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THE
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
THE RETAIL MANAGER—HIS
IMPORTANCE
By ALEX. McDONALD, Publicity Director of Sohmer & Co., New York
Any who have watched the trend of events in
piano retailing must be cognizant of the shift
of the selling burden from the individual sales-
man to the manager. In other words, modern
piano retailing has become an executive prob-
lem. This means, of course, that the manager's
position has become the all important one in
the selling organization. He is the keystone
of the arch of successful selling.
No longer is it left to the initiative or abil-
ity of the individual salesman to create new
sources of business. The intensiveness of pres-
ent day competition renders it necessary that
someone shall assume the general command
of the selling activities.
In the past, a man's capacity for manager-
ship has been based largely on his ability as a
salesman. It has been accepted per se that if
a man was a good salesman, he would make a
good manager, but this theory is no longer ten-
able. A man, to be a manager, need not neces-
sarily be a good salesman himself. He must,
of course, have experience, and he must know
salesmanship, but he may, in himself, lack the
personality to be a successful salesman, and
yet be a very successful sales manager.
The modern sales manager, or sales exec-
utive, which is probably the more properly de-
scriptive term to apply, may be likened to the
general in command. He it is who works out
the plan of business strategy, and the salesmen
are the subordinates who carry out this plan,
under the supervision and direction of the ex-
ecutive.
Requisites of the Successful Sales Executive
It is no longer possible to conduct a business
on the old plan of hiring a number of good
salesmen and allowing them to exercise their
own judgment as to how the trade shall be
worked. Each house must now determine for
itself a plan of action, and the salesmen are
the individuals who are to carry out this plan.
The determining of this plan of action is an
executive one. It pre-supposes that all the
units of the selling organization will work along
the same definite lines to accomplish a definite
purpose.
It becomes very evident, therefore, that a
man, to be a successful sales manager must be
something more than a good salesman. He
must have imagination, he must have orig-
inality, he must have some advertising ideas,
he must be able to plan and scheme and orig-
inate means of obtaining contracts with possible
customers, and then he must be sufficiently a
leader to have the co-operation of the salesmen
in carrying out these plans. He must be able
first, to sell his ideas to his salesmen.
The Importance of the Sales Plan
Many salesmen fall down who are sent out
to work up a particular selling campaign, be-
cause they, themselves, are not convinced of the
value of the plan. Hence, it is necessary that
the sales manager shall first convince his men
that the plan he has is a logical one. More
than this, the successful sales executive must
exercise a supervision over the work of his
men. This is not to be taken in a general
sense. It means that it is absolutely necessary
for the sales executive to direct personally the
operations of the salesman on each individual
prospect. The sales executive must be the
final arbiter as to the method of handling each
individual sale as it arises. It is not sufficient
to give a man a bunch of prospects and allow
him to work them on his own judgment, and
in any way he may see fit. This plan was
successful under other circumstances and con-
ditions, but it no longer suffices.
More than this,'a sales executive must be a
man who can lend a hand to the salesmen in
the individual case. He must be a man capable
of writing a letter or using the telephone, or
even personally calling on a particular pros-
pect, to give the salesman assistance where as-
sistance is needed.
Retail piano selling has become a game re-
quiring big brains if business is to be done on
a big scale. This is particularly true with
the increased trend toward the high-grade piano.
The higher the standard of average prospects,
the greater ability it requires on the part of
the salesman and on the part of the sales ex-
ecutive, in order to reach the prospect and to
put the sale over, once contact has been estab-
lished with him.
Lack of Capable Sales Executives
Many dealers complain of a lack of good
salesmen. There is not, however, so much of
a dearth of good salesmen, as is there an ab-
sence of good management. Many a man who
would make a splendid salesman, if properly
coached, properly assisted and directed, falls
down because the proprietor or sales manager
is not capable of developing the best there
is in the man.
The old theory that a good salesman can sell
anything has gone into the discard. We are
Alex. McDonald
now in an age of intensification, in an age
where men must have actual knowledge of what
they are selling, rather than depend upon mere
personality and wild statements.
It is too much, under present conditions, to
expect a salesman to be able to do it all him-
self. In no other line of business do they ex-
pect it. Automobile salesmen, insurance sales-
men, and salesmen of various kinds, are con-
stantly being coached and supervised and di-
rected by a competent sales executive, for the
purpose of increasing their productiveness.
It is not always necessary to add new sales-
men to an organization in order to sell more
goods. Very often, if a proper executive direc-
tion is exercised, the same number of men
will produce an increased volume of business.
This is a problem which has been successfully
worked out in many other lines of business,
but is yet in its infancy in the piano game.
Solving the Problem of the Sales Executive
All of these facts, which I feel confident will
be readily admitted by anyone who has made
a study of the situation, indicate that the at-
tention of the trade needs to be directed more
and more towards the problem of executives.
As time goes on and the intensification of
business competition increases, the importance
of the executive element in piano retail merchan-
dising will increase. It will no longer be a ques-
tion alone of getting good salesmen, but the
primal question will be of getting competent
executives to direct them, competent executives
to supervise their work and to originate new
plans and methods for covering the field.
The Duties of the Sales Manager
If I were asked to name the most important
individual in the sales organization to-day, I
should say the sales executive. He must be a
man who believes in his men and he must have
them believe in him. He must be their friend,
their assistant. He must avoid all possibility'
of coming in competition with them. Too
many sales managers seem to think that their
success depends upon the number of times
they can get their own name on a sales ticket.
The successful executive will never be in com-
petition with his own men. His success will
be measured not by what he sells, but by what
he makes his organization produce in the way
of sales. He must be ready at any and all
times to help the salesman solve his difficulties,
and he must make sure that the salesman
places before him the difficulties of every in-
dividual case that may arise.
It naturally follows that the sales executive
must see to it that his men are kept thor-
oughly posted on all the varying develop-
ments of the business, to be sure that the sales-
man has all the knowledge with regard to the
goods that are to be sold and the goods of the
competitor, which will enable him to discuss
with the customer the problems of piano buy-
ing in an intelligent manner.
The Attitude of the Successful Salesman
I know an insurance salesman in Chicago,
who is extremely successful, and has estab-
lished his success on the theory that he knows
all about life insurance, and that the man that
wants to buy life insurance is the gainer by his
calling on him. He figures that whether the
prospect buys insurance from him or from some-
one, he (the prospect) at least gets informa-
tion from him that is valuable. He considers
himself an expert adviser to the prospective
buyer.
Very much the same attitude is necessary in
selling pianos. The average man knows noth-
ing about pianos, and in the last analysis, he
has to rely very largely upon some salesman
—a man who can give him the best advice, who
knows all about the piano problem, and who
tells it in the most straightforward manner.
Such a man is the one who will get the order,
and it should be the province of the sales ex-
ecutive to see that the salesmen have all the
information that will be of value to them in
promoting their sales.
Many splendid articles appear in the various
trade papers from time to time on selling that
would be a great help to the average retail-
salesman if he knew about them. He is not,
as a rule, a reader of trade papers, but the
sales executive should see to it that articles
of this description are placed in front of the
salesman. He should see to it that the sales-
man reads them, and he should see to it that
the good is taken out of the articles and put
into practical application.
It may be that men should do this on their
own initiative, but we are dealing with human
beings, and, therefore, we have to assume that
they require supervision, assistance and co-
operation constantly, and this, of course, is the
duty of the sales executive. It is surprising
the amount of time and energy that is expended
from an executive standpoint in the develop-
ing of sales organizations in other lines of busi-
ness, where the selling is not nearly as in-
tensive as it is in the piano field. We are
lamentably behind in this question of sales ex-
ecutives in a field where they are- probably
needed worse than in any other.
GOLF A "BENEFICIAL RECREATION"
Judge in Circuit Court So Rules—Piano Men
Should Welcome the Excuse Thus Offered
The members of the Piano Trade Golf As-
sociation and other members of the trade who
are devotees of the pastime of driving the small
white ball across the greensward, who have at
times felt some compunction about leaving a
littered desk for an afternoon in the open, should
be happy to 1-earn that Judge Jesse A. Baldwin,
of the Circuit Court, Chicago, has ruled that
golf is a "beneficial recreation" rather than an
"amusement." The decision freed the owner
of a golf course from the necessity of paying
an amusement license fee of $150 per year to
the city.