Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
THE TRADE GOAL—NET PROFITS.
(Continued from page 3.)
there is a growing number of dealers complaining of the ever increasing percentage of their sales
involving trade-ins.
This oftentimes means the making of two sales in order to earn one profit, and unless the
dealer is a very careful and shrewd trader it is apt to mean two sales without any profit.
The player-piano is destined to become a dominant factor. The percentage of increase in the
business this year in player-pianos will be surprisingly large by the time we reach the end of the
year. Hence there are more trade-ins all the while, and every piano merchant should figure care-
fully to see that in these big trade-in propositions he is doing business at a profit and not at a loss.
He should figure that the maintenance of a player-piano will cost him more than a straight
piano—hence all of these things should be carefully estimated, else some of them will be trading
themselves out of all profits.
With the changing times and conditions men also must change
their business policies. We ought not to hold to old-time methods
when we can adopt new ones which are more suitable to our modern
mercantile conditions—net profits, that is the trade goal.
The Tangible Results of Good Advertising.
T
HE apparent and tangible results of good advertising—its out-
side work—arg increasing sales, winning new customers,
adding new dealers, standardizing a trade-mark, earning that great-
est of business assets, good will.
But advertising does more, it does inside work as well, it
produces unearned increments- less clearly grasped and not so
easily impressed on the non-advertiser—particularly the incredu-
lous non-advertiser. One of its most valuable results is its stimu-
lating, enthusing, uniting effect on all the members of the organi-
zation, from the head of the firm to the office boy.
Advertising is bound to raise the standard of the goods adver-
tised. No one can afford to pay out thousands of dollars pushing
a poor, unsatisfactory article where first sales represent little or no
profit. Advertising alone will not hold customers long or bring
the reorders necessary to success. Merit alone will do that. You
may take it for granted that a persistently advertised article in
these days is exactly what it purports to be, otherwise it could not
continue to be exploited.
As the manufacturing standards and selling methods improve,
as the output grows and the plant enlarges, as distribution follows
in the wake of advertising, as the goods appear attractively dis-
played in stores from one end of the country to the other, a natural
pride in the product spreads throughout the organization. It is
human nature. Everyone, knowingly or unknowingly, shares it.
Salesmen, too, have come to realize the assistance of adver-
tising to them individually. Those who were once loudest in their
condemnation have become its strongest supporters. The insistent
demand for the goods caused by advertising has simplified their
work, heightened their interest and increased their sales. It creates
esprit dc corps and confidence both in the goods and the organiza-
tion. If you don't believe this ask the big advertiser—the man
competent to give an expert opinion.
That in liberal advertising of a product the manufacturer
gives the buyer his greatest protection is the idea put forth by
many prominent advertising men. The reason is that the firm
making a piano or any other product is willing to affix its name
and stake its reputation upon the goods fulfilling the claims made
in the advertising.
Manufacturers who conduct their business upon this modern
manner of merchandising set aside a certain appropriation each
year for advertising purposes. At first thought it may seem that
this is a tax which the consumer pays, but instead it is an insurance,
just as you pay a premium to protect your property against fire.
The very fact that even though the consumer must pay a cer-
tain amount of the purchase money of his product toward the pub-
licity that has been given the piano is the protection the buyer
obtains in the guarantee it thus gives him as to the strength of the
manufacturer's claims and to the value that is created for the
product through this publicity.
It is natural to have more confidence in persons whom we meet
who have been well introduced and whose record is presented to us
by persons in whom we had confidence than we have in chance
acquaintances, and advertising merely is the introduction and the
record that are put before the buyer as to the trustworthiness of
the article mentioned.
Publicity has been the great guarantee of fair dealing. In the
language of the day it is the one thing that forces all the cards
on the table, and it is as impossible for a firm to succeed and be
unfair in the quality of its product as it is hazardous for the buyer
to choose any article, whether it be pianos, automobiles, clothing or
friends that are not properly introduced through the recommenda-
tion either of acquaintances in whom we have absolute confidence,
unless the article is advertised in such a manner that the mere fact
of the advertising guarantees the truthfulness of the claim.
Should Ability Counterbalance Age?
HOULD ability counterbalance age in the employment of men
in the piano or any other trade, is a question that arises in
every business establishment. Some concerns have an "age limit"
for the employment of salesmen, believing that the younger men
possess more initiative and energy in securing results in the de-
velopment of their plans than those who have passed the forty-year
mark. There are other firms who believe that age should not count
unless a man is "in a rut," in ill health, or is destitute of ideas.
When the manager of a large wholesale house in the West
was asked if he fixed an "age limit" in engaging help or the promo-
tion of employes, he answered emphatically: "I most certainly do.
S
When I want a good man I make certain that he is not too young."
"You said 'young'?"
"I did, advisedly. I don't care how many years may have
passed over his head, if in appearance and record he shows that he
has enough vim and vital force to do good work in the job for
which he is chosen. In addition to these he is likely to have enough
judgment and experience to prevent his making the errors a very
young man is likely to make. There are no 'old men' in our estab-
lishment. A number of them have passed the fifty-year mark, but
they are 'up and coming' every day in the year, like the twenty-
year olds. As long as they feel that way they are still voting."