The Edison phonograph monthly (Jan-Dec 1916)

EDISON PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY, NOVEMBER, 1916 Edison Phonograph Monthly Published in the interests of THE NEW EDISON DIAMOND AMBEROLA AND BLUE AMBEROL RECORDS By Thomas A. Edison, Inc. ORANGE, N. J., U. S. A. Editorial The approach of Christmas Christmas marks the coming of the most profitable season of the year for many merchants. Edison dealers in particular can make the season a productive one because the Amberola is an ideal Christmas gift. The Amberola has a great advantage in its comparatively low cost, especially at this season of the year when thousands of purchasers to whom cost is an important consideration are in the market. Your own business acumen should tell you that now is the time to undertake an unusually active campaign to advertise the Amberola and to keep its excellence as a Christmas gift constantly before the public. Every effort you make along this line will bring you maximum results because of the favorable influence of the holiday season and the Christmas spirit. And remember, that every instrument sold now will help you in keeping your business active throughout the year by the demand for records it will create. The active business that you can do now by a comparatively slight increase of your efforts will assist you during other periods when it requires greater exertion to keep your sales up to the maximum. Did you ever notice that the chief A Hint aim of the mail order houses is to win customers and then keep them satisfied by offering and providing the very acme of service. The catalogs of these large and highly successful concerns emphasize service almost as much as they emphasize prices and, in the case of the better class of mail order house, even more. Every effort is made to make it convenient for a customer to deal with them and every reasonable means of insuring satisfied customers is taken advantage of. It is because these large concerns have service as a foundation for their success that they continue to emphasize the value of service and therein lies a valuable hint for the smaller merchants. The most efficient service is personal service and this is something that the mail-order house cannot give. Such a concern, no matter how vast its resources, cannot give customers the close attention that the small dealer can. You can take your tool-kit and your oil-can and make the rounds of Amberola owners in your neighborhood and give them more service and more satisfaction than a million dollar corporation many miles away. If you can give your customers what the biggest corporations only can strive to give, don't you think that a little work along the lines of personal service would pay you? We do. There is something of Curtain Tests irony in the fact that the talking-machine, once considered a competitor of the Amberola, is becoming a very powerful factor in stimulating Amberola sales. This is the situation that has obtained, however, since the curtain test has become a recognized and authorized method of demonstrating the superiority of the Amberola over the talking-machine. The merits of this form of competitive test hav been recognized for a long time and it has beei. used very effectively by numerous dealers on many occasions in the past. But now it is coming to dominate all other methods of demonstrating the Amberola and is occupying a prominent position in Amberola merchandising. The aim of salesmanship is to convince a prospect beyond any doubt that your merchandise is the best obtainable at the price, or at least, better than that of your immediate competitor. The curtain test, as applied to the Amberola, attains this end with simplicity and directness. It affords absolute proof that the Diamond Amberola is superior to the talking-machine. It leaves no opportunity for argument — no reason for discussion. It allows the prospect to participate in the experiment and it makes the prospect a judge of the results. By means of it, claims are unnecessary and assertions superfluous. Its effectiveness is attested to by the fact that a rapidly increasing number of dealer, are making use of it every day. If you desire to secure a maximum business you will use the newest and most effective methods of making demonstrations. Curtain tests bring results. If you are not thoroughly convinced, try one. You do not have to own the An Example biggest store in town to be the biggest merchant in town. W. D. Wilmot of Fall River, Mass., an Edison dealer, is the most popular merchant in that city and he recently obtained substantial recognition of this when he was presented a loving cup by the members of the Fall River Merchants' Association. It was given him in token of the work that he had done in behalf of the organization and as a tribute to the high ideals in merchandising that he has advocated and practiced. And it represented more