Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE
effects of the short crop." Money has been tight and interest rates
have been ruling high, but credit was becoming too cheap and too
much business was being done on too little capital. A business
should be developed out of the profit of that business and not of
the ability of the company to borrow money.
The affairs of Wall street do not seriously affect business con-
ditions in the West. Tightness of the money market may affect
railroad development and other large enterprises, but it will have
no serious effect on the retail dealers in the Central and Western
States, except to cause them to be more careful in conducting their
business. It seems that there will be a continuation of the present
favorable conditions for the rest of the year, but it is not perhaps a
good time to embark on any new experiments or new enterprises.
I
N these days of close competition it does not pay for the busi-
ness man to sit down and wait for trade to come to him. The
piano dealer who clings to this old-fashioned system is fast losing
his influence. Trade does not come easily, forcing its way through
our doors nowadays. It requires hard work and intelligent effort
to produce business. ,One must keep everlastingly at it, and pub-
licity is in the truest sense the largest business getting policy that
any music trade concern can adopt and the more publicity which
is injected into the business program the better it will be. It will
help to stimulate confidence and it will bring golden results to those
who follow it.
We might take a leaf from the history of some of the notable
concerns of our day. Take the Aeolian Co. for instance. The
advertising program for the fall and winter is the most extensive
and elaborate ever planned by this great music trade institution.
Four page supplements will appear in the leading magazines
straight through the season and many of these will be along edu-
cational lines, .which will assist the general trade by cultivating an
interest in music. There is no slowing up in the plans of this
great institution and summer and winter a definite program is
rigidly adhered to. That it pays is evidenced by the enormous
trade developed by the Aeolian Co.
The more publicity which is given to a particular product the
more demand for it and if all merchants would plan now to expand
their appropriations in general and special lines of publicity they
would help business along materially. It is not a time when con-
traction should be in evidence for business plans. It is rather a
time to encourage purchasing in all special products.
T
HERE is a general belief that it pays to buy carefully for the
current demands of various enterprises. It perhaps is well
to encourage this principle just now and we would suggest that
now would be the time for dealers to adopt methods of pushing
collections with slow payers and get their business in first-class
condition.
General credits are being revised as a whole more closely than
usual. This is due somewhat to the newspaper talk of close finan-
cial times near at hand. The great trouble is perhaps that the
papers have too much to say about the general money conditions
and the manufacturing interests of the country become more or
less stirred up.
The head of the Rothschild house, who has recently been in-
terviewed in London on the depression of the money market as
evidenced by the prevailing price of consols, says that stocks are
low because the governments all over the world are hitting capi-
talists. He went on to say that Mr. Roosevelt's speeches against
the conducting of the American railroads are greatly disturbing the
foreign market. He continued: "We must all admit that the
manipulation of railroad stocks in the United States hasn't always
been quite what it should have been, but this doesn't detract from
the serious character of the President's campaign. It is difficult,
nay, almost impossible, as things stand, for us to furnish from this
country fresh capital for railway developments across the water."
I
N San Francisco and territory directly contiguous to that point
trade is dull, as may be expected when the actual conditions
are known there. In Southern California business is in very good
shape. The mills of Alfred Dolge at that point have been running
to the utmost to supply orders from Eastern piano manufacturers.
In the Central West trade conditions are satisfying. There
will be a big business done in the Central Western States during
the coming fall and winter in all lines of products.
REVIEW
Enthusiasm will help to turn the trick.
We are all co-partners in the great sum of humanity.
Selling consumes energy, you bet, but it likewise produces money.
Do not allow yourself to acquire a feverish appetite for luxuries.
It is no use to cry over the spilt milk of a lost opportunity. Don't
spill any more.
It sort of looks to The Review man that slightly used automobiles
may be cheap in the near future.
Ambition and opportunity go hand in hand. Don't let the one slip
or the other may get away from you.
Failure to close a sale should be studied from the standpoint of a
salesman. What he did, how he did it, and why.
The successful man inscribes on his banner the words of that Her-
culean young woman who has been made typical of Chicago "I will."
Business is pretty fair all over the country. Are you embracing all
the opportunities? Don't sit around and talk dull times, just hustle.
Study the advertising of your firm. It will be fatal if your arguments
are not as impressive as the advertising talk that has preceded you.
Analyze yourself and determine from a selling standpoint which is
the weakest point in your make-up, then brace and double-brace that point.
Barring pugilists there is hardly a class of people subject to such
racking' vicissitudes and unhygienic methods as the traveling salesman.
Forget it—that panicky feeling. This is the time to talk business,
not pessimism. Uncle Sam is too rich and too happy to be disturbed
over a little financial matter.
"Let us return to the ways of our fathers," said a Republican orator
in the South, and he was angered by the objection of a colored man named
Jones, until it was explained that the elder Jones was in his day a noted
chicken thief.
Now we have aerial navigation. We haven't heard of a piano being
located in any of these airships as yet. Which will be the first? With
the telegraph, talking machine, telephone, and the wireless the fables told
to children of one generation become realized commonplaces of those of
the next.
AN ALARMING DISCOVERY.—Holy Moses! Prof. Hugo Munster-
berg, of Harvard, has discovered a cure for liars! Suppose our wives
should get hold of one of the infernal remedies! Shades of Jupiter!
What shall we do?—Ozone Kicker.
Don't worry, brother. If it is a good thing it will get in the hands
of a trust and get so high newspaper people can't afford one.
THE ESSENTIAL.—At a Milwaukee elementary school the teacher
closed some pregnant remarks on the effect of sunshine on the ripening
corn, with the question: "And now can any one tell me what is the most
necessary thing for the harvest, the thing that the farmer pays for, the
thing that the laborer must have if his work is not to be valueless? Hans
Schmidt, you raised your hand first. It is for you to tell the class what,
of course, they already know. Speak, Hans, speak."
"Beer," said Hans.
ABOUT TRAIN TIME.—A well-known piano traveler recently went
into a barber's shop in Kansas City to get a shine, and decided to inquire
about his train. "Say," he said, addressing the negro bootblack, "what
time does the Missouri Pacific leave for St. Louis this morning?"
"Yoh mean the one that makes the daylight run?" queried the negro.
"Yes, that's the one," said the man.
"It ah the train that connec's wif the one frum Leaveswuth, ain't it?"
asked the bootblack as he brushed away.
"Yes."
"Runs fru Wahnsbu'gh?"
"Yes."
"An' Jeffahson City?"
"Yes."
"Ah knows the train yoh means, all right. Stan's on the secon' er
thud track., doan' it?"
"I think it does."
"Changes ingines
. Le's see. Wha' do that train change ingines?"
"I don't know," came from the piano man. "What I want to know
is its leaving time."
"Ah knows jes' what you wants, an' Ah knows jes' 'xactly what train
yoh means."
"Well, when does it leave?"
"Oh, yes, who do it leave? Ah's suah Ah doan' know 'bout that,
boss," was the negro's reply.