Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Business Building is Not Easy.
The Instances Are Rare Wherein Men Achieve Easy Success but Failure is Bound to Come to the
Men Who Do Not Adopt Progressive Methods—The Piano Store Must Be Attractive and
Up-to-the-Minute—The Advantage of a Variety Trade—Public Opinion Strengthens or Weakens
Any Business—How the St. Regis Was Compelled to Advertise that It Was Not a High Priced
House—The Opinion of the Public Should Be Raised Regarding Piano Standards—Straight-
forward Methods Will Accomplish It—The Success of the Jenkins House in Kansas City
Was Due to Good Merchandising and Up-to-Date Methods—The Advantage of Continuous
Work and a Fixed Policy as Explained in the Publicity Campaigns of the Aeolian Co.—The
Kind of Ginger Which Builds Trade and Helps the Entire Music Trade Industry.
I HERE are many people who labor under the mistaken idea
X
that it is easy to build business.
This is not so, and commodities do not reach an enormous
public demand unless, there be persistent and energetic work behind
their manufacture and exploitation.
In all lines of business time is required to create a demand.
We have rare instances in the music trade where men have won
success from the start almost. Yet these instances are out of the
ordinary, and while one man mounts rapidly to fame and fortune,
others go plodding along in a quiet, undemonstrative way.
In piano selling there is undoubted progress.
Dealers themselves realize that they must conform their opera-
tions to modern methods else they will soon become back numbers.
The piano store can no longer be dark, dingy and unattractive.
The stock must be kept up right and at all times in readiness
to stand a minute investigation. That is, if the establishment
succeeds.
Piano stores, too, must have instruments that sell—they must
have instruments that are closely allied with the musical history of
the country—great names—for without great names the business
will never reach its own.
Of course, there must be intermediates—in fact, all grades,
because all grades of society must be treated in accordance with
their purchasing ability and needs.
It is useless to say that a dealer can cater to one class exclu-
sively.
He cannot and win out.
He must cater to all, because it is the trade of the many which
counts.
Here is a hotel in New York, the St. Regis, which has been
colloquially termed the highest priced hotel in America.
A good many people visiting New York have been deterred
from stopping at that hostelry by reason of what they supposed to
be exorbitant costs.
That very belief which has obtained in many quarters has been
persistently circulated and has inured to the detriment of the hotel,
and the management is now putting forth advertisements in the
various papers in which prices of rooms are quoted and the fact
emphasized that the reputation which they have for high prices
is not true, that they charge no more than any other first class hotel.
That shows what public opinion will do.
When public opinion once determines that the piano business,
by reason of constantly lowering standards, is down to a low level,
it will take a good deal to build it up; but the men interested should
see that it does not get down to that point.
They should realize the strength of great names and stand by
them.
They should be merchants in the truest sense.
There are some in the trade who have risen to their fullest
stature and are in truth piano merchants.
Take, for illustration, a house like the J. W. Jenkins Sons
Music Co., Kansas City, Mo.
Some critics might say that the house thrived only in proportion
to the growth of Kansas City and adjacent territory.
Yes, but why didn't some of the old-timers, like Strape and
others, who were in Kansas City in the early days, grow as Jenkins
has grown?
It was the man who saw the opportunity; and, in our opinion,
the Jenkins house is a musical merchandise emporium conducted on
lines which are in perfect sympathy with other developments of
trade.
Piano selling is treated by the Jenkins management on purely
a practical basis.
Certain instruments are put forth as embodying certain values,
and prices which are in accordance with the values offered are
placed upon the pianos.
The musical atmosphere is maintained, but there is also a
distinct business flavor which encourages trade and stimulates
confidence.
We mention this house because it comes to mind as a good
example of piano merchandising.
We can name plenty of others.
We can also name men who have never gotten out of the
peanut class, and never will for that matter.
We find them in both the manufacturing and retail fields. We
find, too, men who will now and then make a spurt for a position.
But just one magnificent advertising campaign will not place a busi-
ness on the pinnacle of success.
No! No! It will help it along, but there must be consecutive
planning behind every move.
The leader in music trade advertising, the Aeolian Co., New
York, never falters in its publicity policy, and even when the panic
struck us in 1906, when many companies were drawing in and
contracting and large publicity campaigns were abandoned, did this
company falter?
Not in the slightest, but rather went ahead in even a larger
publicity way, thus emphasizing not only its confidence in the busi-
ness of the future, but its confidence in the ability of the public to
buy musical instruments even when times were depressed and
people were studying the financial columns of the papers daily with
fear and trembling.
That is the kind of policy which will win out.
It is a steady resistless campaign—one which includes systematic
plans for publicity in the exploitation of certain wares.
But no one can succeed to-day in the sharp competition of our
times by feeble, spasmodic efforts, no matter whether manufacturing
pianos or selling them.
The enormous advertising carried on by the xA.eolian Co. has
had the effect to stimulate Aeolian business in every part of the
country.
It is inspiring the company's agents with enthusiasm; it is
injecting ginger where there should be ginger, and it has been of
direct benefit to the entire music trade.
It has made people think pianos and player-pianos and think
of them as a necessity in the homes, and it is just such work which
counts.
Suppose all of the great music trade houses should drop out of
the mediums of great circulation for a few months?
What a depressing effect it would have upon trade conditions
in this industry!
The point is, the more people think about pianos the greater the
necessity of having one in their homes is intelligently presented to
them.
And that means rnore business.
_