Small colleges in remote towns

[jolly roger]

Hi Kent,
              Well you are being asked a whole bunch of loaded questions.   

#1,  You need to know what their total piano service budget is.  Most times
this has to be fixed before you can address the pianos.
#2    The pianos have to be inspected before you know what type of mine
field you are playing in.  They should expect to pay you a consultants fee,
to have you come and do the evaluation.
#3    Then you need to sit down with them, and try and evaluate the usage
of the key pianos,  and calculate minimum tuning frequency of each, and add
up the cost.
#4    Piano's in Profs studios and halls, need to be brought to max
potential on a cost time basis.
#5    Charge them on a per diem basis for each of your visits.   Those out
of town jobs I calculate my rates on a 10hr day. Plus $100 per day for
travel, motel and meals.   I find they understand this.
#6   Offer to also coach their tech to upgrade the persons skills.

     One cautionary note,  working with the local tech is a key to success,
 other wise you can leave your self open to some ugly back stabbing.    Bin
thar done dat.      Try and make sure you are both playing from the same page.

     I have a couple of these type situations with rural Bible colleges,
and have built good relationships with the local techs.  I phone the tech
out of courteousy on each visit and ask if they want to tag along.  They
normally show up.

Hope this helps.
Roger



At 08:14 AM 11/4/01 -0600, you wrote:
>I have fallen into the habit of spending two days a year at a small college
>that is well outside my regular service area.
>
>The college has a local tech that does regular tunings. The college likes
>the idea of having an "outside expert" come in regularly, and turned to me
>after they found out how much it would cost to have a real Steinway tech
>come from New York.  :)
>
>I don't give any sort of discount for my services at this college which
>presents a real problem for the local tech, since he _does_ substantially
>discount his services. Therefore, I come in and in just two days use up a
>rather substantial portion of the annual piano service budget.
>
>I have been approached by a second college to begin providing a similar
>service for them. It has been well known for some time that this 2nd college
>has had severe difficulties getting its piano satisfactorily taken care of.
>While I am sympathetic, there is only so much I can do. Part of the problem
>for this college has been that they have not had their pianos tuned often
>enough _and_ they have arranged for only tunings of a number of new pianos
>that had the normal technical bugs that needed to be worked out.
>
>I will suggest to this 2nd college that any less than 2 tunings per piano
>per term is asking for disappointment; I seriously doubt that they would
>want to pay my prices for that many tunings. I will probably offer to come
>up for 2-3 days to tear into the tech problems and tune 4-6 of their faculty
>studio pianos.
>
>For some reason I am having trouble seeing this as anything other than an
>unsolvable problem. I was wondering if anyone here had some perspective to
>offer from their own similar arrangements.
>
>The most recent message from the 2nd college follows.
>
>Kent Swafford
>
>
>> Our chair ... here wanted me to get a longer term "game-plan" and have a
bid
>> before having a person come ... from KS city to do our pianos...  According
>> to my count this is the number of pianos we have that need to be
serviced...
>> 
>> Uprights - 21
>> Grands - 11 (including one in the recital hall)
>> 
>> Let me know what your recommendations would be over the long term.
Possibly
>> something in conjunction with our local tuner covering part of the time...
>> 
>> Thanks,
>