Music Trade Review

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SINGLE CGPTES. 10 CENTS;
$ 2 oo PER YEAR
V O L . L V I I I . N o . 6 Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Feb. 7, 1914
The Value of Prompt Collections.
ETHODS of conducting trade are constantly changing, and the men who fail to dig down
into the very vitals of their business affairs with systematic regularity are liable to miss
matters of interesting importance contributing to the future success of their business.
It is one thing to sell, but quite another thing to sell well. After selling comes the
collections, and any house which is lax in the collection department is not liable to show the profits
which an outsider would suppose a business that represents apparent stability and success should
reveal.
Too many piano merchants are intent upon selling. They seem to think that selling pianos is
the whole thing. But is it?
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I contend that a piano is not well sold unless it is sold to parties who have not merely the
willingness but the resources to meet their deferred payments.
Because many piano merchants in the smaller localities are lax in the collection end of
the business supplies the best reason why they do not have on hand fair sized cash balances, and
why they are asking continually for renewals. Every piano man in this country, whether he sells
a piano a week or fifty pianos a week, should work upon a systematic, intelligent basis of collec-
tions. If he can go to his local bank and make a clean statement of his affairs, showing that his
collections are up to the minute and that his leases represent instruments well sold, because sold
to responsible parties who meet their payments with regularity and exactness, he will have no
trouble to finance his business; but it is not at all times an easy matter to finance a business which
represents indifference, ignorance and an absolute abandonment of business rules in the conduct of
an enterprise.
Banking men are keen and they readily see that a man who does not handle his own interests
with wisdom cannot reasonably be trusted with large credits.
Men who buy many pianos on long-time notes, with frequent renewals, are not apt to make a
clean-cut showing of the business; but if a dealer will see to it that his business is in proper shape,
and that collections are up to the minute, he should obtain, within reason, what money he desires
at his local banks without paying usurious rates to outside parties.
Bankers or other men who believe in maintaining legitimate business interests know full well
that no merchant, whether he sells pianos or paper weights, can run a successful enterprise if he
is paying large sums of money, which represent his net profits, to outside parties in order to keep
his business craft afloat.
Bankers are interested in seeing that legitimate business is supported in a fair and reasonable
manner.
Recently a leading banker in this city said to me that his bank proposed to support all legiti-
mate interests. In other words, that they would meet to the fullest extent the requirements of their
customers as long as they were satisfied that those demands came for a legitimate extension of the
business, but that they would not support anything which savored of the speculative or scheming
influence.
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This is a policy adopted by banks in many sections, and when piano merchants claim that the
local banks will not give them the encouragement and assistance that they think they should have*
the fault in many instances lies with themselves. They have not made the proper showing te
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local financial houses.
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