---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment In a message dated 6/23/2004 5:04:53 PM Central Daylight Time, Wimblees@aol.com writes: What I'm really asking is, is it worth it to replace bridges on Sohmer grands, or should customers just accept what they have, and keep the piano until it "dies"? Our business is unique in that very few do what we do, so the real lid on our prices is usually what someone will spend to restore/rebuild a piano, not what the guy down the street would charge. This makes things a little more difficult and at the same time gives us a little wiggle room. I had an interesting experience about 10 years ago. I picked up a piano for refinishing and through talking to the former owner (who had sold the instrument to my customer) I got to see the rebuilding contract for the work done just a couple of years previous by a very reputable company in our area. What a shock! They charged this poor woman fully 3X what I would have charged then, and still today, 10 years later and my rates being significantly higher now, nearly double what I would charge to do the same work. My lesson: Don't be afraid to charge what your worth. Granted not every will be willing to pay but you don't need everybody. This gets us to profitability. As I said earlier I always experiment on my own pianos. My goal is to develop fast and efficient methods and to the extent I develop these methods along with the appropriate jigs, I will be profitable. I still must be able to do the work inexpensively enough that people will be willing to spend that much money. So to the worthwhile question: Yes, to musically, and a definite maybe to profitability, it depends on methods and jigs, and I am not sure I am there yet. Andrew ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/c6/00/c2/d4/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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