Presto

PRESTO-TIMES
The American Music Trade Weekly
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
PRESTO P U B L I S H I N G CO., Publishers.
F R A N K D. A B B O T T - - - - - - - - - -
Editor
(C. A. DAN I ELL—1904-1927.)
J. FERGUS O'RYAN
_ _ _ _ _ Managing Editor
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Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1928.
February 4, 1928
ods, by first of all increasing the number and commission evil continued to exist and the
obnoxious fiends to tread gaily along the
efficiency of their sales staffs.
It is a coincidence that an article in this harassed piano way.
Do you ever hear a protest at paying a com-
issue from Mr. Elmon Armstrong, the piano
traveler, also bears upon the subject of the mission to somebody outside the store today?
salesman's importance in the scheme of selling. You do not. And the circumstance shows what
Mr. Armstrong believes that the dealers are has automatically come to pass in the piano
beginning to realize that the piano business trade. From being a warm proposition, the
can be revitalized by securing good salesmen so-called commission evil has become a chilly
and holding them by compensating them remembrance. But circumstances in the evo-
properly. In plain American the dealers are lution of the trade, not the efforts of regu-
getting wise to themselves. Instead of asking: lators and uplifters have resulted in the happy
"What's the matter with the piano business?" happening.
many a dealer says : "What ails me. Why Commissions continue to be paid in the piano
can't I step on it any more and hit 'er up on trade, but far from being thorns in the flesh
all cylinders? I've got a flat tire or two and the payments are considered bearable incidents
I'm impeding piano commerce by going too in sales stimulation. What was an abnormality
slow. Come on with the frank diagnosis, and in customs has been replaced by business-like
and natural processes. The old time commis-
tell me why I let everything pass me.''
The question of attracting salesmen and re- sion custom was bad even when the fiends
taining them by making the job profitable and were limited to teachers and musicians, but it
interesting is discussed wherever piano men became a positive pest when grafters in every
meet. It will provide a topic for the national walk of life saw opportunities to loot the piano
conventions of the music trades in New York dealers out of a big" slice of their profits.
in June. Mr. Gulbransen's attitude on the The inculcation of better business methods
salesman question is also that of the Gulbran- in the piano business which involved generous
sen Company, which has frankly stated to its and better advertising, just prices and first
dealers that it has launched a campaign to put class active salesmen were the means by which
100,000 men to work in the piano business, and the galling commission feature of business was
obviously they will not all be selling Gulbran- rectified. The custom of paying commissions
to people outside the store has not been ended.
sens.
It still exists, but the payments are just and
are willingly paid.
POOLE PIANO CO. HISTORY
The last form of Presto-Times goes to press
A very pleasant and interesting coincidence
England is desirous of emulating the group
at 11 a. m. Thursday. Any news transpiring
after that hour cannot be expected in the cur- was discovered by President Ava W. Poole teaching of the piano in our public schools,
rent issue. Nothing received at the office that when the Poole Piano Co., Boston, was pre- according to a message brought to a Town
is not strictly news of importance can have paring to move to the new factory in Cam- Hall Club audience in New York last week
attention after 9 a. m. on Thursday. If they bridge. In looking over old records, Mr. Poole
concern the interests of manufacturers or found that the first piano shipped out of the from the Federation of Music Industries of
Great Britain and Ireland. "The best thing
dealers such items will appear the week follow-
ing. Copy for advertising designed for the Poole factory, when the Poole Piano Co. began that Great Britain could do to introduce a like
current issue must reach the office not later manufacturing nearly forty years ago, was system in her schools would be to send a dele-
sent to E. Winter's Sons of Kingston, N. Y.
(han Wednesday noon of each week.
gation to the United States to see the school
But the pleasant coincidence was disclosed by
piano classes in actual operation, and to study
the shipping room in the newly occupied fac-
how you achieve the remarkably successful re-
SALESMEN WANTED
tory from which the first piano shipment also
sults," was the fraternal greeting conveyed by
The importance of salesmen in distributing went to the house of E. Winter's Sons, Inc.
pianos is a fact requiring no effort to bring
The shipment record of the earlier date bore G. W. F. Reed.
* * *
home to the dealers. The success of publicity a cheerful memorandum by the late William
Celebration
of
Music
Week in America this
schemes depends upon them; it is the sales- H. Poole. It was indicative of the spirit which
year
will
more
or
less
commemorate
Schubert,
men who realize on the printed matter in news- has characterized the subsequent relations of
although
the
chief
glory
and
chief
responsi-
papers, magazines, and booklets. The dealers' the ambitious Boston piano industry and the
bility
for
the
hundredth
anniversary
falls to
barrage of advertising and printed follow-up fine old retail house of Winter's Sons of
Vienna.
An
elaborate
celebration
is
again
appeals are too often futile without the spir- Kingston.
planned
in
that
city
and
the
rest
of
the
world
ited personal assault by the salesmen on the
The instance is only one of many which
prospects' defensive positions. The signatures disclose an unbroken relationship through will make its own celebration as it hardly
on the dotted line are the most conclusive evi- many years of the Poole Piano Co. with loyal ceases to do from one year's end to another.
dence of the piano dealers' triumphs.
dealers, all of which facts are significant of It will help the cause of music in America to
The salesman and his work provided a the merits of tone and general reliability of recall once more, emphatically, during music
theme for Mr. A. G. Gulbransen recently when Poole pianos and of the pleasant attitude of week, to such ideals of beauty as Schubert
addressing a conference of dealers and sales- the company towards its retail representatives. stood for.
* * •
men. "The public properly approached will
Continued
growth
of Simplified Practice as
buy pianos," was Mr. Gulbransen's message to
A TRADE REVOLUTION
a
means
of
eliminating
waste in industry is
the merchants. "There is too much evidence
There was a time in the piano trade of this evidenced by the completion during the calen-
of the public's acceptance of the piano, wher- country when the paying of commissions to
ever an intelligent effort has been made to people who influenced prospects in becoming dar year 1927, of eighteen new Simplified Prac-
create piano sales, for there to be any ques- actual customers and to those who merely tice Recommendations, thus bringing the total
tion about that. The piano business is fight- suggested the names of possible customers, projects completed to eighty, according to a
ing for lost position because it is under- constituted a problem. The intensity of feel- review of the past year's activities of the Com-
manned. Salesmen have been attracted away ing at the time was shown by the use of the mercial Standards Group, Bureau of Standards,
from piano business to other lines or to other term "commission fiends," in alluding to such. by Ray M. Hudson, Assistant Director, in
divisions of the music business. The retailer Condemnatory speeches about the commission charge.
* * *
has not fully realized that piano selling is a takers at trade banquets added a tabasco tang
Out of 10,000,000 pianos in the United States,
specialty and that if a man is to be successful to the edibles ; orations full of caustic adjec-
8,000,000 never receive attention from the
at it, he must put his undivided energy into tives keyed up feeling at piano trade conven-
tuner, according to figures compiled by the
this field alone."
tions where the commission takers were figur- National Association of Piano Tuners. Some
Observant men in the piano business agree atively hung, drawn and quartered, and in cause for discord! This is not the fault of
in the main with the statement of Mr. Gul- every issue of the trade papers, oracular edi- the tuners and laying the blame where it be-
bransen and the most ambitious and progres- tors jabbed them with the keen blade of in- longs goes a long way towards lessening the
sive ones are eager to improve the sales meth* vective, but apparently to no purpose. The number of tuneless instruments.
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