<div>Dean,</div> <div>Great post.  Thanks!</div> <div>Steve Fujan</div> <div><a href="http://www.fujanproducts.com">www.fujanproducts.com</a></di= v> <div> </div> <div>PS: My wife kids me when I comb my hair these days.  I guess it j= ust feels good.  </div> <div>On 1/3/06, D= ean May <<a href="mailto:deanmay@pianorebuilders.com">deanmay@pian= orebuilders.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0= px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> <div> Hi Marshall,   I started in the business by taking= over a client card file from a tuner moving out of state. He had built his= business up by running a classified ad. He was a little unscrupulous, offe= ring a $20 piano tuning (back in 1980) that usually turned into a pitch rai= se for 3 times that amount plus a call back. And he always tried to upsell with repairs/regulation that may or may not have been n= eeded. I think I ended up with about 30 clients from a card file of several= hundred.   Most of my client build</span= > up happened after I hooked up with one of the local music stores. They ha= d a regular tuner who was very good (way better than me), but he was not re= al reliable. Plus, usually those kind of good tuners don't like to mess wit= h the floor tunings and prepping the used trade-ins. Music stores pay a dis= counted rate for that work and a good tuner may not want to "lose" money do= ing discounted work. So I took over doing the floor tunings and prepping us= ed pianos while the other guy did the expensive new pianos and all the in h= ome work. It was great experience for me. I learned to tune in a noisy envi= ronment, learned how to tune quickly and on a variety of pianos with a huge= variety of problems. Every time I ran across a new problem I learned how t= o resolve it by studying Reblitz and calling a local mentor. I rarely saw the other guy= as he hardly came in the store.     After a couple of years the store s= tarted giving me the home tunings the other guy didn't show up for (believe= it or not, some tuners will actually make appointments and then not show.= Bad, bad, bad. But good for me). Every complaint = the store got was passed to me and I quickly resolved every one. They loved= me. They were so impressed that pretty soon I was getting all of their wor= k. Understand it is not that they were impressed with my tuning skills, they were impressed by how I took care of people. You = see, a store like that mainly wants no complaints. You don't have to have t= he tuning skills of David Love, David Anderson or Dale Erwin (some of the g= reats on this list). You just have to know how to comb your hair, show up o= n time, take care of people and do a reasonably good job of caring for the = piano. The other guy had long scraggly hair and was a flaky musician. And w= e all know how those guys are. ;-)   Every new client I got I took care = of. I used a simple database program, starting with SuperBase = on a Commodore 64. Every month I printed out a list of people due for a tun= ing and made phone calls to schedule. When you get a new customer, take car= e of him. You are seeing how difficult it is to get a new customer. Don't l= eave it to chance that he will remember when his piano needs tuned and be a= ble to find your number when it does. Take care of him. Give him a reminder= . Since then I now lean more heavily on post cards and email reminders.   I have not found Yellow Page ads to= be a good investment. In fact, if you haven't set up a business telephone,= don't do it. Just use your home phone and your name for your business. A Y= ellow Page listing requires a business phone line which will cost you about= twice as much per month. I have done the enormously expensive display ads = in the Yellow Pages. They didn't generate any more new customers than the s= imple listing, and the simple listing generates very few. I've finally conv= inced the other area tuners of this and none of them do display ads anymore= . Most of my new clients now come from referral. I no longer work for any m= usic store.   Old customers that I haven't heard = from frequently look me up in the White Pages. How do I know? They call me = at home, not the office. Yellow Pages are not a good value. Even though eve= ry piece of mail I send my customers and every email they get contains the office number and my cell number, often when they= are ready to schedule they look me up in the White Pages and call my house= . Don't waste money on Yellow Pages.   I do know a couple of tuners that l= ived on well traveled roads who generated a fair amount of new contacts by = having a small yard sign out front with a simple message: Name, "Piano Tuni= ng" followed by a phone number. I haven't tried such an approach but have b= een intrigued by it. I do know someone with frontage on US 41 and have thou= ght of putting up a small billboard on the corner of their property. I am c= onvinced it would do well for me or someone in our business, but I haven't = done it (I guess I'm not hungry enough). Perhaps if you know of someone wit= h property frontage on a busy highway you should explore such an arrangemen= t. Get an easy to remember web site (mine is <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://= www.pianorebuilders.com/" target="_blank">www.pianorebuilders.com</a>. Go= to <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="htt= p://www.godaddy.com/" target="_blank"> www.godaddy.com</a> to find a domain name and register it cheap) or a vanit= y phone number so that when people drive by they don't have to write anythi= ng down, they will remember it. For a vanity phone number check out <a oncl= ick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.tol= lfreenumbers.com/" target="_blank"> www.tollfreenumbers.com</a> ( (888)Dalerwin and (= 877)Dalerwin are both available. Dale are you out there? ;-) I= am in the process of securing (888)DeanMay! I'm = so happy.) As an aside, I also found <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://= www.globalfiber.net/" target="_blank">www.globalfiber.net</a> which has t= he lowest long distance rates I've ever seen.   Direct mail to my customer base is = working very well for me as a tool to remind people their piano needs tuned= . I have not tried direct mail to targeted prospects. But I have thought th= at such a piece might work well. One of these days I am going to try hittin= g all the churches with a post card. You might also try mailing the schools= even though I don't much like tuning for schools. Teachers tend to be snob= bish, it is difficult to work around classroom schedules and it takes forev= er to get paid. However there are a few schools I take care of that don't h= ave those problems. Another possibility for a mail piece is to piano teache= rs, but they can be pretty snobbish, too, especially to an inexperienced te= ch. Just don't tell them your level of experience. ;-)   For mailing addresses you can use d= irect mail companies that specialize in giving you targeted addresses. They= aren't too expensive. Or you can use internet Yellow Pages which I have do= ne for a brother in the carpet cleaning business. I got him a mailing datab= ase of nearly 600 apartment complexes in Indy. A mailing a month to these c= omplexes has generated a huge increase in his business. Direct mail works a= nd it is cheap. BTW, we got a color laser printer (pretty cheap now) and no= ticed a dramatic difference with a color mailing over black and white. Be s= ure to include a good color picture of yourself. We buy card stock from Sam= 's (cheap) that is 8.5x11. You can do 4 post card size on a sheet or 2 5.5x8.5 ca= rds which take a letter rate stamp. We have found the bigger size to be wor= th the difference in cost. Just run them through the laser printer doing 2 = to a page (use mail merge to put the addresses on at the same time) and the= n take them to a print shop to have them cut. This is also, btw, a great wa= y to do a small run of color business cards (mine is attached). If anyone w= ants a sample of what we do for the postcard mailers, email me privately an= d I'll send you the files.   I suspect your most rewarding effor= ts will be to try to find a couple of music stores that will let you prep t= heir incoming low end trade ins. Their regular tuner hates working on them, I guarantee it= , but will probably be happy to give you advice on repairing the different = problems they have. This will give you great experience working on lots of = different kinds of pianos with lots of different kinds of problems and shou= ld pay you around $20-$30/hour. After awhile you may find the store giving = you some in home referrals the other guy doesn't want to mess with. Niiice.   Terre Haute (tare-a hoe-t) is a population of around 120,000. Lots smaller than = <= span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">South Bend<= /span> .</s= pan>   Blessings,   <div> Dean= Dean May     &= nbsp;       cell 812.239.3359</= font> PianoRebuilders.com   = 812.235.5272 Terre Haute IN&nbs= p; 47= 802</= font></div> </div></blockquote></div>