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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
The Importance of the Uses of Constructive, Disciplined Imagination in
the Business of Selling Player-Pianos—Some Views That Are Out of the
Beaten Track That Will Interest as Well as Assist the Thinking Salesman.
Our language plays us many a strange trick dur-
ing its slow but steady evolution. In days like
these, when mankind seems liess than ever inclined
to think before acting, and even less inclined to
stay the spoken word, the fine flavor that charac-
terizes educated speech seems lamentably absent
from our conversational feasts.
For instance, we are always using the word
"imagination"; but we use it in a way that shows
our understanding of it to be all wrong. The word
"imagination" does not mean delusion, illusion or
error. Yet we use it to mean all these, and in ad-
dition to mean the power of making mental pic-
tures. Now in point of fact, "imagination" means
only one thing: the ability to form ideas without
external stimulation. In fact, therefore, instead of
being a weakness, imagination is a source of
strength, properly understood.
In the business of selling, the uses of what may
be called the "constructive imagination" are mani-
fold. It is precisely in the quality of imagination
that the difference is found between the first-class
and the second-class man. He who can use and
trust his mental powers of creative thought can
float serenely at heights where the dull mind reels.
Rightly understood and rightly used, imagination
is the most valuable power a salesman can possess.
Let us for a moment put aside the silly laugh
and the superficial wit. Let us understaid seriously
what we mean. It is easy to grin and talk about
using one's imagination to the extent of telling a
lot of lies to make a sale. But that is not what
is meant. We are referring to the mental power
of forming true ideas without the necessity for
external sense stimulation. It is this power that
enables a man to "put himself in another's place,"
to imagine correctly the course of another's move-
ments, and to guide his own accordingly. It was
the possession of this quality that enabled Napoleon
to win his battles and Bismarck to carry out his
policies. It is the lack of it that is to-day setting
at naught all the calculations of a people on the
whole great and admirable.
Let us come to close quarters. In the business
of selling player-pianos the salesman has to face a
two-fold problem. In the first place he must guess
as correctly as may be the content of his customer's
mind toward the proposition, and secondly, he
must possess the power to cultivate the dormant
idea (if there be one, or stimulate it if there be
none) of the desirability of possessing a player-
piano. To do the second successfully means the
use of imagination, for it means the ability to do
the first also.
Developing an Inclination.
Now, it is highly important that the player sales-
man should give thought to the probable content
of the mind of the customer who stands before
him. The taste for music is a common possession
to millions, but there are many degrees in taste. It
does not follow that because a man looks like a
laborer he wants to be slapped on the back famil-
iarly, called "Jack" and treated to a "bunch of
rag." It is true that if such a man looks like a
laborer he will, quite probably, appreciate about
this kind of treatment; but the'conclusion does not
necessarily follow by any means. In the same way
it is reasonable, superficially speaking, to suppose
that a lady of apparent wealth and leisure, with a
cultivated manner, is fond of good music; but
again she may think of nothing higher than the
Fox Trot. The basis for concluding what is the
best means for approach to a customer must rest
on something better than mere outside appearance.
The salesman who cultivates the power of rea-
soning out the meanings of things soon finds out
that there is no effect without a cause. He soon
finds out from the talk of a customer what that
customer's ideas are about music and about the de-
sirability of a player-piano. But still more impor-
tant is the fact that people who go shopping for
player-pianos are filled up by most of the salesmen
they meet with talk about such things as rubber
tubing, or metal tubing, or six-point motors, or
automatic tracking devices; so that, although no
definite impression has been left as to the compara-
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tive merit of any of these devices, there is a mental
confusion that must be straightened out before any
real business talk takes place. It is here that the
use of the constructive imagination becomes es-
sential to success.
Value of Disciplined Imagination.
Only the man who possesses a disciplined imagi-
nation can understand that the mere fact of the
customer's having a dozen contradictory ideas about
talking points of one sort or another is the best
proof in the world that the desire is present to
buy. Now the superficial salesman will go on at
once to contradict and disprove the allegations of
the rival salesmen, and so the sale will develop into
an exercise of comparative excellence in talking
nonsense. The salesman who can fill the prospect's
mind with the largest quantity of "bunk" about his
player may win out. But this does not mean a satis-
fied customer, usually, nor does it always work out
in practice, as many a salesman knows. There is
a better way.
The salesman blessed with the constructive im-
agination will at once see that the customer who is
so filled up with technical details is a customer who
at least is genuinely interested in players. Instead,
therefore, of combating the ideas with which the
prospect had been filled, and thus creating an at-
mosphere of hostility from the start, the salesman
will begin by agreeing with the prospect that these
things are all of importance and that everybody
who designs or makes players has been obliged to
give them all much attention. He will then go on
to point out that the player itself is so much more
important than any single item in its construction,
is so immeasurably greater than any of its details,
that the most important question, wherever con-
troversy or difference of opinion exists, is as to
whether the house that is making the instrument is
or is not reliable. If it is reliable, and in addition
has had several years' experience in player build-
ing, the buyer may rest safe in the assurance that
his player will make good; or else that the guar-
antee will protect him. On the other hand, having
once produced this frame of mind in the prospect
—a frame of mind that will now certainly be one
of interest and receptivity, the salesman will be
ready to explain his own position with regard to
the talking points in question; and he will have
a fair chance to convince his prospect that the safe
thing to do in all the differing circumstances is to
deal with him.
The Uses of Imagination.
There is a concrete example of the use of scien-
tific imagination. A thousand more examples of
like sort might be furnished, but it will only be
necessary to remark that, rightly understood, im-
agination is the faculty of developing correct ideas
without the necessity for pre-existing external
stimulation. Or, to put the matter in a cruder
though not clearer manner, imagination is that fac-
ulty that enables a man to look through a stone
wall (mentally speaking) and discern correctly
what is on the other side.
Thus understood, the uses of imagination to a
salesman are plain enough. The cultivation of the
faculty is the easiest of processes. Systematic
study along the lines of one's business, acquaintance
with all its branches, the understanding that all
human beings are sincere and interested at the
bottom of their minds, the knowledge that is broad
enough to inspire one with genuine enthusiasm for
one's own product and genuine respect for others;
these are the qualities which, when well cuultivated,
endow a man with that power of mental penetra-
tion which we have called here the "constructive
imagination."