Music Trade Review

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Selling the Player
So That It Will Stay Sold
Walter Y. Worth, of the Lincoln-Worth Piano Co., Tampa, Fla., Analyzes
the Dominating Selling Factors in Good Player-Piano Salesmanship and De-
scribes the Way in Which the Merchant and Salesman Fail to Meet Them
T
H E article in your valued journal of May
28, captioned "Player Owners' Club," is
interesting throughout. Thinking that
some more ideas on the subject may be helpful
I am going to let you have a few broadsides
from away down here in South Florida.
Some years ago I was traveler for Gulbransen
Co. and I found it inspirational to work for
and with those people because they had caught
the vision of the possibilities of the player-
piano through proper demonstration and hau
the courage to back up their beliefs with big
allotments of cold cash and hard work. They
devised ways and means to demonstrate quickly
and convincingly the musical possibilities and
joyousness in the ownership of a player-piano
in the home.
I wonder why it is that the average dealer is
so blind to the fact that "velvet" sales, a real
volume of business procured with the least
effort, can be cashed in on only through a
musical demonstration of the player? Can he
not see that the ordinary way of selling players
makes it necessary to almost kill a man before
you can get him to agree to obligate himself to
pay for one of them? The average dealer "sells"
a player this way: a given number of rolls are
sent out (usually about twenty rolls). Half, or
many of these, given with the instrument often
are either selected by the dealer or salesman or
the buyer is limited as to selection. In the end
the buyer has some twelve or fourteen popular
knock-down-and-drag-out uke-decorated rolls;
the rest of them are hymns and some semi-
classical selections. The buyer is not instructed
as to the use of the instrument other than the
location of the re-roll and the opening out of
the treadles (often if the treadle doors are closed
at the store the people hardly know how to get
ihe treadles in action, because the dealer has
not familiarized them with the general work-
ings of the mechanism). The people take hold
in great shape upon arrival of the piano, and
those who are not their neighbors, in the true
sense of the word, are aware of the fact that
their section of the city has some great air-
stirring device turned loose upon it. They are only
mildly affected, however, and are glad to realize
that fate has been kind enough to have had
them to settle a fair distance from those people
away over there, who have started the air vibrat-
ing with regular and irregular vibrations, through
the medium of one of those horrible canned-
music pianos.
Well, at any rate, the buyer and the family are
Z*
ESTABLISHED 1862
Does the salesman believe that the musical
demonstration hinders him in his sales work? I
believe many do. They are either too lazy to
acquire the knowledge or are not "sold" on the
idea, I believe. There is a limit, soon reached,
in selling price and terms, even after you find
the party that can be designated as a prospect;
but there is no limit to the amount of sales argu-
ment that can be founded on musical effects and
musical education. There are comparatively few
who are so low down in the scale of educa-
tion who will fail to "get" your demortstration
and to become interested in it, if properly pre-
sented and to fit the particular case.
After the deal is closed then the proper
demonstration must be properly made if your
volume of sales is to mount as the months and
years go on. Those who try it out will be con-
vinced. Learn how to use a player, live with
your patrons a while in their homes and you'll
reap a big business, Mr. Dealer.
Cleveland Association
Invited to Visit Detroit
CLEVELAND, O., June 27.—The Cleveland Music
Trades Association have received an invitation
from the Detroit association to pay them a
visit about the middle of July and the invitation
has been accepted by President A. L. MareSh.
According to present plans members will go
to Detroit by boat, arriving there early in the
morning, where they will be welcomed by a
delegation headed by Frank Bailey and Roy
Maypole. A member of the Detroit association
will take them on his yacht to an island on
the lake about thirty miles from Detroit, where
the day will be spent picnicking and it is ex-
pected that the Cleveland piano contest will
be discussed. President Maresh is authority
for the statement that the Miessner and Detroit
plans will both be given serious consideration.
Euclid Music Go. to Remain
CLEVELAND, O., June 27.—The Euclid Music Co.
has decided to retain part of its downtown store
for the present and has made arrangements
to rent the first floor. The lease expired on
June 15, but as a suitable location on Euclid
avenue could not be secured the company de-
cided to rent temporarily. The principal goods
that will be carried will be band instruments
and small goods.
L^UTER
NEWARK. N. J .
—3
ONE OF AMERICA'S FINE PIANOS
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interested and they play until the nearby folks
wish their vacation-time were at hand. They
hear the same numbers reeled off a few times,
and realize that sure enough it is canned music,
for the roll they are now playing sounds just
like it did night-before-last when someone had
it a-going. The neighbor, listening in, decides
that a call must be made so that the new toy of
their friends can be remarked upon and, since
they love music too, they would really like to
hear it and see what music can be gotten from
it. They go over and the record that they heard
yesterday, the day-before-yesterday and last
week is shot at them again. It sounds just the
same every time and they either consciously or
unconsciously realize that they would soon tire
of the whole thing. Pretty soon they notice
that the player is not heard so often any more
and that when they do hear it it sounds like and
acts like something imported from the infernal
regions. They make it a point not to ask to
hear it on subsequent visits, and when the music
merchant asks about their purchase of one the
answer is firm but not of the affirmative.
Now, what has happened over at that home
where the player was put and what could make
a very different situation there? Why is it that
in so many of the homes, pictured as above, the
player is brought back to the store or that the
account is so far behind that it should be
brought back?
In the first place no suitable library was sent
out with the player. In the second place the
new owner knew so little about the new acquisi-
tion to the household that he feared that if the
number on the roll read "60" and he put it to
"70," because he liked that selection with a little
more life, it would blow up or something! He
was never told, and shown, that by the use of
the tempo lever the better compositions could be
so varied that his neighbor would be interested
in hearing them again and again and that he,
himself, would be altogether captivated by the
real musical effects so procured. Neither did he
know that even the dance numbers could be so
varied as to make them interesting and de-
lightful by using the levers properly. Having
no interest because the results had become so
monotonous and worn, no new rolls are brought
in, the piano is allowed to go all out of condi-
tion and soon the tail is sawed off by a return
of the piano or, worse still, it is left there in
that condition, to run off or discourage friends
and kin who might think of buying one of the
"things."
UPRIGHTS
GRANDS
THE LAUTER-HUMANA
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