Here is a list I came up with of costs associated with your profession: Transportation, Misc. Parts, Raw Materials, Tools (including electronic tuners), Books/Training materials, PTG Dues, Conferences, Website Development/Maintenance, Phone Service, Reminder Cards, and Advertising. HI Zane, Here are some responses for you. 1) Is that list of costs accurate? What am I overlooking? Don't forget insurances. I have business insurance. My wife works for the state university system, which takes care of health insurance. Can you help me estimate any of those areas? I'm guessing that transportation and parts cost the most? I think the Potter course, which I took and recommend, is about 1500$. PTG dues is around 200$ a year. Conference costs would include registration, transportation, hotel, meals, a tool/toy budget, and the would have to include loss of work time. I have a tiny yellow page box for advertising. It's around $100.00 a year I designed my own website (probably cost me at least $1,000 worth of my own time...:(). It costs me $19.95 a year to maintain with no advertisers. I don't use a phone service. I do my own calls, and my business line is my cell phone. Reminder cards cost around 15$ a month or so (I do them myself, with my wife's help to maintain legibility...) Parts cost what they cost, and I don't really buy them until I need them. I did buy alot of piano wire of different gauges when I fist started out, and that has paid off handsomely. Tools ...get a good hammer, 2-300 bucks. IF you take the Potter course, many tools are included. Basic repair and regulation stuff will cost 500 to 1000$ depending on where you get it. 2) How many pianos do you service in a week? How many can you do a day? How do seasonal changes affect your business and where are you located? Do you service pianos on weekends? 15-20 pianos a week. My normal service call is 1 1/2 hours, though I generally give a little more time if necessary. And, like Les Bartlett, I try to give a complete service call and deal with other issues as necessary. I can do 5 in a day, but on those days I won't be listening to any music on my way home... I live in a piano-friendly climate, though during hot or very dry air spells, I do get many calls. I service pianos on weekends as necessary, but try to keep work to weekdays. I do work late 2-3 nights a week. 3) Do you take credit cards or are you strictly cash based? Do you generate invoices? Do you establish a written contract with your customers for the services you intend to provide? No credit cards I have numbered invoices printed at a local prinshop No written contract, though I've made proposals to institutions that have been accepted 4) How much do you spend on advertising? Do people visit your website? See above for advertising costs. People do visit my website, though I don't keep track of the number of hits. One of these days I should figure out how to do that.... Like my yellow page ad, I just want to have a presence. It is more educational than commercial. 5) How do you determine how much to charge? Is it a flat fee for tuning and an hourly fee for regulation/repair? Are you willing to share any of these numbers? You can check out my website for costs. I don't like to haggle on the job, so I have charges printed on my invoices. My prices may seem high, but they are actually low to mid-range for my area. A fixer-upper 3 bedroom home in my town goes for around $700,000 dollars. That's alot of pianos! Hope this helps, Dave Stahl, RPT Dave Stahl Piano Service 650-224-3560 dstahlpiano at sbcglobal.net http://dstahlpiano.net/ ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070410/657ee6f1/attachment.html
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