James- These are some very good suggestions and I see a few things we may have done differently, but in any case our program is though a single dealer, in fact the owner is an alumni. Bottom line for him is that he wasn't selling enough pianos, grands especially. thanks, Dennis Johnson St. Olaf College ___________________ On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 1:36 PM, James Schmitt <pianotenor at comcast.net>wrote: > dear Dr.Nicolaides, > Here is what needs to be in place for me to support one of my > universities starting a loan program > 1. There needs to a local dealer that will loan the pianos apart from a > manufacturer program. I have found that the post sale support for those > purchasing and the quality of the pianos loaned is much better and more > flexible. > 2. The school needs to be willing to support a sale with a strong mailing > list not just a token list. > 3. The dealer needs to have a policy for sharing profits from the sale so > that there is a real way for the school to purchase pianos and eventually > have a strong fleet of there own instruments. At two of my universities > both schools have purchased nice pianos without using any of the university > resources. > 4. The school needs to support the sale being held at the dealers store. > so that all the dealers resources can be available for the sale. > 5. service of the loaned pianos can be paid for by the dealer with a refund > of the money spent for service coming from profits of the sale. > The above points are making these programs work for both the school and > the dealer. > > James Schmitt > > On Mar 31, 2010, at 9:50 PM, Dr. Henry Nicolaides wrote: > > I think loan programs are common with other industries and manufacturers. > This gives them an opportunity to expose their product to a target audience > and is considered a long term marketing strategy. It benefits the college > as well as the manufacturer. Problems are encountered when the college > depends too much on loans and does not have enough of their own inventory. > *I for one would be interested in what you have learned. * Though we have > a good inventory of studio and performance pianos our practice rooms are > sadly in need of replacement pianos. Not that all of the studio pianos are > new, some needing rebuilding, they are keepers. Budgets being what they > are, if you are fortunate to have a budget, loaner programs serve a useful > purpose. > > Henry Nicolaides > Piano Technician, School of Music > Southern Illinois University > > > From: pianotenor at comcast.net > > To: caut at ptg.org > > Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:16:18 -0700 > > Subject: [CAUT] loan programs > > > > Hi all, > > I am the new kid on the block and understand you have done a fair > > bit of talking about the subject of loan programs. If anyone is > > interested I would be happy to let you know what I have learned that > > is making two significant programs work for two Universities I serve. > > But it may be that everyone is tired of the subject. Anyone interested? > > James Schmitt > > Service tech for University of Portland > > ------------------------------ > Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your > inbox. Learn More.<http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID27925::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:032010_1> > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100402/1fd2999e/attachment.htm>
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