Presto

MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1881
Established
1884
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
10 Cents a Copy
CHICAGO, SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1927
ARE PIANO SALESMEN GETTING THEIR DUE?
Plaint of a Veteran Prospect-Finder and Closer
Who Recounts His Experiences and
Draws Conclusions Not Compli-
mentary to Some Fiano Dealers.
ARE THINGS SO BAD?
An Interesting Discussion of Methods in the Trade
Which May Seem Over-Severe if Too
Broadly Applied.
By E. C. LANDON.
In the January 9, 1926, issue of the Presto I find
an article, "What firm will lead in selling methods."
This is very interesting to me, even though the
article was written over a year ago. Yes, it's a fact
that piano dealers are beginning to find it hard to get
salesmen. And why? Here is one writer that can
tell you: greed and crookedness, special privileges
to the few and some lodge connections sum up the
case of success or failure. Now, don't think that
I am averse to fraternal orders, for I am not; have
belonged to three good ones; a big pin on a little
man is an eye saver to me.
The writer has been in the music business, in one
way or the other, for twenty-eight years. When I
was 17 years old, began selling, and repair work.
My employer was old at the game, but poor in
health. My salary the first year was $6 per week
and board myself; had worked before this as general
manager for a firm, when I hired and drilled men
to solicit from house to house.
Trading and Tuning.
Trading organs for cows, horses and hogs was
common enough. Then we put on a sale. I sold
my first piano for $375, $150 cash, balance $15 per
month; then in four weeks I sold eleven pianos and
thirteen organs; then I made a request for a raise
and got $12 per week (sometimes). We paid all
the debts. I did from $15 to $30 month repair work
for my boss, and sold from two to three organs per
week and a piano now and then.
My boss was on his feet now and began to make
a big ripple—lodge, society and everything. I never
could get even, but in three years was a good sales-
man, also small goods man. I ran the store most
of the time. Then came competition. I took to the
outside once more and beat them out of so many
sales they came to me to hire me. I refused. They
offered me a half interest for my experience. I
asked my boss for a raise and $193 back salary. He
stalled me for three weeks. One of the two brothers
of the competing house dropped out and I took his
place. We made good. My new partner had plenty
of money and sold out to me.
Some Managers' Methods
My first boss had a big company and shipped in
a carload of pianos. With two special salesmen he
sold pianos for $150 and $200. That soon put me
out of business. Then I began working for a com-
pany that was put on the black list by the union, so
changed to another. They got the best of me because
I worked on commission. Since that time there are
five big companies that still owe me, with no chance
of getting it.
The great big honest managers or owners will ask
a man to fill out a list of questions and give three
or four different references. Then they put the vic-
tim under bond and some pet manager that would
not let a good salesman make good for fear it would
show him up to his company. I have even had
them steal my sales; that is, send them in and take
credit for them, go to the customer and make out a
new contract and sign their names as witnesses.
Salary or Commission.
I once worked under the manager of a big com-
pany who was not making good, and I soon found
out why. The first two days I worked I went out
and found new prospects and sold three pianos. This
got the manager's goat. He gave me a bunch of
three-year-old prospects to work on, and in three
weeks I only sold one piano and he stole that. And
he had the nerve to tell another salesman that he
"better net sell too many or he would put him on
some old prospects." Later I took him to task about
his treatment of me. He said: "I think you came
here to get my job." I assured him I would not
have it, but he made it so unpleasant for me that
1 got the company to let me out on special sales,
which were successful, but a new thing at that time.
I was married and there came a time when my
wife could not go with me or stay behind, so I went
to the main store and worked. But they only paid
a salary and I could not afford to work as outside
man for so little as they paid. They said they could
hire men for $25 per week. I had been getting $40
and expenses. So I had to quit. I found a man that
had some money and we went to Chicago and bought
two car-loads of of pianos. Opening day I sold two
grands, two players and three straights, mostly cash.
That was good, but in three months came a slump.
We could not cash any kind of notes, so had to give
it up, leaving me the greatest loser.
A Christian Dealer
After being sick for eighteen months, I was rec-
ommended to an honest Christian piano dealer who
had the same scruples as myself. We wrote to each
other. He told me his story so frankly that I actu-
ally thought he was O. K.; said it was healthy place,
fine living conditions, and that his commission was
liberal. As a tuner I could make big money, he
said, as he had made $40 in one day. So I went
there. I worked almost one month before I collected
one dollar, as all tuning was on credit, paid to his
store. One day he informed me that half the tuning
money was his. I told him his letters did not men-
tion that fact. I was there and had to stay to get
enough to get away on. He had a branch store.
He sent me to put on a sale and informed me that I
would be on a salary, but would not say how much.
I would have had a big business but for the pet
manager and wife. They were jealous of me from
the start, and I have never in my life seen such in-
efficiency, and they would spoil a sale rather than
let me close it. And the boss would believe them
and not me. Then I quit and had to fall back on
tuning. They advertised that they had a new tuner
and would tune for $2.50, which was half the regular
price. I had to hunt new fields and am, or have
been, with another company.
Problem of References.
I can go on any floor, and sell on an average, three
out of five real customers that I get, if it's a big
store, and doing normal business. I have never
worked for but one piano company that did not beat
me in some way. Of course there are thousands of
salesmen that are getting their money. But there's
a reason. They started young and grew up with the
company, and have became a fixture. But the nat-
ural born music man who, through the bad luck of
growing up with some company on the outside and
looking in, knows there is no big future for him.
I have wholesaled pianos and talking machines, but
the dealers I made or sold to, usually got the worst
of it. From my company, not long ago, I had a
letter written by a dealer who has branch stores,
wanting me to come and take charge of one of them;
wanted references. I wrote him if he would send me
five names and addresses of men who had worked for
him in the last five years I would exchange refer-
ences with him.
When dealers learn to be honest with salesmen they
can get them. I personally know several good men
that have been ruined by putting too much faith in
the company they dealt with. So, as your article
says, "look on the inside." That's what lots of us
should do. But big piano companies are missing
some good salesmen because the sales managers only
know one class of men, and that is a class that can-
not force a sale in the future.
Fierce Competition.
My experience, on my last 'trip to Chicago, De-
troit and Omaha, gave me a good idea of what is
going to happen. Competition gets greater all the
time, and when the real battle comes the green sales-
man will be an easy mark for the real honest-to-
goodness man that knows all the tricks in the game.
$2 The Year
The big companies are going to rule the small dealer
or will have a branch across the street, and then it
will take a level-headed soldier that can talk for three
days if necessary, to make the sale.
Then personality is going to mean more than ever
before. People are better posted today on every
topic. The last deal I made was a talking machine.
My customer began by asking questions. 1 answered
them, and then he started on pianos. We talked for
two hours and I answered every question he asked.
When I sold him the machine he asked me to come
to his store next day and talk some more, which I
did and, as I had long before guessed, he had once
been a piano dealer.
Selling High-Priced Pianos.
Women do the buying mostly now, and I find they
are most interested in a salesman who knows the
business from beginning to end. Better and higher-
priced pianos are being sold today than ever before.
Many salesmen today that are called good and suc-
cessful are selling only the six to eight hundred
dollar pianos, and upward.
How often have I seen the salesman come for a
floor man when his customer began looking and talk-
ing of $2,200 reproducers, or pipe organs. It seems
to scare them. And there is another place where I
have myself lost out. The salesmen must turn these
customers over to the manager of that department
and seldom gets credit for any of it. And so it
goes. You put a big man in a little place as a piano
salesman; he loses self-respect and the bunch thinks
he is just a wise guy and it takes the pep out of him.
I claim that more times than not it's the sales man-
ager's fault. He thinks he knows men. He is wise
in his own mind. And some of them are really good
fellows in every way, but I have met two or three
only who really knew more than they thought they
did.
Caustically Critical.
When a dealer learns that he is kidding him-
self, and that the salesman he is going to hire is
just as honest as he is even if, for various reasons,
he will not fill out a questionnaire as rigid as the
government used during the last war, and takes the
same chance that the salesman is taking, and pays
living wages, or commission, then he will get the
men he needs. Whoever heard of an auto salesman
losing his commissions? or an insurance man? or a
real estate agent? They all get paid. But just
how many get a square deal with the average piano
house? This I know will bring a storm of protests,
but just put an advertisement in the paper and ask
every salesman that has commissions, or money,
coming and you will see if I am right. I know a man
who has money coming from one of the big com-
panies; he is sick and not able to do much. He
can't get one part of it and my guess is that he
never will. The system is some times such that
they don't have to pay. When piano dealers have
hearts they get men.
I may get hanged for saying all this, but I don't
think I have said anything I could not prove if it
was necessary. I have kept a fairly good record
for fifteen years. You may print this, if you wish
to or you can have some one rewrite it and tell it
better than I can, as I am not a writer, but am a
salesman and know men, and how to handle them,
and how to make salesmen of them. There is good
timber, and easy gotten if one knows how. And that
is what I have tried to say in answer to the Presto
article that suggested what I have written.
THE LATE HERBERT J. EBERHARDT
Herbert J. Eberhardt, advertising manager for
Lyon & Healy, Chicago, whose death was an-
nounced last week at the age of 24, had been en-
gaged in advertising and sales promotion work since
his graduation from the Northern University. He
became connected with the Chicago music house in
1923 and was appointed manager of the advertising
department following the resignation of W. J. Byrne
in January, 1926. He is survived by his father and
mother, two sisters and a brother.
BRAMBACH PIANO IN DALLAS HOTEL.
At the formal opening of the beautiful new "May-
fair" Hotel in Dallas, Texas, a Brambach Baby
Grand was used. The Brambach was supplied the
hotel by the Will A. Watkin Company, well known
music house of Dallas.
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