The Edison phonograph monthly (Dec 1914-Dec 1915)

EDISON PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY, APRIL, 1915 M. L. Parker Company's Window Display M. L. PARKER COMPANY, DAVENPORT, IOWA, WINDOW DISPLAY ONE of the handsomest window displays ever seen in Iowa was that recently made by our representatives M. L. Parker Co., a photograph of which is shown above. An unusual amount of thought and attention to details were put upon it and a very fine showing was effected. During the display they used a large advertisement in their local papers which was as striking in its way as the window. As an indication of the success with the Edison line their account with their jobbers, Harger & Blish, covering 30 days' period was almost 34,000. This is an unusually good showing for a Department Store. EASTER MUSIC ON THE DISC Record 80225, just issued, is a genuine Easter Morning Record in every sense of the term. On one face it contains the anthem-hymn: "Jesus Christ is Risen Today;" on the reverse side "The Day of Resurrection." Both are admirably rendered by a Mixed Quartet, whose voices blend beautifully and make two exceptionally fine records. Easter day, it will be remembered, is April 4th. Play these records; call attention to them in your window and they will prove very acceptable to all who are in happy accord with this annual event. MISS MILLER'S APRIL ENGAGEMENTS Christine Miller has already filled, during March 1915, engagements in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Lynchburg, Baltimore, New York City, Grand Rapids, Cincinnati, Erie, Pa., Ashtabula, Ohio. She will sing in Boston (Symphony Hall) April 14th and 15th; then in Indianapolis, Ind., April 30th. Dealers in Boston and Indianapolis should feature her disc and Blue Amberol Records during April. RESOURCEFUL SALESMANSHIP How some sales do "nettle" even the old experienced salesman ! How they provoke him — not to wrath, not to discouragement, but to try again and again his metal. "I'll land him yet," is the optimistic determination, and then the resourceful salesman goes to work on the Edison proposition with some of Mr. Edison's own bulldog grit that he exerts when he meets with defeat in his laboratory experiments. We have a good instance to relate this month. It comes from our enterprising representative in New York City, the Phonograph Corporation of Manhattan, who have about as loyal and capable a lot of fellows on their sales force as any dealer we know of. Among these is a Mr. Sweeney and his experience furnishes the first of these talks on "Resourceful Salesmanship" with its cue: Mr. Sweeney had a prospect on his list for a considerable time — a prospect who had been promising to bring his good wife down to purchase one of the Edison disc machines. He had used all of his science of salesmanship in an endeavor to bring Mr. down with his wife, and had occasion the other day to call him up on the telephone to ascertain why he did not come in as per his promise, and thereby received news that his wife evidently would never be able to come down as she had become a confirmed invalid through a recent illness. Mr. Sweeney was a trifle nonplussed for the moment, for he had banked on this sale, but his resourceful salesmanship was superior to the occasion, so he suggested, or rather asked, if the telephone through which Mr. was talking was near his wife's bedside, and was told that it was. Mr. Sweeney then suggested that his wife take the receiver and place it to her ear and he would play the phonograph so that she could hear it. She readily acquiesced in this — and to make a long story short, she was so thoroughly enraptured with the tone that she insisted that her husband go down immediately and purchase one of the instruments. Suffice it to say that Mr. did come down Saturday and placed an order for a $250.00 machine, which was delivered to him at once.