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THE MUSIC
S
ELLING pianos is not an easy profession, and the higher up
in the scale of cost we go, when more money is involved
in a single purchase, the more skill it requires on the part of the
salesman to dispose of a product. Selling goods, after all, is not
physical work; it is brain work. When two men go into the forest
to chop trees, the one who will have the most to show for his labor
is he who has the best muscular development and the best training
in the use of his muscles. When two men are competing in the
world of salesmanship, the one who succeeds is the one whose mind
is equipped and trained for the business. It is neither well equipped
nor well trained unless it understands itself and the laws which
govern it.
From a business standpoint, the most important self-knowledge
is the discernment of one's powers and the possibilities of their de-
velopment. One of the greatest of these is the power of attraction.
S
OME men have the faculty of easily winning customers in al-
most any line they may elect to follow. They have personal
magnetism—some call it psychic force, and they can control not
only individuals, but • a collection of men even amounting to hun-
dreds. Take the case of William J. Bryan. He came to the Chi-
cago Convention an unknown delegate, and his personality had
such an irresistible effect on the assemblage that he did not have to
force the acceptance of his views upon that gathering. The Con-
vention immediately accepted them, just as soon as he claimed its
attention. He sprang into leadership by acclamation. His goods
were brought to the right market and he found ready buyers. What
a piano salesman Bryan would have made! He would not have had
to put forth instruments of the "just-as-good" class, but he would
have sold anything that he desired to offer.
O
NE piano manufacturer remarked recently that he figured the
average salaries paid to retail salesmen as too high, and that
in a very short time, the salaries paid in department stores to sales-
men would exert such an influence on the retail department of the
piano industry that they would be the standard of measurement for
salesmen's salaries in this country.
We do not agree with the sentiment embodied in this declara-
tion.
In the first place, piano selling is different from almost any
other kind of retail merchandising, and there will always be a good
demand for good piano men in the retail department of trade.
They must, however, be of the right kind, and they must "make
good" in every particular. The piano salesman will never come
down to the level of some of the other trades; when that time comes,
the business itself will have steadily declined in dignity as a trade.
The men in the industry help to sustain it, and salesmen as a class
should appreciate the dignity of their position in the commercial
life, and as a consequence increase their effectiveness.
T
HE man who believes in his work, who believes in its useful-
ness, who is energetic and enthusiastic, whether selling pianos
or anything else, is the man who is universally successful, and it
requires a better grade of man intellectually to dispose of a high-
priced piano than it does a yard of calico or a toothbrush; there-
fore, the higher priced the article, the better the grade of men who
will become identified with that particular department of industry.
It should be a matter of pride that of all the trades and professions
created by the peculiar conditions of our national life, none is more
distinctly American than the salesman's profession.
It is the product of the nation's energy and enthusiasm—the
energy and enthusiasm which cannot idly wait for business to de-
velop, but must make business. The hustling piano salesman of a
few years ago has become the successful merchant and manufac-
turer of to-day. It is simply a process of "evolution. While we
make products of' all kinds, we must also make markets for the
products, and because of this the importance of the salesman in any
trade cannot be overestimated. He is the motive power of com-
merce.
W
IDENING the market increases the quantity of products,
and develops and creates wealth. Upon the salesman rests
a good deal of responsibility. It is one thing to create goods, but
after their creation they must be successfully marketed. On the
salesman reposes this responsibility, and bcth the wholesale and re-
REVIEW
tail salesmen must bear their part. The man who meets this ex-
pectation and by his salesmanship increases the business is the man
who has a clear track on the way to influence, power and wealth.
With the growth of commerce and the widening of the salesmen's
field, there has come a corresponding development in the type of
successful salesman.
The expensively, loudly dressed, vulgar drummer of the early
days is a thing of the past, like other evidences of our nation's
infancy. Specimens of this type should be stuffed and mounted
and exhibited in museums, simply as a matter of historical record,
along with stage coaches, muzzle-loading guns and other relics.
The modern salesman bears no resemblance to this primitive type.
He is polished, intelligent, energetic, a man of affairs, a student of
human nature, an observer of conditions, alert, affable, dignified,
enthusiastic. He is trained for his work, and he realizes the re-
sponsibility on his shoulders and appreciates the opportunities mak-
ing for success which are his. Such a man never stagnates, and
the only trouble is that we have not enough of them in the piano
trade. The more brainy and better, men, the better it would be for
this industry.
.:
T
HERE are opportunities here which should attract young men
of intelligence, and the old-time theory that "a man must be
a piano-man" in order to succeed in this industry is absurd. The
statement is worn out and mildewed and should be laid away as one
of the museum curiosities. A good, 'bright, energetic man can
quickly absorb superficial ideas of anything that he chooses to sell;
and then if he has the right training and intelligence, he can sup-
plement that superficial energy with a more thorough and complete
understanding of the subject. Contact with people who are inter-
ested in a special product (such as pianos) will be to him what a
text-book is to a college student. They will all help to place within
his grasp the knowledge for which all other knowledge is only
explanatory—the knowledge of human nature. The mental duels
his work calls for will make him keen and alert. No two indi-
viduals are alike; so each duel presents a new problem and fur-
nishes interest as he studies the personality with which he deals.
I
T may be necessary to bring new blood from outside of the
trade, but the opportunities in piano-selling are such that the
profession will always attract young men who will see a future in
the industry. A knowledge of music and the ability to play will, of
course, assist the young salesman materially, but it must be said on
the other hand that there are men who know nothing about music
and who cannot play a piano, who have won success in selling musi-
cal instruments. We were present the other day when a young
man made application for a position with a well-known dealer.
The young applicant made a strong point of the fact that he had a
splendid knowledge of music which he had studied under well-
known teachers. The old merchant surveyed him a moment criti-
cally, and said, "Your musical ability does not interest me as much
as your selling ability; the question in my mind is, 'Can you sell
pianos ?' "
HE Secretary of the Treasury of the United States said re-
cently in an address: "The time is coming when manufac-
turers will outgrow the country, and men may be turned out of the
factories. One of these days we are going to have an excess of
manufactures," he said. "Then the world will not come after our
manufactures. We pay out in wages as much as all the rest of the
world put together. Think of the hundreds of thousands of immi-
grants that come over every year to claim a great part of this sum
of wages. Where do they go? To the farms? No, they go to
the factories. The factories are multiplying more rapidly than our
trade, and we are going to have a surplus shortly. Then we will
turn these men out of the factories. Then will come the great
danger to the country, for these men will be hard to deal with.
The last century was the worst in the world's history of wars. I
look to see this century bring out the greatest conflict ever waged
in the world. It will be a war for the markets. God grant there
may be no bloodshed."
It is a fact that commercial war is the hardest of all, but there
seems to be no cause for an immediate alarm, for the absorptive
power of this country is enormous and we can easily handle a
quarter of a million pianos annually among ourselves,
T