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THE MUSIC TRADE! REVIEW
puts out. He will gather many an idea from them, and will be
thoroughly up to date in answering many questions which may be
propounded. There should be cordial co-operation between the
advertising manager and the salesman, because it will mean better
work and better sales.
O
NE of the proprietors of a large piano department which is
noted for its close buying once said that the salesman who
talked quality and not price had a greater influence on him than
the man who came in and at once began to make price the center
of his argument.
A good salesman works on quality and a poor one on prices,
and the salesman who talks quality—whether he is selling pianos at
wholesale or retail—must have confidence in the instruments which
he offers. He must carry conviction in his work in order to make
buyers conform to his desire. He must first, last and all the time
have confidence in the instruments which he sells.
I
T is pretty hard to always win out on the sales, but in such
times as these the selling end of the business should be easier
than ever before. If a man doesn't meet with a few failures, how-
ever, he does not appreciate success. Failures are oftentimes useful
as instructors. If it is necessary to approach your prospect many
times, do it. Wait, if you must, but get away each time with
something added to your knowledge of the science of salesmanship.
One of the greatest masters of the violin states in his auto-
biography that during the first year of his tuition his instructor
would not allow him to make a sound on the instrument. After
that period the student spent eighteen hours daily in practising how
to hold the violin and bow in correct positions, how to finger the
strings and in learning all the details that enter into the violin's
construction. When after the first year had passed he was allowed
to make a sound on the strings, and the notes were true and sig-
nificant—not a haphazard caterwauling. Under this strenuous
discipline the student became a headliner in the musical world.
T
HIS is a good example to bear in mind, and the prospect on
which you fall down comprise a class of people which is
to be your instrument. The more you learn of their eccentricities
and the difficulty of selling them, the more you learn the way to
accomplish the purpose, and the more proficient you will be when
at last you sound your first note in the scale of successes.
T
HE keenest interest has been manifested by the business world
in the trials which have been proceeding recently before
Judge Holt in the United States District Court involving the offense
of perjury in bankruptcy.
For the first time in the history of this jurisdiction—Judge
Holt thinks for the first time in the history of this country—convic-
tions have been obtained, and the defendants of three cases have
been sent to prison. The offense in each case was that of a bank-
rupt merchant who had hidden his property in order to cheat his
customers and then conceal his act by perjury.
The practice in one form or another has been going on for
years, but it was only a year ago that indictments were returned
for the crime in New York, and only a few days ago that there was
a conviction.
W
E have had some mighty queer cases in the music trade
where there was every indication of property having been
secreted. Judge Holt says that he has been specially interested in
this aspect of fraud in bankruptcy for several years. He had no-
ticed the large number of cases in which there was evidently per-
jury, and, perceiving that there was apparently no attempt to punish
the guilty, he proceeded in a way that brought the situation to a
head. He wishes the business community to take notice, and re-
gards the practice he seeks to destroy as one of the most dangerous
of its kind extant. If perjury in bankruptcy cases should continue,
the efficiency of the bankruptcy law will be almost nullified. It
shows, too, that the present law against bribery, theft and perjury
is adequate if enforced.
SUCCESSFUL piano merchant located in a thriving Western
city, in writing to The Review, said: "What I like par-
ticularly about your publication is the fact that you eschew all
petty bickerings and get right down to brass tacks, so to speak.
A
You give us the news in a condensed, readable form, and you give
us helpful hints which I find invaluable to my salesmen. I sub-
scribe tor three copies of your paper, and 1 consider the money well
invested; and I do not believe, as a whole, that salesmen read trade
papers as closely as they should."
It is a pretty safe assertion that salesmen in general do not
read enough about their own line of business. Trade journals, and
good ones, are plenty in all lines of trade at the present time, and
they can be read with pleasure and profit by any wareroom worker.
r
\ ""HERE are too many salesmen who regard the trade journals
-L as something particularly intended for their employers, and
noL for themselves to read. Hence they do not bother themselves
about investigating the contents. They do not realize that a more
or less careful and regular reading of these journals might mate-
rially add to their fitness for a better position.
A salesman cannot know too much about the merchandise that
he handles. Men in the higher professions find it necessary to read
and study continuously in order to keep abreast of the times. They
must of necessity learn not only what others in their chosen lines
are doing, but how they are doing it. Piano salesmen should be
thoroughly posted on the special merits of the instruments which
they otter for sale, and they can get many a pointer from the
columns of a well-conducted trade publication.
T
HERE are a number of names appearing on the fall-boards of
pianos which closely resemble each other, and unfortunately
most of them propose to stick rather than to gracefully retire in
order to satisfy and please their competitors. We cannot have
everything to our liking in this queer old world.
T
^HE interest in piano players, far from subsiding, is rather
increasing in strength, and still there are those who assert
to uay that the player business will be but temporary.
We can hardly agree with such an opinion. There will be a
number of new players offered for sale within the next few months,
as there are some now which are practically perfected, which ere
long, with capital and energy behind them, will be heard of in
trade circles in no uncertain manner.
The energy seems to be on the inside player, and how to make
this in the most compact form and easily adjustable to any piano
is the objective aim of all inventors.
When we consider the number of really brainy men who are
working upon the solution of this problem, and we figure how far
they have advanced in a few years, it seems reasonable to believe
that there must be satisfactory developments, as the result of this
concerted and experimental work which is now going on.
T
HE piano player has come to stay, and that it will show better-
ment with the passing of the years is indisputable, for if we
take a retrospective glance at player history it will be noticed that
the development has been remarkable from the earlier creations;
and we now have men who are busily occupied with the develop-
ment of acoustical and mechanical principles and their application
along lines which tend upwards.
We must admit that the player development forms one of the
most interesting studies which has recently been taken up by this
industry. It represents ideas, inventions and devices which have
sprung from the brains of numerous mechanical and acoustical
geniuses. Some of these ideas upon closer application have proved
impracticable. Others, again, have been shown to be commercially
unprofitable, but a still larger number have flourished and expanded
until to-day the player forms a mighty important adjunct to the
music trade industry. Indeed, its selling force cannot be denied.
Every dealer and every salesman realizes that.
It is true the player may get out of order; but, then, why dis-
cuss such possibilities? It is a live, vitalizing, selling force to-day,
and interest in it will not subside. It is putting life into thousands
of dead pianos all over the land, and it will keep on injecting that
life into the selling department of the industry.
H
UNDREDS of men all over this country will add largely to
their incomes through their association with piano players,
and from all indications it now looks as if the present year would
be in every respect the greatest one in the history of the player
business.