Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, APRIL, 1U0
much greater share of sales, which
would amply repay any amount of
extra work that might be required of
the wholesale rep.
I
MPRESSION exists in minds of
too many dealers that wholesale
men are working on schedules of
calls — trying to put in as many
visits a day as possible, spending as
little time as needed in getting some
kind of an order and making too great
a fetish on the numbers of orders sent
in rather than orders for numbers of
pianos. This scheme of selling may
have resulted from reading such books
as "How to Make More Calls a Day,"
forgetting that volume of dollars in
sales is the paramount measurement of
the wholesale man's success.
H
EARING comments about this
wholesale man or that whole-
sale man from dealers shows
that there is a great disparity
in the ability of cooperation between
these men and dealers, and it would
seem that the factory executives must
command more supervision over their
wholesale producers. Just because a
man happens to be working on a com-
mission, paying his own expenses, is
no reason why factory managers should
not exercise every effort to see that
these men get the most out of their
territory rather than skimming through
it to make an "impression" in those
large numbers of small orders as said
before.
D
EALERS frankly admit that
the methods of retail selling
not only need condensation
for more powerful activity,
but an expansion of genuine ideas for
developing a greater interest on the
part of the public to own a piano and
methods for creating this desire into
prospects and sales. So here we have
two immense fundamental factors—the
wholesaling of pianos and the retail-
ing of such, both needing much more
skilled guidance in the manipulation
of producing business.
F
OR several years now dealers
likewise have complained about
their own situation with ref-
erence to obtaining good piano
men. There is not only a shortage of
good retail men, but of tuners as well—
not mail-order tuners but men who
can regulate actions, make repairs on
pianos and do a genuine job that is
satisfactory. It is probable that the age
average of piano salesmen is higher
than in hundreds of other lines, and
this is due to dealers working under
the laws of least resistance, ignoring
the value of training salesmen. Young
piano salesmen are as rare as a con-
cert artist who is not conceited. We
know of several substantial organi-
zations who would have opened piano
departments months ago but were un-
able to find a skilled staff and they
gave up the idea.
P
ERHAPS this is the third
problem of retail selling in
pianos for manufacturers to
attempt to solve. Perhaps the
Manufacturers Association will subsi-
dize some 50 dealers to take on 50 new
men for a year's training. This retail
work is actually more important than
the first two problems mentioned, as
both wholesale men and dealers are
getting along fairly well now, but deal-
ers won't get along at all if all these
old piano men suddenly die off with no
replacements coming from a young
trained force. This is a terrific prob-
lem for dealers, but there is no in-
dustry action on it—each dealer is left
to shift for himself and do the best he
can. The situation is ripe right now for
the employment of 400 piano sales-
men around the country, and it is just
impossible for dealers to employ these
men—because they can't get them.
S
O with all our growing sales
pains in the midst of advancing
volume of business we are con-
fronted with such amazing
problems as inefficiency in wholesale
selling, methods of retailing that need
sandpapering, lack of piano salesmen
of any age and a shortage of good
tuners. If a tuner now is under 50
years old, he is a curiosity. Tuners of
60 and 70 are many, and we admire
these old fellows doing a day's job and
doing it well. But there must be some
understudies coming along. For the
first time in any paper, The Review