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12
(Salesmanship)
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
afraid that they would find out that I was not a Catholic and would
then turn me down. All that has since been changed. Now when I
call at a Catholic hospital or school I feel more at home than in an}/
other institution. I am always sure of a gracious and cordial re-
ception, and have been pleasantly entertained many times, particu-
larly in the summer time, when the Mother Superior has had me
served with cooling drinks and a sandwich because she could not
give me immediate attention.
"Most piano salesmen are afraid to insist on seeing the Mother
Superior, and this is where they make their greatest mistake. Of
course such insistence must be accomplished in a way not to cause of-
fense. The first order is certainly the hardest one, but once the
piano salesman has gained entre to an institution he has an entering
wedge which usually results in increased business. In selling Catholic
institutions it is particularly important that the salesman makes no
statement that he cannot absolutely back up. The big factor in sell-
ing this trade is to establish absolute confidence in yourself and in
your goods."
While each institution usually buys for its own needs, a great
advantage lies in first selling the "mother house" of an order. The
branch establishments will naturally be influenced by the judgment of
the Mother-General who exercises supervision over all the activities
of the order. If satisfactory service is given to the "mother house"
it is relatively easy to introduce a line through the affiliated institu-
tions of the same order throughout the country.
This field demands a rigid uprightness in business dealings. The
one price basis is absolutely essential, not only because that policy is
honest, but also because any other policy would prove dangerous
owing to the interchange of confidence between institution buyers of
the same order, as well as those of different orders.
While mention has only been made of the various orders of
women, it must not be forgotten that probably the largest Catholic
institutions in the country are conducted by several orders of men.
These institutions are usually educational in character, although a
number of hospitals are also conducted by one of these orders. The
men at the heads of these institutions are highly educated, broad-
minded and thoroughly appreciative of good goods, good service and •
square dealing. They are not hard to meet and always make the
salesman feel at ease. As a rule they are hard to sell, but they have
the same loyalty to those who treat them well that is found among
the orders of women.
Some idea of the magnitude of the Catholic institution trade
may be gained from the fact that there are 15,135 of these institu-
tions in America to-day. According to the Official Catholic Directory
they are classified as follows: 538 hospitals and sanitariums, 210
colleges for boys, 85 ecclesiastical seminaries, 79 monasteries and
abbies, 5,588 parochial schools, 7,431 convents, 283 orphan asylums,
685 academies for girls, 112 homes for aged and 124 novitiates and
provincial houses. Besides these there are 15,163 Catholic churches
and 10,058 rectories. There are 19,572 Catholic clergymen and
57,350 sisters and nuns. The buying power of these Catholic insti-
tutions reaches into the millions every month, and the piano sales-
man who will study the needs of this trade intelligently and conform
his sales methods to meet the requirements of this trade will build
up a clientele that will be highly profitable for himself and his house
as well.
The Tuner as a Valuable Aid to the Piano Salesman
Piano Salesmen Will Find the Tuner an Important Auxiliary, and They Should Learn
to Appreciate His Value as a Factor in Creating Opportunities for Making Sales
many other specialty lines besides that of pianos and player-
J a N maintenance
pianos the services of the maintenance man are important and
department is an essential feature of the retail busi-
ness. But in none other as in the piano business does the work of the
maintenance man touch so vitally the work of selling. The mechanic
who attends to the occasional necessary repairs in typewriters or
cash registers, for instance, is regarded by those whose machines
he adjusts as of no more importance than the occasional plumber
or carpenter. But the piano tuner is altogether in a class of his
own. One does not ask the plumber to adjust the kitchen faucets
to one's touch or the typewriter man to make the type bars tap at
concert pitch. In short, the piano touches the personal peculiarities
of its owner in a way that nothing else save another musical in-
strument does or can.
Hence the piano tuner occupies, with regard to the salesman,
a position quite unique. When a piano is sold, it is often required
that definite adjustments be made to suit the ideas or convenience
of the purchaser or of some members of the purchaser's family. The
tuner is the responsible party in all such cases and upon his work
will depend, therefore, the success of the sale in question.
Piano salesmen, as a rule, feel themselves above the level of
the men in the tuning and repair department; and to a certain extent
this feeling is based on fact. The salesman, of course, is mentally
and socially above the level of the piano mover, polisher or repairer;
but he is by no means so far above the level of the competent outside
tuner. The latter is accustomed to go into houses of wealth and
refinement quite as often as into those of poverty. He has to
meet quite as many different sorts of people as the salesman en-
counters and although he does not have to talk very much to them,
he must satisfy their inquiries, make himself agreeable and show
himself competent. He therefore is not to be sneered at, and the
salesman who does treat him with thinly-veiled contempt is a fool-
ish man.
The tuners can help the salesmen in a thousand ways, and it is
a feature of real salesmanship to cultivate the tuners and make
them one's friends. Of course, the commission evil is not to be
encouraged, but every house would do well to put as much encour-
agement as possible in the way of the tuners to induce them to
hunt up prospects and boost the house's game. The superior atti-
tude won't do in this case. To say that this is the tuner's duty
as a loyal employee is all very well in efficiency booklets, but it
does not work out in practice. The tuner has too much to do for
what he earns to care much for bringing to the house business in
which his share goes unrecognized. Salesmen who make sales
through the primary efforts of a tuner employed by the same house
will be very foolish not to insist that the tuner's work be recognized.
It has probably not occurred to all salesmen that the tuner is
a perpetual sort of free detective agency and credit bureau com-
bined with regard to the nature and type of the risks that the house
takes on its installment accounts. One can send a tuner into a
home when no else could go, and he will be admitted when another
envoy from the house would be refused instantly. The tuner sees
the homes, sees the family at breakfast or just after, sees the con-
dition of the home and judges accurately the level of the minds that
inhabit and control it. He thus develops an immense reservoir
of information regarding the whole of the community in which he
works, if this be not too huge and metropolitan; information that
can be used to great advantage. A timely warning from the tuner
often results in a re-possession that otherwise might have been one
more case of getting stung.
But after all, the tuner's principal value to the salesman is
along the lines of his regular work. An old tuner, on being asked
what his work chiefly was, replied "making the sales stick." The
exaggeration, though pointed, is mild, and contains within it the
proverbial grain of truth. When complaints come in regarding a
piano, especially if it be one of the less important or more com-
mercial makes, the tuner is at once sent out to see what the trouble
is and make it right. His orders, usually, go no further than this
in definiteness, for in many, many cases the alleged cause of com-
plaint as stated personally, by letter, or by phone to the tuning order
clerk turns out to be very different from the cause as later discov-
ered and remedied by the tuner. It is therefore true, in a sense,
that the tuner is the man who makes the sales stick. His work
determines whether a complaint shall be settled or renewed in short
order. One complaint is not so important. Two are serious, and
three are fatal. The tuner must therefore stand between the cus-
tomer and the salesman, and it is doubly unfortunate when he finds
himself in the position of the well-meaning person who interfered
between a quarreling husband and wife, and was at once attacked
by both.
It will therefore be seen that the wise salesman will not fail
to cultivate the tuner by every means in his power, It is altogether