Music Trade Review

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REVIEW
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JULflC TIRADE
V O L L. N o . 8.
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 1 Madison Ave., New York, February 19, 1910
10 CENTS.
$8 E OO°PERVE O A C R E
SING
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N a communication addressed to me a traveler asks the following":
"When does a man's duty to his employer cease?"
I should say when he quits his employ and not until then.
The writer obviously, from words which appear later on in his communication, believes that there
are certain times during the day or night when his employer's interests should not be paramount.
That might be right for the man at the bench who has his work mapped out for him by a superin-
tendent and who has nothing to do save to carry out orders. He becomes in fact a sort of human
automaton and when the whistle blows his interest in his employer's work ceases.
But how about the traveling salesman? He always hopes to advance to a higher position, and if
he wins out in his ambitions he must work that part of his anatomy which he terms his brains at all
hours.
To do that successfully he must make his employer's'interests his own.
He must keep his eyes and ears open—not merely during business hours, but in the evening—on
the trains—in the hotel lobbies—everywhere.
The president of a concern doing three millions of business annually recently told me that his
success was due to the fact when he was selling goods on the road he made it his business to learn every
town he visited thoroughly.
He not only called on his own customers but everybody else in town from whom lie could get any
knowledge.
Frequently he got special tips about the financial condition of his customers a month or two
before his competitors received the same information.
Often he was told of new firms about to start out and being the first man on the ground got the
initial order.
He never knew when quitting time came.
It is easy to see w T hy such a man advanced and the salesman after calling upon his own cus-
tomers should not feel that he has done his duty and that he is entitled to loaf until train time. No man
ever advanced by idling away his time. Tt is worse than tossing away money.
He can make that spare time valuable to his employers and to himself by going around tow r n sizing
up things—chatting with people here and there—asking questions occasionally and absorbing informa-
tion which will be of value to him.
If the traveling man spends an hour a day doing this he will soon be surprised with the amount of
valuable data and personal information which he has gathered, much of which can be made useful to his
own business.
No, there is no time when a man's obligations to his employer cease—that is if he is working in a
line where brains and intelligence count—until he breaks with his chief.