Hi Diane, I was saddened last month to hear of John's passing away. He was always kind and caring to everyone he met, and willing to share his high-level of craftsmanship. Here is my very recent experience of purchasing a business from a long-time area technician who retired and moved away. I paid roughly 25-30 cents on the dollar of his annual earnings for a huge box of over 4000 3x5 customer cards (also on a very basic database), a couple of school districts, and 5 market-expansion phone lines. Basically, I did a down payment, and am making monthly payments for the next several years which will help his retirement income. He was my nearest competitor and a friend, so it mostly works well for me. We did hire an attorney who created a Bill of Sale, and filed the sale with the state. On the plus side, I increased the number of customers around my immediate neighborhood and can group tunings together which saves on travel time, gas, etc. I also have added another RPT to my business and am contracting tunings to him 2-3 days/week. My percentage from his tunings actually pays most of what I paid for the business. Also, when I considered the cost of the business vs. the future income, I did *not* rely on the hope that existing customers would call, but rather the referrals and marketing the former tuner had done. He was a whiz at marketing. On the negative side, (1) most of the former customers that call are sad/mad that the tuner didn't tell them he was retiring/moving. (2) They don't understand that there is more to piano maintenance than 'an economy tuning' so my higher prices also make them sad/mad. (3) I'm a young whipper-snapper (almost 52) so how could I possibly know what I'm doing. I am pretty sure that about 25% of his customers that call, try to find someone cheaper. I'm okay with that, I will never be the cheapest guy in town. I have countered the *negative* aspects by modifying my answering machine and website to reflect the tuner's retirement and wishing him well. Also, I am sending *custom* postcards to all of his customers back to 2003 based on the premise that piano owners think about tuning every 5 years or so whether it needs it or not. The postcard and website show my service fees, so very often when they call to schedule there is no complaint about price. I also am open to offer a discount to his regulars, who usually tune annually, for the *first* time so I can get my foot in the door, give them an example of pedal adjustment, voicing, etc. and provide some education on complete piano maintenance. Would I do it again? Yes! Looking at the long term, this will be a very good financial investment. I hope Fran can find someone with John's high-level of service to buy the customer base. Best regards, Dave Davis, RPT ________________________________ From: Diane Hofstetter <dianepianotuner at msn.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Sunday, March 1, 2009 12:51:07 AM Subject: [pianotech] The value of a customer list? John Cook, RPT, Portland, OR Chapter, passed away recently after a sudden illness. John was a gentleman and a fine technician. I liked him a lot, but am leaving it to others who knew him more than I did, (since I have only known him a short while), to write more about his life. Why I'm writing here is to ask your collective (and individual) advice for his wife, Fran, who needs to sell his business. What Fran needs help on most is his customer list. She wants to sell it to one (or more) responsible technicians who do the same high quality service that John did, at a price that is fair to both her and the buyer. I have researched the archives and printed out the answers to a tech who wanted to know the value of his business because he planned to retire. Our chapter president has contacted home office, but, according to Fran, they could not give her much help. So, we hope you all have some actual experiences, or creative ideas, to help Fran out. Thank you, Diane (who will show Fran how to subscribe to pianotech) Diane Hofstetter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090301/d4419f3c/attachment-0001.html>
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