I don't believe it's a good idea to tell the customer, "I charge $100 per hour", or whatever. I charge by the job based on everything involved, plus travel time, mileage and gas. If you went to have Laser eye surgery and the Doc told you "I charge $20,000 per hour", you'd run outta there so fast you'd leave your shoes behind! That figure is not exact, but we know that the actual procedure takes only a few minutes per eye, and costs, depending on the deal you find, between $1,000-$3,000 per eye! Of course, the Doc isn't charging JUST for those few minutes, but for post op, all the pre-op prep, and has to pay his staff, office rent, and the cost of his laser. But if he WERE to advertise his "hourly" rate, he wouldn't be in business very long. I have NEVER been asked to "justify" my rate, and I don't; I charge for the particular job I'm doing and that's that. Terry Peterson >From: Wimblees@AOL.COM >Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org >To: pianotech@ptg.org >Subject: Re: Fees >Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 01:34:46 EST > >In a message dated 3/16/02 4:34:12 AM !!!First Boot!!!, >davidlovepianos@earthlink.net writes: > > > > Don't take me quite so literally. > > > > David Love > > > >David > >I realize that the story you gave is not a word for word telephone >conversation, and neither was mine. And I am not trying to persuade you to >change your practice. I wish you all the luck in the world with it. I just >wanted you to be aware that what you are doing might not solve the problem >you described. It doesn't make any difference what you charge, and how you >justify it. Someone is going to ask you to explain your fee structure, and >they will not be happy with it. > >One of the problems we have in this business is that we are dealing with >two >different price structures. One is a set fee for a set task. ($80 to tune a >piano). The other is an hourly wage to do everything else. Now we may have >come up with set fees for doing other things, ($250 to put on a set of >bridle >straps, $800 to regulate an action, $350 for a new set of keytops). but >they >are all based on the amount of time we spend doing them, multiplied by the >hourly rate we charge, (plus parts). > >That is why we should set our tuning fee by what we charge per hour. But >you >first need to figure out what that hourly rate is. Vivian Brooks and I both >have excellent classes on this, and if you look in the archives, or on the >CD >ROM, you will probably find many articles on the subject. > >One thing I find disturbing, is there are tuners who charge $70 per tuning, >and take an hour and half to do that tuning. But then they charge $70 per >hour to do technical work. That means if they need to charge $70 per hour >to >pay the bills, every time they go do a tuning, they loose $35. If they did >20 >tunings in a week, they will have lost $700. They should be charging the >same >for a tuning as they do for technical work, which would be $105. But that >would be way over what everyone else charges. So something's got to give. >My >recommendation is to learn to tune faster. > >Again, David, please don't think that I am arguing with what you are doing. >As I said, if you think it is fair, and the customers are satisfied, go for >it. > >Wim. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC