Music Trade Review

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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
DECEMBER 19,
1925
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
11
Dealing With the Foreign-Born Buyer
From the Proper Sales Angle
Foreign-Born a Dangerous Term in Handling This Type of Trade—The Proper Sort of Sales Force to
Cultivate One of the Retail Music Merchant's Most Fertile Sources of Sales—Appearances Are
Deceiving and the Dealer Who Goes by Them Loses Out in the Long Run
N these days of 100 per cent Americanism it
is well to be specific when referring to "for-
eigners" and "foreign" neighborhoods. A
good definition of the latter might be a locality
in which English is rarely spoken. This, of
course, gives only half the picture and one has
to imagine pushcarts on the curbs, untidy,
crowded streets and the ubiquitous urchins
properly to catalog in one's mind the term "for-
eign," as it is generally used. It is a rather dan-
gerous word. "Immigrant" is more satisfactory
and does not carry quite the same effect.
The Sales Force
Whatever one may choose to call them, such
neighborhoods have always been profitable
ground for exploiting a retail piano business, if
the dealer has insight enough not to be fright-
ened away by unprepossessing exteriors. His
problem is that of developing an outside sales
staff which is adapted to the job of gaining ac-
cess to the people's homes. Sometimes he will
find it necessary to employ as canvassers men
of the same nationality or religion as the resi-
dents of the particular neighborhood which is
being combed for prospective buyers. Often
some of his American salesmen or canvassers
possess the proper make-up for gaining the
entree.
It seems to make little difference whether the
immigrant neighborhood is located in a large
city or a small one. Those who have had ex-
perience in both claim that the metropolitan
tenement district, containing blocks and blocks
of apartments, ranks about the same in the mat-
ter of accessibility as the nest of cottages usu-
ally found along the railroad tracks of a manu-
facturing town in the Middle West. The mer-
chant will profit by making a personal trip to
the neighborhood to observe its special char-
acteristics before working out his plan of sales
attack.
Appearances Are Deceiving
Among the first things to be learned by the
music dealer about an immigrant section is that
the residents are not as poor as they look.
There are few families, indeed, who, when em-
ployment conditions are normal, cannot produce
a "nest egg" of several hundred dollars from a
crack in the floor. The laborer's family, which
includes several grown children going daily to
work, is certain to accumulate "money in the
sock" week after week and to cherish the hope
of living, some day, in more pleasant home
surroundings.
The sales resistance for such a family in buy-
ing a piano seems to be based on their inability
to pay the full amount in cash and on a dread
of instalment obligations. As soon as they are
sold on the instalment idea of getting immediate
utility for future payments a contract is quickly
signed. It is naturally up to the salesman not
to sell them too far on the instalment plan, in
order to obtain as much as possible on the down
payment. Such New York houses as the Story
& Clark Piano Co., the Biddle Piano Co., on
West 125th street; the Sterling Piano Corp.,
Brooklyn, and others, which derive a good per-
centage of their outside business from the im-
migrant neighborhoods, report that the down
payments from the laboring classes are far in
excess of those of the clerical classes living in
the more desirable neighborhoods.
Another thing to be observed by the music
merchant or his canvasser about the immigrant
is that he is generally honest, if he is given fair
I
treatment. O. Freund, Jr., manager of the re-
tail store of the Biddle Piano Co., states that
this quality makes so many of their foreign-
born customers pay off their contracts promptly.
"It is not an unusual experience for us to have
an Italian or Hungarian patron keep his ac-
count paid up three or four months in advance,"
said Mr. Freund. "The consciousness of having
an overhanging debt on the books of an Ameri-
can seems to bother them more than the aver-
age native-born citizen, who is more familiar
with the laws and the extent of the liberty
afforded him."
Music-loving
A further characteristic fully as important to
the music dealer is that the immigrants as a
class are music-loving. Italy, Poland, Austria,
Russia, which countries supply the bulk of the
immigrants living in such communities as have
been described, count themselves as being
among the most musical nations of the world.
Persons coming to America from these coun-
tries bring with them a background of national
opera which fitted into their standard of living
across the ocean more readily than such enter-
tainment does in this country. They have to
content themselves with weekly gatherings of
singing socities or free band concerts in the
Summer, and many of them become musically
starved without knowing it. That this makes
them a rich field for developing piano prospects,
combined with the qualities of thrift and hon-
esty, goes without saying.
"Clannishness"
There are, of course, countless other charac-
teristics which work to the advantage of the
music merchant in extending his sales in the
immigrant sections. One of the most important
of these is their "clannishness," or tendency to
mix only with acquaintances of their own na-
tionality. Let one family in such a group buy
a piano or player and it will not be a month
before the sisters and cousins and aunts will
be demanding the same type of instrument for
their homes. The immigrant neighborhoods
thus offer an excellent field for the working of
that delight of all salesmen—the endless chain.
An interesting anecdote illustrating this par-
ticular point is told by Harry F. Bieling in con-
nection with his early experiences in the Brook-
lyn branch of the Pease Piano Co., of which he
is now manager. Mr. Bieling started with the
concern as a floor salesman in the phonograph
department. One day the manager of the store
told him that the piano sales were falling short
that season and asked him to try his hand in
developing prospects in the field.
The Psychological Moment
Mr. Bieling hopped on a Grand street trolley
and rode to the end of the line. He had been
given no instruction where to go and thought
he would start canvassing in the section of
Queens, where he spent his boyhood. Without
any plan in mind after he arrived there, he made
his way to a small Italian barber shop and got
a shave. The barber recognized him, after
many years, and asked him what he was doing.
"I'm selling pianos now," said Mr. Bieling, "and
I came out here to sell you one." The barber
said he did not have a piano, and that he had
been planning to get one for some time, so Mr.
Bieling stayed on for an hour and made an ap-
pointment for a demonstration at the store on
the following evening.
The important part of the story is not that
he sold the piano, or a player, but that he ar-
ranged to call and install it on the evening of
the christening of the barber's youngest child.
There were many relatives at the affair (very
many, Mr. Bieling stated), and he was the only
non-Italian person present. Wine flowed freely
and before the evening was over Mr. Bieling
had two more store appointments for relatives
of the barber. In the course of about three
months more than eleven sales resulted from the
original one, although Mr. Bieling found it nec-
essary to devote several other evenings to wine
parties and social gatherings of this particular
group.
It is not to be inferred from the foregoing
that the immigrant sections represent "easy
pickings" for the music dealer or his canvasser.
In spite of their love for music and their ready
cash, the foreign-born group offers, perhaps,
more sales resistance than the average Ameri-
can. They have to be sold in a definite, straight-
forward manner. They are often flattered at
being invited into a downtown showroom for a
demonstration and once they hear a few strains
of their native music on the player-piano it is
not hard to convince them that this instrument
will transform their home. Sales resistance in
the immigrant sections is quite regularly in the
form of a standardized argument, and when the
salesman finds the proper suggestion to meet it
the road is cleared for many sales.
Atwater Kent to Offer
Christmas Radio Concert
Concert Next Sunday Evening to Be Devoted
to Singing of Christmas Hymns and Carols
by Notable Quartet of Stars
One of the most interesting of the series of
Atwater Kent Sunday night concerts through
Station W E A F of the American Telephone &
Telegraph Co., a dozen or more connected sta-
tions, will be that offered on next Sunday eve-
ning, December 20, when a notable quartet, con-
sisting of Jeanette Vreeland, soprano; Elsie Ba-
ker, contralto; Lambert Murphy, tenor, and
William Simmons, baritone, will present a con-
cert of Christmas music, featuring those hymns
and carols associated so strongly with Yule-
tide.
In addition to the several numbers sung by
the quartet, including, "Sing, O Heavens," "Si-
lent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem,"
and "Holy Night," the several members of the
quartet will also sing solo numbers during the
course of the program.
Ivers & Pond Co. Ships
75,000th Piano to Vermont
Instrument Goes to Same Dealer Who Bought
Pianos Nos. 25,000 and 50,000 From Boston
Company
The interesting fact that the 75,OOOth piano
made by the Ivers & Pond Piano Co., Cambridge,
Mass., has been shipped to the same Vermont
retailer who bought the first Ivers & Pond piano
built nearly fifty years ago was made public
by the company last week. The announcement
also stated that the Vermont concern had the
distinction of securing Nos. 25,000 and 50,000.