Tally

[Clyde Hollinger]

John,

I enjoyed your input.  I was impressed with the fact that some of the pianos very common for you are totally unheard of by me.  The reason is they are Canadian manufactured, and you are in Ontario.  That makes sense.  Few make it into the USA, or at least to my area.

Getting to 550 units in 2001 seems achievable, since that is an increase of only 17%.  I, and others, may be interested to know what methods you used to increase your business 30% in the year 2000.  I am merely curious, but there may be those who are looking for effective ways to increase their business.

Now for the curious, here is how my gross income changed since I went fulltime, and this is primarily from in-the-home/school/church tuning and service.  I started fulltime in June 1992, so I am not comparing 1993 with 1992.  Each percentage is relative to the year before.

1994, up 31%
1995, up 7%
1996, up 16%
1997, up 12%
1998, up 3%
1999, up 20%
2000, down 2%

I am essentially at the place where I do not intend to increase the amount of work I do in a year any more, so percentages are likely to be smaller increases/decreases from here on out.  My rates go up a little each year, this year 4.4%.

Regards, Clyde

"John Lillico, RPT" wrote:

> Clyde,
>
> When I jumped back on the list a few days ago, I was thinking about my own year and how it might compare with other techs who do primarily in-home service and who are independent of dealers.
>
> I gave 395 pianos 470 services in 2000. That's up about 30% over 1999. I've been rebuilding this once idle service business since 1994.
>
> Without my newly acquired college account, Heintzman would still remain my most tuned make after all these years. My most popular brands of 2000 are
>
> Yamaha 48,    (31 at a local college)
> Heintzman 32,
> Kawai 21,       (9 at a local college)
> Samick 18,
> Mason & Risch 18,
> Gerhard Heintzman 17,
> Sherlock Manning 16,
> Weber 12,
> Baldwin 11,
> Henry Herbert 11,
> Young Chang 11,
> Anonymous (no names) 8.
>
> When I did a most popular list at the end of 1997 based on a five year period, the percentage rankings (with todays percentages) were
>
> Heintzman 11.7%,             (8.1%)
> Yamaha 6.5%,                  (12.2%)
> Mason & Risch 6.3%,         (4.6%)
> Young Chang 4.8%,           (2.8%)
> Samick 4.6%,                     (4.6%)
> Kawai 4.5%,                       (5.3%)
> Sherlock Manning 3.8%,    (4.1%)
> Baldwin 2.8%,                    (2.8%)
> Lesage 2.4%,                      (1.5%)
> Weber 2.4%,                       (3.0%)
> Nordheimer 2.3%,              (1.0%)
> Gerhard Heintzman 2.2%  (4.3%)
>
> I no longer retail, rent or rebuild.... just tune, tune, tune. My goal for 2001 is to increase the unit numbers from 470 to 550 without dealer work or a second institution. This is a fairly affluent area and growing quickly. One of my clients has three gates laneways and 19 fully equipped washrooms. Now, isn't that effluence, or what?
>
> Thanks for sharing.
>
> John Lillico, RPT
> Oakville, ON