Marketing Approach

[Kdivad@AOL.COM]

In a message dated Mon, 20 May 2002  8:05:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com> writes:

>I tuned a small Baldwin grand for a lady today. I would guess it is at least 50 years old. It is not one of their top-teir pianos - it is one of the cheaper ones. The thing has realy tubby bass strings and the action is way out of regulation, etc. - your basic worn out older piano.
>
>She informed me that she just moved here and wants to start teaching piano again. She also plays violin. So of course, I was thinking that I should mention to her some ways to improve the performance of her piano - if not a total rebuild/replacement at least new bass strings and a serious action refurbish/rebuild.
>
>So I asked her how long she has had the piano. She said five years. She bought it because it has just been totally rebuilt: Hammers may have been filed, case was crumily (word?) refinished, and plate and tuning pins and agraffes and strings had been painted gold.
>
>I clammed up at that point and left. Is there any constructive way to sell her work in light of the recent "rebuild"? Anyone with a clever sales approach that would cut through the BS that she apparently purchased in the past?
>
>I've run into similar situations before and really don't know what to say that might sound constructive and appropriate.
>
>Terry Farrell
>  
Terry, tough situation, the way I find successful for me is find out the complaints if any and let them guide me. I then go over the piano side by side with the customer discovering any problems together.  I use an evaluation list to explore the condition of the piano in an unbiased and methodical manner.  I would typically say things like "I use my tuning hammer to see how tight the tuning pins are telling me if the piano will hold a tune," It seems elementary but with most customers this eliminates hurt feelings or embaressments that can happen when you all of a sudden tell them that their piano needs major work.  A diplomatic explanation of the vast differences between piano mens interpretation of the definition of restored and rebuilt helps.  A intuitive understanding of what the customer is really looking is most important, maybe she is happy the way it is.  These things work really work well for me and maybe there is something here you can use.
David Koelzer
DFW