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At 09:47 PM 12/11/97 GMT, Michael Pycraft Hughes, PhD wrote: >Tom: >>Actually we do go to see our paying public...our dealers. > >They aren't you're paying public, they just tell you they are!! >Go direct like Carvin, you know it makes sense! (to us) >Incidentally, do Carvin bother attending NAMM? yes, they usually have a reasonably large booth. You have to realize that in addition to being sales people and product managers and store owners and whatnot, most of the people there are also musicians with reasonably well paying jobs. >>The presence of the general public is often a distraction and a >>hindrance to doing business, which is the reason all of us manufacturers >>paid for the space, the hotel rooms, the (so-called) food in the first >>place. > >This just seems a strange mentality. If Lexicon had taken the Vortex to >the public themselves, it might have sold better than by trying to >encourage Guitar Center to do it for them. And if the message doesn't get >through to the PAYING CUSTOMER, the product's shafted anyway. To put it >one way, how many distributors are on this list (LD)? Err... none. But >they go, and we don't. That's what marketing campaigns in magazines and in store clinics and displays are for. At a tradeshow it's like this: An important dealer comes up. He's busy, got a lot to do that day, you spend 5-10 minutes discussing the products in the booth with him. He knods, says, "I'll buy 50 of those, 100 of those, let's do the order now." Papers signed, he's gone. Then along comes some 22 year old who probably works in a shoe store. He asks detailed questions for an hour and a half, plays all the gear badly while others are waiting, and eventually wanders away and probably never buys anything at all. As you might imagine, the manufacturer (who really does want his business) would much prefer that said 22 year old explored the product and asked questions at his local dealer rather than consume far more valuable space and time at the trade show booth. That's not always the case with every manufacturer. The really small guys will eagerly talk to anybody. They need all the exposure they can get, probably don't have any sort of dealer network set up, and probably haven't been to enough shows to get the hang of separating the important people from the rest of the crowd. Some big manufacturers are good too...Roland for example, has their booth set up with a big stage and lots of demo booths around with headphones. They probably do all the business deals in hotel suites. Even there though, it's mostly look-and-don't-touch for the new stuff. kim ________________________________________________________ Kim Flint 408-752-9284 Mpact System Engineering kflint@chromatic.com Chromatic Research http://www.chromatic.com