PRESTO
January 26, 1924.
Make This Year Your Best
By Selling The
CHRISTMAN
t<
The First Touch
Tells"
LISTING TYPES
IN SALES FORCE
Analysis of Mental Processes in Men Who Sell
Pianos Would Provide Long and Inter-
esting Occupation for the Earnest
Scientific Man.
MENTAL STATES MANY
Natural Impulses, Not Wareroom Rules and Regula-
tions, Evolve the Numerous Varieties Encoun-
tered in Retail Piano House.
The Christman
Electrically Operated
Reproducing
Grands and Uprights
These Instruments have the demand
that follows long years of consistent
striving to produce the most satisfac-
tory that Money, Experience and Effi-
ciency can present.
The Christman is recognized as the
very highest type of the most ad-
tranced development of the Reproduc-
ing Piano. It has no superior and it
is representative of the
Entire Christman Line
CHRISTMAN
Studio Grand
Only 5 Feet Long
Built with a careful eye to the exacting
requirements of the space at the command
of city dwellers and owners of small houses,
the CHRISTMAN GRAND combines every
essential that wins for the grand piano first
consideration in the mind of the artist.
The scientist who would undertake the analysis of
piano salesmen's minds with the purpose of listing
the psychological types would have a long and steady
job. And that is because the types are almost as
numerous as the men. There is a world of differ-
ence in the mental processes of any two men com-
monly considered similar types. It is such features
of the investigation that would make the job a joyful
one for the psychoanalyst.
There's Tom who never in his life considered his
own emotions. He sells pianos today with the same
keen regard for results as he sold furniture in a de-
partment store a few years ago. But pride in his
associations? Not a bit! Selling the finest reproduc-
ing piano and selling a fake period table are inci-
dents that provide no comparative mental thrills for
him.
Tom the Inside Man.
Tom is thoroughly commercial, but nobody denies
liis success. The books show it. He is an inside
man who does an amount of outside work by an ab-
sent treatment method all his own. He is not ame-
nable to pointers from the sales manager, but in words
he does not resent suggestions.
He just calmly
ignores the hoary practices, revered precedents and
what you might call the proprieties and gets the name
on the dotted line in his own way.
Dick Is Different.
1 here's Dick, an equally successful closer of sales,
who belongs to an entirely different phase of the
study. Dick is a hard plodder, not readily disheart-
ened and certainly never discouraged. He is avow-
edly an outside man with an aversion to the confine-
ment of the wareroom. To make a wareroom man-
ager out of Dick you'd have to make him over. Dick
considers the class he sells to rather than the class of
the pianos or players he sells. His trade is entirely
a class trade or perhaps it would be more correct to
call it a race trade.
Dick Sells 'Em.
Dick does not pretend to sell his customers what
they want or what they think they want. He talks
up what he wants to sell and sells them that, not what
they think they ought to have. He doesn't pretend
to know the construction of pianos, even the features
that constitute the merits of the line he sells. And
tone is an artistic quality he never talks about, al-
though tone is admittedly a strong point in the pianos
and players he so successfully disposes of.
Dick does not think talking about the tone and
other artistic merits of pianos impractical, and on the
rare occasions he lingers in the wareroom he admir-
ingly listens to the inside salesmen reel off the ef-
fective spiel. But he argues that he sells to a class
that, even if it knows a little music, knows nothing at
a'l about pianos or what differentiates the good from
the bad. His customers never insist on tone demon-
stration. The tone of Dick's voice fills the selling
period very effectually.
Every day you are
without the CHRISTMAN
agency you overlook
a good source of profit.
Why, It's Simple!
If Dick's prospect wants a piano, then all that's
to it is to close the deal. If the person Dick en-
counters says he or she does not want a piano, that
brings forth an active feature of salesmanship and
his arguments of persuasion would give the piano's
maker a pain in the temperament were he to listen
in. The so-called arguments do the trick, for the
hopeful opener is a quick closer.
"The First Touch Tells"
Dick Is Safe.
Few repossessions result from Dick's sales.
Shrewdness in estimating people and their ability to
pay and their willingness to pay promptly as the pay-
ments are called for, is one of his most valuable char-
acteristics. He sells them a serviceable instrument
and often gets as high as fifty per cent of the price
as a first payment. Tte customer wants a piano,
Dick sells him one. The firm is a reputable one.
Why lose time talking tone and demonstrating? The
more you explain the more the customer gets rattled.
Talk price and terms and end the conversation with
Reg. U S. P*t. Off.
Christman Piano Co.
597 East 137th St.
New York
the name on the dotted line and the biggest first pay-
ment made possible. That's Dick.
Harry's Way.
There's Harry, naturally lazy but admittedly the
reliable sales saver. Harry is not unwilling to work,
but he never looked for a job of selling while with
the house. Necessarily he is an inside man and for
the most part a sitting down man. He has no spe-
cialty, no ambitions. But hand him over a customer
that somebody else has failed to interest to the point
of buying and suddenly inspired Harry performs one
of his miracles, and then goes back yawning to his
perch near the front window. Harry has no ideas
about salesmanship and he neither depreciates nor ex-
aggerates his ability. He never considers whether he
is lucky to get the opportunity of selling pianos in the
store or is losing his time there. Harry would be
meat for the mind prober.
Albertus the Artistic.
Now, Albertus is not a bit like any of the others.
Albertus, with slim, white hands, is artistic. His
esthetic mind is on the art character, not on the busi-
ness side of the piano. He makes sales of course,
but occasionally when he befogs a plain citizen with
too much art cant and a getaway seems imminent,
somebody has to send an S.O.S. for Harry the sales
saver.
Albertus shudders when he considers the cold com-
mercial features of a piano deal. But he can talk tone
with a compelling glibness. He loves to demonstrate
the piano all through the sale. Indeed his sales inci-
dents are recitals when such lowbrow considerations
as price and terms are abhorrent.
BANQUET COMMEMORATES
BIG ELBEL BROS. BUSINESS
Festivities at Oliver Hotel, South Bend Attended by
Organization and a Few Close Friends.
Elbel Bros., South Bend, Ind., one of the progres-
sive retail houses of the middle-west recently gave a
banquet to the organization and a few close business
friends. The festivities at the Oliver Hotel were
really in the nature of a celebration of the biggest
year in the history of Elbel Bros.
The expressions of loyalty on the part of the speak-
ers and comment on the steady and honorable growth
of the house w T ere a distinct tribute to Richard Elbel,
the founder. The affair was particularly interesting
and enthusiastic owing to the fact that it was the
first banquet ever held in the history of Elbel Bros.
Among those present were L. W. Peterson, credit
manager of the Gulbransen-Dickinson Company, Chi-
cago, and T. W. Perkins, Indiana representative of
the same house. Elbel Bros, strongly features the
Nationally-Advertised, Nationally-Priced Gulbransen
Registering Piano, which is merchandised on prin-
ciples exactly in line with Elbel Bros.' own policies.
Other out of town members of the music industry
who were present at the dinner were Mr. Stanley, of
the Q R S Music Co., Mr. Gipworth, of G. Schirmer,
Inc., Paul Fink of The Aeolian Co., R. S. Cron of
the Victor Talking Machine Co., Messrs. Gennett of
the Starr Piano Co., Richmond, Tnd., and others.
PIANO PRODUCTION GAUGED BY
YEAR'S OUTPUT OF PLATES
Music Industries Chamber of Commerce Compiles
Returns from Figures Obtained in Foundries.
The Music Industries Chamber of Commerce in an
attempt to ascertain the production of pianos for the
year of 1923 has obtained the figures of shipments of
piano plates from all plate foundries in the country
with the exception of the H. & H. Foundry, of Stam-
ford, Conn. These foundries include not only those
selling to piano manufacturers but also those con-
trolled by manufacturers themselves.
The piano plate was selected because of the ease
of collecting such figures, and also because the stock
of plates on hand at plants of piano manufacturers on
the first of January, 1923, and on December 31 of the
same year were probably about equal, so that ship-
ments from plate foundries would equal approxi-
mately the piano production for the year.
Allowing one per cent for breakage and imperfect
plates, the shipment figures were as follows: 323,659
uprights and 58,726 grands, or a total of 382,385.
HOLDS UP MUSIC STORE.
Two negro bandits held up the owner of the Car-
son Music Shop, 1041 South street, Philadelphia, re-
cently. After selecting a roll for a playerpiano they
covered the music dealer with revolvers with the
usual command to "stick 'em up." They then took
$250 from the register and jewelry and cash amount-
ing to $500 from three customers, and escaped.
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