Gerry, Jim, etc., I'm a business school graduate. I completely understand the concepts of stockholders and profit margins. That's one reason I have posted that I believe a business degree is more appropriate for becoming a piano technician than a music degree. I also understand that SOME techies and SOME businesspeople are cut from different cloth. But as Jim quickly realized, there is no reason the two can't mesh. True, some techies are NOT good salespeople, or so they think. But we sell our own service, do we not? Surely we don't all just do what the customer thinks they want, right? If we did that, we'd rarely do anything but "just give me the "basic" tuning", whether a pitch correction is required or not. So, we do have to learn some sales techniques to sell what we do. The reason I believe we need technical minded sales people in the piano industry is to significantly reduce the amount of deceptive selling. Also, I'm aware of far too much piano selling that just moves merchandise - and no matter how junky it is. In other industries, sales people are taught to "provide solutions for needs". That means matching the product with the customer's needs. If a salesman in that situation doesn't do a good job of matching the solution to the need, it doesn't take long before the customer realizes it. A technician will, because of experience in the field where pianos are used, do a better job of this. Certainly the customer's budget has to be kept in mind, but we have far too many salespeople who could care less about the real needs of the customer as long as they don't walk out the door without writing some sort of check for whatever something they have in the inventory. The parent might just say, "well, our daughter wasn't cut out for music," when instead the reason the child quit piano was that the sales person didn't care whether they matched the right solution for the customer's need. Ed Sutton made some very powerful comments in his NAMM article for the April PTG this year. I show a portion of these comments to many of the customers who walk in my store thinking they just need a "used" piano. (I don't know about where ya'll are, but the available used stuff around here is 98% junk - finding a decent used piano is a needle in a haystack). If I may quickly quote from Ed's article, "I can't help but wonder how many of the failed piano students of the last half-century were simply disgusted by the sound and touch of the miserable spinet, console and petit grand pianos they were expected to play. Perhaps it is a dream, but I believe that children who begin to play on these new instruments will have a far better chance of growing up with the love and skill of piano playing." That wasn't all the powerful comments he wrote either. Several sentences preceded those comments that gave credibility to the new piano market and basically slammed the door on the quality of some of the junk we've been called upon to try to make suitable enough to not discourage a young beginner from playing. And while that may increase business for us techies, there is only so much miracle we can work. But non-technical sales people don't care. All they see is a dollar coming in and a hunk of junk going out. And that goes for some of the new Chinese stuff as well. When a technician sells a piano, he/she knows there is a good chance that he/she will be the one who will be called to service it. He/she will be less inclined to buy or take junk on trade that will require too much work to get in reasonable condition and better understands how that PSO will be more likely to discourage someone from playing than encourage it. Someone who just sees dollar signs won't care. A student will be discouraged, and furthermore less likely to want a better piano later. That benefits neither the customer nor the industry. So, for those who see non-technical sales people as a necessary evil, I submit they are actually partially responsible for the general decline in sales -- not a benefit to the industry at all. As far as Dealers seeing technical and service as an EXPENSE, I, as a dealer/technician, see it as INCOME for the dealership. Good service generates piano sales INCOME, and piano sales generate service INCOME. They are complimentary rather than mutually exclusive. Rather than seeing complimentary tunings as a cost that eats into the profit margin, I actually see them as increasing it. If I sell a piano that has a $1000 profit margin and I've promised 2 free tunings, I can actually see that as doing two tunings that make the company $500 each rather than costing the company $90 (or whatever) each. Ed Foote once said something to the effect that his goal is to eventually price his work so that he tunes one piano a year for $50K. He was teasing, of course. But becoming a dealer is certainly one way a technician can head in that direction. I don't think I'm debating with anyone on this list. Just ranting a bit about the industry. My goal is rather to encourage more business-minded technicians to consider becoming dealers rather than just beating up on the non-tech dealer. And the PTG should SERIOUSLY consider publishing an excerpt of Ed's article as excellent marketing material for new pianos. Jeff ----- Original Message ----- From: G Cousins To: CAUT Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:34 AM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Boston changed to dealers techs mfgrs and other such Pls forgive the changed topic title as it appears the original to run astray a bit. Perhaps this change of thread may provide a better forum. Condensation of subject: My analysis for what its worth: Manufacturers have overhead and expenses and shareholders who will not keep their investment dollars in company stock unless they are profitable. Dilemma: How does a mfgr balance these concerns while competing in a global arena Dealers have overhead, expenses and competition from other dealers who also have overhead, expenses and competition. Dealers look at technical and service as expense. Yes, this may seem wrong (to technical folk)but that is what it is, period. Technicians have overhead and expenses BUT in many cases both of these are based on sole prop circumstances which are limited to the technicians own individual needs rather than other entities that affect bottom line of mfgrs and dealers eg: labor force, technical expenses, shareholders etc. Manufacturers and dealers have to be a profit driven organization in order to remain a viable business. Technicians seldom base their business on a proven business (profit) model. RHis puts them (us) at a continual challenging stand with both manufacturers and dealers. All ruffling of feathers aside,I look forward to the anticipated barrage of comments and flaming experience. Yes, this is a complex topic. Like a board meeting =) Gerry C > From: jim_busby at byu.edu > To: caut at ptg.org > Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:20:32 -0700 > Subject: Re: [CAUT] boston comments - guilt > > Jeff, > > "Oil and water" comes to mind. Dealers and "sales people" generally seem to be cut from a different tree. Sure, I agree with you, but the 3 or 4 dealers I work with have a very different way of thinking. Apples and oranges? You say tomayto and I say tomahto? <G> Seriously, I think they use some other part of the brain that I'm not even aware of in myself. If they could even sit through the training they would probably kill themselves before wasting a minute doing something that they weren't getting paid for up front. > > Well now. Rick Baldassin doesn't fit there... Hummmm. Guess I'm wrong again. > > Best, > Jim > > ________________________________________ > From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ed Sutton [ed440 at mindspring.com] > Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:10 PM > To: Jeff Tanner; caut at ptg.org > Subject: Re: [CAUT] boston comments - guilt > > > > > I believe all dealers should be well trained techs. I believe all > > manufacturers should require it. > > Tanner > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091119/69284cf8/attachment.htm>
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