Valuing ourselves

[Jon Page]

I have customers who have been with me for 20, 30 years.
I have maintained their pianos and what they need now is periodic tuning.
All of them are on SS and their retirement funds were hit hard as all have.
One customer has had to cut back on tuning to every two years. Fortunately
for them my tunings are rock solid ;-) and they can do this longer tuning
interval with their limited playing.

When it's a choice of food or medicine, funds have to be budgeted.
Not to mention sky rocketing property taxes devouring their funds.

Customer loyalty works both ways. They helped me when I was starting out,
I keep them tuned at an affordable rate for them. So as a customer service
I still tune their pianos at a lower rate. My income is not generated from
tuning calls (I'd really rather not tune) but from sales of 
reconditioned pianos
and contract restorations.

Some can afford my new rate and pay that, which affords me the opportunity
to offer discounts. The few new tuning calls I accept are grands which I hope
will generate repairs.

Valuing ourselves does not necessarily mean having to make a lot of money
but giving ourselves a quality of life. If you have situated yourself 
in a position
where you have to make $X/day, $Y/week and $Z/month then that is a stressful
situation. I was of that mindset, to crack that nut everyday but 
after many years
I realized that all I needed to do was engage myself in more 
profitable endeavors
since it was not always easy to convince people their pianos would 
perform better
with a little TLC.  Having a daily tuning regiment is a rat race. 
Shop work is more
enjoyable to me and once I situated myself with a home-based shop, overhead
dropped.  I don't pride myself on the funds generated but the quality 
of playing
I can offer for someone's budget and still maintain my quality of 
stree-free life.

An occasional outing for tuning is sometimes a welcome break in the 
day's routine,
other times it's an intrusion. Well, time to get into the shop, tune 
a console as its final
prep for sale, someone's coming to look at it later today.
-- 

Regards,

Jon Page