Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUJ1C TRADE
VOL.
LXVI. No. 12
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
March 23, 1918
8ln
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$2.00
mtaining Business
W
AR conditions in the music trade industry have brought about a state of mind where every
detail of business is being most closely analyzed. Irrespective of the cause, this is a good thing.
There is a great deal of lost motion in every business that can be eliminated, and there is always
room for the installation of systems and practices that will mean more satisfactory results at a
lesser cost of operation.
Wise men to-day are not only working for the present, but for the future. They are giving a great deal
of consideration to the question of not only how their business will be operated during the war, but are trying
to determine just where they will stand after the war. This war experience is going to be the acid test
which will determine whether they are going to go forward or stand still—for this is the time when real
leaders in every industry will stand out because of their big, broad view of industrial happenings.
Mostly every successful business is built on publicity, and the question arises whether the knowledge
possessed by the public of one's products and one's name is going to be maintained and augmented during
this critical period or not. Someone has pointed out that the good-will of a business is easily worth ten
times its annual earning capacity, and has asked: "Do you w r ant to forfeit an asset like that just because
you cannot cash in on it for a year or two, or maybe five? How long has it taken you to build it—and how
much has it cost you? Do you want to buy it all over again? Do you think you can buy it any more
quickly or cheaply the next time? How long do you think your good-will is good for, anyway, if left to
itself—even in normal times? And how long do you think it will be good in these times when the public has
more to think about than it ever had before? The public has a short memory. Are you willing to risk its
forgetfulness—even to invite it? Figure it out in dollars and cents. Can you afford it?"
This must be answered in the negative, for no man who desires to stay in business can afford to go
backward. It has been demonstrated in a most forceful and convincing way by some of the greatest minds
in the business world that the application of the pruning knife to advertising is most unwise. The tendency
of some business men, when economies are desired, is to commence first in the advertising department, for-
getting that advertising is the very life-blood of business and without it the machinery of progress is stopped.
The wise man is he who plans not only for to-day, but for the future, and this man realizes fully the futility
of the policy that starves business by economizing on advertising.
]n conversation the other day with a prominent business manager in this industry—a man of wide vision
and a thorough understanding of the need of advertising during the war—this subject came up for consid-
eration, and he. presented some very interesting thoughts that are so worthy of attention and dissemination
that we reproduce them for the benefit of others. He said:
"In these days of war, to exercise real business prudence it is necessary to break through the shell of
the immediate present, to shake off the parasite pessimism and to view conditions from the broadest possible
viewpoint. .
"There are two changes war may thrust upon our business. I. Our factory may be conscripted by
the Government. 2. We may be oversold, due to curtailed output resultant from shortage in labor, trans-
portation, supplies, etc. In either event, what "will we do about it?
"Suppose our factory is commandeered. Our profits will then be assured while the war lasts. But what
about after the war? .Where will our profits be then, when war conditions revert back to times of peace?
What if our usual customers have meanwhile learned to use other goods, or have become accustomed to
substitutes ?
"Suppose the combination of our production, transportation and credit problems are of such a nature
(Continued on page 5)