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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
RMEW
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Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
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.
Player-Piano and
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N E W Y ORK, DECEMB ER 1 3 , 1 9 1 3
EDITORIAL
C
ONTINUED agitation and the menace of hostile legislation is
hurtful to the business interests of the country, and everyone
interested in commercial enterprises realizes that we do not want
further weight added to the present strain.
The long-harried business men of the country, whose confi-
dence and enterprise have been depressed not only by continued
evidences of governmental hostility to industrial and commercial
enterprises on a large scale, but by a failure to mark out plainly
the course which the great, legitimate business interests may follow
without fear of attack by the Government, will read with feelings
of mingled hope and anxiety this part of President Wilson's ad-
dress to Congress:
"It is of capital importance that the business men of this coun-
try should be relieved of all uncertainties of law with regard to
their enterprises and investments, and a clear path indicated which
they can travel without anxiety.
"It is as important that they should be relieved of embarrass-
ment' and set free to prosper as that private monopoly should be
destroyed. The ways of action should be thrown wide open."
If the President can persuade the hitherto reckless radicals of
his party in Congress that the strain of uncertainty is fatal to busi-
ness prosperity, and that private enterprise, industrial, financial and
commercial, is entitled to reasonable consideration and stable con-
ditions, he will earn the thanks of the whole nation and will prepare
the way for better times.
What the honest business men of the United States want to
know is how business may lawfully be carried on and extended,
not how business may be hampered or destroyed.
It is not helpful to confidence or enterprise, for instance, to
have the Attorney-General of the United States propose to penalize
efficiency by putting a graduated tax on manufacturers increasing
in weight with the increase of production.
Nor can the wheels of progress be reversed by any device in-
tended to destroy business on a large scale,
Wise and reasonable supervision and regulation by National
authority offers the most practical way to deal with attempted
monopoly or any of the evils attending the great private organiza-
tions and combinations made necessary by modern conditions of
production and distribution.
Business is keenly sensitive to any" influence; and every man,
no matter whether he is manufacturing pianos or selling them—no
matter whether he is interested in shoes or clothing—is naturally
interested in having conditions settled with us.
O
NE of the most successful salesmen in this country has stated
that the three chief elements of salesmanship are ideas,
knowledge of goods and persistence. Either of these essentials is
a powerful factor, but it is a combination of the three that insures
a man being a winner. This same man is credited with the saying
that salesmanship comprises 75 parts of ideas and 25 parts of minor
ingredients. He affirms graphically and cruelly that these words
"should be painted on a board and then laid on a salesman's head
and hammered into his brains."
This abstruse plan of mental rejuvenation as presented should
precede that which is popularly termed "salesmanship polish,'- and
which, although overdone by those who "teach salesmanship,"' is
sometimes very necessary. For the salesman's personal atmosphere,
his ability to make a neat, well rounded argument, and all the fine
points that make selling an intricate game of the wits, deserve close
study. But polish will never insure success in its broad significance,
for it is the ideas that sell goods.
Next to ideas the one vital secret of success centers in a knowl-
edge of the manufacture of the goods that are sold. The salesman
who knows his goods from the raw material to the finished product
is like the school teacher who knows his arithmetic from addition
to cube root. You can't ring in the wrong answer on him. He
has got the talking points right on the end of his tongue. Talking
points are genuine salesmanship, because—if they are really talking
points—they make the customer eager to buy goods. Sometimes
when the talking point has been figured out carefully enough in the
home establishment or factory the public actually gets clamorous to
buy. Yet there are salesmen who go along indefinitely without
knowing that their goods have any talking points.
Another factor which unquestionably has a strong influence on
success as a salesman is persistence. There should be no such
word as fail in the vocabulary of the salesman. He has to sur-
mount the most unheard of obstacles and do so diplomatically. As
Edward M. Wooley so strikingly expresses it: "I want to urge
on salesmen the truth that salesmanship lies in getting under the
skin of the customer in some way that really redounds to his bene-
fit. Whether you approach him with the pianissimo stop on, or
the tremolo gurgle going, or the forte pedal jammed down hard,
makes little difference in the long run. Your success will be pro-
portioned to the number of times you have really benefited him."
There is still another phase of the salesmanship question. It
is not only necessary for a salesman to sell the goods his firm
makes, but he must possess the ability to give service, which is just
as important as the line of goods he carries. A manufacturer may
make a line of goods up to date, fairly priced and well in the front
ranks for value; but what does it all amount to if, through lack of
intelligence on the part of some shallow-minded salesman, service
is not rendered when the line is shown ?
Those who design the styles and the finish cannot make up
for the lack of salesmanship. The power of a machine comes from
without and is supplied by engine or dynamo; but the power of a
man comes from within and must be developed by training and
education.
To be a salesman, a man need not be a graduate of some famous
college, for that is not the full meaning of the word education as
applied to salesmen; but he must know true value giving in mer-
chandise cannot be without service. In other words, a salesman
must mix goods with good service.
The salesman has other duties to perform than selling. He
must mix brains with his work. A salesman is no bigger than the
order he can secure. Some men have the impression that an invi-
tation to a dinner, a cigar, or some like favor extended, means
service; but that is a mistake. Service is just what its name im-
plies. It is merely the result of a man's active desire to be of
use to his firm., to his customers and to all with whom he deals,