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SALESMANSHIP
Vol. II.
N o . 2.
A Complete Section Devoted to Piano Salesmanship Published Each Month.
N e w Y o r k , M a r . 11, 1916.
Mere Aggressiveness Does Not Make For Success.
The Salesman Who Tries to Dominate His Customers Is Often Distanced by the
Quiet, Unobtrusive Salesman Who Uses Diplomacy and Tact Rather Than Force.
I
N the present day and age we are sometimes inclined just a wee
bit to overestimate the words and works of the salesman. In
saying this let us make it clear that the conditions in which the age
exists have to be understood and accepted. The age is one which
has its due place in the progress of the world and that place is
material, exploitive, in fact, what we mean when we say pre-emi-
nently commercial. The salesman is an important person in this
scheme of things, just as the feudal baron was in another day'and
age. He has his place. It is not necessary to deify him, as some
enthusiasts do, nor to pretend that he is a twentieth century edition
of the warriors of old. On the other hand, we are very foolish if
we expect him to adjust his ways and manners to what we think
measures up to right standards; for such standards are usually
impossibly high, being conceived out of all relation with the world
as it is. The fact of the matter is simply that the salesman is an
indispensable cog in the modern world-machine and must be treated
accordingly.
A great deal of time has been given to talking about "effi-
ciency" and "salesmanship" and it is beginning to be seen by many
business men that the idea of reducing these things to a sort of
arithmetic has been rather overdone. The most successful sales-
men in the piano business are certainly not graduates of efficiency
courses.
Selling pianos in the best possible way is not half such a matter
of what has been called "aggressive personality" as is sometimes
imagined. The most successful salesmen are the least "aggressive"
persons in the world. They are soft-voiced, quiet, calm, modest
and gently insinuating. They never argue, they never fight, they
are always good humored and always quiet. They are perfectly
well aware that however nice it may be to be talked of as an
"aggressive," "dominating," powerful personality, the aggressive-
ness, domination and power must be very carefully concealed if
one is to sell many pianos. The American citizen puts up with the
aggressive person who tries to sell him typewriters or addressing
machines, because he associates aggressiveness with his business
anyhow. But buying a piano is buying something for the home.
The wife and daughter are in it, very strongly. To be aggressive
with them is to invite defeat. The painful truth is that if one could
really be the strong silent man of the business stories in the popular
weeklies, with the "clean-cut features" and the "square jaws" and
the "aggressive swing of the shoulders," all would be well. In
every-day life, however, the most successful salesmen are usually
those who look like little fellows, who say little and just quietly
attend to business, getting themselves liked and forming business
and social connections quietly and as unaggressively as possible.
Especially is this true in the piano business, as all good piano men
know.
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In this world of practical life the man who tries to get the
"clean-cut" look of fiction runs the danger of looking merely like
a bad imitation of a tailor's fashion picture. The square jaws are
hard to cultivate and have an unfortunate tendency to do more
in the way of talk than of action, and if any young fellow ap-
proaches the average American woman, on piano selling bent, with
an aggressive swing of his shoulders she will be likely to ask
whether he would not be better off in the army where they would
teach him to stand straight. No, that sort of thing is not salesman-
ship.
The ideal salesman keeps quiet, says as little as possible, at-
tends to business, studies quietly the attitude of his prospects,
learns by experience how best to handle the various types of
humanity which come before him, and, above all, knows his goods
inside and out, outside and in, top and bottom, front, back and side-
ways. The person who claims that salesmanship is a particular
art and that the good salesman can sell anything, whether he knows
anything about it or not, is telling just enough of the truth to make
his statement pointedly inaccurate. The grain of truth lies in the
fact that a natural bent towards selling must always, of course, be
present. This natural attitude of the salesmen is always in essence
the same and it is present in all men who follow this calling. The
man who has this natural bent towards selling will be better with
an unfamiliar article than the man who may know the article tech-
nically, but has no selling ability. Yet that "natural" salesman will
cut a poor figure beside the technically trained competitor who
knows the article and also knows how to sell. The so-called "sales-
manship" is really the less creditable end of the game, for it is the
insinuating, the hypnotic end. To gain attention, stimulate desire
and close the business deal, the salesman becomes necessarily an
unconscious hypnotizer in a harmless sort of way, a sort of glorified
persuader, but even so, the less there is of this element and the
more there is of real knowledge that can be used as the basis of
real argument, the better for everybody and the easier will piano sales
be made.
The piano salesman who deals in instruments which can be
sold on their merits is most successful when he is the least
"aggressive," and most powerful when he is the least "dominating."
The best high grade salesmen we know are two partners who never
seem to give themselves much trouble about anything and who have
a very expensive piano to sell. They are wonderfully, successful
and their secret is to be found in patiently cultivated connections,
quiet persistency, and a real, sincere belief in the merits of their
goods, a belief not only sincere, but well founded. They sell good
pianos and their customers come back time and again to them.
The most successful salesman of popular-priced pianos we have
ever known is at first sight apparently a large, aggressive person.
But that is only his way. In his case the hand of steel is concealed,
not in the velvet glove, but in the prize-fighter's mitt. Yet, in fact,
it is only the illusion occasioned by a hearty voice and manner. He
is gentleness itself, he sells most of his pianos through recommen-
dations of old customers and most of his apparent aggressiveness
is due to his large exuberant spirits, fitting his rather large and
exuberant body. Yet he is not in the least aggressive, any more
than an elephant; he is merely irresistible as an elephant is. The
fox terrier is the most aggressive animal in the world, but how
much actual good does he accomplish ?