the banks or otherwise.
Terms are another question. I never think
of terms but what I think of the old story about
the Swede who went into the savings bank in
Chicago and wanted to draw $300 out of the
account he had been building up slowly and
patiently for several years. The teller knew
him well enough to ask him what he was going
to do with that much money in a lump.
"Going to buy a piano" was the reply. And
he got his $300 and went' out. About three
hours afterward he came back and deposited
$290.
"Didn't you buy the piano?" the teller asked.
"Oh, yes," he said.
"How come you bring all this money back,
then?"
"Piano man only wanted $10" was the reply.
This, of course, was an extreme case, but
considering the nothing down and five years
to pay advertising and sales talk that is in-
dulged in, is it any wonder that people get the
idea they don't need cash when they go into a
piano store.
Then He Paid Cash
This reminds me. Three or four years ago I
was in a store up in Minnesota and saw the
dealer close with a farmer for a player on note
settlements running over two years. The dealer
had to get busy with another customer just
afterward and I wandered down the street after
the farmer. He went into a*n automobile place
and I followed. I saw him peel off $850 from
a roll as big as your leg and pay cash for an
automobile. I went back and told the dealer
what I had seen and that the farmer had money
left. He lost no time in going out to find him
and he succeeded in getting the farmer to cash
his own notes. And he said the farmer told
him he could have had the cash as well as not
in the first place, only he thought "You piano
fellows didn't need money."
The Trade-in Problem
One of the hardest mouthfuls for some piano
salesmen to masticate is the trade-in, especially
on competitive deals.. They will let the prospect
bamboozle them into a scare and then it is all
off with common sense. The prospect is hold-
ing an auction of an old piano. Two salesmen
are the bidders and they get to going so strong
sometimes that the old piano goes to one or
the other at about twice what a good new piano
can be bought for.
A year or so ago I happened to be in a city
where an old boyhood friend of mine settled
some years ago and prospered as the years went
by. Two or three years ago he built a fine
home. I called him up while I was in town
and he invited me to come out in the evening
for a visit.
In the course of the evening he said to me:
"Mercer, what in the dickens is the joker in
this piano game?" I said: "What do you
mean?"
"Well," he said, "after we built this place we
spent considerable money fixing it up inside,
rugs and draperies and new furniture and all
that, and then came the question of a piano.
I had been reading ads about these reproducing
grands and my wife and I thought one of them
would be just about the caper to top off the
home equipment, musically speaking. So I went
in and called on an old friend of mine who is
in the piano business and who sold me that
old upright over there in the corner about ten
years ago.
"He showed me a fine reproducing grand
and gave me a soul talk along with it that had
me coming his way. Then I told him I still
had the old upright he sold me. He diplomat-
ically got next to what it was and what I paid
for it—$500—and then he graciously told me
that he would take it at that figure in trade
on the new reproducing grand, which came to
(Continued on page 41)
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