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Published Monthly
FEDERATED BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS, INC.
420 Lexington Ave.
New York
Review
Music
Industry
Serving
the Entire
Vol. 88
October, 1929
No. 27
Single Copies
Twenty Cents
Annual Subscription
Two Dollars
In Ohio
T\\c\ 7bld How
But
Few Heard Them
**^ • AHEY that have ears, let them hear" is the biblical advice
I offered some two thousand years ago, and although busi-
-*- ness conditions then were perhaps somewhat different than
at the present time, the advice holds quite as good today for
music merchants who are seeking solutions of their problems.
The individual who wraps himself up in his trouble or tries to
find his way out single-handed is not going to get nearly as far
as his contemporary who finds out what the other fellow is doing
successfully and endeavors to apply
the methods to his own business.
Take, for example, the opportu-
nities that were offered at the OHio
Convention early last month for
learning new business wrinkles, or at
least old ideas that were being ap-
plied in new ways. At the several
round-table discussions, some of the
largest and most successful music
merchants of the State offered freely
of their experiences in canvassing,
selling, advertising and collecting.
They told how new prospects were
obtained, and how pianos and other
instruments could be placed in the
homes. They were quite willing to
answer questions regarding the details
of their methods and yet, to all in-
tentions and purposes,, they talked to
themselves, for there were few outside of the successful group
to hear them.
It would seem that every member of the music industry has a
pet scheme for bringing sales back to high peak, and is willing
to expound at length upon his pet theory, which may or may not
be sound. In Columbus, however, men who were actually ac-
complishing things told just how they did it. They were supplant-
ing theory with fact, and it is regrettable that the association
roster was not represented 100 per cent to hear them. The dealer
who begrudged the comparatively few dollars required to attend
the meetings, will, as likely as not, spend many times that sum in
trying out plans that are mainly theoretical and which may come
to nothing. How much cheaper it would have been to have learned
of successful methods, upon which someone else had done the
experimenting, and then applying them. The Ohio Convention
. ..;.
was not the only place where suc-
cessful plans have been offered freely
and proof presented that the big
music merchant is not at all adverse
to giving business information for the
benefit of the trade at large. Regu-
larly, for years, The Review has
published scores of articles setting
forth successful business methods car-
ried out by the representative retail
9
houses of the trade and based upon the
information obtained directly and freely
from these houses. The material, in
short, is available, what is needed is
the foresight to use it.
It is quite all right to expound the
necessity of encouraging group in-
struction locally in the schools and
elsewhere; to cut down service costs
upon various types of instruments;
to build up and maintain active prospect lists; to demand short
terms and get the money, for the wisdom of all these is obvious.
What is needed is to show hundreds of dealers in the small towns
and in the larger cities as well just how they may do these things,
and there are no better teachers than the merchants who have
been successful in carrying out this work in its various phases.
(Continued on page 15)
What troubled music
merchants
want to
know is not only what
to do but how and the
opportunities for learn-
ing are both numerous
and practical