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ence comes with being a Steinway dealer,<br />
but Slan has made it an art form.<br />
When he opened the D.C. store, for<br />
instance, he met a major local concert<br />
promoter. By exclusively providing<br />
Steinways for the promoter’s events,<br />
Slan’s company gained a foothold among<br />
the program’s musicians and patrons.<br />
Then, last October, he supplied the piano<br />
for a Young Concert Artists benefit,<br />
hosted by a celebrity couple at their home.<br />
(He preferred to keep their names off the<br />
record.) There, Slan learned of their foundation<br />
for autistic children. With his promoter<br />
contact, he arranged for the couple<br />
to serve as celebrity guests at a concert<br />
series event to raise money for their foundation.<br />
All the while, he looked like a<br />
community hero and raised awareness of<br />
his dealership.<br />
“Part of business is doing favors for<br />
people,” Slan said. “And when you need<br />
a favor, you can ask for a favor back.”<br />
Recently, he got a call from a woman<br />
connected with Washington Performing<br />
Arts Society. She had a concert pianist<br />
playing at her house party and needed to<br />
rent a Steinway. The high rental price<br />
was a turnoff, though.<br />
“Once we knew who she was, we said,<br />
‘Look, we’ll take care of you,’” Slan<br />
explained. “By supporting her needs for a<br />
minimal cost, we have developed a strong<br />
relationship with her, and a powerful ally.”<br />
911 FOR PIANOS<br />
J anet Adams Laird served at Jordan<br />
Kitt’s for nearly 30 years before joining<br />
Slan’s enterprise as its institutional sales<br />
director. She mentioned one customer, the<br />
director of a premier performance venue,<br />
likening the new dealership to a piano crisis<br />
hotline. “[The customer] said, ‘It’s like<br />
dialing 911 for pianos, and Steinway Piano<br />
Gallery is there immediately.’<br />
“We’re a leaner, more agile organization<br />
than what I’m used to.”<br />
Slan prefers calling his business model<br />
“efficient” rather than lean, but consider<br />
that he and his four salespeople handle the<br />
entire D.C. area’s Steinway business. As he<br />
said, “The smaller number of employees<br />
allows us to compensate each individual at<br />
a higher level” — not to mention afford<br />
such talent in the first place.<br />
“I admire his business model tremen-<br />
dously, which allows for fair and generous<br />
commissions and very low overhead,”<br />
said Charlotte Woods, a sales rep at the<br />
dealership.<br />
Maybe Slan’s greatest timing coup was<br />
simply recognizing this talent and seizing<br />
the chance to work with them.<br />
“The timing was certainly right in<br />
Washington,” he said. “The skill level<br />
{DAVIDAND<strong>GOLIATH</strong>}<br />
that’s required to present a Steinway piano<br />
properly to a discerning customer is a<br />
pretty rare commodity. The nice thing here<br />
is there are a large number of working<br />
piano retail salespeople — it’s been a pretty<br />
successful piano market over the years.<br />
“Because if you’re working at a very<br />
high skill level, you want to be selling<br />
Steinway pianos.” MI<br />
JUNE 2010 I MUSIC INC. I 55