The idea of trading up is subtly implanted often enough that one customer was on her third organ before she took her first lesson. But the more lessons people take, the more they trade up for fancier features. Fletcher's cheapest organ is a $1,688 model called the Estey Discovery. Once customers find out how easy it is to play, many are hooked. This is followed by walking a prospect through a one-finger version of When The Saints Go Marching In. "I can teach you to play a song in five minutes," goes the first part. Most often the relationship began in a mall where Fletcher's "keyboard assistants" _ not salespeople, thank you _ play simple songs on Fletcher's least expensive organ and engage willing passers-by in the so-called Estey Challenge. "Some of our students bring us homemade cookies. "We've had people start dating here, and I've heard of a few marriages at other stores," said Lennie Picci, Fletcher's sales manager at Clearwater Mall.
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And even though Fletcher often springs for free coffee and pizza, some classes are compelled to stage periodic potluck dinners in their classrooms, located at the rear of each store. The orientation session is a wine-and-cheese party. In fact, two-thirds of Fletcher's customers pay cash.Īnd Fletcher has made its eight-step group lesson program a regular social event/lonely hearts club for the big-band set.
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To many seniors, playing a pricey home organ is a hobby no more extravagant than having a yacht, a sports car or a house full of antiques. Run by David's older brother Bob, Fletcher Music is an extension of a family that _ except for one generation _ has been making or selling musical instruments since 1837.
"If we can put 10 seniors together having fun and learning music, we'll sell six of them something if we treat them right," said David Fletcher, the company's director of development. "But they have been very good at hiring the right people and being very deliberate about fine-tuning every component of the business." "Nothing Fletcher does is revolutionary," said Brian Majeski, editor of Music Trades. But Fletcher, which sold about 2,000 of the 14,000 new home organs made last year, has created an unusual sales experience. The home organ industry has been on its deathbed for years, so few music stores concentrate on the business anymore _ much less hand out free lessons for life to buyers.
Indeed, Fletcher has found its particular niche catering to a generation that grew up around the parlor piano.
And all of its Top 10 competitors are companies that outfit entire high school bands and legions of would-be rock 'n' rollers. With 23 stores in regional malls scattered across retiree-rich Florida _ and seven new mall stores in strategically placed retirement havens in North Carolina and Arizona _ Fletcher's sales are headed for $42-million this year, up from $35-million in 1994.Īccording to Music Trades magazine, this performance made Fletcher, which sells only home organs and a few church organs, the nation's ninth-largest musical instrument retailer in 1994. Indeed, Clearwater-based Fletcher has proved more adept at selling electronic home organs than anyone else in the nation. But once you get into this, you're stuck trading up for the best ones." Moneywise, I sometimes wish I could go back to the $3,000 one they started me out with. Johnson doubts she will be tempted to trade up again for the $70,000 models Fletcher is beginning to sell:
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