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SHEET MUSIC
(Continued from Page 29)
you use it in selling pianos, radios, and
instruments, you're bound to get grati-
fying results.
Where to Get Help
"The best way to go about making
this survey, the question of costs of
stocking different types of music, the
problem of the best ways to promote
it—all these are matters on which ex-
perienced dealers can be more helpful
than a publisher, but then, too, I might
be prejudiced! I can speak only in
generalities of the over-all picture, as
I see it.
"Once you have made the first step,
once you've developed a good repre-
sentative stock of one or more types
of music new to your store, I don't
think you'll want to stop until you
have gone on to develop a really well-
rounded sheet-music department.
You'll find that enlarging and
developing your service is go-
ing to bring you new bus-
iness—not alone from your
immediate community, but al-
so from a large surrounding
area.
"Because people want sheet-music
service!
"The word gets around, and you can
help this word ieak out' by your direct-
mail campaigns.
"By just forgetting the 'traffic' idea
for a while, you will have developed
new and varied traffic made up of those
new customers for your new lines of
sheet-music.
BEST WISHES AT . . .
Sincerity is the keynote of our wishes of happi-
ness for you and yours at Christmastime. We
hope the New Year will bring you continued
prosperity and that time will enrich our pleasant
association.
WEBSTER E. JANSSEN, president
Janssen Piano Co., Inc.
"You will no longer have that kind
of store where salesmen are told, when
offering a new item of very general
interest, 'we don't have any calls for
that.' And you won't have the kind of
store where customers are told, with
an air of smug finality, 'we don't stock
that.' Those are two remarks, inciden-
tally, which seem to me to be the dead-
end for all concerned: for the customer,
for the dealer, for the publisher.
Getting It Done
"You've probably been saying to
yourself, 'Oh, swell! But who's going
VILIM
PIANO
CHRISTMAS
HAMMERS
Made of the
Highest Grade Domestic Felts
REPAIR ORDERS PROMPTLY EXECUTED
We maintain a special department
for tuners and technicians
To the entire trade best wishes for
A Merry Christmas
and a more Promising 7952
VINCENT VILIM INC.
20 N O . HILLSIDE AVENUE
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, DECEMBER, 1951
ELMSFORD, N. Y.
to do all this?'
"That's a very real problem in our
business: personnel. You can't take on
this other work, in addition to your
other jobs, and the average sheet-music
department doesn't warrant the pay-
ment of wages high enough to attract
people good enough to make the sheet-
music department better than average—
and you get just what you pay for.
"Some stores around the country
have solved the problem in a very ef-
fective way, through methods of pay
based on incentive.
But in every community, vir-
tually, there do exist people
with all the necessary qualifi-
cations for running a good,
profitable sheet-music depart-
ment—people capable of plan-
ning your expansion with you,
capable of absorbing the vast
amount of information needed.
"These potential employees are peo-
ple who can be of real help to your
customers. They are capable of find-
ing out where to get what you haven't
got. They are musicians who would be
greatly stimulated by the idea that,
even though their starting and basic
pay might be small, they'd have a per-
centage share of any increased volume
and profits they help to develop.
"Such incentive-pay arrangements
merit your very serious consideration,
not only for the manager of the depart-
ment but for all sheet-music clerks, as
well.
The National Picture
"The viewpoint of the music pub-
lisher must be nationwide, naturally.
33