Music Trade Review

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today. This philosophy is of course
the foundation of all permanent busi-
ness progress. And even the most un-
imaginative person (unless he is very,
very hungry) can still see the merits
of passing up today's small gains for
the promise of tomorrow's much big-
ger ones.
Short-range thinking—the biggest
growing pain in the organ business to-
day, is in most cases unintentional and
consequently is not recognized for
what it is by those who indulge in it.
Yet the action today which will not
stand up in tomorrow's cold scrutiny
is marring the growth of an otherwise
healthy adolescent in the music busi-
group must face up to this need if
there are to be big organ profits in the
years ahead.
"Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak"
"Sell the sizzle, not the steak" is a
familiar sales slogan. The sizzle in
organ selling is the fun of organ play-
ing, the ease of learning to play the
organ, the ease of ownership of one of
today's electronic organs, and so on.
The chord organ will. I think, help
considerably, and the Easy-Chord de-
vice which can be used on any organ
/nakes possible the sale of organs to
those who lack the inclination, or who
fear they lack the ability, to learn or-
gan playing "the hard way." But even
with the easy-play selling tool the first
appeal must be the "fun'* aspect—the
personal satisfaction that comes from
playing a musical instrument. That's
the sizzle we must sell—and never for-
get to sell.
I referred earlier to the ready-made
market: that group of individuals or
institutions vvho will buy an organ,
somebody's organ, this year or any
year. This group doesn't need any sell-
fTurn to Page 12)
Creator Program Needed
A good example of this short range
thinking is the over-concentration on
the existent market for organs, and the
reluctance at least at the retail level
to embark on programs aimed at cre-
ating more organ buyers in the years
ahead. The existent or present market
is a fairly lush plum: the 1953 organ
business has been estimated at about
one fourth the size of the piano busi-
ness for the same year. A very high
percentage of 1953's retail organ dol-
lars came from institutions or individ-
uals who had already made the deci-
sion to buy an organ. In these cases
the selling effort was applied complete-
ly to building a protective fence
around the prospect (lest he stray) or
to diverting him away from a com-
petitor's product. While we all re-
spect competition for its true value as
a spark-plug to business I think it
must be said that the preoccupation
with selling one's own wares has com-
pletely usurped the time and resources
which might ortherwise be available
for the creative, market-building sales
program which are so greatly needed
at this stage of the game. The ready-
made market for organs does not pro-
vide a large enough permanent stimu-
lus and more attention must be given
by dealers as well as the manufactur-
ers to the problems of expanding the
market. Only thus can organs continue
to be a dynamic, growing business.
This is, of course, generalization—
and happily there are exceptions: more
of them every day. There are truly
some outstanding performance records
—dealers who can claim a substantial
percentage of their 1953 sales as being
in the category where they not only
sold their make of organ, but FIRST,
SOLD THE IDEA OF BUYING AN
ORGAN. Everybody needs to get into
this act and I do feel that dealers as a
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, APRIL. 1954
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