Presto

THE PRESTO BUYERS'
GUIDE CLASSIFIES ALL
WANOS AND PLAYERS
AND THEIR MAKERS
PRESTO
E.tablUhed 1S84
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY
" C.n«.; $2.00 a Year
THE EVILS OF BARGAIN SALES
A First=Class Trade Demands the Most Careful Attention to the Better
Methods by Which to Draw a Good Class of Customers.
While competition is often the very life of trade,
there are conditions arising at times that would in-
dicate that quite the contrary was the case. This is
not, however, due to what might be called legiti-
mate competition, but to the fact that some dealers
prefer to adopt such methods as will not alone be
detrimental to their own good, but may also injure
the other dealers who are striving to counteract this
very effect. So the matter becomes in such instances
a serious topic, and one that should interest every
piano man who is eager to gain the most for the
time, cash and labor invested in his industry.
There is one evil in the retail piano trade that
has been a source of great annoyance to many, and
one obstacle that will continue to prove a handicap
to many dealers, because of its serious after-effects,
is that of the so-called "bargain" sales. Now the
public for years has been fed up on these cut price
sales and these special reduction sales, and other
catch phrases that to a great extent have worn out
their attractiveness. The public, the greater part at
least, is not so susceptible to these attractions, and
while there will be a number of customers who will
take advantage of this plan to buy a piano at a bar-
gain, there are a large number who will pass them
by and seek out the dealer who does not cater to
this class of trade.
THE FIRST TO ANNOY.
So often the very people who will come to the
dealer eager to make a purchase of this kind, will
be the first to prove a source of annoyance and
often of loss in trying to make a sale stick. The
disposal of a piano, we can easily enough under-
stand, does not mean that the sale is complete.
There are so many after-effects that are hurtful to
the dealer and that when measured up, show losses
more or less serious, that it is better to sell fewer
pianos either for cash or for good down-payments
and monthly installments that will reduce the time
for its completion, than to try to increase the num-
ber of sales, and have to spend considerable in -the
collection of the account, or to repossess the piano
after much loss of time and expense.
You, as a dealer, naturally want a good class of
trade. This becomes the very first consideration
with you. Your sales should be made, first to peo-
ple who are reliable and whose financial standing
can not be questioned. If you are careful in this
one plan of making your sales you will have no
cause to regret the efforts spent in this direction.
Then when the sale has been made you are not likely
to have any cause for regret. If you investigate
every prospect and see that he has the ability to meet
his payments, you, can feel reasonably assured that
there will not be any great amount of annoyance
met with in the payment of the account.
CUSTOMER'S BUYING POWER.
The very first matter that should demand your
consideration in case a customer seeks you for a
piano is his ability financially to pay for it. We call
to mind a dealer who makes an investigation of the
prospects's financial standing. It does not matter
whether the would-be customer has a good position.
The question arises naturally enough, does he meet
his obligations?
If he does not, or is slow to do
so, then you are taking chances that might be
fraught with some trouble. This dealer investigates
the financial standing of his prospect. He notes
what his weekly or monthly salary amounts to, the
number of his family, and such other matters as
will enter into his ability or not to make his pay-
ments with promptness. If there is any doubt on
the score, or if there is a reason to feel that the
customer is obligating himself to make payments
that will be difficult to make, he discourages the sale.
He might, on the other hand, suggest that the cus-
tomer make a purchase that will not become so great
a burden, and where the indebtedness will be at least
within his power to care for reasonably.
But to return to the original subject, that of "bar-
gain" sales. If you, by your methods, invite the less
desirable class of trade, what can you expect but
trouble? If you advertise a "cheap" sale of pianos,
will you not be almost sure to find that the larger
number of your customers and prospects will be the
bargain seekers, and it is a fact that many of these
cannot be classed as the best prospects? They will
be more likely either those who cannot afford to buy
THE PRESTO YEAR BOOK
IS THE ONLY ANNUAL
REVIEW OF
THE MUSIC TRADES
a piano at all, or those who have perhaps purchased
pianos on several previous occasions, only to have
them repossessed after a period of time, depending
upon the patience of the dealer.
TWO POOR CLASSES.
Now, as a matter of fact, you cannot afford to sell
either class of customers named above for several
good reasons. The party who cannot afford to buy a
piano at all has no business to make the attempt, and
the dead beat should not be countenanced at all. By
catering to either class of customers you are simply
taking upon yourself a burden that will prove to be
harmful. You may be able to get a first payment
from them, and this is not likely to be more than a
nominal one, or less, and we may add that you can
perhaps obtain several additional payments, after a
time, according to the quality and duration of your
patience. You do not want the man who cannot af-
ford to buy at all, and the man who will not pay is
even worse.
But your inviting offer has attracted the attention
of both classes of trade, and while you can count on
some of the better class coming to you, with the hope
of selling them a better instrument than you have
advertised, it is still a dangerous plan to pursue, and
one that often becomes a sad one. You cannot af-
ford to sell a good instrument at a low price, and
the people for the most part realize this to the very
fullest. So in your endeavors to make sales of so-
called good pianos at prices that will attract, you
have simply made possible for yourself more or less
trouble. The after-effects are not going to prove of
any help in any event.
There is really no time when a piano dealer can
justify himself for holding 'i bargain sale, unless it
be where he has accumulated a number of used
pianos, and wants to dispose of them in a hurry.
Then they should be advertised as such, and not as
new pianos, so that the prospective customers will
not be seeking you with this idea in mind. It is a
mistake to offer new pianos at so-called bargain
prices. Either there is little real value in such in-
struments, or you are not really selling them as low
as you would have the public believe you are doing.
This may not be news to you, and it may not be
news to the public, only some of them are mistaken
in their ideas along this line.
GOOD
DOWN-PAYMENT.
Now when you make a sale, or at least when you
have a prospect, see that your knowledge of his
character and financial ability is of the best. You
should ask a good down-payment in these days of
scarcity of pianos, high living and high wages in
some cases. If the customer cannot make a good
cash payment and cannot assure you that he can
afford to meet his monthly installments on time,
and even these should be good, your best plan is to
politely but firmly refuse to sell him. Your stock
is far more valuable and the stock on the floor un-
sold is much better than in the homes of such peo-
ple.
A realization of this fact by a large number of
dealers would not only be a boon to the industry in
the end, but a material aid to every other dealer, be-
cause in that case the seekers after bargains in
pianos would very soon find out that it was a use-
less endeavor to ask any dealer to sell them an in-
strument. Get away from the "bargain" sales and
the seekers after pianos who are so eager to find
you. The future of the piano industry demands this
now as it never did before, and the day is coming
when the dealers will be forced to take this view of
the matter.
AT THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
When Things Seem to Be Going Wrong, and the Temptation Is to Let Go>
Is the Time to Take a New Hold.
If everything went along swimmingly forever and
a day, business would lose its zest and become a
tame affair", indeed. On the ether hand, no one rel-
ishes the testing times when everything seems to
go wrong in spite of fate. And yet those are the
very times which make a career worth while or
worthless.
Have you ever read a story written by some skill-
ful fictioner, and been so held and thrilled by the
suspense woven into the telling of the tale, that you
could not lay the book or magazine down until you
found out the solution of the puzzle, or who won the
girl, or committed the murder, as the case might be?
WHAT REALLY COUNTS.
Without that thrill and suspense the story would
not have interested you. It would not have been
printed, for the editor would not have considered it
worth paper and ink. And in the lives of the char-
acters portrayed, that struggle was the most vital,
the most decisive, the most determining of a life
time. Doubtless the characters, if they really lived,
may not have enjoyed the struggle when they were
going through it, but once it was triumphantly
passed, they would not have eliminated it from their
lives for anything in the world. It was the struggle
which really counted!
And so it is with all tight places and all struggles
and business crises. At the rime, we worry and per-
haps figuratively speaking, sweat blood. There are
times, too, when we feel that we cannot hold on a
minute longer; that another six weeks like the last,
or another month like the one we have just lived
through, or even another 1 day such as we have just
finished, would be simply intolerable—and we bury
our faces in our hands and say,
WHILE COURAGE REMAINS
"We might as well give up. We cannot hold on
any longer. And what's the use of prolonging.a los-
ing struggle, or torturing ourselves any farther on
the road to failure"
But not so fast, my friend, not so fast! You and
I are not alone in the struggle. There are others
who are having just as hard or harder times, and
they are going through their testing periods even as
we are. Remember you are not alone, and don't
give up.
It is George Horace Lorrimer who says that,
"Because a fellow has failed once or twice, or a
dozen times, you don't want to set him down as a
failure till he's dead or loses his courage."
That's the point. You and I are not dead, and so
we don't want to give up. We are not permanent
failures while we have the power to struggle—un-
less we lose our courage. Then we are virtually
dead ones, indeed!
THE TIDE WILL TURN.
Besides we always know that a time must come
when the tide will turn; when we will have proved
ourselves so steadfast, so courageous, so worthy that
help will come, or events will change, and what
seemed hopeless but a brief time ago will be full of
brightness and cheer.
It was a man with large number of interests who
paced the confines of his office restlessly. He knew
that the men on the street were saying that he
couldn't hold out more than half an hour longer. But
none of them know how he had fought for months
and how he had twisted and turned to keep his busi-
ness going.
PULL FOR SOLID GROUND.
There were times when he took the receiver of his
telephone in his hand to telephone to his bank that
it was all up with him, but every time he drew back.
He would not give up. There were still twenty min-
utes before closing time. Something still might
happen. Something did happen! It was a telegram
offering him an astonishing sum of money for hold-
ings which he had considered utterly worthless. The
day was saved and his career as well.
But it is foolish to simply hold on and to make
no definite effort to improve conditions at all. Strug-
gle, but struggle to reach solid ground. Don't give
up when it is darkest, for it is always darkest just
before the dawn. Keep your courage, and your cour-
age will keep you!
LESTER G. HERBERT.
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