Presto
Issue: 1920 1768 - Page 4
PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones: Chicago Tel. Co., Harrison 234; Auto. Tel. Co., Automatic 61-70Jt
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code).
"PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. 'No « t m
ge in U. S. possessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
~
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., Chicago, III.
Advertising Rateti .Three dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insortieaa.
Six dollars per
p in,ch
, per
p month,
h, less twenty-five per
p cent on yearly y contracts. Th«
Pre^to does npt sell Its editorial space.
space Payment is not accepted
a d
f for articles
i l of de-
scriptive character or other matter appearing In the news columns. Business notices
wlll.be Indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the Act of August
84, 19J2.
R^tee for advertising 1 in the Tear Book issue and Kxport Supplements of The
Presto v?}Jl be ma,de known upon application. The Presto Year Book and Export
issufs ha,ye the roost expensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical
Iraftrument trades and Industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely arid
•ftMtuilly all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
•nTTifpUspheres.
The Presto Buyeis' Guide is the only reliable Index to the American Musical
Instruments; it analyzes all Pianos and Player-Pianos, gives accurate estimates «t
tltW. values and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
items of news, photographs and other matter of general Interest to the must*
trades are invited and when accepted will be paid for. Addrtae all communicatioM to
f»r«st« Publishing Co., Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1920.
.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
BUYER'S STATE OF MIND
Advertising men are asking: "Is there an ideal state of mind to
advertise to?" Undoubtedly there must be else why advertise at all?
A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. When
a woman will, she will; and when she won't, she won't. Those are
famous maxims of distinguished wiseacres, and they must be true.
The buyer who has made up his mind that he wants something
is practically sold before he starts for the store. His state of mind
is ideal to advertise to, provided the ad-man is not such a boob as to
overdo it and disgust the man in advance, just as many a green
salesman loses a sale by talking too much or by assuming to know
what the customer wants better than the customer himself knows.
It is hard for a garrulous salesman to be impasse when customers
begin to show their peculiarities by asking irrelevant questions; or
when a man and his wife are the piano customers and the pair differ
in their views about the purchase. Under such conditions, the diplo-
matic salesman usually gains by remaining discreetly silent. He
would be a fool piano salesman who would jump to a conclusion that
either the husband or the wife was "boss," and act upon his "hunch."
Usually the wife's preferences govern the choice of a piano, to be
sure, but just as often the husband would as soon the salesman
didn't know it.
The buyer's state of mind may be advertised to. He has as good
a right to have a state of mind as the advertising man. Any customer
in the U. S. A. has as good a right to have business sense as any
ad-man in the same country. All any ad-man can do is appeal; he
dare not dictate. Having a state of mind of his own, he may appeal
successfully to men in that state of mind, and thereby cause them to
desire his pianos a little more than they otherwise would.
At a time when nearly every writer who has access to the news-
paper columns, from the scribbling parson to the sporting editor, is
giving advice concerning the only secret of success as a salesman, this
subject is a seasonable one. Luckily for the piano men the theoret-
June 12, 1920.
ically cocksure guides to selling do not make a specialty of musical
instruments. Nevertheless one of them recently surprised his read-
ers by saying the right thing, specifically about pianos, thus: Don't
tell your customer that he can play Beethoven better than the great
composer himself could, merely because you yourself think your play-
erpiano is a perfect interpreter. Not all people have the same musical
instinct you may possess.
Don't tell the lady buyer that the piano is peculiarly suitable because it
matches the shade of her gown and is becoming to her style of beauty.
Don't try to influence the head of a school of learning by playing a jazz
tune. And never begin by assuring the customer that, no matter how little
spare cash he may have ready, your house is prepared to accommodate his
purse. He may be a worker in the steel mills."
Of course to a seasoned piano man that sort of advice seems a
little stagnant. It is of the kind we like to term obsolete. Neverthe-
less the same advice seems to form the backbone of most of the pro-
fundity of the industrial philosophers whose meanderings appear in
the wisdom columns of many newspapers and trade journals. And,
even if it does seem familiar to the large proportion of piano men
who read and inwardly digest, it is the very stuff that most young
men need and many older ones have overlooked.
A salesman is one of nature's handicraft whose strength doesn't
come from books nor from physical culture schools. He is a sales-
man because he can't be anything else, and because he prefers to
deliver the punch by which things are accomplished in every walk
of life's activities. If he happens to fall into the ways of the piano
trade so much the better for a good business, and for the house
that is so fortunate as to employ him. The best school of salesman-
ship in the piano business is in the actual work of selling pianos. And
the successful ad-man is the one who has a good share of the in-
stinctive wisdom of the real piano salesman.
HOW BETTER PRICES HELP.
If there is any good in the great advance in the cost of things
that has marked this period, it is seen in the increase in the cost
of pianos. Before the great war piano prices had become so far de-
preciated, and methods of their sale so lax and hazardous, as to
threaten the stability of the industry. The price-betterment may
not help either the manufacturer or dealer in the sum of his profits;
it probably will not. It may not increase the sales and it may retard
the growth of the commercial piano industry. But, as an offset, the
higher cost, and consequently better selling-prices, very largely re-
stores the piano's self respect. The advance in values has a ten-
dency to better the piano quality. It doesn't pay to produce the
cheapest pianos, because the cost of raw materials is so great that
the saving in other respects is not enough to justify the risk and the
investment for the sake of cheap trade.
No one will deny the wisdom of the supply men who advocate
the adoption of uniformity of parts in piano making. And should
the manufacturers agree to thus standardize the material features of
their industries, the public will be the gainer. The dealers will
continue to do business as if pianos were articles of quick consump-
tion and rapid repeats in their distribution. The trade will not profit
much either way. The dealers can make more money with the
manufacturers' prices where they are, because the retailer almost
invariably predicates his profits by the wholesale figures. When he
paid "even money" for a cheap piano he was satisfied to sacrifice his
legitimate opportunities for a $50 profit, or less. When he must pay
three times as much for the same piano, or better, he will expect a
proportionate profit. And so the uniformity of parts will not mean
so much to him. But if it will relieve the supply men, and ease
the way for the piano manufacturers, it is one of the consummations
to be devoutly wished for.
STANDARDIZED SUPPLIES
The supply manufacturers have almost unanimously declared in
favor of a system of standardization by which all pianos would be
identical in most of their material parts. In other lines of manufac-
ture this kind of uniformity has been accomplished. The architects
and builders no longer give much time to consideration of such de-
tails as window and door dimensions for example. If some special
splendor is desired, the effects are obtained by a system of multiples.
Exclusive effects are subject to proportionate increase in expense, and
exclusiveness is the exception instead of the rule, as in years long
past.
And so it is proposed to have piano manufacture reduced to a
system of assembling the parts made to fit interchangeably, and with
the convenience that may render shortage of supplies unheard of. If
one of the sources of supply can not fill the order, his neighbor can,
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
BORN STREET, OLD COLONY BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
Editors
Telephones: Chicago Tel. Co., Harrison 234; Auto. Tel. Co., Automatic 61-70Jt
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code).
"PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago. Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4. Payable In advance. 'No « t m
ge in U. S. possessions, Canada, Cuba and Mexico.
~
Address all communications for the editorial or business departments to PRESTO
PUBLISHING CO., Chicago, III.
Advertising Rateti .Three dollars per inch (13 ems pica) for single insortieaa.
Six dollars per
p in,ch
, per
p month,
h, less twenty-five per
p cent on yearly y contracts. Th«
Pre^to does npt sell Its editorial space.
space Payment is not accepted
a d
f for articles
i l of de-
scriptive character or other matter appearing In the news columns. Business notices
wlll.be Indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the Act of August
84, 19J2.
R^tee for advertising 1 in the Tear Book issue and Kxport Supplements of The
Presto v?}Jl be ma,de known upon application. The Presto Year Book and Export
issufs ha,ye the roost expensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical
Iraftrument trades and Industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely arid
•ftMtuilly all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
•nTTifpUspheres.
The Presto Buyeis' Guide is the only reliable Index to the American Musical
Instruments; it analyzes all Pianos and Player-Pianos, gives accurate estimates «t
tltW. values and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
items of news, photographs and other matter of general Interest to the must*
trades are invited and when accepted will be paid for. Addrtae all communicatioM to
f»r«st« Publishing Co., Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1920.
.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY. SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—ESPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
BUYER'S STATE OF MIND
Advertising men are asking: "Is there an ideal state of mind to
advertise to?" Undoubtedly there must be else why advertise at all?
A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. When
a woman will, she will; and when she won't, she won't. Those are
famous maxims of distinguished wiseacres, and they must be true.
The buyer who has made up his mind that he wants something
is practically sold before he starts for the store. His state of mind
is ideal to advertise to, provided the ad-man is not such a boob as to
overdo it and disgust the man in advance, just as many a green
salesman loses a sale by talking too much or by assuming to know
what the customer wants better than the customer himself knows.
It is hard for a garrulous salesman to be impasse when customers
begin to show their peculiarities by asking irrelevant questions; or
when a man and his wife are the piano customers and the pair differ
in their views about the purchase. Under such conditions, the diplo-
matic salesman usually gains by remaining discreetly silent. He
would be a fool piano salesman who would jump to a conclusion that
either the husband or the wife was "boss," and act upon his "hunch."
Usually the wife's preferences govern the choice of a piano, to be
sure, but just as often the husband would as soon the salesman
didn't know it.
The buyer's state of mind may be advertised to. He has as good
a right to have a state of mind as the advertising man. Any customer
in the U. S. A. has as good a right to have business sense as any
ad-man in the same country. All any ad-man can do is appeal; he
dare not dictate. Having a state of mind of his own, he may appeal
successfully to men in that state of mind, and thereby cause them to
desire his pianos a little more than they otherwise would.
At a time when nearly every writer who has access to the news-
paper columns, from the scribbling parson to the sporting editor, is
giving advice concerning the only secret of success as a salesman, this
subject is a seasonable one. Luckily for the piano men the theoret-
June 12, 1920.
ically cocksure guides to selling do not make a specialty of musical
instruments. Nevertheless one of them recently surprised his read-
ers by saying the right thing, specifically about pianos, thus: Don't
tell your customer that he can play Beethoven better than the great
composer himself could, merely because you yourself think your play-
erpiano is a perfect interpreter. Not all people have the same musical
instinct you may possess.
Don't tell the lady buyer that the piano is peculiarly suitable because it
matches the shade of her gown and is becoming to her style of beauty.
Don't try to influence the head of a school of learning by playing a jazz
tune. And never begin by assuring the customer that, no matter how little
spare cash he may have ready, your house is prepared to accommodate his
purse. He may be a worker in the steel mills."
Of course to a seasoned piano man that sort of advice seems a
little stagnant. It is of the kind we like to term obsolete. Neverthe-
less the same advice seems to form the backbone of most of the pro-
fundity of the industrial philosophers whose meanderings appear in
the wisdom columns of many newspapers and trade journals. And,
even if it does seem familiar to the large proportion of piano men
who read and inwardly digest, it is the very stuff that most young
men need and many older ones have overlooked.
A salesman is one of nature's handicraft whose strength doesn't
come from books nor from physical culture schools. He is a sales-
man because he can't be anything else, and because he prefers to
deliver the punch by which things are accomplished in every walk
of life's activities. If he happens to fall into the ways of the piano
trade so much the better for a good business, and for the house
that is so fortunate as to employ him. The best school of salesman-
ship in the piano business is in the actual work of selling pianos. And
the successful ad-man is the one who has a good share of the in-
stinctive wisdom of the real piano salesman.
HOW BETTER PRICES HELP.
If there is any good in the great advance in the cost of things
that has marked this period, it is seen in the increase in the cost
of pianos. Before the great war piano prices had become so far de-
preciated, and methods of their sale so lax and hazardous, as to
threaten the stability of the industry. The price-betterment may
not help either the manufacturer or dealer in the sum of his profits;
it probably will not. It may not increase the sales and it may retard
the growth of the commercial piano industry. But, as an offset, the
higher cost, and consequently better selling-prices, very largely re-
stores the piano's self respect. The advance in values has a ten-
dency to better the piano quality. It doesn't pay to produce the
cheapest pianos, because the cost of raw materials is so great that
the saving in other respects is not enough to justify the risk and the
investment for the sake of cheap trade.
No one will deny the wisdom of the supply men who advocate
the adoption of uniformity of parts in piano making. And should
the manufacturers agree to thus standardize the material features of
their industries, the public will be the gainer. The dealers will
continue to do business as if pianos were articles of quick consump-
tion and rapid repeats in their distribution. The trade will not profit
much either way. The dealers can make more money with the
manufacturers' prices where they are, because the retailer almost
invariably predicates his profits by the wholesale figures. When he
paid "even money" for a cheap piano he was satisfied to sacrifice his
legitimate opportunities for a $50 profit, or less. When he must pay
three times as much for the same piano, or better, he will expect a
proportionate profit. And so the uniformity of parts will not mean
so much to him. But if it will relieve the supply men, and ease
the way for the piano manufacturers, it is one of the consummations
to be devoutly wished for.
STANDARDIZED SUPPLIES
The supply manufacturers have almost unanimously declared in
favor of a system of standardization by which all pianos would be
identical in most of their material parts. In other lines of manufac-
ture this kind of uniformity has been accomplished. The architects
and builders no longer give much time to consideration of such de-
tails as window and door dimensions for example. If some special
splendor is desired, the effects are obtained by a system of multiples.
Exclusive effects are subject to proportionate increase in expense, and
exclusiveness is the exception instead of the rule, as in years long
past.
And so it is proposed to have piano manufacture reduced to a
system of assembling the parts made to fit interchangeably, and with
the convenience that may render shortage of supplies unheard of. If
one of the sources of supply can not fill the order, his neighbor can,
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
All Rights Reserved. Digitized from the archives of the MBSI with support from NAMM - The International Music Products Association (www.namm.org).
Additional enhancement, optimization, and distribution by the International Arcade Museum. An extensive collection of Presto can be found online at http://www.arcade-museum.com/library/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).