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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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VOL. LXXVIII. No. 1 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Jan. 5, 1924
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Turning Music Advancement Work Into Sales
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H E music merchants of the country are naturally interested in the preparation and carrying out of
new merchandising plans for the New Year—plans that are calculated to develop trade, increase
turnover and bring in larger profits. This is as it should be, for no business can be run haphazardly
and without consideration of the activities that are to be engaged in some months ahead. As the
retailer must do his ordering in advance to insure the receipt of stock on schedule, so must he arrange his
selling plans ahead with a view to disposing of that stock as promptly as possible.
An angle of trade development which is not apparently receiving proper attention from many retailers
is that hinging on the growth of music appreciation and the work being done to that end. There are a
number of retailers who have in the past been extremely active in their support of music advancement
work, but whose ardor has cooled and who now leave the further propagation of musical matters in other
hands. There are also retailers who have never apparently given the matter serious consideration from
the standpoint of lending their own co-operation to the campaign.
Not long ago a rather prominent dealer, and for some time a national association member, commented
on the fact that he could see no benefit to his business as a result of music advancement work. "A very-
ambitious music week was celebrated in my city recently and shortly before that there was a music memory
contest in the schools, but I have yet failed to see any substantial increase in the volume of business I
have been doing."
Investigation showed that this particular dealer has for several years past experienced a regular and
consistent annual increase in the volume of business handled and yet has not increased his sales force or his
advertising appropriation to any material extent. When he was questioned as to whether he had tied
up with the music week celebration or with the music memory contest directly, contributing his services as
a member of the committee, donating cash or instruments as prizes, doing his share in providing programs
and the artists to carry them out, or running special advertising during the celebration with a view to
linking up his business directly with the musical movements, he admitted that he had done none of them.
Some children had inquired regarding records for use in the music memory contest, but he had made
no direct effort to capture and develop that trade because he considered children a nuisance and a patronage
not worth the trouble, forgetting of course that the children had parents who might be developed into cus-
tomers through the medium of the juvenile interest.
He had not worked with the committee, first, because
he could not see his way clear to give up the necessary time, and was not in favor of women's clubs, anyhow.
He had not increased his advertising because he did not believe the extra expenditure would bring sufficient
results. In short,, his attitude throughout was negative, and yet he wondered w T hy the music advancement
work had not made a direct impress upon his business. A competitor, on the other hand, had co-operated
actively in the movement from every angle and was particularly enthusiastic not only regarding the business
actually closed as a result but regarding the prospects he had secured.
The plans of various organizations and clubs looking towards music advancement during the coming
year are already well under way and represent work that would cost many millions of dollars were it sup-
ported directly by the trade or any one single agency. Much of the credit for the spread of this movement
is due to the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music, which, supported by the trade itself, has been
able to enlist the aid of the National Federation of Women's Clubs and other influential organizations.
If the music retailer regards this work as something to run on its own momentum and of little or
no interest to himself directly, then he is not going to realize its benefit. If, however, he gets the full
significance of the movement and co-operates with it in every possible way, he is going to do a better and
bigger business. This fact has been proven.