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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXI1I. No. 14 Pablished Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y., Oct. 2, 1926
Single Copies 10 Cent*
$2.00 Per Year
Successful Canvassing Depends on
Intelligent Management
House-to-House Selling, Recognized as Essential to Business Volume, Does Not Mean Prohibitive Expense
if the Campaign Is Properly Directed—Manager Must Study and Know His Men So
That Each Individual Can Produce Best Results in His Own Way
!
T
H E necessity of carrying on canvassing
campaigns or at least the persistent use of
outside salesmen in building up volume in
retail piano business is generally recognized, and
this phase of the sales activity is assuming added
importance as distributors of other lines of mer-
chandise carry their selling efforts to the door
of the home. In this respect piano selling has not
changed to any great extent within the past gen-
eration or two, for the old-time salesman who
loaded an organ or piano on a wagon and hauled
it around the highways and byways until it was
disposed of has a counterpart in the outside
salesman to-day who depends upon his catalog
and his selling ability to convince the customer
rather than the presentation of the instrument
itself. And even to-day there are those dealers
in rural and semi-rural communities who have
substituted the automobile for the horse-drawn
wagon and still carry their pianos to the front
doors of the prospect's home, and quite fre-
quently into the living-rooms of those homes.
It is safe to say that no retailer of pianos to-
day can operate without outside salesmen, or at
least men of a caliber who can go out into the
field and at other times do business on the ware-
room floor. Were the average dealer to depend
upon the business that came into his store
through advertising or other means he would
play into the hands of competitors and starve
to death. No better proof of this is to be found
than in the fact that in the great metropolitan
centers where large piano houses use quantities
of newspaper space and much direct mail matter
in their sales campaigns substantial crews ot"
outside salesmen and canvassers are maintained
to develop direct contact with the buying pub-
lic and it is not unusual to find in these estab-
lishments outside sales staffs ranging from
twenty to thirty men or more.
A substantial number of dealers, however,
while admitting the necessity of the outside
salesmen, still maintain that the practice of can-
vassing, taken to mean in this case the prac-
tice of doorbell ringing, for the purpose of
securing prospects to whom sales may later be
made, proves a highly expensive method of
selling, and they hesitate to send out men un-
less they have leads to offer that give some
promise of success. Yet straight canvassing is
being done and done successfully, because the
method adopted is essentially the right one and
based on sound principles.
L. Schoenewald, manager of the outside de-
partment of Chickering & Sons, New York, and
who has held similar positions with other promi-
nent metropolitan retail piano houses, declares
that the most important factor in conducting a
successful canvassing department is in the man-
agement of the men. In this work no set rules
can be laid down for the guidance of the can-
vassers, but the manager must make a close
study of the individual characteristics of each
man and guide himself accordingly, inasmuch as
every good canvasser works along lines that in
his experience prove most successful.
In explanation of this it might be said that
some men will call on twenty families in a day
and get to interview ten of them, while others
will have to ring one hundred doorbells in order
to get a like number of interviews. The secret
appears to be that some men work more in-
tensively than others, and get results quicker,
yet those who make the greater number of calls
on the theory perhaps that, according to the law
of average, more calls mean more interviews,
will have a satisfactory total at the end of the
day.
Must Study the Individual
According to Mr. Schoenewald, a study of the
individual is particularly important because the
men making up a canvassing crew to do their
best work must be given considerable leeway
and in a sense must be allowed to operate on
their honor, for they are for the greater part of
the time out of contact with headquarters and
out of sight of the manager. The men are in-
structed to phone in regularly to headquarters
several times a day to tell the manager in what
territory they are working and with what re-
sults. This plan serves as a check-up on-the
men to a certain extent, but the fellow who is
inclined to take advantage of his freedom can
beat this game, and when he is found his serv-
ices must be dispensed with for the good of the
organization.
As an instance in point: There was some
suspicion attached to the manner in which a
member of a certain canvassing staff was work-
ing during the mid-Summer period. He phoned
into the office as per instructions and told a
good story, but the manager took the trouble
3
to trace one of the calls over another wire, and
found out that instead of working in New York,
as he said, the man was phoning from Coney
Island. It seems that when the hot weather
becomes oppressive it is a strong temptation to
forsake the heated streets and the day's labors
for an hour or two at the seashore or in a cool
movie theatre. Those who have had consider-
able experience with canvassers, however, de-
clare that the quitters represent only a small
proportion of the whole and that the great
majority of men work faithfully for their own
interest and the interest of the house where
the manager knows his business and holds their
loyalty.
Group Meetings Necessary
According to Mr. Schoenewald, group meet-
ings are a very necessary part of any canvassing
campaign, for certain points must be drilled into
the men as fundamental, although they must be
allowed freedom to make their individual calls
as they see fit. In the first place, the men must
have a thorough knowledge of the line they are
representing and also something of competing
lines, for although it is a distinctly bad practice
to "knock" other lines, there come times when
pertinent questions must be answered.
This rule against knocking is particularly im-
portant when it applies to the used instrument
in the home, for no person likes to'have caustic
comments passed upon a piano for which he
has paid good money even though he made the
purchase a considerable time before. The proper
method is to refer to the age of the instrument
and to the fact that it needs adjustment, with
proper comment, when at all warranted, upon
the fact that the original makers turned out
good instruments. It is up to the salesman to
learn through proper instruction and his own
initiative how to draw the line of demarcation
between praising an old instrument enough to
make the prospect feel good and in a receptive
mood for an exchange and on the other hand
praising it so much that its value increases in
the prospert's eyes and he decides to hold on
to it.
Getting Past the Door
The main problem in canvassing, of course, is
that of getting inside the door, and there are
about as many systems for accomplishing this
'(Continued on page 5)