Wim, I agree with you on every point - exept - working on rat infested spinets in a stinky house!!!!!! I told (emailed) the lady that I declined to work on her piano..... :-) Terry Farrell On Mar 25, 2010, at 10:04 PM, tnrwim at aol.com wrote: > Several of us on this list have pined our opinions on discounting > our services. There are some who flat out refuse to offer any kind > of discount, no matter what, while there are others who regularly > offer a discount, to both individuals and non-profits, like > churches. What we need to take into consideration when we offer a > discount is how it effects our business. If you have all the > business you can handle, and are regularly booked several weeks in > advance, then you are in a position to stick to your regular service > fee and work on only those pianos you deem worthy of your talent. I > envy all of you who can do that, because there used to be time when > I was in that position. But, unfortunately, such is not longer the > case. > > With the current economic condition in our country the way it is, > one we have not encountered in over 70 years, "tough times call for > tough measures". It used to be that servicing 20 or more customers > in a week was the norm. But often times I end the week with no more > than 12 - 15 appointments. And those were hard to come by, in that I > did have to offer a discount. The discount was offered, or promoted, > not so much to get my customers to use me instead of a competitor, > but just to get the customer to have her piano tuned. There are many > people who are now making tough decisions on how to spend their > money. They don't have the discretionary income to spend going out > to dinner or buying a new flat screen TV. So when they call to get > their piano tuned, and the fee is more than they think it should be, > they will opt to delay getting that done. They will, instead, use > that money to take a trip, or fix the house. > > Discounts are becoming a way of life in our country. Everything is > "on sale", and that includes getting pianos tuned. There is nothing > wrong with offering the discount. It might be the only way to stay > in business. And this includes offering discounts to teachers who > promise to recommend you to their students, and working on rat > infested spinets in a stinky house. There is nothing wrong with > doing what needs to be done to make a buck, while maintaining your > self respect and dignity. > > Wim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100326/f2f9423f/attachment.htm>
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