The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1909)

8 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD. THE LOCAL DEALER SHOULD BE ALIVE If He Does Business Along Up-to-Date Lines He Will Never Have to Complain of Trade Going Away from Home — The Public Favors the Home Merchant. We are not entitled to and seldom receive anything that we do not pay for. Especially is that true of merchandizing. The man who does business with a personal backing of vim and energy and ginger doesn't expect the people of his locality to come to him with either charitable intent or because they consider it a painful neighborhood duty to patronize him, pay him his prices and profits and do whatever there is to do with him in the business line, simply because tliey happen to live in the same town. There ever was and ever will be good cause why the local dealer should be given all possible preference — why people should trade at home in preference to going away from home; but there never was and never will be good reason why people should do business with the home dealer if he is disposed in any one or more of numerous manners and ways that often are the part of the dealer who howls because he is not patronized by everybody. The dealer who is up to snuff with his business — onto his job — has no time to dream over what might have been, and what ought to be, but gets out and kicks his heels and sets his brains to work on the possibilities at his hands. If he doesn't get the trade he ought to have, or things he ought to be getting, he knows there is something wrong with his way of doing business, rather than with the ways of the people about him. He is fully aware that he is asking too much price, is not keeping the right sort of goods, has not the right assortments, or something or other rationally out of the way is the cause of his failure to get the business he is after. Instead of allowing his dyspepsia — if he has any — to get the best of his intellect, and allow him to rave over the passing away from home of home business, he gets to work to head off that business and know what the cause of it all is. Who is there of us who was not ashamed of and full of condemnation for the "baby" wno played with us when kids? If things didn't go his way he immediately began to boo-hoo and refuse to play. That sort of baby is almost invariably the retailer who is making the loudest noise about people buying away from home. We hated the little cuss who was always making trouble for us in our childhood days, and the grown-up children of to-day no less despise the boo-hooers who are finding fault with them because the trade is going away from home. The public is full of the idea that it is discriminating and always doing shrewd business to its own best advantage, says the Sporting Goods Dealer. It doesn't matter that often the public is mistaken, for we are contending with facts and not with ought-to-bes. When our home people are wandering away from us and buying outside, the trouble is almost completely with us. If our prices and goods are all right, the people are leaving because we make no efforts to convince them we are all right, or if making the effort it is in some manner abortive. It is up to us to find out always just exactly what is the trouble. We are not ', prepared to give without what we think is an equivalent return; nor is our public otherwise constituted. If the home people do not trade with us, there is something wrong with the way we are doing business. That means the great majority of our own townspeople. A few will invariably trade elsewhere, no matter what their residence, and of them we need not talk. The general run of the public will not go away from home if they are reasonably convinced it is best to trade at home. To keep these people at home, we are fools to tell them they owe their .trade to vis because we are a home institution, because we pay taxes here, because we support the church and the town hall and the undertaker and various other local necessities. All that gabble is not business, no matter what its truth. They are buying in what they believe the most advantageous market, and they are not disposed to uphold, patronize, support and prosper the boo-hoo kind Greyhound Motorcycles Here Is A Live Trade Issue Interest in the motorcycle is great and growing, and dealers with good factory connections are going to find new and increasing profits. We are the oldest motorcycle makers in America and we have never before built so good a machine as the 1909 Greyhound. If you take it on as a side line, it will be apt to crowd out some other things. We will make liberal terms and give exclusive agencies to good people. Write us about it and get the facts. The Auto-Bi Company 1448 NIAGARA STREET . BUFFALO, 1M V. of a merchant. If we carry the goods our public wants, have bought them right and price them right and get down to brass tacks in our endeavors to convince people how and how much we are, we'll have little time for wheedlings; we'll need it all for business. If people at home don't buy of the home merchant, there is something wrong with his merchandizing. That's something to think about. BENEDICT CO. ARE PROSPEROUS. Report Shows Business Is Booming — Officers Elected — The Outlook Satisfactory. The stockholders of the Benedict Manufacturing Co. met last week at their office in East Syracuse, N. Y. The regular annual dividends of 7 . per cent, on both the preferred and common stock was declared, and the following officers and directors elected: H. L. Benedict, president; George N. Crouse, first vice-president; C. C. Graham, second vice-president; Charles Van Wagner, secretary; John Bailey, assistant secretary; R. B. Roan tree, treasurer; Newton Owen, assistant treasurer; directors, George N. Crouse, Charles Van "Wagner and H. L. Benedict. The company's prospects, from the present indications, look exceedingly rosy for 1909. A larger force of men is employed at the present time than ever before. Several departments have been working nights for the last month. The company has recently purchased the patents controlling the United States output of the natural rose hatpins, which have been such a fad for the last few months. These are being turned out at the rate of over 2,000 a day. Notwithstanding this, the orders are coming in faster than the output. The directors voted that more hands be employed, in addition to the present night shift, in this department. The force of 19 salesmen report all sections of the United States, Canada and Mexico in good condition, the stocks low, and retailers and jobbers in a way to place heavy orders, many of which are for rush shipment, this being especially true in the Far West. The Benedict Manufacturing Co. now has display rooms in New York City, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Toronto and the City of Mexico. COMPELLED TO WORK OVERTIME. Manufacturers of baseball and sporting goods generally are quite pleased with the general trade outlook for the Spring, and in many instances they have been compelled to work overtime in all the factories in order to take care of the big demand for goods from dealers in all parts of the country. The new mitts and gloves shown in a great many catalogs this year are said to be experiencing a very good sale, while the advance orders for uniforms thus far are reported as being fully 25 per cent, greater than ever before. Men are often met with, plain in person, plain in feature, plain in dress, without anything whatever about them calculated to impress the mind, and you are surprised at the information that they are rich and made every dollar of their money. On inquiry, it will be found that all their efforts were concentrated in one pursuit, about which they know everything and outside of which they know nothing; and you feel almost angry that a man of such little information should have been so successful in making so much money; while you, with your superior cultivation and greater intelligence, have made and saved up none; but you forget that the man has paid more for his money than it is worth. It has cost him all his measure of human intelligence. As proof, would you take his sordid mind and his gold, and give him therefor all you have learned? When , you give the dealer an object lesson in good salesmanship you are teaching him the better to distribute the goods you sell him.