AAA Yellow Pages trade listing

[Mark Schecter]

Marshall,

I don't know whether this would work for you, but it's a thought I'll 
pass along. My first tuning teacher told me how he started his business 
when he was new to the area. He got his business cards printed up, and 
started canvassing the neighborhood where he lived. He knocked on each 
door, and if someone was home, he would introduce himself by name and 
profession. He would ask if they had a piano, and say he was available 
to tune and repair it whenever they were ready, right now or at a 
convenient later time. He also made a point of asking if they had any 
friends or neighbors with pianos whom he could contact, or for whom he 
could leave a business card. If there was nobody home, he would leave 
his card on the door and move on to the next door. It worked for him, 
got him started immediately. He later teamed up with another technician, 
and eventually owned a very successful piano store. These days, this 
direct approach might be called guerilla marketing.

I would guess that in most established neighborhoods, every single block 
of homes would have at least a few pianos, and it's likely that most of 
those are not regularly serviced by anyone, even the people you think 
have the area sewn up. Just the simple act of reaching out to your 
neighbors could begin to establish you as the person to call for piano 
service, and plant the seed in their minds that piano service is 
available for their piano, from you, whose face they now know. It might 
be worth a try, yes?

Hope this helps.

-Mark

pianotune05@comcast.net wrote:
> Hi Susan again,;)
> So how does one find these small pockets that are tunerless?  Where I 
> Live, South Bend IN, which has communities somewhat connected to it has 
> about 100k, but at least 9 tuners probably even more.  The one store, 
> only store we have has all they can handle with the three tuners they 
> have  IUSB has one tuner already whom I join in order to learn from 
> him.  He likes to pay for my lunch even though I insist on treating 
> hiim.  Another college is taken by a tuner I  know.  Anothe rguy I don't 
> know has all of the schools.  Another friend of mine has most of the 
> churche in town.  I feel as if I"m grasping for straws trying to find 
> someone out there who needs a tuner.  That's whyI'm not too worried 
> about putting my name out there and getting calls too soon before I 
> complete my full training.  It appears that this area is sooooooooo 
> saturated.  I"M told there there are plenty of p! ianos, but where are 
> they?  I need some sort of honing device to find them like a special 
> tool like they use on the beach to find metal objects.  I wish someone 
> here would retire so I could at least get a piece of the pie like George 
> Jefferson did when he was mov'n on up! :)
> Marshall
>