The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1910)

4 THE TALKING MACHINE WOULD. AFTER THE HOLIDAYS. Dealers Must Keep the Holiday Speed Up Throughout the Winter Season if They Would Hold the New Trade They Have Gained — No Mistaking This Fact. • Never till now, Mr. Talker Man, have you had such an array of tempting morsels to pluck from the branches of your Christ mas tree, and, that being the case, you must bestir yourself, to find a way to turn them into a permanent moneybringing proposition. The holidays are over, it is true, and, if you are the business man 1 think you, you have made much of them, selling many outfits which have bulged the pages of your customer list to generous proportions. But we are talking of the baubles just taken from your tree, and it is in reference to them that I would hold converse with you. You made a special feature of some that needed boosting during the holidays, of course, but are you going to keep up the good work or allow them to drift further and further to the rear, away from your window and your advertisements until, eventually, they repose amid the dust and gloom of a neglected shelf? If you take the advice of one who wishes you well you will don your heaviest armor and enter the lists of 1910 with your sword drawn, lance in rest, chanting as a battle-cry, "Excelsior!" The new products that, have come to you from the manufacturers this year are as meritorious as they are numerous and they will help you fight if you but give them half a chance. , Keep them all to the front all the time; enroll them into an army of attractive display — and the public will do the rest. You ask how this can be done? I will tell you; listen! First of all, watch your competitor's methods — he's trying to do the same thing you are — read his advertisements, and then if you are assured that he is setting the pace and you are following a bad second, do not be cast down, but go automobiling. Open up your four cylinders, advance the spark to the limit, throw in the 90miles-an-hour high-speed clutch, and pass him. Don't crawl up inch by inch as they do on the river drive and on the beach front, but eat him up. You can do it, and it will be a cinch, too; but you must use good gasoline. You can't run an engine on dirty petrol. The juice you'll need in this race for prosperity, my friend, was given you and every normal man by God at birth — brain. Whatever energy you derive from this power plant is entirely up to you. You can use it or abuse it as you deem advisable. Whether it develops one jackass power or ten thousand horse is simply a question of your tenacity and ability to retain the principles of good common sense, and there is no doubt in my mind on that point 1 hasten to assure you. Another thing — don't get sore at the other fellow when his sales loom bigger than your own. Reason it out this way — he's using his brain and you're not, that's all. You come back with I be remark that you have known him long enough to swear that he has no brain to use. All right, you can bet your last copper he's paying for someone else's then, and that amounts to about the same thing in the end as far as results go, doesn't it? However, in the average case, say, in about two times out of three, we're both off the track, for there are a host of pikers on this rocky old sphere who do not, to all appearances, know enough to come in out of the wet, but who, for some as yet unexplained reason, are corking good business men. Von see, their brain is buried deeper, that's all. Therefore, the moral of this first spasm is — Open up your own think tank if you have one; if not, give some other chap a few beans for the use of his. Perhaps you have received one for a Christmas present and don't know it; you never can tell. There's one thing: sure though, and the sooner you get next the better — the talking machine business has assumed such vast proportions that it takes a good, strong healthy, high power brain to run it successfully, and if you are to be in among the sure winners this year you will. have to do one of two things, viz.: beg, borrow or steal a good one, or put your own in training. I'd suggest the latter; it will be cheaper and more apt to bring results, too, I'm sure. SECOND SPASM. There is a little scheme for drawing custom, invented by a talking machine man in Philadelphia, which has been working very well for a year or more, and I have his permission to tell you about it. Every so often he gets out a poster showing a caricature of one of the talent, and below the picture' an announcement reading thusly: "Mrs. John Smith begs the pleasure of your company at her home on Saturday evening to hear Harry Lauder" (or whoever the artist carieutured on the poster may be). Of course the date mentioned is fanciful. He places this conspicuously in his show window, and when his customers ask him about it VI HI lih'l II All HTOTfN Send your Victor and Edison orders to the "House of Quality-" All orders for records, both Victor and Edison, are being filled with records of the most improved recording now leaving the factory. This is important to you. Our dealers say that we pack goods with more care, ship more promptly and fill orders more completely than jobbers who sell talking machines as a side line Send your orders to the "House of Perfect Service." It costs no more. The man who hasn't made an error is dead, and those who say they never make one will die soon. We admit making an error occasionally but we are just as quick to rectify it as we are to acknowledge your remittances. That is Satisfaction. If you will send your orders for Victor and Edison to us you will not only be on a par with your successful competitor, but you will stick out from the bunch like a large wart on a small pickle. Eastern Talking Machine Co H A MSMM mumm mm LAUDER A SAMPLE POSTER FOR PUBLICITY PURPOSES he explains that it will be a peck of fun for them to hold a concert some evening in the near future, sending out as invitations miniature copies of the poster, which he is in a position to furnish at trifling cost. The result is that concerts are constantly being given in the homes of his patrons which are attended by people who are (not yet but soon) talking machine owners. See the point? Looks good, doesn't it? As a finale, allow me to give you some good advice regarding advertising literature: "The most interesting feature of advertising literature, be it catalog, booklet, magazine or newspaper advertisements, are the illustrations. They carry conviction; they are full of selling force, charged to the muzzle with persuasiveness." Howard Taylor Middleton. HOSPE CO. EN1AEGE DEPARTMENT. The A. Hospe Co.. Omaha, Neb., who recently secured the store adjoining their present quarters, are now settled in the commodious addition and have allotted a generous space to the talking machine department, a number of new record racks having been installed and the stock increased. The Hospe Co. handle the Victor.