Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
SALESMANSHIP
A Complete Section Devoted to Piano Salesmanship Published Each Month by The Music Trade Review
Politeness an Essential for Every Piano Salesman
Business Politeness Is Based on Sincerity and Truthfulness, and the Piano Salesman
Who Acquires This Characteristic Is Headed Towards the Goal of Real Success
OT everyone stops to consider that, in reality, a polite man
N
and a politician really mean the same thing. So, for that
matter, floes a policeman. Policy, police, politics and politeness
all have a common root; though they seem far enough apart
sometimes. They all hark back to the old Greek word polis,
which means simply "city." That explains the politician and
the policeman, of course; but likewise it explains the polite man.
For he is the "man of the city;" who knows how to be courteous
(that is, accustomed to the ways of a Court) and how to be
urbane (which is what our Roman ancestors called the quality
of "cityfiedness," as you might call it). Yes, the polished way
(polis again) is the way of the city, the polite way, the urbane
way. And just as the city is the real sign and symbol of modern
civilization, so also the polite man is essentially the modern man.
Politeness, however, need not be confined to the city man,
for the small-town feller can have it too, even though he does
not always have as much of it as would be agreeable. But when
the small-town feller happens to be a piano salesman he finds
politeness his need in more ways than one; and so becomes
a city man without always knowing it.
Certainly, the piano salesman needs to be a polite man, no
matter where he may be domiciled; but the politeness which
should be his is not the politeness of Lord Chesterfield, the polite-
ness of wigs and hoops, of sedan-chair and minuets by Corelli.
It is not, in short, the politeness that murmured under its breath
at bluff Dr. Johnson and was all artifice and cynicism, all stiff-
ness and mechanism, that was too unnatural to live; and so
died with its mother, the eighteenth century.
The politeness of to-day neither grins, nor bows obsequi-
ously. It is not the trained servility of the man-servant who lifts
not his eyes, nor the odious familiarity that claps on the back and
pretends to an acquaintance it does not possess. It is not the
smirking drivel of the village cut-up among a bevy of girls, nor
the stilted formality of the old-fashioned mid-nineteenth century
maiden afraid that every man had designs on her. Our sort of
politeness is of another sort.
Gradually in America we are evolving a business ideal of
politeness. Every man who, like the piano salesman, has much
to do, in business relation, with the opposite sex, needs to know
the basis of this manner and adopt it sincerely for his own. Yet
it cannot be made one's own unless one believes in it.
Our American style of politeness is becoming based upon a
recognition of the truth that we are finding profitable in adver-
tising; namely, that a sincere statement of facts, presented with-
out boasting and also without servility, wins; and wins because
it is right, not because it seems superficially pleasing.
A salesman who is dealing with women to a large extent,
and who has to sell so expensive and elaborate a piece of work
as a piano or player-piano, needs to know to-day that sincerity
and truth-speaking are the foundations of the only kind of
politeness that may be depended on to carry him through every
kind of difficulty. To-day it is not necessary to flatter a woman
customer, or to be formal with her. It is only necessary to
speak the truth and to treat her with the same respect one would
give to the women members of one's own family. It is most
decidedly not rrecessary, either,' to agree unqualifiedly with every
silly or thoughtless statement a customer may make, whether
that customer be man or woman. For the question may be
asked by one who knows its erroneousness but wishes to be set
straight. In any case, to agree with those who know them-
selves to be ignorant in the specified direction, though they do
not perhaps confess it, is to destroy all belief in one's sincerity.
When that belief has vanished from the customer's mind, there
is slim chance of doing satisfactory, or any business.
It is a fact unfortunately true that the general public have
obtained some false ideas concerning the piano business, the
profits in it, and the degree of credibility to be assigned to the
statements made by salesmen. In consequence of this, it has
become the practice for many large houses, and is rapidly be-
coming the practice of them all, to insist that statements made
by salesmen shall be strictly truthful and shall entirely avoid any
knocking of competitors' goods. What is this policy but a recog-
nition of the fact that the truest politeness is to tell the truth,
and let the merits of the house that offers the goods speak for
themselves?
But no one need, or should, suppose that, therefore, the sales-
man is under less obligation to be courteous. There is all the
difference in the world between familiarity and politeness. The
old-fashioned familiarity was always based on insolence, and
therefore always on lies; because one who takes liberties pre-
tends to believe in the existence of something that does not exist;
namely, a right to intrude his personality upon another.
Business politeness, in these days, is based, as was remarked,
on sincerity and truth-telling. Now, sincerity and truth-telling
cannot be practiced without involving also the development of
a better regard for the feelings of others and less insistence upon
one's own supposed personal rights. The day is rapidly passing
when it is considered an infraction of one's rights to be required
to refrain from smoking in a piano wareroom, or to be expected
to keep one's speech free from profanity and objectionable slang.
That the piano salesman should consider it his duty always to
be ready, at any time of the day, to talk business with a lady, is no
longer a matter for argument. One recognizes the necessity in-
stinctively. Nor is there any longer an excuse, in popular usage
or trade custom, for permitting the continuance of any method
which contradicts the modern definition of business politeness;
which is the habit of telling the truth and of being sincere, with-
out familiarity and without rudeness.
The processes whereby the manners of 1 a people are de-
veloped cannot be called rapid upon the most charitable of con-
structions ; but they are perfectly sure. The superficial observer
may question whether the rising generation shows any real im-
provement in respect of politeness over the standard of its
(Continued on page 13)