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MARCH IS,
THE
1924
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
THE POINT OF REVIEW
S
OME objection seems to have been taken to the statement made
on this page some time ago to the effect that selling in the aver-
age retail piano warerooms is about 50 per cent efficient. Everybody
is entitled to his opinion, of course, and those who have taken objec-
tion to it should be given consideration. Still at the same time they
seem to confine themselves to the flat statement that they do not
believe it or else base their refutation on the narration of some par-
ticular dealer's work in moving instruments from his wareroom
floors. The first attitude is a hard one to meet, for there is really
nothing to say when a man simply confines himself to a flat denial,
giving no reasons for it; the second one has no particular weight,
for no one ever thought of saying that every piano merchant was
only using approximately half the facilities which he has at his dis-
posal to increase his volume of sales. General statements have to deal
with averages to have any validity at all, and the retail piano trade
would be in a pretty poor way if a number of exceptions to any
general rule could not be found and their experiences given.
B
UT, coming back to the original point, there are any number
of reasons why the original statement has a great deal of truth
in it. They are known to every piano man who has ever stopped to
consider the general conditions of the trade and who has tried to
discover the reasons for that condition. The fundamental and
primary reason for it is the fact that the piano industry from a pro-
ductive standpoint has never succeeded in increasing in a proper
ratio to the annual increase in its natural market. For the past
ten years there has been no real increase in production ; in fact,
1913 is still considered by many to have been the top year in point
of output. What has been the reason for this? Surely it is not the
quality of the manufacturers' products. Most of us would readily
agree that the average piano today is a better instrument, taken
grade for grade, than it has ever been in the past. The reason must
be traced to the selling end. Too many dealers have persisted in the
old trodden and worn paths, and have permitted the inertia of time
to hinder them from striking out into new ones, more in line with
the changed conditions which they have to confront to-day. The
piano industry is an old one as American industries go, but age is
no asset to it, for years within it seerh to create a mass of traditional
practices which would better be scrapped and thrown aside for the
benefit of all concerned.
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NOTHER sign which proves that selling in the piano trade is
not all that it should be is the constant cry that today there
exists a dearth of trained salesmen. If the trade is short of real
producers on the firing line how can the selling be efficient ? So
great has been this shortage that the Music Industries Chamber of
Commerce is endeavoring to rectify it by asking the co-operation of
the trade in developing a training course that will be available to all
young men entering the industry. Everylxnly knows and admits
that some way of training novice salesmen is a necessity, yet with
the next breath many of them who make this admission deny that
retail selling is not all that it should be. How can this be? The
reason for this does not lie in the material that comes into the trade.
Individual dealers have proven that they can make good retail sales-
men from the ordinary run of the men who are applicants for such
positions; the reason is that the average dealer turns a young man
loose and expects him to train himself with the result that only the
exceptional man comes through. No trade can depend on excep-
tions for a constant supply of trained salesmen, as a little thought
will immediately show.
A
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HERE is still another indication which shows the inefficiency
of present day selling methods. That is the way so many
dealers are rapidly reverting to the old method of price and terms
selling. This trend in the retail trade has been steadily growing
during the past year and bids fair, unless it is checked, to be as bad
as it was some years ago. The dealer here follows his inevitable
propensity to travel along what he considers the lines of least re-
sistance. If he can not sell an instrument on its musical merits and
at a price representing a fair value, or, to speak more properly, if
he feels he can not sell it on that basis, he goes out to sell prices
and terms. In this he is strongly aided by the fact that, in a ma-
jority of cases he lacks trained salesmen and the trend of his own
thoughts are aided by the pressure placed upon him by his outside
men. Sales by means of price and terms are rarely good sales and
they are always expensive sales when considered in the terms of ulti-
mate net profit.
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' H E R E is another thing apparent in the trade that goes to prove
this statement. That is the lack of confidence that is so often
seen. We can see it now in connection with the introduction of
radio. A dealer fails in a sale because the prospect has decided to
buy a radio set, and immediately considers that the piano trade
has received a deathblow. As a matter of fact, the piano trade has
survived a good many things worse than the radio from a com-
petitive standpoint and is still on its feet and asking for more.
&
&
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A
' I H E enormous vitality of this trade is an asset of immense
A value to every one in it. The piano and the player-piano fill a
fundamental need with the people. But that need is not as yet
properly developed, though constant progress is being made in that
direction. Nor is it sought out by the average dealer as it should
be. The Reviewer, to take one case, lives in a rapidly developing
section of New York. It is a section of new apartment houses
where families are constantly moving in, and where a good pro-
portion of them are newly married ones. During the time he has
lived in this section, and that is approximately four years, he has
been called on by convassing salesmen representing practically every
imaginable sort of merchandise, but never yet has one of these
salesmen represented a piano or a talking machine house. Curious,
he investigated in the house and found that the rest of the tenants
had the same report to make. Vacuum cleaners and even automo-
biles, to say nothing of an infinite variety of smaller merchandise
are sold by this method, but the piano salesman is conspicuous by
his absence. And here is a section where the residents have sufficient
means to be good prospects and should repay cultivation. Other
sections of the city present the same condition. Can this be taken
as real efficient selling? The Reviewer for one does not think so,
and he thinks the average piano man will agree with him.
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H E R E is no occasion for pessimism over this condition. Effi-
ciency is increasing in retail piano selling. Hut it needs to be
shown that it is not increasing fast enough, that the average retail
piano merchant is not working his territory as intensively as he
should. What is necessary to be done more than anything else
is to destroy the feeling of complacency which so many dealers have
in regarding their own work and thus make them see that they
are- really scratching the surface of their potential market, taking
the cream as it were. Now milk may not be as rich a diet as cream,
but in the long run it is just as nourishing, and that is what should
be remembered. Fifty per cent efficiency in average selling methods
is an arbitrary figure, it is true; but, as a matter of fact, it is not
far from the truth. We need improvement and a lot of it. We
need more hard work and a lot of it. We need logical and consistent
selling where the instruments are sold on their merits as musical
instruments and not as something that can be bought at a low price
and on terms that make it easy to pay for them. Things that are
easy to pay for are not often held at their true value, for that is a
quirk of human nature we must all realize. When we get a greater
proportion of those things and when we apply them to retail piano
selling there will be no occasion to make such a statement as that
which aroused the objections. Until then we will have to sorrow-
fully admit that it is the truth. Competition with products outside
the retail piano trade is gradually forcing the dealer to improve his
selling methods, which is a good thing. But the path is still a long
one to follow and it is going to take a great deal of time before the
end is reached.
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Tin-: REVIKWKK.