Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

.RADIO BROADCAST. hundreds will spend most of the night waiting in line to get in. They will buy food, cigars, rent stools to sit on, and invest several times the price of admission. Radio has that wonderful free show psychology. The dealer does not work it for one tenth of what it is worth. He makes the mistake of trying to offer things free himself, He doesn't need to if he will only stress the free things which come over the air. He is in the enviable position of providing fairly expensive transportation to a free show. His cue is to adver- tise the show as well as the transportation. What is the real show in radio? Of course, it is broadcast- ing. Are you, Mr. Dealer, a student of broadcasting? Are you an intelligent salesman of broadcasting? Are you making full use of the fact that broadcasting is free? Are you presenting that last fact all the time, tactfully and vigorously? Or have you taken it for granted that broadcasting is a business en- tirely apart from your own? Do you make the mistake which the broadcasting companies themselves make of forgetting your existence, of neglecting to provide you with the wealth of fact which you could use to join with them in selling radij? They think their own public contact is sufficient. Let us see if it is. Their daily contact is with the people who have and use receiving sets, your contact is with people who have VISIT THE STUDIO not yet bought sets, or who want better sets, or who need mechanical service. Your contact, in other words, is with those who for some reason do not see the big show or find it unsatisfactory. To see the show one must have a radio set. To enjoy the show properly one must have a good set and it must be working properly. That's simple isn't it? You stand ready to supply the good set and to service it, therefore, your contact is with the undeveloped and poorly satisfied part of the radio audience. More than that, you function regularly in adding to the audience and in giving them better seats, by which I mean the chance to hear better and enjoy more. KNOW THE ANNOUNCERS The broadcasting companies owe you more support than they give you. Yes, the broadcasting companies give the show that makes your business possible. You need them and they need you. There's more money for them in cooperating with you, and your very existence hangs on their strength. How can you exploit the big show profitably? Now we are getting down to cases, I'll answer this question by asking other questions. How much time and attention do you give to broad- casting and how much do you listen-in? Do you study the merits of the various programs which are broadcast and do you know the names of the impor- tant ones and their sponsors? What do you know of the personalities of the various announcers? How they get their jobs and why are some of them famous? Well, what of it? What good will it do you to do all this and learn all these things? Right here I wish I had a magic pen that would give a vivid picture in ink of the delight and profit which lie in being a thoroughgoing expert. Learn About Broadcasting If your own conversational range in sales contact is purely mechanical or electrical, you will fail to use the theme which is of greatest interest to your customers, because nine out of ten of them are neither mechanically nor electrically minded. Your explanation of the construction of a set will affect them very much as a doctor's does when he says that a patient has a " sympathetic dilation of the coronal membrane." He doesn't know whether to ring up the undertaker or buy an eyewash. "Sympathetic" sounds good, he needs sympathy. Rut those other words have a terrible sound. (Concluded on page 58) NOVEMBER 1929 23