Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
EDITORIALLY SPEAKING
THE RETAIL EXECUTIVE MUST
GO OUT AND EARN HIS KEEP
WAVE ON MUSIC TRAINING
CHICAGO SUFFERS AN ECONOMY
T
C
HERE are music merchants who are not only carrying
on quite successfully but are actually making money,
many of them without resorting to the appeal of
slaughtered prices. The answer does not lie alone in
hard work, for the man who isn't working hard just now
probably isn't working at all, but it does lie in the more
efficient use of sales effort and the more efficient set-up in
the retail organization.
One manufacturer recently declared that there were two
types of outlets he favored. One, of course, was the organiza-
tion sufficiently large to absorb executive expense without in-
convenience, and the other the one or two-man store with
everybody out selling. The type of outlet not wanted was
that where two or three outside or inside salesmen are ex-
pected to develop enough business to permit the proprietor to
sit at his desk and count the profits. In short, two men can-
not make enough to keep a third man idle.
That members of the trade have begun to take cognizance
of the fact is evidenced by the number of proprietors and
managers that are going out after business. Some of them
have had to get back into training after some years of easy
going, but where they have shown inclination to produce, the
results from the business standpoint have been most satisfac-
tory. The big boss with his feet on the desk is out.
WHEN THE HAND-TO-MOUTH
BUYING ATTITUDE HURTS
S
EVERAL piano manufacturers have taken occasion to
comment recently upon the difficulties experienced in
getting necessary supplies quickly. In some cases the
delay in this matter has had a serious effect on sales,
and the manufacturers have been inclined to criticize supply
houses for lack of attention to orders.
Just who is to blame, however? The manufacturer con-
demns the dealers for ordering from hand-to-mouth, while at
the same time, lacking a steady run of orders, he premises
his manufacturing schedule on the same hand-to-mouth basis
with the ultimate result that the supply man gets his orders
only when the material is badly needed and then probably for
a limited quantity. The supply man is up against it because,
in the case of pianos 1 , it is not possible to make up several
hundred actions or keys or metal parts and keep them in stock,
for each manufacturer and frequently each instrument de-
mands special material. The piano -maker, therefore, who
wants a half dozen actions in a hurry can hardly expect the
supply man to call back his full force for a day or two to
take care of the order.
Under existing conditions, it is necessary for all divisions of
the trade to work together to the end that the curtailed facili-
ties may be utilized to the greatest advantage. The manu-
facturer declares that he cannot afford to carry finished stock
for the dealer and it is not logical for him to expect the supply
man to carry the finished stock for emergency orders. It is
not a business that can be handled that way.
HICAGO, the second largest city in the United
States, is in financial difficulties and the result is close
attention to ways and means for economizing in city
expenditures. On what is the first attack made?
Move to the head of the class: you're right. It's training
in music.
It seems that the newspapers, or the politicians, or both, in
looking over the expenditures of the city with a view to cur-
tailing those items that might prove of little political benefit,
discovered that during the year 1931 the Board of Education
had paid $11,417 for musical instruments and parts for public
school children, as compared with $13,351 during the pre-
vious year. The result was some high-class publicity, one
story being headed "Music material helps to amass school
debts—thousands spent yearly for instruments."
It is significant that all the expenditures for musical in-
struments thus far listed covered band and orchestra equip-
ment—nothing being spent for pianos. Nothing was said of
the fact that during the past few years some 36,000 Chicago
school children have studied piano in class with the assistance of
instruments furnished without charge by the piano houses of
the city. This apparently was all right with the politicians.
When it is considered that Chicago has several hundred
thousand school children, the cost of musical equipment per
child means but little more than the price of a newspaper.
When political capital can be made of such expenditures, it is
quite evident that the national campaign for music instruc-
tion in public schools has not yet been crowned with success.
Apparently so far as Chicago is concerned, it is a fair-weather
proposition to be considered only when money is plentiful
and not as an essential factor in the proper education of
the child.
TRAVELERS AS BUILDERS
OF FUTURE GOOD WILL
O
NE of the encouraging moves in the trade within
the past month or so has been the employment of
new traveling men by a number of piano manu-
facturers. In certain cases, these men have aug-
mented staffs to the end of covering the trade more thor-
oughly, while in other cases the employment of travelers
means that the companies interested are again going after
wholesale business. In most instances it is stated frankly that
the traveler who can earn his keep on the road today is dis-
tinctly an exception, but the manufacturers are building for
the future and developing those contacts with the retailers
that will mean business when conditions change. It reflects
the spirit of optimism that speaks well for the industry as
a whole.
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
M a r c h , 1932