Gerald, Do you charge for time or job when you bill a customer your tuning rate? Matthew --- On Sun, 11/1/09, Gerald Groot <tunerboy3 at comcast.net> wrote: From: Gerald Groot <tunerboy3 at comcast.net> Subject: Re: [pianotech] the thread regarding number of tunings To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 3:35 AM Good advice Chuck. (See Chuck's post below Marshall's post) It is very true. Speed comes with practice. I have my dad to thank for my speed. He was the fastest tuner I've ever met or watched. His speed was not only amazing but his accuracy was too. I may be fast but, I could never match his speed. I could come close, but he could always manage to beat me. Dad would get it spot on with the pin set in no time flat. When I was learning, dad would stand by me saying "next, next, faster, next! NEXT! Don't worry about it Jer, it's a pitch raise, go! You want speed now, fine tune it later. I'll fix it for you Jer GO." We did that day after day until I was finally able to raise pitch 1/2 tone or more in 6 minutes or less. It's the first pass through that allows you the rest of the time to work on the fine tuning. Dad used to also tell me to watch a clock. Keep close tabs on it. If it takes you 2 hours now, first work on getting that time down to 1 hour 55 minutes. Keep what you are striving for reasonable. Keeping track with a watch will help this. Then strive for 1 hour 45 minutes etc., until you get it down to an hour or less. Let's say you manage to get your pitch raise down to 15 minutes. Now this leaves you 30 minutes for a 45 minute pitch raise and fine tuning or even one hour total. But remember, it takes practice and hundreds of tunings. It didn’t come natural to me either. I was fortunate enough to have a dad that took the time to just stand there watching saying next, now, next GO! The biggest error I believe that beginners make and a lot of others too, is attempting to fine tune or do an accurate tuning during what should really be considered a pitch raise instead. That's where you lose a lot of time. Get it up to pitch first. Tune it second. Building a business, any business, takes time and effort. We must put as much effort into building it up as we constantly do once it is built up. My dad used to tell me that it takes more effort to maintain your business and reputation once it is built up than it does to build it up. Although I didn't believe that at the time, I found that to be very true. It is easy to ride on a reputation sometimes letting things slide. We have to control that by constantly forcing ourselves to maintain a high standard of quality regardless. It's a lot easier and forgiving to screw up on the way up during our beginning, learning years. Once your business is where you think you want it, keep striving for something higher because there is only one way to go otherwise and that is down. Jerry Groot RPT Hi everyone, First I want to congratulate everyone who is tuning so often and doing so many in a week. That's great! Upon reading the thread concerning # of tunings, I am amazed and asking myself when will this occur on my behalf? I finished my training at the Piano Hospital now called the School of Piano Technology for the Blind, and I have a great foundation, plus what training I received in Chicago from who is my good friend Nick Kircher. I've read this thread with amazement and asked, "when will I reach this, and will I since I often have to travel by train/bus to reach my appointments. My wife does drive me to some of them that are not attainable by public transit. I'm also curious as to how I can up my numbers since I've been told, speed will come as I get confident. I feel confident. I know what to listen for, but I'm still not tuning under an hour and a half. sometimes two depending on the piano and how much the customer talks to me as I experienced today. So I'm not envious, but wondering is there a missing piece in this puzzle, or have I been at this not long enough to experience the awesomeness that tuning more than a piano or two a day brings? Les also mentioned word of mouth as his way of receiving customers. So far no word of mouth going on here. Is this also a time factor since I've only been back here in Philly since early July? My customers are happy even the ones I tune as a subcontractor are happy, and they still try at times to pressure as to what I charge, which I cannot offer since they are not my customer. So will I be back to tune their piano or not, depends on the person I subcontract for, more than likely yes, so word of mouth cannot occur there. So I apologize for my lenthly post, but I'm wondering am I missing something, or is it simply a matter of "not being in the business" long enough? I sit here and think, man 8 tunings a day? If I could tune that fast, my family would have everything they coud need and want, bills would be paid and not piling up. What am I missing? I have the training and continually learn of course, and when money picks up I'm joining the PTG again. So please understand I'm grateful for the customers I have and the school district I have although the last guy I believe finished the fall tunings much quicker than I, but I'm told teachers are all positive about my tunings. So I'm thankful for what I have, but would love to increase this for my family's sake. I'm planting a lot of seeds, and seeing some results. Is this just a matter of time as Brooke Benton sang? Thanks for listenig everyone, You're all great and I appreciate you! Marshall Marshall Gisondi Piano Technician Marshall's Piano Service pianotune05 at hotmail.com 215-510-9400 Graduate of The School of Piano Technology for the Blind www.pianotuningschool.org Vancouver, WA From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Behm Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 10:54 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] the thread regarding number of tunings >So I apologize for my lenthly post, but I'm wondering am I missing something, or is it simply a matter of "not being in the business" long enough? I sit here and think, man 8 tunings a day? If I could tune that fast, my family would have everything they coud need and want, bills would be paid and not piling up. What am I missing? - Marshall< Marshall - I do believe it's simply the time factor. Unless you buy an established business with all the contacts which come with it, or you happen to set up shop in a area with plentiful pianos, but a lack of technicians, it will take time to build up the customer base where you can do 4 or more pianos a day each and every day. As I mentioned, I tune up to 8 pianos a day at this point in my career, but it certainly wasn't always that way. For years after I started tuning, I would do a half dozen pianos or so a week. That's why I had a day job teaching English - to provide a regular paycheck with benefits. It wasn't until I had taught for 36 years, and could retire with a stipend, that I felt ready to jump to full time piano work. So hang in there, and keep doing your best work. Your customer base will grow over time, and hopefully you'll a some point be turning jobs away because you have too much work coming in to handle. In the meantime, be open to finding other ways to bring in an income. One thing can lead to another, you'll find. Two hours to complete a tuning is not bad at all, either, at this stage in your career. I still take a full hour to tune a piano, and I'm in my 4th decade of tuning. It will speed up, but don't try to hurry it. You want to give the customer a tuning they are happy with, not just one that you make the most money for the least amount of time. Chuck avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 091031-0, 10/31/2009 Tested on: 10/31/2009 11:35:38 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091031/2cc705be/attachment-0001.htm>
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