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THE
REVIEW
VOL. 85. No. 6 Published Weekly.
Federated Business Publications, Inc., 420 Lexington Ave., New York, N. Y., Aug. 6,1927
8Ins
^. o C oTer Year ent8
Better Salesmen Made
In Los Angeles by School Work
One Hundred Retail Musical Instrument Salesmen Attend Lectures on
Salesmanship Given by Music Trades Association of Southern California
and Find That a Better Theory of Selling Leads to a Better Practice
NE of the most constructive pieces of
work that an association can do is to
gather the salesmen from the stores of
the different members and have them listen to a
real talk or series of talks on salesmanship.
How can this be done?
First secure your lecturer and then fill yout
classes. The first is difficult unless fortune fa-
vors one and the real man comes along. The
second is still harder and requires salesmanship
on the part of the promoters whose motives
must be obviously altruistic accompanied with
enthusiasm unquenchable, proof against opposi-
tion, cynicism, sneers and loss of popularity.
Los Angeles was fortunate due to the cir-
cumstances that Dr. Paul W. Ivey, a sales engi-
neer of national reputation, was conducting ex-
tension courses in the University of Southern
California and also in the fact that a member
and officer—vice-president—of the Music Trades
Association of Southern California was an ar-
dent admirer of Dr. Ivey and his skill in this
work. It was C. H. Mansfield, sales manager
of the phonograph and radio departments of the
Fitzgerald Music Co., who persuaded Dr. Ivey
to appear before the members of the associa-
tion at their May meeting which resulted in the
heads of the music houses declaring that, in the
event of a course of lectures being arranged for
at $10 per head, their respective firms would
pay half the cost for each of their salesmen.
It was emphatically and rightly declared that
free courses would be wrong and disadvan-
tageous. Anything of value loses it unless it is
paid for. It was essential that all who entered
the classes should, at least, pay for them in
part.
The university stipulated that a maximum or
100 must enroll and so into the field went the
workers and began to enroll. "One new idea is
worth $5," was the slogan and "surely, in a
course of ten lectures, every student will get at
least one new idea." Without mentioning the
names of the different firms, it was interesting
to note their responses and reactions to the
calls; some were enthusiastic at once, some
O
needed selling and many seemed to have come
from Missouri. A few refused and a few limped
in at the end, but finally an enrollment of 120
was secured.
The course of ten lectures was given in five
evenings, two lectures to the evening with a
&0ME
good salesmen are born but a
^ greater percentage of them are made
by experience and training. So the Music
Trades Association of Southern California
thought in arranging its course of salesman-
ship for local retail musical
instrument
salesmen in Los Angeles. That the course
ivas a success and returned profits on the
investment required is shown in the article
on this page. Here is another answer to the
problem of training the retail salesman,
which is an outstanding one in the retail
music trades.
break or recess between them, two evenings
each week and a third one odd. Enthusiasm
ran high and many were the expressions of sat-
isfaction. Many of those taking part put the
ideas and rules which they had learned into
practice and reported their experiences and suc-
cesses at the next lecture.
There was one salesman from the Fitzgerald
Music Co., who was so inspired and so anxious
to put some of the new ideas which he had ab-
sorbed into practice that he started directly the
evening's course was over and took up as a
prospect the elevator boy who had been busy
bringing up the students and taking them down
again. The elevator boy was not ready to buy
but he had a sister who was fairly affluent and
who wanted a musical instrument. So our en-
thusiast sold her a Borgia II for $1,000, and
then the sister told him of another prospect to
whom he sold another Borgia II for another
$1,000. He fell down on a prospect obtained
from the sister's friend, selling a phonograph
for $240 only. But those three sales netted
$2,240 and he is still going strong on the chain
of prospects originating from the elevator boy
who transported the other one hundred and
nineteen salesmen. There were other surprises
in the shape of prospect chains started and un-
expected sales made.
Dr. Ivey lectures with inspiring force as
though he were a human dynamo, cool and'to
the point and with a total absence of hot air.
He painted many a picture to illustrate his
points; pictures that stayed and stuck in one's
mind. For instance:
He said on one occasion that he liked to
imagine a sale as an act taking place on the
stage. Tine customer was the audience; the
main idea, the merchandise to be sold, the star
on the stage. The spotlight was played all the
time on the main idea, the principal actor on
that imaginary stage. Thus was the attention
of the audience—the customer—focused on that
main idea—the sale. An interruption occurs,
the customer mentions competitive goods or
something else objectionable. What shall the
salesman do? Well, what would happen in the
case of an interruption on the stage, the en-
trance of a drunken carpenter, for instance?
One would remove that drunk as quietly and
unostentatiously as possible so that the atten-
tion of the aiulience does not desert the spot-
lighted star. Suppose one found it necessary
to knock down and drag out that fellow who
had butted in. The result could not fail to
attract the attention of the audience away from
the star and ruin the act. So with a sale, if
competitive goods or evasive objections obtrude
themselves, brush them aside diplomatically,
unostentatiously, politely, and return tenacious-
ly to the main idea—the sale.
"Four thousand dollars is a large sum of
money to spend on a reproducing grand piano,"
remarked a customer protestingly. A foolish
salesman argued for ten minutes on the point
(Continued on page 10)