Gerald, Thank You. Tis not often that anyone explains how they do business and stay alive as successfully as you do. I agree with all you have said and do and I agree that is the answer to how most tuners should run their business. Now at the age of 71 I have slowed down a bit or a lot but in some areas I still call my customers personally prior to my visits. Sure I hate it when I call someone and they say no not at this time or something, so I try to reschedule they for a later time. But you Know how to overcome that. Hire someone to do it for you. Today if I wanted to I could survive on just those calls that come in by phone but I enjoy ringing some of my customers. Over the years they become friends. Once again Thank You Tony Caught acaught at internode.on.net From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Gerald Groot Sent: Tuesday, 29 June 2010 2:24 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Raising rates in recession Hi All, For me, I am already booking action jobs for next summer and in fact, I already have 3 scheduled. I am currently doing and have been doing, 2 reconditioning jobs per week from May through July. I have no slow times. I often begin action jobs prior to May, it just depends on what I have lined up and how many tunings I have lined up as to when I have the time available to do it. I sub contract out many different jobs including all rebuilding, I haven't done that myself in many years. So, for the slow times, I plan as far ahead as possible. I know what months they will be and try my best to plan accordingly. I always have. That is the reason why I have no slow times. >From this point forward, I will be lining up jobs for my slower times for next summer. I cannot tune all of the pianos I have to tune during only a few months of the year. That is totally impossible for me and ridiculous to attempt. Pianos need tuning at various times of the year here in Michigan. I plan that accordingly as well and will explain that a little further down. I've always been a leader in price increases. My costs of living, health insurance, taxes, cost of supplies, phone lines car repairs and any other expense has not gone down. They have however, gone up and some of them considerably. If we rely strictly on what comes IN via the phone lines to live and work off from, you will not be nearly as busy as the person that calls his clients as I do. As I mentioned in another email, I am currently booked solid all the way through September as of today. (I have my son doing action work for me in my shop as I type this) I hear more often "I am as busy as I want to be." My first thought is, Good excuse and I think, OH REALLY? And, how busy is that? 1-2 tunings a day if that? Booked for 1 week ahead? Do you have any sort of business plan? Any goals set? I'll bet they are not booked as far ahead as I am tuning as many a day as I have in the past 35 years of full time tuning. I have cut back some being 54 years old now. I no longer care to tune 8-12 pianos a day and only do so when I have to do so. Otherwise, it's 3-7 per day. I have all of my churches, my college, my schools and all other organizations including my homes set up to be called at certain times throughout the year. I absolutely HATE making these calls to schedule in advance myself. I hate that more doing anything else. That is my biggest weakness in business. Therefore, knowing this, I hired a gal back in the early 1980's to do this for me. I set up my college tunings myself and in fact, have already set aside all of my college tunings dates required through January of 2011. I STAY AHEAD of the game and ON TOP OF THINGS AT ALL TIMES! This is a business and MUST be run as such. This is most important of all. Staying ahead and on top of the game. My gal came last week and scheduled 48 tunings for me for the fall months in 2 days, working a total of 4 hours. I pay her $12 an hour and $1 per TUNING scheduled. If a school has 15 pianos, that's $15 for her. As mentioned above, I pre-set up everything. The first thing I did and still do, was/is to find out when our clients have special events coming up? Concerts? Recitals? Whatever. We ask what time of year would you prefer sometimes upon my recommendation, 1, 2, 3, 4 + tunings a year depending upon the use and location of the piano. All of this information then gets entered into my database and pops up months in advance that so and so in big red letters IS DUE FOR SERVICE. All I need to do is look to see what month/s they are due, which pianos are due to be tuned and have my gal contact them and set them up. They have come to LOVE that I do this for them. They thank me for it constantly. They have no more need but for emergencies, to contact me first and know, I will stay on top of it always contacting them well in advance of the preset months that we have agreed upon. I keep my quality one step ahead of my competitor's. This IS possible. I set very high standards not only for myself but, for those that do subcontracting for me. Screw up and you'll know it. Screw up again and you're fired. My sub contractors know this. It is my reputation at stake. I make THEM match my standards not me, theirs. I am on time as much as possible and I am extremely dependable. I rarely cancel appointments unless I am sick or something like a funeral takes place. If a client calls and I'm booked and cannot get the job done, I find someone that can or go after hours to do it myself instead. One way or another, I will get it done. I do all the billing so my name remains on their contact list not the person I sent in and I pay the sub contractor myself. If I tell a client that the job will be done by this date, it is done by this date come hell or high water! If I quote $1,200 for example, and I find something else wrong that I missed due to it being my fault, I absorb it and learn the lesson. I learned that I must look it over better in order to not be screwed later on. With the above things in mind, that is worth more to me and to my customers than matching competitor's pricing. That said, I am currently charging $140 in town for a standard tuning with no pitch raise and with no repairs. Tuning only. I quote $140-$180 for a tuning and P.R. I charge $160-$200 for traveling out of town for tuning and P.R. I have NO complaints about my pricing. But, I do get plenty of compliments of how can I manage to arrive on time every single time (?) along with how much it is appreciated. As for traveling.. Why should I after all, absorb the cost of driving an additional 1 hour or longer round trip? I should not. Again, it is a business. Running it as one will give us and our clients the best service and benefits possible. Giving a bunch of stuff away will in fact, cause you to be forced from that point on, to continue to give things away for free because not only will the client expect it but, they will tell everyone else that you do this and that for nothing. Try reversing it and it will not be easy. Never start it and it won't have to be reversed. As Chuck mentions, location saves time and money. There is nothing wrong with traveling but, traveling from one side of town to the other and back again is nuts yet, sometimes to fill in a last second cancellation, we all do it. 1 tuning is better than no tuning. I have always aimed my sights at the higher end clientele. My college comes first and foremost. My family has been servicing there since 1926. My churches come 2nd. Schools 3rd. Other organizations such as retirement homes and the like, 4th and homes last. Taking care of our most dependable clientele is first and foremost. They will remain as such. Reading business related sites is important to continued education on how to properly run a business. I stopped using a card file system in 2004. I use Filemaker Pro. My friend set it up for me according to my needs. It pops up the clients as mentioned above when they are due to be called for service. I also use it for billing. It has never ONCE failed me or crashed nor have I lost any information. With all that this said, YES, I most certainly believe that we should all increase our rates every so often and not once every 5-10 years like some people I know. I raise mine on a regular basis. Clients get used to it and then expect it. They know full well that we too, have a need for a price increase just like any other business. Again, service is everything. Make quality and customer service a priority and your business with thrive even in the slower economic times. I am living proof of this. Jer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100629/bd2c7359/attachment-0001.htm>
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