Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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VOL. LXXV1II. No. 7 Pablished Every Satirday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
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Feb. 16, 1924
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Teaching' the Novice in Retail Salesmanship
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ESPITE the fact that many veterans of the industry still insist that piano salesmen are born and not
made and that it is impossible to train men to sell pianos successfully, except by long and arduous
apprenticeship in the retail field itself, a correspondence course in retail music salesmanship that has
the endorsement of members of the trade whose successful experience in selling and in training sales-
men make their opinions weighty and worth while, is being worked out and will likely be presented to the trade
within a short time.
It is a significant fact, although various successful retail organizations in the trade see fit to employ
men with no experience in selling musical instruments and then train and develop them until they become real
producers, that there are those who still persist in believing that experience is the only teacher. They forget
to consider the fact that, with the experience of others at his command, the new salesman can avoid many
costly mistakes and thus devote his entire time to improving his selling ability instead of giving a good portion
of it to watching for pitfalls and correcting errors.
In appointing a committee with E. Paul Hamilton as chairman to investigate the possibilities of a cor-
respondence course in retail music selling, the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce has taken a step that
will be watched with considerable interest. The committee, made up of representative trade members, has gone
so far as to arrange with concerns specializing in mail order salesmanship instruction to compile such a course
embodying general selling products together with information and advice directly applicable to the musical in-
strument trade and collected through the assistance of the trade members themselves, thus making it of direct
application.
It is stated by the Chamber that in reply to a questionnaire over 1,000 members of the trade have
already signified their willingness to support the idea directly and indirectly and to encourage the younger em-
ployes to enroll for the course. Without question these men do not expect to take an untrained man, have him
study the selling course and then see him go out and break all sales records. He will have to have practical
experience to support his book training but the written word will at least give him a general insight into the
retail music field and its problems and permit him to use his own intelligence in preparing to meet those prob-
lems with actual practice.
As Mr. Hamilton pointed out at a recent meeting of the music merchants, one real reason for the
scarcity of competent salesmen is the fact that few recruits are coming in to take the place of those veterans
who are passing on, for even good piano salesmen can not live forever. He advocates, and properly, that pub-
licity should be given to the opportunities that lie in the piano field for business success and recompense. The
magazines are full of advertisements of correspondence schools advising their readers that with the training
they offer in various lines, they can enjoy an income of $150 to $200 a month. The fact that these schools
prosper indicates there are a sufficient number of our youthful citizens for whom such incomes have a strong
appeal.
In the piano trade or in fact in any branch of the retail music business such compensation is regarded
as distinctly ordinary for an individual with any selling ability at all. There are salesmen, and plenty of them,
making $10,000 a year or more and making it with comparative regularity. Certainly the figure is attractive
enough to interest even the ambitious young man who is looking for a satisfactory vocation, and one that yields
satisfactory compensation.
The correspondence course may not entirely solve the problem of securing a sufficient number of trained
salesmen for the retail branch of the industry, but it will at least serve to center attention on that problem and
undoubtedly result in some action likely to remedy a condition which does not in any sense aid the progress
of the industry.