Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXIV. No. 7
Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y., Feb. 12, 1927
8ln
*i e 3 . 0 c 0 o Cyeap ent8
Self-Examination
and What It Will Tell Dealers
A Study of the Retail Music Merchant's Business in All Its
Ramifications Once Every Six Months Will Develop a Sur-
prising Amount of Information—An Article by F. Kunkel
PROGRESSIVE music dealer who be-
lieves in selling all the musical mer-
chandise he possibly can each year finds
it a good plan to get out his blue pencil once
every six months for the purpose of going over
the outstanding facts and figures of his business
activities.
As he makes this survey in both a critical and
constructive way, he analyzes his business ex-
perience step by step, for by thus reviewing
his past accomplishments he figures that he can
more effectively use those valued experiences
of yesterday to guide him more successfully for
to-morrow.
To enable him to accomplish his purpose, he
lias developed a certain series of questions which
lest these facts and figures in the crucible of ex-
perience, and his questionnaire-analysis inven-
tory method covers several essentials in manage-
ment, such as:
(1) Advertising Program;
(2) Salesmanship Methods;
(3) Stock Turnover;
(4) Cash or Credit Problems;
(5) Window Displays and Interior Arrange-
ment;
(6) Service and Business-Building.
On these fundamentals this music trades
dealer rests his future sales-building program.
He always plans to outdo himself for the future
and to make his efforts eclipse all previous at-
tempts.
As he proceeds with his critical analysis he
jots down plans and ideas which he is going
to use over again, works out new plans, dis-
cards old ones, and by means of certain ques-
tions which he asks himself from a typewritten
chart-questionnaire, he finds that he can at-
tack his merchandising problems more aggres-
sively and also achieve better results than by
any other method which he has tried for the
purpose of arriving at fool-proof business-
building, methods. His questionnaire-analysis is
something like this:
I. Advertising
Did I do enough advertising in recent months
—too much?
A
What type of ad pulled the best results?
Why?
Can I afford more advertising of the same
kind?
Should I cut down on my advertising pro-
gram?
Should I limit my ads to certain days—to cer-
tain special lines?
What lines should be more properly left to
r
HE retail music merchant who, at
periodic intervals, will investigate his
business, not so much from the standpoint
of inventory as from that of the mer-
chandising methods that he uses, will find
such an examination of surprising value to
him in developing the volume of his sales.
In this article is a series of questions which
one retail music merchant asks himself
every six months, that cover every phase of
his business, and which, if answered, give
information which can be obtained in no
other way.
proper store and window display, and better
salesmanship?
What newspaper or program advertising
proved good drawing cards? Why?
What mailing stunts brought in good returns?
Can I use more circular letters, blotters, post-
cards, printed circulars, hand-out cards, etc.?
How can I improve my advertising methods
generally? What good stunts have others used
that I can employ to good advantage?
Have I been giving enough thought, time and
attention to my advertising problems?
What good advertising have I used in the
last five years which could be successfully re-
peated in the next six months? Etc.
This chain of questions is. as complete as
self-analysis can make it, and runs the entire
gamut of the advertising field in the music
trades, which is likely to help him make more
sales. New questions are added to the list from
time to time, and old ones discarded, until a
complete, accurate and exhaustive survey can
be had of his advertising activities. By giving
a few moments of contemplative thought to his
problems in this way, this music trades dealer
is able to outline a more perfect constructive
sales and management program for the future
than he could otherwise hope to achieve. A
stiff cardboard is used, on which a typewritten
list is pasted for each subject. Take a few
more examples:
II. Sales Methods
Have I attacked the sales problem con-
structively enough in the past six months?
Have I been reaching out for more new buy-
ers lately, developed new prospects?
Do my salesmen merely take orders, or do
they sell musical merchandise?
Do my salesmen know how to sell more than
one item, or a higher-priced one, when the cus-
tomer comes into the store—without overselling
that customer?
What particular selling scheme can I in-
augurate which will achieve a larger volume
of sales?
Should I put my sales force on a strictly com-
mission basis—on a salary, plus commission
basis?
What particularly successful selling methods
have I used in the past which ought to be re-
peated?
What sales stunts is the other fellow using
worthy of adoption?
What new stunts can I work out to sell more
musical merchandise?
What have I done to make my sales-help more
efficient? Do I keep in close enough touch with
them? Are they attentive enough to customers,
or are they always looking the other way whei)
a customer comes in?
Am I paying any of my salesmen too much
money—not enough—based on monthly and an-
nual sales of each?
{Continued on page 4)