Presto

PRESTO
U. S. MUSIC ROLL DISPLAY IN CLEVELAND
September 12, 1925.
MANAGER REGRETS THE
SCARCITY OF SALESMEN
Veteran Head of Piano Department Deplores
the Neglect of Training Men in Competent
Ways of Selling.
The accompanying illustration is of a U. S. music
roll display that appeared in the window of Smerda's
Music Store, in Cleveland, Ohio. This attractive
window drew great attention, and from an advertising
point of view as well as in direct sales it proved what
effect a good display may have.
Mr. Smerda is a very progressive music dealer in
Cleveland, and attributes a great deal of the success
he has had in the player business to the fact that he
features rolls. The exclusive display of U. S. rolls
here shown is proof of the confidence Mr. Smerda
has in window display.
SILENT PLAYERPIANO
MENACE TO TRADE
at best become a perfunctory buyer of rolls, whereas
roll buying should be an enjoyable habit.
Interest in the playerpiano diminishes as the own-
er's accumulation of old rolls grows. But this is
obviated by the exchange plan now established for
the benefit of the dealers and the playerpiano owners.
This plan is a wonderful inducement for the continu-
ation of interest in the player and for a revival of roll
buying enthusiasm where it has been discouraged by
roll accumulation. Putting a trade-in value on the
customers' old rolls has accomplished a revival of
the roll trade in many stores. Many dealers have
found the exchange plan a means to revive owners'
interest in rolls. By its inducements many owners
have resumed roll buying after a lapse of a year or
more.
The playerpiano cannot continue to be sold with-
out satisfied customers and the best way to keep the
owner pleased with his instrument is to continuously
renew his interest in the music. So it is easy to see
the close association of the player trade to roll con-
sumption. It is an obvious detriment to the player-
piano business when playerpianos become silent in
homes and it is the active merchandising of rolls that
determines whether the playerpianos are to be kept
in pleasurable use or become silent.
The dealer may advertise his players in the most
active fashion, but after all his playerpiano sales are
measured by the extent and liveliness of his roll trade.
No dealer will allow an old piano or player to stand
in the way of selling a new one, but many dealers
allow the customers' accumulations of old rolls to
not only stop new roll sales, but to create the silent
players which have such a distressing influence in
discouraging new player sales.
First Duty of Music Merchant Is to Convert
Unused Players in Customers' Homes
Into Means of Enjoyment.
The first duty of the dealer is to convert the silent
players in his territory into active ones. The fact
that they are silent from the owner's disgust and dis-
couragement at the accumulation of old rolls should
make it clear that the merchandising of rolls is the
main problem that must be solved. Player owners
should not be left to the spontaneous desire to buy
rolls. They need guidance in the way of suggestion,
but most of all they need continuous stimulation.
One good way to increase the playerpiano sales is
to make the playerpianos already in the homes do
their maximum amount of playing. Doing this
means the selling of more rolls by the music dealers.
It means continuous reminding of the playerpiano
owner of the wisdom of realizing the pleasures of his
instrument by frequent addition to his assortment of
rolls. It means prominent newspaper announcements
of the monthly bulletins of the roll manufacturers
and a faithful distribution of the roll literature so
generously provided by the music roll manufacturers
and it means the persistent uses of the strips and
posters also provided by the manufacturers.
The wise music dealer no longer believes that the
playerpiano owner has, as a matter of necessity, to
buy rolls. It is an exploded fallacy to believe such
a thing. Playerpiano owners don't have to buy rolls.
Rolls are indispensable for musical pleasures from a
playerpiano, but otherwise not. Most playerpiano
owners are not spontaneous buyers of rolls. They
have to be prompted, induced, stimulated; every in-
citement to buy should be used. Without the per-
sistent incentives the average playerpiano owner is
liable to lapse into indifference, cold unconcern or
BUYS MUNCIE, IND., STORE.
A. L. Huber, who for the past nineteen years has
been a music dealer in Muncie, Ind., has bought the
store at 109 West Jackson street from the Meskill
Music Company, of Indianapolis, for whom he has
managed the store for the past two years. The store
will be known as the Huber Music Company. It will
continue in the present location.
"One of the disturbing things about the piano busi-
ness today is the scarcity of trained salesmen," said
a veteran sales manager this week. It is a weak-
ness of the trade that should disturb the established
merchants. And the hardest thing to say is that the
merchants and salesmanagers are themselves to
blame for the regrettable condition.
"From my knowledge of the retail piano trade I
can state that there are very few dealers of sales-
managers who direct their sales forces or give a
proper course of advice to the young fellows attracted
to the business. Indifference and neglect in the train-
ing of salesmen is a rule that is pleasantly varied by
several houses impressed with the importance of
properly trained salesmen. These are taught the
business fundamentals relating to retail merchandis-
ing as well as the psychology of selling. It is the
influences of such houses tht save the retail piano
situation in the matter of making sales. Without the
effects of their example the system of piano selling
would be completely chaotic.
"Piano dealers and sales managers are cursed with
carelessness when it comes to directing a sales force.
Some of them or maybe most of them have the best
intentions, but they become distracted by the futile
routine of the rut and find no time for something that
does not show a profit on the spot. Perhaps some
of them realize that training of salesmen is a source
of profit, but a profit too often realized by some
other dealer. Few salesmen are tied to their jobs.
"The poor deals in the piano business are gener-
ally the work of the badly trained or the utterly un-
trained salesmen. And the responsibility for the
ruinous individual sales may be laid to the men under
whom they got their first experiences. The sales-
man who loses time trying to convince the house of
the exaggerated value of a trade-in, for instance, is
the result of bad training in selling. Salesmen of
that kind do not know their business. The chances
are that they started with a house that sold on any
terms in order to close a deal; the kind of house
where the trade-in- was made an excuse for ruinous
price-cutting. They are the kind of chaps who repre-
sent the prospect rather than the employer when the
allowance for the traded-in piano is in question.
"There are more things involved in proper training
for piano salesmen than the search for the prospect
and the eventual closing of the sale. A prime neces-
sity in the sale is that it will stick and that the ulti-
mate result will be profitable to the house. Any
boob can sell pianos if the terms are liberal enough
and the price cut to the marrow inside of the bone
Piling up the past due paper is easy enough for the
chap who is permitted to take a gambling chance With
some easy dealer's pianos.
"When all is said the really successful salesman is
the one who makes a profit for the house on the sales
he closes. Often the big sales based on volume are
sources of loss to the house. The piano business is
filled with men who can sell pianos, but the men who
can sell in a consistently profitable way for the house
are not crowding each other in numbers. The gen-
eral adopting of better selling methods by the piano
houses will naturally result in the increase of prop-
erly trained salesmen. The house with rigid require-
ments based on the fundamentals of good trading,
provides the theories and examples of good selling."
NOT "OUR" PETER DUFFY.
A correspondent in Pennsylvania sends a clipping
and asks, somewhat anxiously, if it is possible that
the famed maker of the "Schubert" piano can be the
deceased whose estate is entered for probate in New
York. Here is the clipping: "Duffy, Peter (Aug.
27).
Estate, $2,900. to niece, Agnes Hughes, 92
McDougai street, Brooklyn."
NEW ROBERTS ROLL.
The Q R S Music Co 's factory in San Francisco
recently issued the roll of Lee S. Roberts' latest com-
position, "Dear Old South of Market Days." It is
dedicated to the South of Market street organization
and with written especially to extol the section of
San Francisco, "South of the Slot," meaning the old
cable line now replaced by a trolley.
NEW AGENCY IN YAKIMA.
The Yakima News Co., Yakima, Wash., has ar-
ranged to represent the Wiley B. Allen Co. in that
territory in the sale of the Mason & Hamlin, Cable
and Ludwig & Co. pianos. The company looks for-
ward to a good trade in these instruments the com-
ing fall and winter.
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