I think the first piano I ever tried to tune took me 12 hours (over two days). This was in Chicago where I used to live. I'm sure it was the worst job I ever did. I think had I charged them $1200 you might be finding me under some freeway. The answer, of course, is no. In my case I can tune a piano in 30 minutes but they get an hour. If I can get the piano in tune in 30 minutes I find something else that needs doing. If it's a difficult piano it takes an hour and they don't get more. If it's a disaster and it takes more than an hour they get charged more. If the convention teaches me something for greater efficiency then I do the job faster and it leaves me time for other things. My speed makes for a higher hourly rate, they get more from me because of my experience and expertise, better product, they don't mind paying more-well some do. Rebuilding type jobs are different because they are based on an expected time to complete certain tasks. Sort of the flat rate method. Sometimes I'll do them faster, sometimes slower but it averages out. I don't bid those on an hourly basis. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Qshooterq at aol.com Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 9:33 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Charging by job, or by hour? Try this one on. Suppose I charge $100 an hour, and a job takes one hour. I get $100. Now I go to a convention at a cost of $1000. There, I learn how to do the same job in half an hour. Do I now do that same job for $50? Did my spending money to become more competent actually work to my detriment? ----Tom Gorley -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100721/c2818369/attachment.htm>
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