Music Trade Review
Issue: 1918 Vol. 66 N. 2 - Page 11
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MUSIC Tfy\DL
SALESMANSHIP
A Complete Section Devoted to Piano Salesmanship Published Each Month by The Music Trade Review
Service the Keynote of Piano Salesmanship in 1918
The Unprecedented Conditions Caused by the War Have Brought About a New
Attitude Regarding Salesmanship—Honest Value and Real Service the Essentials
OR the reason that business, in all its multifarious branches,
F has
occupied the largest share of public thought in the United
States, we find that salesmanship is treated with a formal respect
seldom accorded to similar work abroad. Whether we are not
sometimes buried under a mountain of talks, writings, sermons
and instructions on salesmanship, is perhaps an open question.
P.ut one thing is quite certain : Salesmanship during the coming
year, and later, is going to be something rather different from
what it has been supposed to be by the mass of people.
One will not deny that, to the majority, selling goods is still
thought of rather as a game of skill in which the prize goes to the
niic who is most dexterous in manipulating the cards. Of course,
nobody, even in a queer business like piano selling, really expects
any more to buy through a process of "jewing down"; but the
point is that piano values are not universally well understood,
and until they are more generally understood, there will be a feel-
ing on the part of the public towards the buying of pianos not
unlike that which is felt towards the buying of certain unlisted
securities; a feeling compounded largely of hope and not a little
of doubt.
In other words, the public still feels that when it goes to buy
a piano it is obliged to trust the honesty of the salesman and of
the house for which he sells. To the extent that this feeling of
confidence is widespread, the art of salesmanship becomes what it
always should have been and now is gradually coming to be: an
art whereby both parties to the transaction make a legitimate
profit in a legitimate way.
Salesmanship in which the interests of either party are satis-
lied to the exclusion of the other, is not true salesmanship at all;
it is merely legal polite brigandage on a mild scale, and should be
known and recognized as such.
Now that war times are with us, it is as plain as the nose on
your face that ideas and traditions which have been accepted in
the past as completely true are being estimated afresh and will
be treated with consideration or contempt, in the future, on an
entirely new basis of calculation. This war has already taught
the peoples of our Allies to know much that they never knew
before. It has shown them how little of the luxury and the
extravagance of the pre-bellum period was actually either neces-
sary or desirable. They have learned, these people, to reckon the
values of life in new terms. They have learned the beauty of
simplicity and of high thinking. And we, here in the U. S. A.,
are due for a similar mental revolution.
Depend on it, the biggest lesson to the American people that
the war is bringing, even now, is the lesson that the finer things of
life, the finer thoughts, the simpler ways, the higher kinds of
i ecreation, are the worth-while things. Extravagance, the cab-
aret, the public dance, the vulgar music, the whole company of
stupidities which have made up so much of the lives of the
younger people, are going to fade silently away, and in their
place will come better things; none better, and none more notable,
however, than music.
The year 1918 will be a musical year. It will also be a piano
year. But to the piano salesman it must also be a Service year.
That word Service is in danger, perhaps, of being worked
to death. But it is a good word. In business, the idea of Service
is that, in return for the money you get, you try to give a full
return, not just a legal full return or a customary full return, but
a moral full return. It means that when you sell a piano you sell
it only for its fair price, that you see the customer satisfied and
try to keep him satisfied, that you feel for him a continuing" inter-
est after you have his money, by seeing that he is taught what he
needs to know, that he is made accustomed to having his instru-
ment kept in good order, that he is brought to learn that your
position to him is that of a business friend, not merely an acci-
dental person who has relieved him of so much good money.
That is the true meaning of Service; and Service is the key-note
of 1918 brands in Salesmanship.
One cannot help saying that the big thought during war
times must be the thought of Loyalty. That means an awful
lot more than just being formally loyal to one's country. It
certainly does not mean damning the enemy. But it does mean
the realization on the part of each individual that he is not doing
what he should for America unless he is keeping up in his busi-
ness precisely the same spirit of loyalty to the idea of Service
that the boys who obediently have taken their places in the ranks
of the new army are showing daily. Those boys may not all
realize it in so many words; but in fact they are showing their
obedience to a law higher than the law of selfishness. If we at
home content ourselves with cheering them on, while we stay
behind and continue the old-time tricks, we shall be definitely
hurting the morale of the nation, and so shall be throwing obsta-
cles in the way of a speedy end to the war. That may sound
radical but it is perfectly true.
The 1918 brand of Salesmanship is a new thing, in its way,
but after all a very old thing. It is based on the idea that in
war times, when all is thrown into the balance, the business man
finds himself faced by the same choice as faces the soldier. He
must be either a loyal citizen or a traitor. To sell dishonestly is
to hurt some one's pocket. To do that is to hurt the morale and
the financial well-being of the whole nation. For the nation is
its individuals.
Specifically, what does this mean in the piano trade? It
means many things. It means that if we are to continue in this
trade, if, in spite of the difficulties of war times, we are to make
and sell pianos in greater quantity than ever, we must make up
our minds now to turn over a new leaf, standardize our values,
make the words "piano value" mean the same everywhere, abolish
fictitious values on trade-ins, and get down to a basis of prices
and terms that will satisfy both parties, remembering always
that the public never asked for the dollar down and fifty cents a
week plan till we offered it to them.
Honesty, Values, Service: These are the slogans for piano
selling in 1918.
MUSIC Tfy\DL
SALESMANSHIP
A Complete Section Devoted to Piano Salesmanship Published Each Month by The Music Trade Review
Service the Keynote of Piano Salesmanship in 1918
The Unprecedented Conditions Caused by the War Have Brought About a New
Attitude Regarding Salesmanship—Honest Value and Real Service the Essentials
OR the reason that business, in all its multifarious branches,
F has
occupied the largest share of public thought in the United
States, we find that salesmanship is treated with a formal respect
seldom accorded to similar work abroad. Whether we are not
sometimes buried under a mountain of talks, writings, sermons
and instructions on salesmanship, is perhaps an open question.
P.ut one thing is quite certain : Salesmanship during the coming
year, and later, is going to be something rather different from
what it has been supposed to be by the mass of people.
One will not deny that, to the majority, selling goods is still
thought of rather as a game of skill in which the prize goes to the
niic who is most dexterous in manipulating the cards. Of course,
nobody, even in a queer business like piano selling, really expects
any more to buy through a process of "jewing down"; but the
point is that piano values are not universally well understood,
and until they are more generally understood, there will be a feel-
ing on the part of the public towards the buying of pianos not
unlike that which is felt towards the buying of certain unlisted
securities; a feeling compounded largely of hope and not a little
of doubt.
In other words, the public still feels that when it goes to buy
a piano it is obliged to trust the honesty of the salesman and of
the house for which he sells. To the extent that this feeling of
confidence is widespread, the art of salesmanship becomes what it
always should have been and now is gradually coming to be: an
art whereby both parties to the transaction make a legitimate
profit in a legitimate way.
Salesmanship in which the interests of either party are satis-
lied to the exclusion of the other, is not true salesmanship at all;
it is merely legal polite brigandage on a mild scale, and should be
known and recognized as such.
Now that war times are with us, it is as plain as the nose on
your face that ideas and traditions which have been accepted in
the past as completely true are being estimated afresh and will
be treated with consideration or contempt, in the future, on an
entirely new basis of calculation. This war has already taught
the peoples of our Allies to know much that they never knew
before. It has shown them how little of the luxury and the
extravagance of the pre-bellum period was actually either neces-
sary or desirable. They have learned, these people, to reckon the
values of life in new terms. They have learned the beauty of
simplicity and of high thinking. And we, here in the U. S. A.,
are due for a similar mental revolution.
Depend on it, the biggest lesson to the American people that
the war is bringing, even now, is the lesson that the finer things of
life, the finer thoughts, the simpler ways, the higher kinds of
i ecreation, are the worth-while things. Extravagance, the cab-
aret, the public dance, the vulgar music, the whole company of
stupidities which have made up so much of the lives of the
younger people, are going to fade silently away, and in their
place will come better things; none better, and none more notable,
however, than music.
The year 1918 will be a musical year. It will also be a piano
year. But to the piano salesman it must also be a Service year.
That word Service is in danger, perhaps, of being worked
to death. But it is a good word. In business, the idea of Service
is that, in return for the money you get, you try to give a full
return, not just a legal full return or a customary full return, but
a moral full return. It means that when you sell a piano you sell
it only for its fair price, that you see the customer satisfied and
try to keep him satisfied, that you feel for him a continuing" inter-
est after you have his money, by seeing that he is taught what he
needs to know, that he is made accustomed to having his instru-
ment kept in good order, that he is brought to learn that your
position to him is that of a business friend, not merely an acci-
dental person who has relieved him of so much good money.
That is the true meaning of Service; and Service is the key-note
of 1918 brands in Salesmanship.
One cannot help saying that the big thought during war
times must be the thought of Loyalty. That means an awful
lot more than just being formally loyal to one's country. It
certainly does not mean damning the enemy. But it does mean
the realization on the part of each individual that he is not doing
what he should for America unless he is keeping up in his busi-
ness precisely the same spirit of loyalty to the idea of Service
that the boys who obediently have taken their places in the ranks
of the new army are showing daily. Those boys may not all
realize it in so many words; but in fact they are showing their
obedience to a law higher than the law of selfishness. If we at
home content ourselves with cheering them on, while we stay
behind and continue the old-time tricks, we shall be definitely
hurting the morale of the nation, and so shall be throwing obsta-
cles in the way of a speedy end to the war. That may sound
radical but it is perfectly true.
The 1918 brand of Salesmanship is a new thing, in its way,
but after all a very old thing. It is based on the idea that in
war times, when all is thrown into the balance, the business man
finds himself faced by the same choice as faces the soldier. He
must be either a loyal citizen or a traitor. To sell dishonestly is
to hurt some one's pocket. To do that is to hurt the morale and
the financial well-being of the whole nation. For the nation is
its individuals.
Specifically, what does this mean in the piano trade? It
means many things. It means that if we are to continue in this
trade, if, in spite of the difficulties of war times, we are to make
and sell pianos in greater quantity than ever, we must make up
our minds now to turn over a new leaf, standardize our values,
make the words "piano value" mean the same everywhere, abolish
fictitious values on trade-ins, and get down to a basis of prices
and terms that will satisfy both parties, remembering always
that the public never asked for the dollar down and fifty cents a
week plan till we offered it to them.
Honesty, Values, Service: These are the slogans for piano
selling in 1918.
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).