church discounts, was Re: Retail prices & piano teachers et al.

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 98-09-18 22:50:07 EDT, you write:

<< Regarding the latter part, I recall an idea from Randy Potter's business
advice.
 He suggested some type of voucher system, if I am not mistaken, whereby
members
 of a church ( for example ) have their own pianos tuned and for each tuning,
the
 church receives a credit amount.  After a certain number of congregation
tunings,
 the church tuning is basically free.  I haven't tried it, but it is a twist
that
 might be of use to you in the future.
  >>


I tried that once. It didn't work. I sent out this kind of program to about 20
churches. I had one church member from one church use the voucher. The problem
was, it was one of my regular customers, and he was the choir director of that
church. It didn't generate any more business. 

The problem, I think, is that churches don't want to get involved in giving
out names of piano tuners to the congregation. That would be like advertising,
and churches are not into that kind of thing. 

But that was my experience. Perhaps it will work for someone else. 

Willem Blees