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THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B.[SPILLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorial Staff
GLAD. HENDERSON,
A. J. NICKLIN,
H. E. JAMASON,,
AUGUST J. TIMPE,
C. CHACE.
VVM. a. W H I T E ,
B. BRITTAIN WILSON,
L, E. BOWEKS.
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PlilVPP Pi!inA anil
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
r lajCl -r lauv ami
t j o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, reg-
T o p h f i i r n l IW>naFtni0nfc
ulating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos arc
I C U I U l l d l VCfJal I l l l C l l i a . dealt with, will be found in another section of this
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning
which will be cheerfully given upon request.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal.. .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma
Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal
Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONES-NUMBERS 5982-5983 MADISON SQUARE
Connecting all Departments.
Cable address " "Elbill, New York."
NEW
YORK, MARCH 1 6 , 1 9 1 2 .
EDITORIAL
E
NTHUSIASM is one of the most vital forces in successful
salesmanship.
Too many people, not alone in the music trade industry, but
in other lines of business, are filled with the idea of doing so
many hours' work for a stipulated wage, and no more. They fail
to comprehend that their lack of interest, their lack of initiative,
their lack of enthusiasm, singles them out as mere routine men—•
excellent in their way, but lacking in those essentials which help
the business with which they are associated or spell advancement
for themselves. Speaking of the sales value of enthusiasm in
"Judicious Advertising" recently J. C. Johnson, advertising man-
ager of the Schmoller & Mueller Piano Co., Omaha, Neb., uttered
some very pertinent words on the thought above expressed. He
said:
Many business institutions are dying from dry rot because
those in the employ of such institutions are mere salary grabbers
and not enthusiastic and loyal workers for the house.
Whose fault is it?
Sometimes the fault lies with the management.
Sometimes with the employes.
We are too prone to skim the cream and forget that the
underlying rich milk is much laden with butter fat. Enthusiasm
is the impelling separator. It gets the last ounce of butter fat from
a given list of prospects.
You are most valuable to your firm as a business getter when
the spare moments are employed in surcharging your system with
facts backed by enthusiasm on the proposition.
More sales go by the board because of lack of enthusiasm
on the part of the salesman, I dare say, than from any other
cause.
When I make such an assertion do not misunderstand me
in taking the position that a salesman shall endeavor to generate
the necessary amount of enthusiasm over an inferior article.
REVIEW
If you cannot build into your sales presentable sincerity don't
waste time and effort, don't dissipate the gray matter your Maker
has given you in trying to get up a head of steam on such a propo-
sition.
Connect yourself—sell your ability, your energy, your en-
thusiasm to that firm whose goods will draw forth from you at
all times not only your loyal efforts, but to the last drop of your
energy, your best efforts.
When enthusiasm dies, hope dies.
There was twenty-five years ago in a western city a piano
salesman who entered the selling game with no particular promise
of brilliant performance.
In the eyes of some he might have been considered to labor
under a handicap because of his German parentage.
*
He landed on our shores at the age of nineteen.
What he lacked in brilliancy he more than made up in dogged
persistence and in enthusiasm.
The average piano salesman puts in supposedly eight hours
a day.
I say 'supposedly,' for it is an expensive and unwise propo-
sition to shadow that man hour by hour during the day to find out
whether he is working. It's unwise, for the chap who won't work
with a hustle motto pinned onto his coat lapel, or a tin can tied
to his coat tail, is doomed to be numbered for life as an average
salesman.
Never will he set this old world on fire because of the fame
of his sales exploits.
This German lad was not a clock watcher.
He was no drone. Bedtime was when the last sale for the
day had been closed no matter if the wee small hours of the morn-
ing were hovering near by.
Time and again was he known to load a piano on a wagon,
send it to a prospect's home who worked all day and who could
only be seen with his family at night.
About the time the supper dishes were washed and the table
cleared in would come the salesman. The piano had preceded
him. By the hour would he play for that family—the only family
as far as he was concerned in the world.
All his energy concentrated upon the subjects before him.
He would entertain each member, father, mother, the baby.
Do you wonder that this salesman sold more pianos of an
evening than the best salesmen in that city were able to sell in a
day?
Do you wonder that seldom did he leave a home without the
signed contract in his pocket?
Is it any wonder that such a salesman rapidly climbed the
ladder of fame and fortune as a business getter ?
I think not.
To-day that man, largely through his own efforts, is the
president of a million dollar firm.
A firm that covers the West like a blanket in its organiza-
tion for getting business.
A firm that is founded upon the principle that enthusiasm,
coupled with a determination to deliver the goods of known quality
at right prices, will succeed in the face of all obstacles.
F
IGHTS between piano competing houses are, unfortunately,
too frequent to cause any unusual comment except, perhaps,
in their immediate vicinity. The fights have generally been in the
form of advertising battles and the newspapers have, as a rule, been
the chief gainers and the reading public, until they became tired of
listening to the wail of the piano men, the victims. A new phase
of piano competition, and hot competition, has arisen in a Western
city, where the fight has reached a point where threats of personal
violence have been made with every indication that they would be
carried out. The defendant company, if the term may be used, who
upon entering the field had incurred the displeasure of the estab-
lished houses immediately installed as manager a piano man whose
husky physique would cause the pugnacious ones to stop and pon-
der before starting something in the assault and battery line. It
would be sad if from a business where quick wits and real brain
power were the chief assets piano selling reached a point where
the ability to "beat up" competitors marked the piano man as a suc-
cess. If the practice should continue we may see Jack Johnson, Abe
Attell, or other prize fighters in charge of piano warerooms.