Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
Published by The Music Trade Review, 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
Training the Retail Salesman
T
HIS industry needs a source of supply for musical instru-
ment salesmen. During the past twelve months sales of band
and orchestra instruments have been steadily falling off in-
stead of rising.
If you were to ask any of the foremost trade leaders for the
cause of this they would answer, "Inefficient retail merchandising
and methods."
The musical merchandise trade does not seem to be attracting
good retail salesmen in sufficient numbers. That is the real truth,
whether we like to face it or not. Good salesmen are lured into the
business of selling electrical refrigerators, domestic appliances, auto-
mobiles, or what have you.
Possibly musical instruments have not been sold to the public
in such a way as to give the young men of the nation the impression
that there is big money associated with their sale. As a matter of
fact there is an excellent opportunity for any young man with ability
to make a real success in selling musical instruments but it is nfit
apparent to him and no one seems to take the trouble to tell him.
Now if good sales material will not gravitate into the industry
by natural means, then it is up to the industry to set about attracting
these salesmen. We can not expect to gather a supply of ready
made musical instrument salesmen, so we are going to offer the sug-
gestion that the industry create a machinery for making these sales-
men.
In other words, a school for musical merchandise salesmen.
A national training school for musical instrument retailers is not
as far-fetched an idea as it might seem at first thought. Our idea
is a good practical school under competent heads at some centrally
located spot. For obvious reasons Elkhart, Indiana, would make
an ideal site.
The curriculum should be of a most practical nature and should
be adopted under the supervision of such trade leaders as C. D.
Greenleaf, head of the band instrument organization; William J.
Haussler, of the wholesalers; William F. Ludwig and Walter
Gotsch, of the musical instrument manufacturers' body. Lecturers
on musical merchandise retailing could include such names as Harry
Hunt, of the Ditson store; Percy Guest, of Grinnell Bros, and rep-
resentatives of the successful Wurlitzer, Jenkins, Landay, Sherman-
Clay and other chain and independent retailers.
The course of instruction would have to cover a short period,
probably about two weeks of intensive w^rk. Sessions could be held
about four, times a year, Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. The
instruction could wind up with trips through the Elkhart band in-
strument factories and a tour of the stringed instrument factories
in Chicago.
Students could be gathered from the high school bands being or-
ganized throughout the country. Many of these youngsters give
promise of being splendid musicians and are filled with much
natural selling ability. Being of a musical bent, many of them would
fit in naturally with musical instrument selling and would look
upon instruction of this proposed type as ideal vocational schooling
to top off their high school careers.
The school would, of course, be of an experimental nature at first,
but would gradually develop into a set course of instruction, with
regular classrooms, faculty, text-books, even a diploma.
The curriculum would include probably such things as:
History of musical instruments.
Study of modern musical instruments.
The Band; Symphony Orchestra; Dance Orchestra.
Public Speaking.
Salesmanship.
Accounting, business law, etc.
Retail Merchandising: Advertising; Window Display; Sales
Management; Direct Mail and Catalog Work; Correspondence.
The Repair Department.
Organizing of Bands and Orchestras.
Lectures by Experts and Authorities.
The most important problem, of course, is involved in the
financing of the school or college. Who pays the tuition?
Several methods suggest themselves and this question may be
safely left to the men who lead the industry as officers in the
various associations. The first method would be to charge a fixed
tuition fee to be paid by the student. Another way would be to
tax the various manufacturers who would benefit on a pro rata
basis. A third way would be payment by the retailers who accept for
their stores graduates of the school, probably deducting this fee
wholly or partly from the graduate. Or it might be a combination
of all methods.
It would seem that the retail merchant is the chief beneficiary of
the plan and the most logical person to pay the bulk of the freight.
The forward looking retail merchant will readily admit that a well-
trained musical instrument salesman is worth several hundred dol-
lars to him. Looking at it in this light he may consider it good
business to pay $100 or more as tuition for a capable salesman. And
it really does not matter whether he pays for it by getting a $50 a
week salesman for $30 a week or not.
We hope that the better minds of the industry will give this
idea some thought without delay. This industry needs plenty of good
salesmen if it is going to compete in the retail market for the pub-
lic's pocketbook against the first-rate selling brains of many other
industries. The easy-going, "hope-a-sale-comes-to-morrow" methods
of twenty-five years ago will not prevail during the years to come.
An automobile will go nowhere without gasoline and it is just as
true that the musical merchandise trade will not get ahead without
good selling. Competition promises to be too keen to gloss over
deficiency in sales ability and technic.