Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

i6o Radio Broadcast in demand; it was because he could talk intelligently with his customers; he could give them advice concerning their purchases which would help them to get the greatest satisfaction from them; he knew their needs and could supply them. His competitor, however, could have sold the same units, for his stock covered about everything needed for radio, but the only knowledge he had of them was their trade names and the prices he paid for them and for which they should be sold; he knew nothing of how they were to be used. In the beginning, he secured the trade because he was the only dealer in the vicinity who could supply the demand ; he lost it as soon as his competitor was in a position to supply the demand intelligently. ONE OF THE BEST FORMS OF ADVERTISING AT THE radio club, the second dealer, by nothing but consistent application and attention, managed to break down the original feeling against him. The fellows admitted that he knew what he was talking about. The club was not endowed with great funds for the purchase of equipment, so, when any particular lecture was to be given, the lecturer would only have to seek this man who would loan all the apparatus necessary for the actual demonstration of the lecture. Can you beat that for advertising? The practice of one club member's telling all about some new wrinkle and showing how it could be done with apparatus which could be purchased at the local store, soon became a regular thing and the sales went up with leaps and bounds. This particular dealer now requires two counter men to take care of his radio trade, and he does a good mail order business as well. The men who are behind his radio counter were selected from the best amateurs in the city and he pays them well. They, also, are members of the local radio club and have stations of their own. One of them teaches radio in a local evening school. GOING OUT MILES TO GATHER IN SALES THERE are so many good points about this business and the method of carrying it on, that we may well consider more of them. At his home, this dealer has erected a complete radio station; he didn't go and hire someone else to do it, but put up the whole shebang himself, to learn just what sort of a job it was. He can work with other stations within more than a hundred miles of his home and, in this way, can keep in personal contact with many of his mail-order customers. They meet him, via the air, and they buy from him because they happen to "know" him. Both his counter men continue to operate their amateur stations, and, by reason of the fact that they are well-known in amateur circles, have a following which they bring to the store merely by being connected with it. They have many a chat over the wire, and are able to let the fellows within miles know how things are progressing. Do you wonder that this dealer's competitor frequently displays radio equipment in his window, with cut-rate price tags attached to it? He is certainly up against a stone wall, when trying to buck such an efficient radio department as this. The progressive dealer, by the way, has managed to increase his business not less than 20 per cent, a month, even during the comparatively dull summer period. A BAD AND COMMON BLUNDER IT MAKES little difference what you are selling; the fault we will now consider may be found just as often in the sale of automobile tires, frying pans, or cut-glass bowls, as in radio. Bill Jones ambles up to the radio counter and asks to see a set, made by the So-and-So Company, and this is about the sort of thing that happens frequently: After Bill has made known his desire to the man behind the counter, who happens to belong to the same radio club and with whom he is acquainted — let's call him Jack,— Jack's face lights up and he says: "Why, Bill, you are here just at the right moment to get all the dope on a So-and-So outfit." Then, nodding in the direction of a gentleman further down the room, he says, "I want you to meet Mr. Smith, who represents the So-and-So Company, and who is going to give us a little talk at the club this evening. Mr. Smith, meet Mr. Jones, one of our prominent amateurs and originator of the greatest little portable transmitter you could imagine; he is going to have it over at the club with him to-night."