Better direction for sure and more informative David. Good job. Forgive me if I make this long but, I will try my best to make it worth your while. For me, I have set goals. I always have and I keep track of them. When I started out, I focused on the higher end and the most dependable clientele so if the economy went into a recession as it has, I would not be affected nearly as much as others might. It takes years to do this but, it does work. I am dependable therefore, I expect, they should be too. I remind them of our pre-set appointments the night before. My college and churches and other organizations are exempt from this as someone is almost always there. As an example of how long we have been servicing some of our clientele; I have been servicing the pianos at my college for 36 years. My dad, since 1946 and his dad, since before then. Some of our churches, we have been servicing since 1946 when my dad started in this business. Although, we all forget something on occasion, I do not charge for first time offenders. Sometimes, even 2nd time offenders. I never know what may have taken place to create the failed appointment like an illness or death which I have had happen on more than one occasion. If they are sick, I don't want to be there anyway. I start my fall season by looking at my database. I figure out how many pianos need to be tuned, by what dates and where they are located. Will I work any Saturday's and if so, for whom, exactly? I schedule all action jobs beginning in February but mostly through the summer months when my schools and churches can be without them easist. I believe that one important thing is to continually make contact with the customer. Mine are so used to me calling them to schedule that my regular's just wait for me to contact them unless they have an emergency of some kind. Then, I manage to fit them in even if it means working over time or hiring someone else to do it for me. I interact with my clients continually every single day. To me, talking, laughing and having fun with them is half of the fun of being in this business. 25 years ago, I hired a secretary to make calls for me. Any calls that come in during the day time, I return at night or during my lunch hour if I'm home. I have a business phone strictly for this. All of what I call "outgoing calls" meaning, those that are in my data base needing to be contacted and scheduled, my secretary makes. I hate doing it. If I had to do it, none of it would get done. I know this is my weakness so to me, it is well worth hiring her. This past Thursday, she scheduled 10 appointments in 2 hours. That same evening, 4 more returned her call and scheduled with me. The following day, several more returned her calls. Just like that, we made about 18 appointments. I have everything on a database and back it all up daily. On this database, I have it set up so show when my college is due to be called, which pianos are to be tuned, all of their locations, what weeks or months they are to be scheduled in, any contact persons etc. I begin making contact with them at the very beginning of the season, late summer. I schedule everything that I can through Christmas including all concert tunings. The college always gets scheduled first. They amount to around 300 tunings a year which is about 30 % of what I do. You see, everyone has already been contacted. I have set them each up on a yearly schedule that is flexible according to their needs. Perhaps they have a special event coming up that they know about in advance? They are also set up according to their pianos needs. All of this information was then entered by myself into my database and pops up without me having to ask for it. Next my gal calls my regular churches. They are very dependable. We do the same with them, scheduling them through Christmas. Next, she calls the rest of my schools and other organizations doing the same thing, scheduling through Christmas whenever possible. After these are all completed, she then calls homes filling in the remaining gaps (if there are any) with these. If I am over burdened, I simply sub-contract it out. I schedule everything possible in the same areas to make traveling easiest and cheapest. If a music teacher and I have several that do this for me, will schedule my day FOR ME and make it complete without me having to do a single thing, I give that person $10 off per tuning. Most often, I wind up with at least 5 tunings that day including hers. I didn't have to pay my secretary to do it and the teacher is happy as can be because she got the discount. One thing I will not do however, is to compromise my fixed price, my quality or lower my prices to meet my competitor's. I know what I am capable of. I am very dependable. I am very rarely late and if so, I have an excuse like getting stopped by a train or, a traffic jam and they know this. I never cheat them on anything, give more than what I am asked for and insist on being honest and having anyone that works for me, being honest as well at all times! Yes, I do give my college a large break on tunings because I do after all tune 300 pianos a year there. I give a discount if someone will tune 2 or more during the same visit in the same location. I give NO discounts for only one tuning. This encourages them to tune the auditorium and choir pianos at the same time for example saving them money and me 2nd trip. Long enough.... Jer Groot RPT -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of David Love Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 3:07 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] age-old question of what to charge for almost nothing and running a business as a business This isn't aimed at anyone in particular or any specific previous remarks so please no one respond as if I'm attacking them or criticizing their approach, though of course you're welcome to comment. I know this has gone on too long but the question of what is important for a successful business is important especially these days. There's been a bit of sniping in the discussion but hey, get over it. The really germane issue in all of this, if I may distill it down, is where the emphasis lies in your business approach. My view is that yes of course it's important to have skills and to have self esteem and project confidence and not be afraid to charge and do your proper accounting and tax plan and clean your shop and your shoes and tuck in your shirt yada yada yada. But at the heart of any successful business, especially in a repeat service business such as ours, is your ability to develop and maintain relationships with your customers. Ultimately, what sticks with customers are the feelings left behind from your interaction with them. Not specifically what was said, how much they paid, whether they got a discount or not, though these things might be contributing factors. That's why often when someone complains about your price and you end up conceding and giving them a discount you never hear from them again. The discount isn't what they remember. What they remember is how they felt from the interaction and even though they got a discount they leave with the feeling of being ripped off or had they not pressed the issue they would have paid more than was necessary. So in each situation you have to make a decision as to how best to develop that interaction so that it leads to a positive experience for the customer. There are no hard and fast rules for what that means because each person is different and so the criteria will vary. The smartest business people are not those that stick rigidly to a format for everything but those who recognize the nuances that make those relationships work and are able to adapt accordingly. If that means extracting a pencil for free (that's where this all started) so that you can engage the customer in some dialogue that may mean future work, well you have to decide. It may or may not be the right solution in that particular case but you need to go in with an open mind and view the situation as an opportunity. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com _____ avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 100116-1, 01/16/2010 Tested on: 1/16/2010 8:47:43 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software.
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