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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
WHY THERE IS A DEARTH OF GOOD PIANO SALESMEN.
CLOSER FINANCIAL RELATIONS
Piano Merchants Depending Too Much Upon the Chance of Getting Men Already Trained In-
stead of Developing New Material—An Important Subject for Discussion at the Next
Convention of the National Association of Piano Merchants—Suggestions Are Invited.
With South America One of the Essentials in
Order to Build Up a Successful Export Trade
—Americans in Business Below the Canal
Are Paying $80,000,000 Yearly to English
Bankers for Want of Direct Banking Connec-
tions with the United States.
LA question of exceeding interest to all piano merchants
is discussed by E. Paul Hamilton, a member of the press
committee of the National Association of Piano Mer-
chants of America, and manager of the piano department
of Fred'k Loeser & Co., Brooklyn, N. Y., in the paper
presented below. A well equipped sales force is neces-
sary to the upbuilding of any business and more par-
ticularly is it essential in the piano trade these days in
view of the demand tor player-pianos which require not
merely salesmanship, but a knowledge of the construc-
tion of the various mechanisms. Now that Mr. Hamil-
ton has given his views on this important matter we in-
vite suggestions of other interested parties who may have
something to say on a subject of national importance.—
EDITOR, The Music Trade .Review.]
Why there is a dearth of good piano salesmen,
seems to be a puzzle to many a piano dealer badly
in need of efficient sales help, and yet I believe
this puzzling question may be easily answered.
If a faraner wants more potatoes he plants
more seeds; if a country needs more soldiers, more
recruits are drafted and put into training, and yet
here we have the piano merchant crying for more
experienced salesman, but making no effort to
plant seeds, making no attempt to draft and train
recruits.
It seems that in the past the piano merchant has
always hoped and expected that "the other man"
would do the training and thought himself smart
if he could pirate away his neighbors' best help.
But of late years the good material worth pirating
has become more and more limited and the aver-
age so poor that the cry for good piano salesmen is
growing stronger and more general every day.
It may be true that, like poets, good piano sales-
men are born and not made, and therefore the
supply is limited, but unless we try to get hold of
the good piano salesman in the embryo state and
develop him in the school of experience, many a
man who may be predestined to be a "crackerjack"
piano man will miss his vocation to the great loss
of posterity in general and the piano industry in
•particular.
Now what can be done to improve this condi-
tion?
Who can and should do it?
I have taken upon myself the burden of par-
tially answering these questions and hope that,
with the assistance of the press, this article will be
the means of bringing before the trade suggestions
from wiser and more experienced men, which if
followed up iby concerted action will bring about
the desired results.
One or two of us cannot expect to alter condi-
tions, but the association at its next convention can
and should find some way of improving unsatis-
factory conditions.
"Viribus Unitis" should be the motto of every
v/ell meaning piano merchant, for we can easily
achieve, if united, what we fail to obtain if
divided.
If every piano man who has a suggestion to
make will only make it, and if every one of us
will only take sufficient interest in the matter to see
it through, there is no doubt whatever that things
can be done and will be done. Once a body of men
decides that a certain thing must be done and every-
one tries to the best of his ability to do it, only
one result is possible, and that is success.
If we want good sales help—if we desire to elimi-
nate the fraudulent salesman—manufacturers and
DEATH OF PROF. R. E. McQEE.
(Special to The Review.)
MARIETTA, O., October 27.—R. E. McGee,
salesman and tuner for B. E. Crippen, the Starr
Piano Co. representative in this city, and formerly
a professor of music in the blind school in Co-
lumbus, O., died at his home in Parkersburg,
W. Va., Thursday, October 23, in his forty-fourth
year.
Mr. McGee has been associated with the Starr
Piano Co. of Marietta, O., the past eight years,
and was well liked by all who knew him.
BUYS UP BANKRUPT STOCK.
The Olney Music Co. branch in Kansas City,
Mo., purchased the stock of the bankrupt Auto-
advertisers all that is necessary is to get together,
discuss the best ways and means and not only
pass resolutions, 'but set to and help to carry them
out.
If every member of the National Association of
Piano Merchants of America would only make up
his mind to attend the next convention determined
to be a really active member, participating in the
discussions, speaking his mind freely, giving
others the benefit of his experience and observa-
tions, then the convention would not be merely a
hand-shaking party, conducted by and for the ben-
efit of a select few, but every convention would be
an event of real importance, time well and profit-
ably spent, an occasion looked forward to. The
One of the many reasons why our trade with
South America has not increased to a larger de-
gree is set forth very interestingly by Charles
Lyon Chandler, of the U. S. Consular Service,
who, as a result of a recent experience in Buenos
Ayres, states that it took him three days to cash
a United States Government Treasury draft—that
Uncle Sam's check is such a strange thing in
South America that most of the banks will not
take one.
"There is no American bank south of Panama,"
said Mr. Chandler, in an article which Senator
Weeks has just caused to be published as a public
document to arouse American manufacturers and
bankers to what they must do in order to compete
with Great Britain and Germany for South Amer-
ican trade.
Commercial Battle.
E. Paul
Hamilton.
association would then become a more potent fac-
tor for good and a greater deterrent of everything
that may work evil in our trade.
The association has done a great deal in the
past and is doing useful work at present. But alone
the association is helpless. What is needed is the
fullest support and co-operation of each individual
member at all times.
If your salesmen took no interest in selling the
pianos on your floor, if the delivery clerk failed to
deliver the pianos sold, if the bookkeeper forgot
to make his entries, if the porter omitted to sweep
out your warerooms and dust your pianos, where
would your business go to? No matter how
smart you yourself may be, where would your busi-
ness end?
It would end where all fraudulent advertisers
end, and if we wish that our association should be
helpful and profitable to each one of us, we must do
away with petty jealousies, pull together, work to-
gether, for the uplift and betterment of condi-
tions in our trade, which means our own uplift,
our own betterment.
"United we stand, divided we fall." No one
can successfully dispute the truth and wisdom of
this old adage, and therefore it behooves every one
of us to unite at the next convention and make up
our minds to do our share of our duty towards
our fellowmen, which means ourselves.
matic Music Co., recently sold at auction in that
city. The stock consisted of electric and automatic
instruments valued at about $5,000, and the sale
price was $2,400.
FILES P E T I T I O N ^ BANKRUPTCY.
Victor S. J. Wensley, of Mt. Vernon, has filed
a petition in bankruptcy, with liabilities of $3,640
and no assets. He was formerly a partner in the
firm of W. S. Masters & Co., piano movers at
510-512 West Twenty-fifth street, New York.
S. M. Walker has opened a piano store in Aber-
deen, Wash., where he will feature the Hallet &
Davis Co. line of pianos and Virtuolos. Mr.
Walker was formerly a piano dealer in Hannibal,
Mo.
"A competition for commercial supremacy, in
which the United States is pitted against Germany,
Great Britain and Italy, and in which we are
handicapped by a lack of banking facilities, by
meager sources of current news and by misdirected
training of our trade representatives, is absurd to
think of," says Senator Weeks at the head of this
pamphlet.
"It is currently reported in South America that
one chain of banking organizations sends copies
of every invoice in its hands, and a good many of
these invoices are from American customers, to
the head office of the bank in a European city, for
information of the exporters of that country,"
s;iys Mr. Chandler.
"The big business, the loans we are floating, the
railroads we are building in South America will
hold open, against the attacks of our trade rivals,
the door of commercial opportunity in South
America for the small exporter. But England,
France, Germany and even Holland have so far
anticipated us in this respect.
"The bulk of our investments in South America
indicates possible success of an American bank in
the field. The banks of other countries in South
America show large earnings. The London and
River Plate Bank not long ago paid a dividend of
2v> per cent., and the London and Brazilian Bank
a dividend of 17 per cent. The British Bank of
South America and the Anglo-South American
Bank paid 15 and 10 per cent, respectively.
What It Costs the United States.
"We do not realize the price we pay foreign
bankers on the immense trade between the two
continents. It has been estimated that the British
banks alone have made more than $80,000,000 from
United States citizens in South America, and some
of the authorities say this estimate is too low. The
toll is constant. It is like the old French seignorial
river dues, that never ceased because the river
never stopped .flowing."
NEW SELLING_PLAN FAILS.
Henry Jennings Co., Tacoma, Closing Out
Piano Stock After Announcing Policy of
$100 Minimum Payments.
(Special to The Review.)
TACOMA, WASH., October 25.—When the Henry
Jennings Co., of this city, opened a piano depart-
ment and began featuring the Stultz & Bauer piano
some time ago, the company announced that it had
adopted $100 as the minimum initial payment on
all pianos and that it would do no display advertis-
ing for the piano department.
At the present time the Jennings Co. is closing
out its line of pianos at reduced prices. The other
Tacoma dealers view the result of the experiment
a? affording proof that piano houses cannot com-
bat low terms competition with new selling ideas
under present conditions.
Jasper Bowers has bought out the music store
of H. A. Meyerman, Belle Plain, la.