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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
VOL. LXXV. No. 11
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Sept. 9, 1922
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2%^°?, le8 J? Cent
The Trend Toward Better Business
T
H E average business man of the country has come to regard the stock market in Wall Street as a sur-
prisingly accurate barometer of the country's business, and with good reason, for in recent years the
fluctuations of stocks have almost invariably foretold the coming of an upward or downward move-
ment in general business.
When the market hit the depths of depression in December, 1920, business was close to the bottom
and unemployment was general. When, after a slight revival, there was another downward trend last summer
business likewise had a descending movement. Then came a gradual growth in demand and price of stocks
and bonds up to the high point of today and business has followed right along to a point where even the pessi-
mistic admit that it is fairly satisfactory and promises to be much better during the ensuing months.
It happens that the average business man cannot regulate his business affairs according to the fluctua-
tions in stocks and bonds, but he can base his views on general business and market prospects, and so adjust
his affairs that he is prepared to take advantage of improved conditions or weather a period of bad business
as forecasted by financial authorities. If the forecast is wrong, he at least has had the satisfaction of being
prepared. At the present time the Wall Street barometer points to a period of very good business and so does
'about every other accepted indicator. In most sections of the country there are bumper crops in prospect,
•more wheat and corn than for several years past, and a very substantial production of cotton despite the
inroads of the boll weevil and the effects of drought in certain sections.
The industrial situation is likewise very encouraging, a majority of the factories in most industries
working on, or close to, a capacity basis. The result has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of unem-
ployment—in fact, to a point declared to be almost'below normal-—and has brought about in the steel industry
particularly, substantial wage increases.
This tendency towards better business for the Fall is already making itself felt in the music industry,
for retail merchants are experiencing a sufficient volume of sales to warrant the placing- of substantial orders
for future delivery, though it is prophesied that goods ordered will not serve to meet all coming requirements.
It all means that the opportunity is here, and that the thing to do is to grasp it rather than to wait for
sales to come directly into the store. It means going out after business, not only in competition with other
music merchants, but with merchants in every other line who, sensing the improved situation, are putting
forth efforts to capitalize it. The opportunity to be Realized upon in full measure will, require the adoption
of new and progressive sales methods and the cultivation of new fields.
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A prominent sales executive recently declared that "markets are no bigger than the advertiser's imagi-
iiation," and the same statement will hold good with "merchant" substituted for "advertiser."
The retailer who is content to follow the beaten track, stock close to precedent and look for business
only in those places where business has been found during previous years is not likely to get any sensational
results as compared with the competitor with imagination who discovers, and has the courage to try, new fields.
We find instances where steel manufacturers, yeast producers and even talking machine men have
added materially to their sales totals by discovering and advocating new uses for steel, yeast or music. It has
solved the problem of the stagnant field, and has done away with the terms "maximum production" and "maxi-
mum absorption."
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We find piano merchants who are alive to the times, who sense the real opportunity'before them, and
who have the ability and courage to seek new channels of distribution, or at least new ways of navigating the
old channel. These men will not he included among those who complain of unsatisfactory business between
now and Tanuarv
first.
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