Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1916 Vol. 63 N. 21

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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
(Continued on page 5)
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
PUBLISHED BY THE ESTATE OF EDWARD LYMAN BILL
(C. L. BILL, Executrix.)
J. B, SPILLANE, Editor
J. RAYMOND BILL, Associate Editor
AUGUST J. TIMPE
Business Manager
Executive and Reportorial Stafl:
B. BBITTAIN WILSON. CARLETON CHACE, L. M. ROBINSON, WILSON D. RUSH, V. D. WALSH,
WM. KRAID WIIITK (Technical Kditor), A. J. NICKLIN, L. E. BOVVERS
BOSTON OFFICE:
JOHN H. WILSON, 324 Washington St.
Telephone, Main 6950.
CHICAGO OFFICE:
E. P. VAN HARLINGEN, Consumers' Building,
230 So. State Street. Telephone, Wabash 5774.
HENRY S. KINGWILL, Associate.
LONDON, ENGLAND: 1 Gresham Buildings, Basinghall St., L\ C.
NEWS SERVICE IS SUPPLIED W E E K L Y BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
LOCATED IN T H E LEADING CITIES THROUGHOUT AMERICA.
Published Every Saturday at 373 Fourth Avenue, New York
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States and Mexico, $2.00 per year;
Canada, $3.50; all other countries, $5.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $3.50 per inch, single column, per insertion. Or. quarterly or
yearly contracts a special discount is allowed. Advertising pages, $IIO.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency forms, should be made payable to the Estate of
Edward Lyman Bill.
911(1
Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
OllU
t ; o n s o f a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
lW>n91*tni0ntc
lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
U e p d l l l l l t U t S . d e a l t w i t h i w i l l b e 6 f o u n 5 i n a n o t her section of this
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning
which will be cheerfully given upon request.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
Grand Prix
Paris Exposition, 1900
Silver Medal. .. Charleston Exposition, 1902
Diploma
Pan-American Exposition, 1901
Gold Medal
St. Louis Exposition, 1904
Gold Medal. .Lewis-Clark Exposition, 1905.
KOVG DISTANCE TELEPHONES—NUMBERS
5982—5983 MADISON SQ.
Connecting 1 all Departments
Cable address: "Elbill, New York."
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 18, 1916
EDITORIAL
HE plans which have been made for a chain of "Piano Men's
Hotels" throughout the country through the efforts of Alex-
ander S. Shoninger, secretary of the National Piano Travelers'
Association, is a movement that should have the hearty support
of the traveling fraternity. There have been "hotel committees '
of the Travelers' Association for several years, but little was
accomplished until Mr. Shoninger took up the matter and put it
through.
The piano travelers, as a rule, are a friendly lot. They know
and like one another. There is a sort of brotherhood existing
among them that is hard to find in many other professions. The
piano men should, therefore, welcome any move that would serve
to make their days on the road less lonesome, and that will serve
to bring them together at other times than at the annual con-
ventions.
Many a traveler spends an evening by himself in a strange
town simply because he doesn't know that there are several other
travelers in the same line of business stopping in that town.
With a special hotel to go to and a piano travelers' register to
refer to in that hotel, the traveler should feel that he can keep
in constant touch with the fellow members of the craft, and,
therefore, with the trade in general. In case of illness or in an
emergency, the new arrangement should prove most helpful, and
possibly there are a lot of little pointers that one traveler may
give another on trade matters that will help the recipient without
in any way interfering with the business of the informer or
working against his interests. May the chain of "Piano Men's
Hotels" continue to grow !
T
HAT the music trade of the country is interested in piano
T
salesmanship and sees the importance of developing new
salesmanship ideas is indicated by the interest taken in the big
salesmanship congress recently held in Detroit, and in the organi-
zations being formed in various sections for the development of
salesmanship. In the lists of those who have taken the lead in
REVIEW
promoting salesmanship organizations in various states, the
names of many piano and talking machine men are to be found.
Tt has been stated that ninety per cent, of pianos are dis-
posed of through good salesmanship and only ten per cent, are
bought without previous solicitation. Under such conditions
good selling knowledge is of prime importance to the piano man
and it is thought that he should participate actively in any move-
ment calculated in any way to develop and improve selling ability
and methods.
The close affiliation between salesmanship and advertising
associations is also a point to be commended. In the first place
the advertising men of the country are all well organized and
can, through their efforts, prove of material assistance in develop-
ing organizations for the promotion of salesmanship. Advertis-
ing of itself is simply salesmanship through the medium of type,
and with the direct and indirect systems of selling so closely
allied it is distinctly fitting that those engaged in such work
should make a common cause.
up the newspapers these days there is brought
A S to one the picks attention
numerous advertisements referring to
special features for the holiday trade. At first it was somewhat
of a shock to find that the holiday season has come around once
again, but a look at the calendar as this issue of The Review
reaches the trade will show that Christmas Day itself is only
five weeks off.
The piano and talking machine men who have not already
started a holiday campaign are letting valuable time go to waste.
Even the most generous of Christmas buyers do not make an
investment of one or several hundred dollars on the spur of the
moment, and by impressing upon the general public the desir-
ability of a musical instrument for Christmas a week or so before
the regular schedule, the dealer may land doubtful sales. The
general merchandise people work about a month ahead, but that
is hardly enough margin for the piano man. It is the forehanded
man who wins.
N addition to proving of incalculable benefit to those participat-
I directors
ing, the several conferences of superintendents and technical
of piano manufactories that have been held in Chicago,
have been of great importance and interest to the trade at large.
The conferences have served to give many members of the trade a
new conception of the manner in which the technical man regards
his work.
There has been much said to the effect that the technical men
of the trade for the most part have been at a standstill, that they
were under the impression that they had reached the limit in the
development of the modern piano and were satisfied with thei r
work. The conferences serve to refute this idea. They have
proved that the technical man is not satisfied with the piano as it
is to-day; that he realizes its imperfections; that he has ideaN
in tone and construction that he is endeavoring to meet. The
ideas of all those participating in the conferences, while at times
radically different in basis and conception, nevertheless tend
every one of them toward a new goal in piano perfection, toward,
the production of an instrument that should not only be pleasing
to the eye and the ear but that should be scientifically perfect so
far as the limitations of the piano maker were possible.
At the conferences there came stories of experiments, of new
things attempted, of things accomplished, that prove a revelation
to those outside of the factories, to those who have regarded the
piano simply as an ensemble of wood, metal, felt and ivory. It
has shed a new and exceedingly favorable light on the technical
side of the trade.
RAISE is certainly due the New York Evening Mail for the
P
splendid work which it is doing in spreading a knowledge ot
the best in music among the masses of the people in this city.
Its "Music in the Home" page has been the subject of com-
mendation in these columns before for its wide influence in dis-
seminating a knowledge of the possibilities of the player-piano
and the talking machine among its readers—a work which is en-
tirely in line with the "Music in the Home" idea of the National
Piano Manufacturers' Association.
Under the auspices of The New York Evening Mail a con-
cert was given Wednesday of last week at Carnegie Hall, when

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