Ryan, Have you also considered the costs of housing those pianos until they sell, the costs of advertising them, the fact that your money is tied up in them, the costs of moving them,etc. What about the costs of not being able to earn tuning money while you are showing the piano to a potential customer--who might not even buy. I don't know what all our dealer's costs are, but one of my co-workers told me that he SAVED $10,000 per month in rent when he moved into a smaller space about six months ago. Diane [pianotech] Dealer labor fees Ryan Sowers tunerryan at gmail.com Sat Jun 20 09:56:25 MDT 2009 Previous message: [pianotech] Dealer labor fees Next message: [pianotech] Fazioli Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I first got into this business I tended to have more of a negative attitude towards dealers and other so called "middle-men". This tends to be a pervasive attitude amongst technicians. I have gained a lot of sympathy for them since the sales part of my own business started growing several years ago. Making money selling pianos is not as easy as many think. It is not unusual at all for a client to take over an hour of my time just to look at a piano. By the time you exchange emails, arrange a time to show the piano, etc, it can easily take 2 hours. Then there are the "challenging" clients. When I sell a piano I'm really lucky if I make an actual profit. Most of the time I am just able to cover my own labor costs. This is what has motivated me towards getting through the pianos more quickly, and discovering what an appropriate level of perfection is. Dealers really appreciate that kind of expertise. -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net Diane Hofstetter
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