Valuing ourselves

[Fenton Murray]

Somebody once told me, and this speaks to David's point I think. "You need to be in the top 5%, maybe 2%, of your field to be really successful. Be sure to do something you love because it takes passion to be that good." Oh yea, it was the 92 year old guy in a rest home last month, spent time with him while visiting my mom. He was an educated guy, diplomas on the wall from the 30's, and had worked as an engineer and lots of other things. You know there are cooks out there making $500. an hour, but they're really good.
Fenton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Formsma 
  To: Pianotech List 
  Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:59 PM
  Subject: Re: Valuing ourselves


  On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 12:12 AM, David Andersen <david at davidandersenpianos.com> wrote:


    Thanks, bud, for your reasoned reply...I'm just thinkin'....are you tuning pianos for less than $100? Hope not. 


  I wish I was, and I'm moving up steadily.  As of right now, my fee is $85 and $40 for a pitch correction.   And, most of the guys in our chapter (Memphis) are around that figure.  I have been raising my rates steadily.  But keep in mind that cost of living is much lower than in Cali.  My little home is an older one ... 1150 sq. ft roughly on < 1/2 acre.  It would be pushing it to expect $65K if I wanted to sell it.  I would guess that a similar home there would not go for less than triple that.  The problem is that people want to live in Cali, and they don't want to live where I am.  <g>  Here is not a bad place ... just Mississippi, and rural MS to boot.  But it's pretty cheap to live here.

    Anyway, let's say you do four appointments a day, and each appointment averages ... <snip> ... makes a cool two grand. Is that way, way far off? 


  The numbers don't lie.   But I seriously doubt I would get enough work at that price.  It's a balancing act, and I'm never quite sure what my market will bear.  I admit very readily that while I love what I do, but I'm the world's worst businessman.

    Or---look at it another way. What's your hourly rate? I hope it's at least $65 an hour, and I hope you work 30 billable hours a week if you're working full time; that's $1950. Are those numbers too high for your area? 


  I do charge $60/hour if I'm doing non-tuning stuff.  I'm choosing not to work full time, though.  I'm widowed, and have two boys (6 and 4 1/2.) it takes a ton out of me to do piano service and then come home to do my "other job" as a father and housekeeper.  It is rewarding, but I don't make any $$ doing it yet.  <g>   But ... since I will be totally debt free in a few months, I'm slowing down this year to home-school my boys while I work more selectively (hopefully).  We're starting this in March, so right now it's all on paper and not in practice.  I'm going to try to do two days a week, six pianos a day.

    What does  the highest priced guy in your area get for a tuning and for an hourly rate? 


  The last I heard in Memphis the store that offers piano service was getting $90 per tuning.  I have a friend in Memphis that charges $60/hour.


    Real life example and I'll quit.  I just got back from my dentist to have a cavity filled.  Cost was $58.00.  Now, my dentist is on the low end, but a high end price might be a bit less than $100.00.  What's it cost out your way? 
    For amalgam (mercury)---the cheapest---it's around $125.00 at a good dentist; for composite, which is not deadly poison---what a concept---and is actually chemically and electromagnetically neutral, which biological dentists think is crucial, is $175-200.
    Jus' tran ta heyup, y'all.....
    DA


  Hey, that's a pretty good accent, Mr. D!  <G>  For what it's worth, my dentist did the composite thing.  He is on the low end, to be sure.  I'm kinda thankful for that when I have a cavity.  A friend of mine took his son to a different dentist to have six cavities filled.  The cost was $750.  That's the market here for the higher end of the price spectrum.

  Any advice for me now, knowing my market better?  I've been thinking about offering a more "full-service" option.  Selling my services in 3 hour chunks for around $250.  Tuning, regulating, voicing, etc.  Anyone care to share their prices for such service?  Or, their story on how offering that service greatly improved their bottom line?  Particularly, how do you go from selling Mrs. Jones tunings to selling her greater service ... without it sounding like you're asking her to just write you a bigger check.  (I'm a horrible salesman.  At least, it always seems to sound bad when I say it <g>)


  -- 
  JF

  www.formsma.blogspot.com 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080215/95b6638b/attachment.html