Do yellow pages pay?

[Barb Barasa]

After tuning "full time" (no other job income) for 7 years, for the
the past 8 years or so I have tuned part time.  On the average I make
only about $5000 a year, so I'm not raking in the bucks.

But I have always been listed in the yellow pages (single line) and
waited to put a blurb on the local public radio station until after
the yellow pages came out here where I moved to so I would be in
them.

My thinking is a little different.  I figure if I get one new
customer from the phone book, that pays for the extra expense.  I
have a repeat customer, and that customer is going to tell a bunch of
people about me.  Also, as others have said, if someone hears about
you and goes to look up your name in the yellow pages and you're not
there ... ?  The new phone book came out in March here, and already
from the very few tunings I've gotten, one customer got me out of the book
(but had also seen my flyer in town).  Where I moved from, people
would sometimes say they just looked in the book.

I should hasten to add that: my name(s) starts with a "B" putting me
at or near the top of the listing and 2) the area I moved from had
only 3-4 tuners listed, one of whom was unskilled and one of whom was
skilled but had no "piano-side manner" (equivalent to a doctor's
bedside manner).  Where I am now, there are a ton of tuners in a
small area, so who knows?  I just think people need to be able to
find your number if they get the impulse.  Advertising types will
tell you that multiple forms of "attack" work synergistically, and in
my experience in the last month I have found that to be true.
(Another person saved a flyer I distributed last Sept. but also worked
with someone who got the mailing I sent out last month.)  The yellow
pages, in addition to generating new business, can be a
reinformcement.  ("Now, WHAT was that tuner's name that Margaret told
me about ...?")

Barb Barasa
Ashland OR

> At this point I am thinking that paying $10 per customer is about the most
> I would want to pay. That would mean that a simple yellow pages listing
> should bring in five customers a month. (The local phone book covers five
> cities.) Maybe I am being unrealistic on estimating advertising costs.
>
> What have some of you done who mostly work for yourself, especially if you
> don't offer rebuilding? Have you found yellow pages advertising cost
> effective?
>
> Sincerely,
> Wally Scherer
> Norfolk, Virginia
> WallyTS@compuserve.com
>
>