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The Music Trade Review
REVIEW
(Registered in the U. S. Patent Office)
Published by Federated Business Publications, Inc.
at 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
President, Raymond Bill; Vice-Presidents, 1. B. Spillane, Randolph Brown; Secre-
tary and Treasurer, Edward Lyman Bill; Assistant Secretary, L. B. McDonald;
Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
B. BRITTAIN WILSON, Editor
RAY BILL, Associate Editor
WM. H. McCLEARY, Managing Editor
CARLETON CHACE, Business Manager
FRANK L. AVERY, Circulation Manager
Executive and Reportorial Staff
E. B. MUNCH, EDWARD VAN HARLINGEN, THOS. W. BRKSNAHAN, E. J. NEALX,
FREDERICK B. DIEHL, A. J. NICKLEN
WESTERN DIVISION:
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NEWS SERVICE IS SUPPLIED WEEKLY BY OUR CORRESPONDENTS
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Published Every Saturday at 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
Entered as second-class matter September 10, 1892, at the post office at New York, N. Y.,
under the Act of March 3, 1879.
SUBSCRIPTION, United State and Mexico, $2.00 per year; Canada, $3.50; all other
countries, $5.00.
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REMITTANCES, should be made payable to Music Trade Review.
Exposition Honors Won by The Review
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TELEPHONES—LEXINGTON 1760-1771
Cable Address: "Elblll, New York"
Vol. 86
NEW YORK, JANUARY 21, 1928
No. 3
Going Directly to the Piano Prospect
N the modern residence community the lady of the house spends
probably an hour each morning in answering telephone calls
from the butcher, the baker, the grocer and the other neighborhood
trades people whose business is primarily to supply the necessities
of life, including that prime necessity, food. These tradesmen do
not wait for their patrons to telephone to the stores, but take the
initiative and go after the business before the other fellow gets it.
Briefly, they are simply canvassing to sell products that by every
rule should sell themselves.
Under such circumstances, how much more essential is it that
the music merchant be equally attentive to those who constitute
3iis market? If the grocer hesitates about waiting for his customer
to visit his store, and believes in going after his sales, how much
more important is it that the musical instrument dealer, offering
something that is not absolutely essential to the maintenance of
life, should display that same initiative.
It is safe to say that 95 per cent of the outstanding successes
in the retail musical instrument field have depended and are de-
pending upon canvassing for the great bulk of their sales. They
may call it outside selling, or have some other high-class term for
it, but in the final analysis it is door-to-door solicitation or the
equivalent thereof.
Occasionally we find a piano dealer who complains about the
cost of canvassing, and who declares that the results do not war-
rant the costs. But close analysis will in the majority of cases show
that the trouble lies not in the system but in the method of applica-
tion. Knowledge of the field is a primary essential, for with such
knowledge it is possible to confine canvassing to those best in a
position to buy. The selection of the personnel of the outside sales
staff, whether male or female, is also important, as is the routing
of the outside sales people and the selection of suitable hours dur-
ing which calls will most likely bring results.
It is not by any means a hit-or-miss proposition. The dealer
may compile his lists from newlyweds as announced in the daily
papers, from among those who have met with business success of
a caliber to warrant publicity; or from among those who have made
I
JANUARY 21, 1928
substantial income tax payments, tin each case he has a legitimate
reason for presenting his sales talk, but it all'comes under the head
of canvassing, whatever the name used
When piano houses in New York find it profitable to operate
outside sales staffs of from twenty to thirty sales people, and this
in a territory where the shopper in an hour's tour can pass and
observe a dozen or more piano warerooms or departments, how
much more important is it for the dealer in the smaller community
to bring his business to the prospect's door. If he doesn't some-
body else in another line of business will.
5¥
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The Value of Veteran Service
A T the recent dinner of the Weaver Pioneers, a club whose
* ** membership is made up of those who have been employed
by the Weaver Piano Co., of York, Pa., for over twenty consecu-
tive years, it was found that over a score of executives and factory
workers were eligible for membership, one man having a service
record covering forty-five years, another forty years, and so on.
One of the interesting features of the piano manufacturing
business, and for that matter every branch of the trade, is the
stability of the workers, for although the Weaver Co. is one of
the few concerns who take official recognition of veteran employes
each year, there are many other companies who find great pride
in the fact that on their payrolls are many men who have seen
service with them for onescore, or twoscore years, or more.
We hear a great deal of the necessity of greater efficiency
in piano making; of the need of mass production on a low unit
profit basis to keep the industry in line with other industries of
the day, yet no modern factory methods can take all the romance
out of piano building. It is essentially a product of the arts, or
for the arts, and it is the loyalty of veteran workers and their
pride in their work that separates the piano from the ordinary
factory product.
There are other industries in which veteran workers are to
be found—many of them—but there are few in which the indi-
vidual artisan has as great an opportunity to put into the product
so much of his own individual knowledge and experience. It
makes the finished instrument something more than a cold com-
bination of wood and metal designed simply to produce musical
sound.
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m vi
An Improvement Highly Welcome
\ CCORDING to Better Business Bureaus in various cities, the
-*• ^ character of musical instrument advertising is showing marked
improvement generally and less occasion is found than formerly to
question advertising statements. All of this is gratifying to those
who have realized the injury to the legitimate trade that has been
done by publicity of the sort calculated to shake public confidence
in the entire business.
The outstanding evil, of course, in the advertising end of the
business is the "bait advertising" which, while not so prevalent as
it was a few years ago, is still common enough to do considerable
damage. The activities of the better business bureaus in various
cities, among them St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit and New York,
have served to improve the situation through the medium of moral
suasion and where necessary the successful legal prosecution of the
offending concern. But it is unfortunate that in a number of in-
stances the exposure of bait methods has been of a character to
make prospective piano buyers suspicious of the entire industry
with resulting injury.
We shall probably always have the questionable advertiser with
us, for he represents an affliction common to all industries, but it
is gratifying to find that outside agencies who make a particular
study of advertising concede that musical instrument publicity is
showing improvement. Under existing conditions, advertising of
the strictly constructive type is highly essential.
In newspaper publicity, for instance, there are so many sound
arguments that can be used for the purpose ot encouraging piano
sales that it seems hardly logical to cheapen the product with a
price appeal of the "bait" type, particularly in view of the tendency
of all advertising to reach new high levels in approaching the buy-
ing public. If publicity is worth anything then let it be good
publicity.