Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE
N later years some piano establishments have adopted the plan
of having their men meet the departmental heads at regular
monthly intervals, either at a dinner or some informal gathering,
and discuss regularly the best methods of accomplishing business
results and making salesmanship nearer a profession. Sales-
manship should rank as a profession. It is not merely an occupa-
tion conducted along automatic lines, but it is in truth a calling
which requires the exercising of keen intelligence, tactfulness and
discrimination at all times, and in none of the divisions of salesman-
ship should there be greater intelligence required than in piano
selling.
I
OME of the rising salesmen fully appreciate the truth of this,
and they have endeavored to advance their position by develop-
ing themselves in every way so that their occupation will be more
remunerative, and in this way they strive to please the heads of the
firms with whom they are associated.
The power to please is a tremendous asset, and what can be
more valuable than a personality which always attracts and never
repels. It is valuable in business and every field of life. Some men
attract business as naturally as magnets attract particles of steel.
Business moves draw them, and when we analyze the causes which
led up to their success we will find that they have attractive qual-
ities which come under the general term—personality.
S
T a meeting of the State Association of Hardware Dealers of
Wisconsin a number of views were expressed regarding the
mail order house competition. One member said the fact that they
have been constantly growing and enlarging their business is proof
to every successful man that they must be selling goods at very
low figures, and to-day there is but one plan that can be accom-
plished and. carried out by the retail merchants for their own pro-
tection against the mail order houses, and that is organization. Each
and every line of business rhust organize, either as a State body or
as a National body. The hardware men of Wisconsin are organized
fairly, and they can apply common-sense methods which will give
them back at least the lion's share of the mail order business in a
very simple and inexpensive manner.
A
ACH and every line of business must organize. Here are
some of the opinions expressed by the gentlemen referred to
above: "Let us state now, for argument's sake, that every retail
hardwareman of Wisconsin, organized as a body as you now are
organized, will contribute even as little as $i per month, or you
might make it $2 per month, which would be $24 tax a year on
every retail hardwareman of Wisconsin for the purpose of promot-
ing a special publicity department. The special publicity depart-
ment can be located either in Milwaukee or Chicago, or in any
other city centrally located. Each month there will be an income of
not less than eight hundred dollars. This will be sufficient to pay
the expenses of the organization and to pay for the printing, elec-
trotyping, etc., of the special bulletin which will be published month-
ly for each and every member of the association.
"Suppose you get out a four-page bulletin, a sample of which
we can submit to you at any time and which we have used with
first-class effect wherever we have had the support of the mer-
chants. These bulletins would cost not to exceed $3 per 1,000,
including printing, paper and labor. Each and every member of
the association, let us state 400 in number, would receive 1,000
of these bulletins on the first of every month. These bulletins will
have listed therein the name of every merchant as a member of the
association. Each and every merchant could send out these bulle-
tins to the farmers in his territory, the bulletins to have a complete
list of bargains taken from the catalogues of the mail order houses,
such as
silverware, a special price on a range, and so on, as
low as they can be bought from the mail order houses, to be shipped
direct from the manufacturer through the association headquarters.
"In fact, take twenty-five or fifty or even more of the leading
bargains that are listed in the hardware department of the mail
order houses and make these same prices, only that you offer to
ship the large articles direct from the factory, such as ranges,
churns, washing machines, etc. There is not a single article but
what 400 merchants, such as the Hardware Association of Wis-
consin, reputable merchants, each and every one having a first-class
credit, can buy just as cheaply as the mail order houses.
E
REVIEW
M
AIL order competition certainly is attracting attention of re-
tail merchants in every line of trade. In the piano line
thus far they have not cut a large figure, but indications point to a
greater increase in piano sales direct to the consumer by these great
institutions than ever before. They are issuing a vast amount of
literature, aimed directly at the home purchaser, and they are using
a number of piano advertisements in a manner which is liable to in-
fluence customers towards the mail order house rather than the
regular stores.
One dealer writing to The Review upon this subject said that
he favored a movement by the National Association of Dealers to
the effect that every man should pledge himself not to buy of a
piano manufacturer who supplied instruments to the mail order
houses.
If this move were adopted some of the concerns would no
doubt feel that the dealers had dealt rather harshly with them. But
still it is extremely difficult to supply successfully two lines of
trade which are so strongly opposed to each other as the mail order
houses and the regular dealers.
T
HE importance of trade paper advertising has never been more
generally recognized than to-day, proof of which is seen in
the constantly growing patronage bestowed upon leading trade
journals in every industry. The personal influence of the retail
merchant is a powerful factor in determining the taste or desire
of the consumer, and the retailer is influenced more strongly by his
favorite trade journals than by any other source.
Of course personal interviews and solicitation for business is
the most direct way to secure trade, but good trade paper work is
conceded to be a helpful adjunct to industry by all thinking men
in their respective industries.
T
HE dealers' influence is essential, and the retail trade of the
country can be reached more completely through trade jour-
nals than any other line of public mediums. They appeal directly
to ^ those who are interested in manufactured products, and every
paper which is sent out from the office of a trade publication
reaches someone who has more or less interest in the products
exploited in the columns of that journal.
Trade papers, too, have made a wonderful advance. Many
of them which started as house organs years ago are splendid
journalistic products which reflect credit upon the industry which
makes their existence possible. There is to-day a greater demand
for clean, well-conducted, straightforward trade mediums, and such
papers have a brilliant future.
And why should they not? They are all helping to build up
the industrial life of this country.
A
MANUFACTURER, while discussing association topics with
The Review this week, remarked: "If the Piano Manufac-
turers' Association has accomplished nothing more than to have
established a system of reporting so that dealers who have not dealt
squarely with one of our craft cannot impose easily upon another
brother, it would have accomplished sufficient to have justified its
existence. I feel that there is a better spirit existing to-day between
the makers of musical instruments than ever before, and much of
this is due largely to association work." There are many people who
expect too much from association effort and do not contribute what
they should to help it along.
I
T is necessary that a man should respect his own profession if
he expects to win followers in any line, and the man who
attempts to belittle his own following exhibits to the world that he
has made a colossal failure of life. Every man who loves his
calling should conduct himself so as to win new adherents. He
should be a healthy custodian of its good name, and when you find
a man who casts ridicule upon his own profession and still con-
tinues in it, it is pretty safe to conclude that he has made a dismal
failure of it, and hasn't sufficient intelligence to hide his defeat.
P
IANO men haven't been disposing of a large number of instru-
ments to agents of the three great New York insurance com-
panies which have recently been under fire. But as a matter of fact
a good deal of money is being spent for pianos and other so-called
luxuries which would have been used in paying insurance premiums
had the expose of the internal rottenness of the great concerns never
occurred.