Does The Piano Industry Have to Continue Shrinking?

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/89985d_f2e67b4b206b4473b40fd087c5d30408/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

The Antidote For A Shrunken Industry 

Survival has become a common goal for the industry, and closest to my heart, the independent dealers who serve the piano needs of their respective communities. The narrative of late has been this question, ”Are you a part of the survivor’s club?” The pie, the whole of the piano sales to be had, has indeed become a ghost of what it was in its heyday. The talk at industry cocktail parties often harkens back to the “good ole days” when the piano was more of a cultural staple in the US. Industry higher ups and Sr. Management persons exchange ideas about where the industry is going vs. where it has been and technology, as it should be (more specifically AI these days), is at the forefront of the conversation. This is as it should be; innovations are always our tomorrow. Look at these past developments: 

*American ingenuity brought the world its first commercially successful player piano mechanism, the Pianola, from a Detroit piano maker at the end of 19th century. It was a marriage of industrial thinking and tradition.

*In 1989 the first Disklavier grand piano was released by Yamaha using solenoid technology. It made player pianos born with playback capabilities available.

*In today’s world, the premier player with high resolution quality is Steinway's Spirio. Some pundits say it revitalized the company and their fortunes.

Why the reference to these particular landmarks? Because history is bound to repeat itself. It seems with the digital piano explosion on the low end and Spirio on the top end, that the marriage of tradition and technology has proven to be the antidote for the piano once more. Music always embraces changes, in new sounds and trends and the way we listen to it. Digital replaced analog, CD’s replaced cassettes, playlists on smartphones became the way to organize your personal music. Every shift creates another way to do business and a new revenue stream. With retrofit player systems, the old can become new again and technology can extend the life of a traditional piano, sometimes a family heirloom.

Now let’s pivot this away from the consumer, to the sales professional. New tech is now commonplace for consumers; what happened to the sales professionals who sell to them? Not as much. In some larger markets there are still old sales pros simply hoping that their next “up” is a good one, instead of branding and promoting themselves and making opportunities. We now have young people pushing back on the online community because they want personal privacy… so much for the next generation being “all in” on social branding, right?

Your personal proclivities may be very different from the person who needs your advice, who you're trying to sell to. Wrap your mind around this: each online prospect has barriers that need to be broken down so you can earn the right to be their specialist, their concierge. Your communications tool box has to be full of all the tools that you need to be able to reach every different personality type. You must analyze each prospect individually and provide them the things that interest them the most in the manner they prefer to receive it. Leave your “easy street” cookie cutter scaling mindset at home. This is the luxury marketing space where not everything should go in a shopping cart. A place where trends exist but so do extremes, and there is a unique beating heart tied to every dollar bill. 

When you sit down to chase your leads and review your prospects, your job is to grab the right tool to deliver the right message. YOU create "floor traffic” by selling the experience of a visit to your gallery, IT IS THE MAIN THING YOU SHOULD BE SELLING - not the piano. The antidote for the industry is to eliminate desperate, premature selling and learn to feed prospects information so you dominate the portion of the buying public that is looking for a specialist and a concierge. SO many buyers have thick barriers of distrust and all your initial communication needs to be crafted to tear that barrier down and earn their trust. Tragically, 80-90% of the time, sales people “leap frog” over Step #1 Establishing Credibility and Step #2 Building Rapport and get right down to asking the questions that will allow them to match the visitor or prospects with the right piano. The issue? They do this long before their advice matters to the person to whom they are giving it. I’ll resubmit Teddy Roosevelt's quote again: ”Nobody cares what you know until they know that you care.”

The internet is chock full of people with piano interest and people sign up, in impressive amounts, for lessons every year. This doesn’t need to be a shrinking industry. People are interested and they know there are different types of pianos that look and sound different and do different things. They just don’t jump in the car and visit the piano gallery like they used to. Floor traffic is online and the industry has learned how to make digitals and used stuff go in a cart, but grand and upright piano sales? Well that’s a horse of a different color!

How do we make friends with acoustic buyers, including grand piano buyers, and talk them into buying? LISTEN UP: by NOT trying to talk them into buying. Talk them into how much you would love to help them with their journey. Talk them into talking to you. That is the antidote: learning how to gain trust with people you have yet to meet and talking them into spending time with you. QUIT the premature selling - it is the malady. Get people to open up - that is the cure! A phone conversation is only one way to communicate; allow them to choose the way they get information from you. You can’t force an initial communication method, but if you allow them to choose you can earn the one on one on the phone or in person.

The fuel behind the cure is the commitment to inspire and educate the online traffic in your market. Ever since floor traffic dried up because everyone, including my 87 year old mother, went online for information, we live in a world flooded with readily available information, good and bad. Now with AI, we are using the newest technology to promote a very old product, the piano. Once more - the marriage of tradition and technology is the answer; we get in front of people interested in what we sell and convince them that WE are where their most trustworthy information and context is found. They have more information than ever, so telling your story and the reason why they should involve you in their decision making is now our PRIMARY FUNCTION. 

The sales will come if the culture is efficient and you learn to unlock the key to becoming the trusted concierge to more future buyers in your market. It’s hard, it takes discipline and passion, but it is that simple. Quit looking only for the “low hanging fruit“; endear and brand yourself to the market. Be the market’s “go to”, regardless of when they want to get serious. When they do, you want it to be with you, right?

Does the industry have to continue shrinking? NO!

It can not only survive, but thrive. The short term intentions have to shift for the long term results to improve. Sell the right thing!!!! Yourself as the safest option and concierge. What a piano can do for a person’s life instead of the other options. Most importantly, the benefits of a visit to the gallery, the things it can provide you can’t get from a picture, description and an e-commerce price. 

Whether you like it or not, social media is the kingpin of our society these days. Here we go again… technology and tradition in lockstep is the answer! People won’t get elected if they don’t have a social message to influence a large enough segment of the voting population. Conventional news outlets have taken a back seat to online influence. It’s Podcast City out there now! 

The antidote for the luxury marketing space is the combination of technology and tradition. We must create our own FLOOR. TRAFFIC using social messaging and outreach alongside the phone calls, texts and emails. The most successful sales organizations in the piano industry are doing it BUT many are abusing some of the platforms by primarily harvesting instead of enabling the consumer’s search for context and information. If you jump to closing too soon(and that's all some companies are doing) the shoppers will insulate themselves from the pressure. STOP IT! The antidote is service… good old fashion value added, “here’s some information to help you make your best decision when you buy”, kind of service. Not, "answer these questions so I can figure out what to sell you.” Consumers want to buy; they just don’t want to be sold. They want information and advice, on their own terms. The organizations who go where they are will be the most successful. Feed them information and context, and they will feed you.

The malady of the industry is the proclivity to want to force the issue. Most people run the other way when they sense pressure. The goal is to align yourself to go on the journey with them and be their primary source of information and advice. It is 1000% easier to get awarded that job if they see you are doing, and have done, that for others, especially others like them, be they doctors, teachers, parents, grandparents, churches etc. This is why a social presence is critical to your personal brand. The job of being the concierge for the most piano shoppers in your market is up for grabs. The more piano sales people who learn to marry their service to the musical community to their messaging, the healthier the industry and individual sales companies and sales professionals will be. If everywhere consumers go online, they are sold the benefits of the instrument (not just the instrument) and what it can do to change lives in a positive way, the more popular it becomes.

The industry does not have to shrink, but if the sales professionals in the industry don’t communicate effectively with the millions of people online, inspired and curious, it will. Not because it has to, but because the messaging is wrong and the application is archaic. Marry the benefits of the awesome traditional product with an inspirational social approach, and sell yourself first and the piano second. Then watch your world change. There are a handful of sales associates who have done it and they, not so magically, are outselling those who are sticking to the old protocol with no real personal or company social branding. 

Expand your thinking. Expand your reach. Find the social platforms that work for you and build your social evidence so that you can show how you’ve helped others expand their happiness. Shrinkage is a disaster that can be turned around if we start “wildfires” of happiness because shoppers allowed us to serve them. The key word? Serve. Not sell. The sales will come if you tell your story better.

Let’s grow together. Shrinking is not inevitable, but it can be a byproduct of uninspiring messaging that is always based on dollar bills and closing deals. 

“Sell less, give more and you’ll sell more” -  Jack Klinefelter