paid for pitch raise

[A440A at aol.com]

Paul writes: 
<<  Check and tighten the bench legs before anything else.  You clearly show
your client your interest in their piano and include little free services to
demonstrate that care. >>

  Actually, there is no such thing as free service if you spend time at their 
house and give them a bill.  
     If a tech does more than tune, yet only charges his "tuning fee", then 
in reality, he is charging less for tuning than what he is saying.  
   If I think a discount is necessary, then I write it off as advertising, 
customer relations, etc.  but it is not "free".  This is why I tell potential 
customers that the first visit costs more than the normal tuning.  Presently, a 
tuning is $ 135 and a first visit is $ 160.  This does two things.  It allows 
me to justify tightening the bench, the plate, the action screws and the 
squeaky pedal, and it also weeds out a certain level of custoemr that is looking 
for the lowest price they can find.  That kind of customer actually believes 
that they can get the best for less, and are usually more concerned with cost 
than value.  I don't want them.   
      I believe that it is better to shape my clientele to myself than 
letting it shape me to them, so I am always working to develop customers that 
understand the best costs the most.  In the beginning, I had to compete on price, 
since no one had ever heard of me, and I had no reputation to sell.  Things are 
different now.  I knew that I didn't want  to permanently compete on price, so 
I always tried to offer a higher quality of work than could be had elsewhere. 
 It gradually began to pay off, it is now possible for me to continually 
refine my customer profile to suit my target clientele.   I have no regrets for 
always striving for excellence and charging the absolute top dollar.  It is 
interesting that today, I have more work coming at me than I am physically able to 
do and my customers are more than happy to pay me.    
       All we have to sell is our time so I don't confuse my business model 
with altruism,  I charge for all of my time because it is the only thing of 
real worth that I possess.  When it is gone, it is gone forever and I cannot get 
it back.  After 30 years of doing this, it has become evident that customers 
will NOT value my time more than I do so I charge for it and they appreciate 
it.  
Regards,  
Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html