Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1914 Vol. 58 N. 19

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC
TRADE
MEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SP1LLANE, Managing Editor
Executive and Reportorlal Staff:
B. BRITTAIN WILSON,
A. J. N I C I L I N ,
CARLKTON CHACE,
AUGUST J. TIMPE,
L. M. ROBINSON,
W M . B. WHITE,
GLAD HENDERSON,
L. E. Bowns.
BOSTON OFFICE:
CHICAGO OFFICE:
T « « W Wnco« i l l Wa.hinirtnn St
E. P. VAN HABLINGEN, Consumers' Building.
JOHH H WILSON, M4 Washington M.
^ W a b a s h 5774
g8() g o g u t e S t r e e t
T e ,
Telephone, Main 6950.
HENRY S. KINGWILL, Associate,
PHILADELPHIA:
MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL :
ST. LOUIS :
R. W. KAUFFMAN.
ADOLF EDRKM.
REVIEW
he never takes a single exchange—not one. A year ago I, opened
a big department in a Pennsylvania city; and, while- 70 per cent,
of our large business has been done in players, we have not taken
in a single second hand instrument in exchange or trade. Long
may you live, and more power to you."
When it is considered that Stone & McCarrick have conducted
sales mounting up into the millions and have not taken in exchange
a single trade-in, it is worth thinking over, and the more the mind
is concentrated upon that fact the more likely it is to govern the
action of piano merchants who have followed the old path simply
because others before them did the same.
Let us get out of the old path and get headed on the road to
permanent prosperity. This can be accomplished by casting aside
the methods which have hampered the business in its growth and
which have tended to make it unprofitable from many viewpoints.
Get out of the dangerous rut.
CLYDK JENNINGS,
SAN FRANCISCO: S. H. GRAY, 88 First St.
DETROIT MICH.: MORRIS J. WHITE.
CINCINNATI, O.: JACOB W. WALTERS.
BALTIMORE, M D . : A. ROBERT FRENCH.
INDIANAPOLIS,IND.: STANLEY H. SMITH.
MILWAUKEE, W I S . L. £. MEYER.
A
CCORDING to frequent reports from various sections of the
country, the scarcity of capable piano salesmen is more pro-
KANSAS CITY, MO.: E. P. ALLEN.
PITTSBURG, PA.: GEORGE G. SNYDER.
nounced at this time than ever before without any real explanation
LONDON, ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall S t , E. C.
being offered as to just why such a condition should exist. The
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
:
fact that the good salesman with a clean record not only finds em-
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
ployment readily, but is actually the subject of competitive demand,
SUBSCRIPTION
(including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year; Canada,
$8.60; all other countries, $5.00.
serves to bear out the statements of various managers as to the
ADVERTISEMENTS,
$3.00 per inch, single column, per insertion.
On quarterly or
yearly contracts, a special discount is allowed. Advertising pages $90.00.
scarcity of good men, especially among the younger salesmen!
REMITTANCES, In other than currency forms, should be made payable to Edward
Lyman Bill.
The older salesmen, the veterans, die or retire, and there arc not
enough newcomers left to take their places.
PlflYPP PisiflA HT1f1
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
• i a j « • lailU ailU
t i o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
There is no reason why the retail piano trade should not prove
Tpphniral F)pn!irtm{>nfc
lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
I C l U U l l d l VCUdl II11CIIII&. d e a h w i t h > w i n b e f o u n j J n a n t , t h e r section of this
attractive
to the young man about to enter business, for the field
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be cheerfully given upon request.
is large, the work is clean and the rewards liberal and the oppor-
Exposition
Honors Won
by The Review
tunities for developing salesmanship to a high plane practically
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal. • .Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma
Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
unlimited. The only remaining question is as to whether such
Gold Medal..Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905
would-be beginners in the game have received the proper encour-
DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS 5982—5983 MADISON SQ.
agement from the piano managers to whom they have applied. In
Connecting* all Departments
Cable address: "Elbill, New York."
some cases that have come to our knowledge they have no't.
The average piano manager looks for immediate results, and
NEW Y O R K , M A Y 9 , 1 9 1 4
at first demands men of experience as being most likely to secure
the results. He loses sight of the fact that the promising young
salesman can be moulded according to his own ideas regarding
EDITORIAL
piano salesmanship, can be brought to hold a sense of loyalty to
that one particular line that no amount of effort can instil into the
veteran salesman who has had experience in selling a hundred or
IANO merchants in every section of the co'untry are becoming
more different makes of pianos and can be filled with the proper
awakened to the dangers which they are. facing under the
ideals regarding clean piano merchandising. Piano dealers have
old condition of allowing absurd valuations on traded-in instru-
put their own sons to selling pianos right after leaving school and
ments.
before graduating out of knickerbockers, and the boys have, in the
We have stated in these columns that a large proportion of
majority o'f cases, made good. How many managers would take
business failures are due to the fact that men are not in close touch
that chance with a youngster?
with their business and do not realize the cost of piano selling.
A plan that has been tried with some success in the vicinity of
A good many men have been fooling themselves with the idea
New York was for the manager to hire twenty-five or thirty
that they were doing business simply because they were making
promising young men on the basis of a very small drawing account
plentiful sales and allowing, as part payment on same, old instru-
and commission and put them to canvassing in different districts,
ments upon which valuations were placed which were many times
each crew being under the direction of an experienced salesman.
more than their actual value. These conditions exist not merely
A weeding out process was carried on as the weeks went by, with
in one locality, but in all sections of the country.
It seems that the music trade has accepted this condition as a the result that there were left a half dozen or so considered capable
enough to stay with the regular force. Such a campaign means con-
sort of heritage, which is unprofitable; and, as a result, a good
siderable trouble, but, properly managed, the results secured by
many men are trading themselves out of business.
even
the worst of the crew, in the matter of locating and feeling out
Through the campaign which we have been carrying on in
prospects
covered their expenses.
these columns, many are becoming keenly alive to* that fact and
The increase in the number of piano stores and piano depart-
are changing their plans accordingly. The quicker that all do it
the better it will be for them, and we hope that next month at the ments throughout the country demands that the question of finding
salesmen to man them receive the earnest attention of the trade.
convention meet in New York definite action will be taken, so that
Practically every large industry has its methods for bringing young'
a national standard may be adopted which will govern all trans-
blood into the business, so why should the piano men suffer through
actions on trade-ins.
lack of some system to attain that end ?
It is known that Stone & McCarrick, advertising specialists,
"The scarcity of piano salesmen and why" should make an
have conducted profitable sales in various sections of the country,
excellent topic for discussion at.the coming convention, for it is a
and the opinion of a member of this firm will, therefore, interest
problem that faces the trade as a whole.
the trade.
O. C. Stone said in a recent communication to The Review:
UDGING from the spontaneous action of the Piano Merchants
"What a wonderful improvement you have made in The Review
during the past year. You certainly have a paper to-day which is
of San Francisco—who at their initial meeting decided that
a credit to the trade and which the trade can get something out of
no commissions should be paid by any house to musicians, teachers
worth the while, and there is one thing which Mr. McCarrick
or others who prey upon the trade—it is evident that the Pacific
and I both rejoice in, and that is the fight you are making against
Coast organization is in for a vigorous, profitable career.
exchanges or 'trade-ins,' You know, in all Mr, McCarrick's sales,
iSj however, is only the first of a number of reforms which
P
J
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
WAR IS EVER WITH US.
(Continued from page 3.)
Success in any kind of work depends largely upon the interest which we take in it.
If it were possible to perform every kind of labor with a machine someone would be found
with a genius sufficient to invent and produce the necessary machinery. That is impossible, for
even the most perfect machine has its limitations. Much as it is capable of doing, it finally reaches
Ihe point at which it will go no further. The human element must then come in, and it is that
human element which defines the difference between a good man and a time-killer.
One is interested in the work he is doing and is determined to make a success of it, no matter
what his vocation may be. He is not watching the clock, nor is he studying the easiest routes to
follow. lie has one thing in mind—success—and if he is selling goods, depend upon it, he is
going to sell them.
The time-killer is interested in directly the opposite condition. He is interested in looking for
the easiest routes, and if a man does not buy, why worry?
All employers will recognize the two types, and most of them
recognize the point of difference between them—and there is much
difference. The builder and the time-killer—one works with a defi-
nite purpose—the other is a spineless drifter.
Hysteria of Criticism Against Business
V
FRY forcefully and very aptly did Frank A. Vanderlip, presi-
dent of the National City Bank, set forth in an address
before the recent convention of the cotton manufacturers the need
of a saner view of things if the business of this nation is to advance
and present industrial and commercial uncertainty be remedied.
"We are to-day a nation grown critical of business methods
and resentful of business accomplishment," said Mr. Vanderlip.
"By far the greater part of Government energies, as related to
business, are directed toward destructive rather than constructive
and creative ends, llusiness men have been called to account by
Congress, commissions and courts and are being punished for past
deeds and hampered in present activities-
"The managers of railroads, although they have given to the
public an average freight rate much less than what similar service
costs in other countries, are found with ever-increasing bonds of
hampering regulations and are held to the strictest accountability
for any failure of administration which falls below 100 per cent,
of efficiency.
"If that is a fair measure of the duty to society which the
managers of public utilities may rightfully be expected to perform,
and I do not wish to be considered as denying that the public has
a right to exact wise and efficient management, then why should
not society demand wise and efficient conduct of the great agencies
of production. If a railroad manager is culpable and is answer-
able to society for anything less than ioo per cent, of efficiency,
what of the farmer and planter, holding the great agency of pro-
duction—land—and utilizing it with but 40 per cent, of efficiency?
That is the indictment that stands against no small part of the
agricultural community—a conduct of their business on a basis of
40 per cent, of efficiency.
"It will not do to say that railroad managers-and corporation
heads are the representatives of publicly subscribed capital and are
therefore subject, in the interests of society, to a surveillance that
applies only to the affairs of a public corporation, while farmers
represent only personal investment and may be left to work out
with such ignorance or intelligence as they choose to bring to bear
the conduct of their own affairs.
"Farmers and planters also owe something to society in the
way of intelligently conducting their business. They hold the
means of production in their control. The public interest and the
common good demand thai they exercise that trust with intelli-
gence, efficiency and thrift, quite as rightly as does public opinion
demand efficiency and honesty in business adnrnistration.
"Prices o'f produce go up in answer to the inexorable law'of
supply and demand; values of the great agency of production—
farm lands—have risen in our me:rory two or three hundred per
cent., not because those lands were more efficiently managed, but
because the demands of hungry mouths and backs to be clothed
have made prices that permitted much increased values, even when
not accompanied by increased efficiency of management.
"Is it not time for the maligned business man to direct some
attention to the honest farmer, and to ask whether the people
whose demands the politicians are so fond of formulating should
not have directed against- them and their small business methods
some of the same analytical criticism that it has been the order of
the day to' direct against big business?
"I believe that as a nation we have for some years been at-
tacked by a hysteria of criticism against big business, untiL a
majority of the people have come to believe that the way to secure
prosperity is through legislation, instead of through intelligent
hard work, improved methods and a scientific application of the
best knowledge of their own business.
"The particular men who happen for the moment to be occu-
pying official positions in Washington and elsewhere, and who are
laying unbearable hardships upon the proper development of busi-
ness in the United States, are not perhaps primarily to blame.
The blame lies back of them in an ill-informed and frequently
unfair state of public opinion. We have had a period of magazine
and political muck raking, which has brought about a condition
where business success is looked upo'n as a crime, where the man
who has demonstrated that he can manage his business well is
excluded from public counsel and where no small part of our Qov-
ernment affairs have been put into the hands of men who would
be incompetent successfully to manage modest business affairs."
are to be taken up by the association in due course. At the next
meeting the San Francisco piano men intend to take steps against
the giving away of free music rolls and to place this end of the
business on a sound mercantile basis. Then there is the matter
of the allowances on trade-in pianos—a reform, by the way, which
has engaged the attention of The Review, both in its editorial and
news columns, for the past year. This also will be given con-
sideration,
The San Francisco' Association has made a fine start on needed
reforms in the retail field. The way the members have taken hold
would indicate that the new organization is composed of men with
definite aims and purposes, whose good work is well worthy of
emulation by the piano trrde throughout the country, more par-
ticularly by piano merchants in those cities and towns which have
not yet seen the wisdom of forming local associations whereby their
interests may be conserved and materially advanced.

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