Music Trade Review

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VOL. LXI. N o . 20 Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Nov. 13, 1915 S I N G £ O C P E R E ! E A I P N T S
Contributing Factors to Business
E
VERY one who is connected with a business enterprise, whether as porter, office boy, telephone
girl or a salesman, is either contributing to the upbuilding of that particular business, or, is
helping along its defeat through contributory acts in some way or other.
How is he or she doing it?
Either by courtesy or discourtesy, and I believe that this truth is but little understood and less
appreciated by the heads of many important business organizations.
Take a driver on a delivery wagon, for illustration. If he is surly or discourteous he is creating
a force which operates distinctly antagonistic to the firm for which he works, and no one can tell just
how far that influence will reach. I have noticed this distinctly in very many instances.
Some of the drivers who deliver in the suburbs, are courteous and tactful, and aid in building the
good will for their firm; others who are surly and rude help to break down patronage.
Think of a concern retailing millions of dollars every year practically at the mercy of discour-
teous drivers!
Now, if a driver is uniformly courteous he establishes in the mind of the customer upon whom
he calls that his own courteous personality is but a reflex of the company which he represents, and
that it is pleasant to deal with such a house.
Some time ago I wrote an article on SALESMANSHIP, showing the power of the telephone as a
business-building force, and that the telephone operator in an establishment made a good or bad
impression of the house by her conversation over the wires. People naturally reasoned that the oper-
ator's tone represented in a sense the treatment of the establishment towards a customer, and that
the attitude of the telephone operator reflects that of her employers. That is where the telephone, like
the drivers, may be made a very large business-building force.
Extreme courtesy can be carried to the minutest point, and as a tactful and intelligent business-
building force, the powers of the telephone are tremendous, if worked properly.
I may say in this connection that the officials of the telephone company saw in this suggestion a
power which they could utilize, and they did not hesitate to immediately avail themselves of it.
Take the office boy: if he is surly and tactless good customers may be frequently repelled, and,
of course, when you get up to the question of salesmanship, we expect that the men who occupy
important positions in the selling end of the business have enough intelligence to at all times be
tactful in their treatment of callers, but it is not always so.
Sometimes they are surprisingly rude and callers are seriously offended and lake Iheir patronage
elsewhere. So we see how every factor in the business is instrumental in either building a trade edifice
or steadily pulling it down.
It is courtesy and service in treating the smallest customer with just the same fine treatment
which should be extended to the largest that builds a business enterprise.
I remember a story which J. Burns Brown, who in his day was one of the cleverest piano sales-
men in New York, told me years ago about a party who entered Chickering Hall just about closing
time. He was evidently a laborer, as his clothes bore the hall-mark of service and were bespattered
with plaster, presumably from bricklaying.
Some of the salesmen near the entrance looked upon this late caller as a freak of some kind and
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