Coin Machine Review (& Pacific ...)

Classified Directories Rich
Source of Business for Operators
by CLARENCE BEARDSLEE
A strange thing happened in Chicago re-
cently_ A cafe owner wanted some auto-
matic music in his place and had a
dickens of a time finding an operator!
That man's experience points up a sit-
uation that music operators everywhere
should keep constantly in mind_ It is easy
to overlook the fact that while the public
is perfectly familiar with automatic phono-
graphs, vending machines, and service
machines, the general public doesn't know
/low the machines are operated or any of
the other details that the operator takes
for granted_
The cafe owner we just mentioned knew
what an automatic phonograph is, all right,
and he had had plenty of operators solicit
him in the past- But for some reason,
he had never wanted automatic music and
he threw the operators' business cards
away_ Then he had a change of heart.
He wanted music right now. There are
hundreds of operators in Chicago-but
as far as he was concerned they might
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as well have been in Dixie, because he
didn't know how to locate them.
That may seem silly to the coinman
who lives, eats and sleeps coin machines.
But this cafe owner was like thousands
of other husinessmen. To make a short
story shorter, he finally decided to look
in the classified telephone directory, the
Red Book, and there he found a couple
of operators.
This man's cafe is now a top-flight music
spot and the operator is making an ex-
cellent profit. The ironic thing is that
anyone of a dozen operators might have
had a chance to get this location, which
was demanding music. The operator who
did get the location was one who realized
that the classified telephone directory is
one of the most important and readily ac·
cessible sources of business information for
people in every city.
Stop and think how often the directory
is used. A man's plumbing fails and water
is flooding his store. He's never had
plumbing trouble before and doesn't
know any plumbers. He grabs the classi-
fie.d directory, looks under the plumber
listing, spots a large advertisement which
offers the service he needs, and gives that
firm a ring. In a matter of minutes, his
trouble is taken care of. Another man has
to have a package sent across town in a
hurry. The phone directory has a long
Jist of delivery services, The man's in a
hurry. He sees a big delivery service ad-
vertisement. A big ad means a big com-
pany, he reasons . . . a big company gets
things done right . . . he calls the com·
pany that has the big ad.
Many other examples could be cited. All
would prove that the classified telephone
directory in every large and medium sized
city is consulted for sellers of products or
services thousands of times a day. These
books not only are a mine of informa-
tion, they are also tremendous sources of
business for every type of firm. And it
isn't a book that is hard to find. Practi-
cally everybody has it!
Why don't operators everywhere make
more use of the classified directory ad-
vertising columns? There are many loca-
tions looking for operators, countless others
which are dissatisfied with present ser-
vice and ready to welcome a new operator
if they knew where to find one, and others
which would like to have cigarette, candy,
gum or other merchandise vending equip-
m'!nt if they knew how to go about getting
snch service.
In most cities the location owner will
find only a few operators advertising in
classified directories. One of the reasons
why so many operators overlook this
source of locations is that they forget that
theirs is a very specialized business. They
talk with other operators, coin machine
jobbers and distributors, and with loca-
tion owners who have had long experience
with amusement and vending machines,
and eventually they assume that everybody
knows that such machines are owned by
operators.
However, that isn't the case. Ask any
customer, "Who owns that machine you're
playing," and nine times out of ten the
answer will be, "The location." The gen-
eral public doesn't realize that operating
coin-controlled equipment is a big busi-
ness. The customer puts in a nickel, out
comes the music-and that's as far as his
knowledge goes. He doesn't even wonder
about who puts new records in the ma-
chine.
The same is true of many restaurant,
COIN MACHINE REVIEW