6 Success Stories for Selling Audio

3. A Little DAC’ll Do Ya
Two-channel audio has been good recently to New York City-based Stereo Exchange. Founder David Wasserman says the company does big business with Peachtree Audio, makers of high-end digital-to-analog converter (DAC) products.

Sales of the Peachtree devices are fairly straightforward, Wasserman says. Whatever a shopper is looking for, they almost always get asked if they have an iPod … and most of them do.

“Many of them have no idea that there’s a way to get great sound out of it,” says Wasserman.

It helps that Stereo Exchange has a long history with Jon Zimmer, a former employee who now heads Sound Representation, representing several digital-audio brands in the New York Tri-State area. Zimmer sometimes takes his place (again) on the Stereo Exchange sales floor when the custom retailer needs some extra manpower.

“I would say the majority of customers that come through the door, if you ask them what they listen to, they’re not saying CDs,” Zimmer says during one of his days at the store. “They’re listening to an iPod or computer. They want it to sound better but have no idea how to do it.”

From there, the salesperson becomes the educator, explaining how “the quality of a DAC chip has a tremendous impact on the overall sound,” says Zimmer. “There is a qualitative difference between DACs. The better the DAC, the better the sound.”

Stereo Exchange demonstrates what a device like a Peachtree iDecco ($1,019) can do to otherwise inferior iPod streaming - how a user can use a superior external DAC instead of the default DACs built into computers and music players.

“As soon as you get people to start listening and learning from you, you’re already 90 percent to making the sale,” Zimmer says. “If you’re giving them valuable information they’re not getting from Best Buy, their guard is down. They’re learning. They’re happy.”

Zimmer adds that the difference between music from an iPod and music via an external DAC is obvious: “It’s not a golden-ear difference - oh maybe I hear it - it’s night and day. They’re going to want it.”

Once they’re sold on a DAC, “they buy the speakers, they buy the speaker cable,” says Zimmer. He adds, “they’re also telling their friends because they found this place where people are giving them information they can’t get anyplace else.”

Educating Stereo Exchange salespeople on DACs, and in turn educating the customer, has helped to “bring back the audio profits we need,” says Wasserman. “We’re selling limited-distribution audio components, speakers and cables. We’re selling the whole system.”