The talking machine world (Jan-June 1919)

136 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD July 15, 1919 Featuring the Musical Possibilities of the Talking Machine [Note. — This is the twenty-eighth of a series of articles on the general subject of the musical possibilities of the talking machine. The aim of the series is to develop these possibilities from all angles, thus opening up fields for sales expansion oftentimes neglected wholly or in part. — Editor.] THE PERSONAL PART I am rather of the opinion that the most appropriate title for the present article would be "Featuring the Musical Possibilities of the Talking Machine Dealer." Why I think so will appear, I hope, in the sequel. In nearly all the matter I have ever read in trade journals concerning the promotion of public love for music, with its commercial corollary, public purchase of musical instruments, the emphasis has invariably, been put on the consumer, and never on the seller. Ingenious gentlemen write ingenious articles to show why the dear people ought to buy pianos or talking machines in enormous quantities, and thus be happy ever after. The arguments are often as ingenious as their writers, though once in a while one finds them by way of being a bit ingenuous instead. But the interesting point is that one never, or at least hardly ever, finds any emphasis on the seller's part in this proposed spiritual opening-up. The Steak Fallacy The supcrficial-mindcd person will argue fliat to sell beefsteak one need not be a grower o'f cattle, and that therefore talking machines can be sold without a knowledge of music on the part of the salesman. The analogy, however, is rather painfully inexact. If beefsteak were something which the public rather had to be taught to love then the best salesman would undoubtedly be tlie man whose wide acquaint ance with the habits and nature of steers best fitted him to discourse with conviction, not to say enthusiasm, concerning the true relative value of various cuts of meat. The public indeed considers itself well able to choose its own meat. Does any one believe that it is yet ready to formulate its own demand for music and insist on getting its money's worth as well as what it asks for? "Salesmanship" The idea that a merchant need have no technical knowledge of the goods he sells embodies a fallacy that seems to die hard; yet is in fact dying more and more rapidly. The fallacy rests upon the assumption that selling is to be done by the exercise of a faculty called "salesmanship," which appears to mean the art of persuading the public to buy goods without reference to their intrinsic value. The worship of "salesmanship," however, has come to suffer an eclipse during recent years and to-day the business world, speaking broadly, is beginning to see that real "salesmanship" is exchange and nothing else. In a word, the business world sees that a sale in which both parties to the transaction make a profit is the only real sale; and that unless the merchant sells a full measure of satisfaction with each piece of goods he will not remain in business very long. A few years ago, no doubt, such talk as this would have been greeted with sneers. To-day those who sneer take care to sneer alone and apart. The truth, then, is that the successful niercliant is he who best knows how to give the pulilic what it wants and who begins by discovering for himself that what the public wants usually has to be taught to the public first. That By William Braid White merchant usually makes another discovery, which is that when the attempt is made to guide public taste intelligently the tendency of public desire is up and not down. Forward and not backward, towards the better and not towards the worse. In these words, indeed, may be summed up the experience of every great merchant; nay, of every man who has ever influenced permanently public thought. "Selling Noise" A merchant, in other words, is not fulfiling the requirements of his job if he is not thoroughly posted on the nature of his goods, on their technical features, and on the particular science or art which they subserve. A talking machine dealer who knows nothing about music, and hardly more about the mechanism of his machines, is a very unsatisfactory sort of person with whom to do satisfactory business. In fact, it is fair to suppose that satisfactory business cannot be done with him. It is all very well for such a merchant to say that he deals with many hundreds of men and women who want noise and nothing else. The answer is simply that if you sell talking machines and records on the basis of noise you sell them as noise machines and noise records. If you sell them on the basis of music then alone can you be selling them, and charging good round prices for them, as music-machines and music records. But to sell that which reproduces music, without anything about music, is exactly like selling real estate without knowing the location, the surroundings, the scenery or the nature of the buildings involved in the transaction. That sort of salesmanship might sell real estate during a landboom, but it decidedly will not "go" at anj' normal time. Neither will ignorance take the place 66 LAUZON" Phonographs IN THIS AGE of science and progress, buyers of phonographs are becoming more exacting and critical each day. The cheap trouble-mai<ing talking machine is doomed soon to be a thing of the past. It is with a full knowledge of present conditions, that " Lauzon " phonographs are designed and made — they offer a foundation upon which a lasting and profitable business can be built. THE CABINETS are works of art and harmonize with the better types of Period Furniture— beauty of case design is commensurate with beauty of tone. THE "LAUZON" motor and mechanical equipment are of the very highest class and most expensive made. The Michigan Phonograph Company Phonograph Division of the Lauzon Furniture Company OFFICES r>l> 4 T^TT^ ¥> 4 «T¥^0 Tl/»Ti-.TTT^ 4 TWT FACTORY 705 Ashton Building GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN Monroe Ave. and 6th St.