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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXIII. No. 21 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, Nov. 18, 1916
The Value of Specialized Knowledge
T
H E story of successful business men to-day is the story of men who have been able to reconstruct
their individual enterprises to fit new influences and anticipate new factors. This is exemplified as
effectively in the music trade industry as in any other commercial line.
Take the piano merchant who, some time ago, realizing the great trade possibilities of the player-
piano and the talking machine, brushed up his ideas and arranged his business quarters so as to give these
instruments an adequate representation. To-day you will find him enjoying a business of large proportions
—a business that is netting him a nice clean profit on his investment.
This merchant's success centers wholly and entirely on the words, "adequate representation," for many
piano men saw a future in the player-piano and sound-reproducing machines, but lacked the foresight to give
them proper representation on their wareroom floor, or in advertising, with the result that their business has
moved along indifferently, and they have wondered why.
The secret, of course, is to be found in the fact that one man understood how to adapt his business to
changing conditions, and the other failed to grasp properly the requirements of the situation.
When the talking machine w r as first introduced hundreds of piano merchants throughout the country
took on these instruments as side lines. They put them in the back of the store, along with the banjos,
guitars, etc., in order to supply a demand if it should materialize.
They failed to departmentize them, or to put a man in charge who knew anything about them, and did
little to introduce them to public notice. As a result the talking machine was voted a failure so far as the
piano merchant was concerned, and this class of business went largely into the hands of merchants outside
the piano field who gave their undivided attention to the talking machine and worked in harmony with the
manufacturers, with the result that an immense trade was built up for these products.
Success was brought about by concentration, and by placing the business in charge of competent men.
Naturally, in time, the members of the retail piano trade have seen the immense business which has
been developed by the individual talking machine dealer, and realizing the mistakes of the past they have
fallen into line, so that to-day most all of the leading piano merchants of the country are handling talking
machines with a great deal of profit.
They have won success, however, only by adapting themselves to the changing conditions—by awakening
to the fact that every department of the business must be given special consideration and be placed in charge
of an expert, or at least a man who thoroughly understands the business and its requirements.
It is also worth noting that the piano merchants handling player-pianos, who have won the largest
measure of success, are those who have realized that the men in charge of the player department should possess
not only sales and executive ability, but a thorough knowledge of the instruments which they are handling
—not a superficial knowledge, but a complete understanding of the construction of these players so that
they may be able to meet all demands made upon them in the matter of information.
Adaptability is an American trait and one that has contributed largely to the development of the leading
men of our industries, but it is becoming clearer every day that adaptability must be backed by knowledge
in order to win that larger measure of success which all desire.
And this is just as true of a salesman as of the head of a business. Hence it is that The Review has
long advocated the necessity of player-piano salesmen knowing not merely how to sell pianos and players, but
also knowing everything about their construction, thereby gaining complete possession of technical knowledge
which is now largely overlooked.
Technical knowledge is particularly necessary in the player-piano domain, for the buying public is very
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