price raising

[Farrell]

"This means you are making less than $10 an hour for driving your car"

Sorry if I did not make myself clear. I add $10 to my regular tuning fee if
an appointment is about 25 miles away (10 or 15 miles beyond my close
service area). Especially if I can book another tuning in that area or one
on the way, it only adds about 15 minutes or so to my time - so I'm
more-or-less covered - albiet at a little bit lower rate than I target. I
really don't do this for profit so much. I am just developing my clientel. I
need the work, but I would prefer service call closer to home. I really do
this just to encourage local business growth, and not-so-much encourage
growth farther away. This way if they want me to service their piano, at
least I get a little something else out of it.

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: <A440A@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: price raising


> Terry writes;
> <<   The far regular zone (within my county - about within 30 miles)
>
> gets $10 added on.  >>
>
> Greetings,
>     This means you are making less than $10 an hour for driving your car,
and
> you are also paying at least 15 cents a mile in overhead.  In the longest
> case, that means you are charging just enough for expenses, and giving
your
> time away for free.  Seems to me that this here situation might represent
a
> leak in the income bucket .
>     A workable solution for me is to charge an hourly rate for the job.
If
> it is an hours drive away, it becomes at least a 3.5 hour job, which makes
it
> dang expensive. However, there are some rural areas with wealthy people
> around here that are glad to pay whatever, just get it tuned! Getting two
or
> more jobs in the same area is something I leave up to the customers, but
that
> only reduces the travel portion of it .
> The two tunings might be different amounts of work, etc.  so I have
learned
> not to lock myself into a price over the phone.   Just make sure the
customer
> has heard a worst case scenario, timewise, and clearly understands your
rate
> and what it could cost.
>     Nothing's worse than having the piker show himself AFTER the work is
> done.
> Regards,
> Ed Foote RPT
>
>