New Cu$tomer Fee

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Clyde writes; 
<<   I just assume that the first call is likely to take a few minutes 
longer.  Clients will
balk at being charged extra just because it's your first time there, but they 
can
easily understand paying more for additional needed services you provide. 
<snip>
     You could call the client to the piano and say something like this:  
"Mrs. S, I looked over your piano, and there are several additional things I 
noticed that need attention>>

    Greetings, 
   I also assume that the first call will take longer,  and since all I have 
to sell is my time,  I have to tell them that the first time costs more.  I 
don't charge more simply because it is a first time, but because, invariably, 
there is an additional amount of time that I have to spend to leave a job I 
can be proud of. I find that customers HATE to be pitched additional work 
after the initial price has been quoted, so prepping them in advance has 
avoided a lot of bad PR.   

>>It is hard to be humble saying this, but I am now taking
new client orders four months in advance. >>

   With all due respect,  if a technician is booked four months in advance, I 
suggest that they are not charging nearly enough for their services.  If the 
price were raised by 40%, and it cost you 20% of your customers, would this 
not leave you with 20% more income and 20% more time, and would that be bad? 
I think not!
    We have a finite amount of time on this Earth, and when it is gone, it's 
gone for good.  I submit that the constantly improving skills of a tech must 
be matched by constantly increasing returns.  The tech with 20 years of 
experience should be more valuable than the one with three or four years in 
the trade.
    There will always be a range of prices that techs in any given locality 
charge.  Some want to be at the very top of the range while others don't want 
to risk losing a customer.  For myself,  if I am not tuning for a customer 
because of the price, that is a far better situation than not tuning for them 
because I don't have the time.  I am not selling a cure for cancer,  I am 
selling my life's reservoir of time,  and I want it to be worth as much as I 
can possibly make it.  
     The customer without the resources to engage me has a broad range of 
other techs to call upon, so it is a win-win approach for everyone except the 
customer that wants the "best for less", and those are the customers that 
are, (thankfully), repelled by paying more for the first visit.   I don't 
want to compete with others on price, I want to compete on the basis of 
quality, and the only way I know to do that is to charge more than others and 
see where the chips fall.  
       I would certainly be interested in other list members views on this ?
Regards, 
Ed Foote