<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> Dear Les & Susan, I worked for several New Orleans dealers for a whole lot of years and prior to that sold chemicals for a national corporation for fourteen years. So I think I can give you a view into the sales-oriented mind. First, the sale is the only thing that keeps them in business initially.  The mind of a customer is carefully nurtured until he or she believes that this piano is the solution to all their musical problems (whatever they are!).  The customer is carefully kept in a positive state of mind until the sale is consumated.  A great deal of care is taken to avoid ANY problems which may crop up (like regular tuning, etc.).  They don't necessarily lie, but sidestep carefully around any land-mines in the process. They are deathly afraid that by being too truthful about these things, the customer will be scared off to one of their competitors and the sale will be lost.  If they lose too many sales, they go under. The savvy dealers, have a lot of work done on the pianos before they are even seen by the customer.  My favorite dealer in this area tunes and completely regulates every piano that comes in before they are put on the floor. They are retuned regularly on the floor until they are sold.  Several of his customers have bought two or three pianos over the years as theirs means increased.  In my mind this is what makes a successful dealer.  Repeat business.  It's the core of our business! When I first started doing these tunings, I would tune it where it was and repair what was broke and walk out.  Then I found that six-months or a year later when I was back in there to re-service, that the problems were still there, and were worse.  Then I had a great deal of trouble explaining why the thing needed a pitch raise or loss motion adjustment to "work right".  When I thought about it, I realized that these were now my customers and not the dealer's and it was up to me to make sure that the piano was correct.  For a while, I just took it on my self to do whatever was necessary and chalked it off to customer aquisition, and planned on making it up later.  Unfortunately, neither of the dealers for whom I worked, sold very good pianos.  About half of the customers, for whatever reason, did not need or want additional service for two to five years. I'm sure some of the problem was the lousy tunings I was doing then, but not all.  When I realized what was happening, I talked to the managers of the stores explaining the problem. One of them was astounded that the pianos were in such poor shape out of the factory (the brands shall remain nameless. Most of them are dead now anyway). We set up a pricing schedule for stuff I could go ahead and do without his authorization and others, I needed to call him about. He praised me for making him understand, because he wasn't aware of the problem and he had wondered why he wasn't getting the after-market sales he had expected.  We talked for about two hours about the problems I was seeing.  He made careful notes so he could talk to the manufacturers about them.  He told me later that they told him that it was his problem. Deal with it! Dealer margins are eroded quickly by overhead and the floor plan expense that they owe on their inventory each month, so they often get into cash flow problems.  So the bottom line is to sell it quick to have the best profit.  Don't let anything mess up the customers mind.  I heard several times that customers were told that the piano wouldn't need anything done for four or five years. Usually, I lift the lid, take out the owner's manual and let them read the manufacturers recommendations about service. Many say four times the FIRST year. It's our job to educate them on what the piano needs to stay healthy. Don't bad-mouth any dealers.  Eventually, you will regret it.  They have a lot of influence in town and you may find that doors close on you unexpectedly. The second dealer, looked at me like I was from Mars. Told me he wasn't paying any more for tunings and that was that.  I told him goodbye.  He called me for a year after that, but I didn't do any more work for him. Warren Leslie W Bartlett wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>I tuned for a new customer today, a Kawai baby grand.  Low part was out about 35-cents, top out about 65 cents.   New piano.  I told them it would take more tunings, showed them why, etc. etc., but they were incensed that their piano, major investment, was so unstable. Shouldn't a major investment be "ready", and not require all this extra cost?????????????- they inquired. The relationship between stores and techs in this town hasn't been incredibly positive, at least in the seven or so years I've been around the business.  What's a guy to say to these people?????? les bartlett ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today!  For your FREE software, visit: <a href="http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj">http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj</a>.</blockquote> -- Warren Fisher RPT fish@Communique.net 1422 Briarwood Dr. Slidell, LA 70458-3102  </html>