The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1915)

THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD. 27 BANQUET OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TALKING MACHINE JOBBERS— (Continued from page 26). out on interest. He was doing a thriving business . and had the best trade in his community. We decided to buy him out, and after we had agreed to do it we told him what was the matter with his ■ business. The trouble, was that he did not handle the Victor talking machine. He said that he had been approached many times and told that he . ought to handle it, but that he knew nothing about selling small objects and could not see where he . could benefit by it. Wh:n I showed him our books he was amazed, and if that man goes into business again he is going into the talking machine business. That is what the Victor means to the piano man. It means that he is going to get enough cash out of his talking machine department to pay his rent, salaries and a great part of his expenses. It means that he can take the money that comes in from the piano business and expand and do more business. There is a whole lot of difference between turning your stock over once in three years, as you might do if you are a fortunate piano man, and turning it over four times a year, as you ought to do if you are. a good Victor man. A man who buys a piano for $150 and then sells it for $G down and $6 a month is locking up money awfully fast, but that is what competition makes the piano man do. A man who becomes a Victor jabber will never find himself in that position. Competition will never force him to give long terms to dealers because, through a wise foresight, the Victor Co. has prevented that very thing. His traveling men never have to haggle over prices, because prices are the same throughout the country and a customer cannot get a Victor machine any cheaper from one man than he can from another. He does not have to lock up a large amount of capital, because he can turn his capital over so rapidly. In handling the Victor line he does not have to have a great expense to get business, because the wonderful advertising campaign carried on by the Victor Co. almost makes the goods sell themselves as far as the jobber is concerned. This sounds as though I were singing a paean of praise for the Victor Co., and that is exactly what I am trying to do, and I would that I had the tongues of men and of angels that I might the more properly express my enthusiasm for their goods, their method of doing business and the personnel of their organization. There is no jobber, perhaps, who knows the Victor Co. better than I, for I have been closely and intimately associated with this company since its very inception. From the time that the old gramophone was made that turned by hand, my house has stuck by Eldridge R. Johnson, and every turn that was made by him and his company was made to our advantage. At the present time, due to a variety of causes which I shall not attempt to define for fear that I might be accused of talking politics, there is a most decided slump in nearly all business, and it seems to me that it particularly applies to the piano business. I am convinced of this more than ever, because during the last week I have received no less than three communications from people who have been studying financial conditions. Not only that, but one of these correspondents is the head of a big advertising agency. He wrote me that the piano business was in bad shape throughout the country; that it did not seem to be any longer that the piano was considered a necessity in the home, and that he thought that some national campaign of some kind should be undertaken by both manufacturers and dealers in pianos to stimulate the interest of the purchasing public and to try to convince the American people that unless they had a piano in their home they might as well consider themselves as members of the great unwashed. If this is the national condition in the piano industry, and these men were certainly very serious and positive in their statements, I am afraid that it will be exceedingly difficult to better it, and I also fear that conditions may become worse. If they do, all that I can say is God help the piano man who has not the Victor agency, and were I in his place I would move heaven and earth to get it just as quickly as I could. To sum up, then, what does (Continued on page 28.)