MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1881
Established
1884
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
10 Cents a Copy
CHICAGO, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1928
KEEPING SALESMEN
IN THE PIANO TRADE
To Aid in Such a Desirable Effort the "Sug-
gestions" of a "Ptominent Dealer" Re-
cently Printed in Presto-Times Are
Gleefully Picked to Pieces.
TREAT SALESMEN RIGHT
And the Rights of Men Who Find Prospects and
Convert Them Into Customers Are Founded
on Sense and Justice.
By ELM OX ARMSTRONG.
T read the "Suggestions" of an anonymous cor-
respondent in Presto-Times of January 14, but I re-
road them this week when my attention was especially
called to the requirements set forth therein. In his
suggestions the correspondent, whom the editor as-
sured readers was a prominent and successful dealer,
advised other dealers to "limit your trade-in allow-
ances on nationally known, nationally priced pianos,
phonographs and radios to 5 per cent or 10 per cent
of the marked price of new instruments for old phono-
graphs, uprights and players and 15 per cent or 20
per cent for grands." He further advised the trade
to "pay salesmen on a fair plan that rewards for
good service and penalizes for mediocre or poor
service."
"Each step below a par sale should cost the sales-
man 1 per cent and where two salesmen work to-
gether on a sale it should be split fifty-fifty," was the
suggestion. A "PAR SALE" he considered was one
closed by the salesman without assistance at regu-
larly marked prices, for cash within 30 days, nothing
to be taken in trade, no discounts, credits, premiums
or expenses allowed, no teachers' or dealers' com-
missions to be paid. A "BELOW PAR SALE" is
one where a TIME SALE runs over 30 days, he
said, and added that "the weekly drawing account of
a salesman should be fair and liberal but not exceed
one-half to two-thirds of his probable earning capac-
ity, because surplus earnings should always be pay-
able the 10th of the month."
And Now—
This writer, who does not disclose his name for
good reasons, is evidently worrying about the loss of
business in a general way, and attributes this loss of
business to the lack of a rigid scale of commissions
enforced upon his salesmen, and the fear on his part
that there is too much being allowed for trade-ins.
These suggestions by the unknown writer having
been submitted to a number of prominent and suc-
cessful piano merchants have brought forward vari-
ous comments from them.
One Voted Aye.
I failed to find out of a large number of prominent
piano merchants but one merchant who in the slight-
est sense concurred in the "suggestions." The gen-
eral consensus of piano merchants that I have inter-
viewed is, that the industry is in great need of good,
conscientious, steady working, loyal salesmen. Every
result has back of it, some cause. The thing that has
resulted in driving so many piano salesmen from the
music arena, seems to be the fact that other selling
lines of endeavor are more profitable.
To Win Back Salesmen.
There should be some way to win back the capable
salesmen. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the
influences from other lines that drew them from the
piano business, if properly put into effect by piano
merchants, would draw them back. If we want to
ascertain the whyso ask the salesmen themselves.
They will tell you that they are doing better in
other lines; that they are treated better by other em-
ployers; that they find a more kindly spirit evinced
by the employers in other lines; that they are given
more encouragement by the employers in other lines;
that they are happier because they are treated better.
The gentleman that makes these "suggestions"'
may not agree with these salesmen. He may think
that they are all wrong in their conclusions. He may
think like the boy that saw the soldiers marching along
and said: "Everybody was out of step but Jim." This
gentleman that does not wish to give his name may
be designated as "Jim" in this case. There are a few
good thoughts in his suggestions, but most of them
are extreme.
The Necessities.
To sell a great many pianos, w T e must have a great
many salesmen. They cannot be forced into service.
] f their services are enlisted and the proper effort is
aot made to make it profitable, permanent and pleas-
ant, it doesn't take a sage nor a philosopher to realize
that they will soon drift away again. Most piano
merchants are beginning to reailze that the "com-
mission plan of compensation," was very good during
prosperous war times, and was satisfactory to sales-
men, but is now archaic, and should be abandoned.
The "war times" are over. The "boom" days are
over, and the "starvation commission contract" is the
greatest detriment to the progress of piano business
at the present time. The commission plan is abso-
lutely a curse to the music business today.
One of the most successful merchants in the
United States has his headquarters in Kansas City.
This institution is nationally known as having always
been opposed to "commissions," and "the commis-
sion plan." This institution believes in paying a
salary and awarding bonuses for extra service and
additional results.
Favor for Salary.
There are many arguments in favor of a nominal
or fair salary paid weekly, with a monthly bonus.
Some time since the head of a large house told me
that he had tried all the various plans, and that this
one had shown a gain in their business of forty per
cent. It had brought about a better class of sales.
It had created more loyalty among the sales force.
It had put every man on his metal, put heart in his
salesmen; the assurance that merit on the part of
each would insure a just compensation for service
rendered. He said that under this plan they had
less conflict; that the inharmonies that arose over
who would get the commissions that once had existed
had disappeared.
I have had occasion to observe the trend of events
in the piano field, and heard the views of every
grade of piano salesman. Generally the straight com-
mission plan is distasteful. Fundamentally the com-
mission plan is based on the financial cost of market-
ing goods, or should be, and from that angle the-
oretically it seems all right. But the facts are that
it is fraught with a great deal of conflict and mis-
understanding. In the settlements between the sales-
man and the institution for which he works, the
salesman is always at a disadvantage because the
final arbiter has a selfish interest to serve, and is
therefore often very unfair to the salesman.
The gentleman is right when he says the piano
business in in a "deplorable condition." He doesn't
make that as a "suggestion." He makes the state-
ment as a fact, and every sane, thinking man in the
music arena knows it is true. What this grand old
industry needs is five times the salesmen at work that
are now selling pianos.
The Wise Procedure.
Mr. George Dowling of The Cable Company is
right when he says we need MORE PIAXO SALES-
MEN. Mr. Bond of the Weaver Piano Company of
York, Pa., was correct when he said the way to in-
crease the OUTPUT of PIANOS for the nation is
to PUT MORE SALESMEN IN T H E FIELD. I
have set forth in this article the way to get more
salesmen. Employ the salesmen on the RIGHT
BASIS. The salesmen are the soldiers that win the
battle of commerce. In this great country of over
one hundred million people there is a VAST ARMY
of good salesmen to be had. Get them! Pay them!
Get good ones. Many are doing this now. Cut out
"kicking" and cut in on doing things.
If the piano merchants and piano manufacturers
want more business, more profits, if they want better
business; want to strengthen their sales organiza-
tions and bring back old time prosperity, let them go
back to the old time methods of cooperation with
their salesmen. Let them take a few lessons from the
records of such men as George P. Bent, H. D. Cable,
W. W. Kimball, Charles Kohler, George Foster,
W. B. Armstrong, C. A. Smith and a number of
others who blazed the way to success. These men
had courage and vision, and they achieved wonderful
things under conditions much less favorable in the
commercial world than exist todav.
$2 The Year
MUSIC TRADE NEWS
AT WISCONSIN POINTS
Consolidation of Two Old Houses in Milwau-
kee Results in Roussellot & Luebtow
Music Co.—Other News.
With the news of the vacating of its downtown
store in Milwaukee, Wis., and the moving to the
uptown district by the Lyric Music Company, comes
the announcement of the consolidation of two of the
oldest and best known music houses in Milwaukee—
the Lyric Music Co. and the Luebtow Music Co.
The Luebtow Music Co. has been operating for sev-
eral years on North avenue, and now the two com-
panies will operate jointly at 3807 North avenue as
the Roussellot & Luebtow Music Co.
Joseph Roussellot and Merle Roussellot, his son,
have been operating the Lyric Music Co. on Wiscon-
sin avenue for a number of years, and with the con-
solidation of the two companies these men will
become part of the new organization, which staged
its formal opening this week in its enlarged quarters
on North avenue.
The new company handles the Kimball, Kranich
& Bach, Schumann, Milton Hazelton, Whitney and
Hinze pianos, as well as radios, phonographs, records,
player rolls and sheet music.
Formal opening of the Baldwin Piano Store at
Janesville, Wis., took place recently, introducing a
stock of grands, upright, player and reproducing
pianos. J. C. Taylor is proprietor of the new store,
which is located in quarters formerly occupied by
Kuhlow's Music Shop. A small stock left in the
music shop was sold by the proprietor, Benjamin
W. Kuhlow.
Al Lutz, who several years ago operated the Lutz
Piano Co. at Clintonville, Wis., has rented the Finney
Building at Clintonville and will open a modern music
shop in that city about February 18.
The Irving Zuelke building, a three-story block of
stores and offices at College and Oneida streets,
Appleton, Wis., was almost totally destroyed by fire
recently. The Zuelke Music store occupied the first
floor of the building while several other concerns
were housed in the building. The studio of the radio
station WAIZ which occupied the upper floors was
also destroyed. The loss is estimated at about $250,-
000. It was reported that Irving Zuelke, proprietor
of the shop, was taken to the hospital suffering from
a nervous collapse as a result of the fire.
MUSIC ADVERTISING IN
MINNEAPOLIS NEWSPAPERS
Foster & Waldo Leads Music Stores in Splendid Pub-
licity Showing for Three Years.
Music is appreciated in Minneapolis with propor-
tionate results in sale of music goods to judge by the
amount of newspaper space used by music houses
of that city for the year 1927. In this showing Foster
& Waldo only continued the same generous adver-
tising policy pursued in previous years.
In 1925, 1926 and 1927 Foster & Waldo used 1,018,-
832 agate lines of newspaper advertising and made
it pay handsomely. F"or display ads 931,282 lines were
used, and "for sale" lines amounted to 87,600. The
investment in advertising totalled for the three years
named $204,686.
In figures supplied by the statistical department
of the Minneapolis Journal the music dealers partici-
pating used in the three years mentioned 1,495,447
lines of display advertising. Of the total amount
Foster & Waldo used 931,282 lines, equaling 6 2 ^
per cent. The proud fact is stated that for forty-six
years the Minneapolis Journal and Tribune have not
gone to press without a Foster & Waldo classified ad.
Other good and persistent newspaper advertisers
in Minneapolis for the three years named were The
Cable Piano Co., Cammack Piano Co., and the Metro-
politan Music Co.
The Portland, Ore., Conservatory of Music, under
the direction of Ruth Bradley Keiser, pianist, is
equipped with Steinway grands, purchased from the
local Sherman, Clay & Co. store.
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