Board of Education Pains

[EBordeleau@aol.com]

In a message dated 97-02-04 14:22:56 EST, you write:

<< While attempting to expand my young piano tuning business, I did what I
 am sure a lot of you have done.  I attempted to crack the lucrative
 school system market.  ...    A phone call to the Maintenance
 Supervisor secretary revealed that there was NO FORMAL BIDDING PROCESS,
 and the "vendor that is routinely used is quite adequate, and will
 continue to be used, however, if you leave your package with us, we will
 keep it on file for future reference."   >>


Jim -

A few observations from my own experiences doing institutional work:

The gatekeeper is the music teacher.  If you're going to get work in any
school, you need them to submit a purchase order for the work, with your name
on it.   If a music teacher told you to go to the board of education, he may
have been politely blowing you off.

Once you get established at an institution - school, college, theatre, or
whatever, you're in for LIFE, unless the gatekeeper is replaced by someone
whom he or she brings from their last assignment.  Price and credentials are
not going to crack this market; low prices CAN get you work on a dealer's
floor (if you're low enough).

Institutional work is NOT lucrative;  the best you can say is that it may
bring in periods of high volume.  Most institutional customers EXPECT a
discount of 25 - 50%.  You must plan on waiting 30 - 120 days to be paid
after submitting a bill (accepted only after you have finished ALL the work
on that purchase order).  And you can count on being solicited to put an ad
in their program book each year.

It takes a long time to build a private tuning and piano service business
from scratch.  Five years to go from ground zero to more work than you can
handle is not unrealistic.  The director of one of the tuning courses in
Boston once stated that half of his graduates left the field within the first
year, most for financial reasons.

Your best business builder is advertising - newspaper classifieds and yellow
pages, to bring in new accounts, and follow up with reminders every 6 months
with all previous accounts.  This means a personal phone call in the evening
to solicit business (yeah - just like those annoying telemarketing people,
but at least these are people who know you and who'll be polite and listen to
what you're saying).  Its impossible to overemphasize the value of following
up on previous accounts.  Word of mouth is great (and its free) but you have
no control over it.  Consider it a bonus.

If you need immediate full time income from piano service, the best way to
get it is to get a full time job at a college or university.  Keep watching
this board for posts.

Edward Bordeleau
celebrating 25 years of piano service 1972-1997