---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Dean, Great post. Thanks! Steve Fujan www.fujanproducts.com PS: My wife kids me when I comb my hair these days. I guess it just feels good. On 1/3/06, Dean May <deanmay@pianorebuilders.com> wrote: > > Hi Marshall, > > > > I started in the business by taking over a client card file from a tuner > moving out of state. He had built his business up by running a classified > ad. He was a little unscrupulous, offering a $20 piano tuning (back in 19= 80) > that usually turned into a pitch raise for 3 times that amount plus a cal= l > back. And he always tried to upsell with repairs/regulation that may or > may not have been needed. I think I ended up with about 30 clients from a > card file of several hundred. > > > > Most of my client build up happened after I hooked up with one of the > local music stores. They had a regular tuner who was very good (way bette= r > than me), but he was not real reliable. Plus, usually those kind of good > tuners don't like to mess with the floor tunings and prepping the used > trade-ins. Music stores pay a discounted rate for that work and a good tu= ner > may not want to "lose" money doing discounted work. So I took over doing = the > floor tunings and prepping used pianos while the other guy did the expens= ive > new pianos and all the in home work. It was great experience for me. I > learned to tune in a noisy environment, learned how to tune quickly and o= n a > variety of pianos with a huge variety of problems. Every time I ran acros= s a > new problem I learned how to resolve it by studying Reblitz and calling a > local mentor. I rarely saw the other guy as he hardly came in the store. > > > > After a couple of years the store started giving me the home tunings the > other guy didn't show up for (believe it or not, some tuners will actuall= y > make appointments and then not show. Bad, bad, bad. But good for me).Ever= y complaint the store got was passed to me and I quickly resolved every > one. They loved me. They were so impressed that pretty soon I was getting > all of their work. Understand it is not that they were impressed with my > tuning skills, they were impressed by how I took care of people. You see, > a store like that mainly wants no complaints. You don't have to have the > tuning skills of David Love, David Anderson or Dale Erwin (some of the > greats on this list). You just have to know how to comb your hair, show u= p > on time, take care of people and do a reasonably good job of caring for t= he > piano. The other guy had long scraggly hair and was a flaky musician. And= we > all know how those guys are. ;-) > > > > Every new client I got I took care of. I used a simple database program, > starting with SuperBase on a Commodore 64. Every month I printed out a > list of people due for a tuning and made phone calls to schedule. When yo= u > get a new customer, take care of him. You are seeing how difficult it is = to > get a new customer. Don't leave it to chance that he will remember when h= is > piano needs tuned and be able to find your number when it does. Take care= of > him. Give him a reminder. Since then I now lean more heavily on post card= s > and email reminders. > > > > I have not found Yellow Page ads to be a good investment. In fact, if you > haven't set up a business telephone, don't do it. Just use your home phon= e > and your name for your business. A Yellow Page listing requires a busines= s > phone line which will cost you about twice as much per month. I have done > the enormously expensive display ads in the Yellow Pages. They didn't > generate any more new customers than the simple listing, and the simple > listing generates very few. I've finally convinced the other area tuners = of > this and none of them do display ads anymore. Most of my new clients now > come from referral. I no longer work for any music store. > > > > Old customers that I haven't heard from frequently look me up in the Whit= e > Pages. How do I know? They call me at home, not the office. Yellow Pages = are > not a good value. Even though every piece of mail I send my customers and > every email they get contains the office number and my cell number, often > when they are ready to schedule they look me up in the White Pages and ca= ll > my house. Don't waste money on Yellow Pages. > > > > I do know a couple of tuners that lived on well traveled roads who > generated a fair amount of new contacts by having a small yard sign out > front with a simple message: Name, "Piano Tuning" followed by a phone > number. I haven't tried such an approach but have been intrigued by it. I= do > know someone with frontage on US 41 and have thought of putting up a smal= l > billboard on the corner of their property. I am convinced it would do wel= l > for me or someone in our business, but I haven't done it (I guess I'm not > hungry enough). Perhaps if you know of someone with property frontage on = a > busy highway you should explore such an arrangement. Get an easy to remem= ber > web site (mine is www.pianorebuilders.com. Go to www.godaddy.com to find = a > domain name and register it cheap) or a vanity phone number so that when > people drive by they don't have to write anything down, they will remembe= r > it. For a vanity phone number check out www.tollfreenumbers.com ( (888) > Dalerwin and (877)Dalerwin are both available. Dale are you out there? ;-= ) > I am in the process of securing (888)DeanMay! I'm so happy.) As an aside, > I also found www.globalfiber.net which has the lowest long distance rates > I've ever seen. > > > > Direct mail to my customer base is working very well for me as a tool to > remind people their piano needs tuned. I have not tried direct mail to > targeted prospects. But I have thought that such a piece might work well. > One of these days I am going to try hitting all the churches with a post > card. You might also try mailing the schools even though I don't much lik= e > tuning for schools. Teachers tend to be snobbish, it is difficult to work > around classroom schedules and it takes forever to get paid. However ther= e > are a few schools I take care of that don't have those problems. Another > possibility for a mail piece is to piano teachers, but they can be pretty > snobbish, too, especially to an inexperienced tech. Just don't tell them > your level of experience. ;-) > > > > For mailing addresses you can use direct mail companies that specialize i= n > giving you targeted addresses. They aren't too expensive. Or you can use > internet Yellow Pages which I have done for a brother in the carpet clean= ing > business. I got him a mailing database of nearly 600 apartment complexes = in > Indy. A mailing a month to these complexes has generated a huge increase = in > his business. Direct mail works and it is cheap. BTW, we got a color lase= r > printer (pretty cheap now) and noticed a dramatic difference with a color > mailing over black and white. Be sure to include a good color picture of > yourself. We buy card stock from Sam's (cheap) that is 8.5x11. You can do > 4 post card size on a sheet or 2 5.5x8.5 cards which take a letter rate > stamp. We have found the bigger size to be worth the difference in cost. > Just run them through the laser printer doing 2 to a page (use mail merge= to > put the addresses on at the same time) and then take them to a print shop= to > have them cut. This is also, btw, a great way to do a small run of color > business cards (mine is attached). If anyone wants a sample of what we do > for the postcard mailers, email me privately and I'll send you the files. > > > > I suspect your most rewarding efforts will be to try to find a couple of > music stores that will let you prep their incoming low end trade ins. > Their regular tuner hates working on them, I guarantee it, but will proba= bly > be happy to give you advice on repairing the different problems they have= . > This will give you great experience working on lots of different kinds of > pianos with lots of different kinds of problems and should pay you around > $20-$30/hour. After awhile you may find the store giving you some in home > referrals the other guy doesn't want to mess with. Niiice. > > > > Terre Haute (tare-a hoe-t) is a population of around 120,000. Lots smalle= r > than South Bend. > > > > Blessings, > > > > *Dean* > > Dean May cell 812.239.3359 > > PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 > > Terre Haute IN 47802 > ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/bb/b7/74/eb/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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