Evenings and weekends

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Greetings all, 
    Hmm,  we are a varied lot.  It is interesting to see how many different
work approaches are represented, so I will contribute this oddball career I
seem to have been going through. 
     In earlier years, I tuned as many as 15 recording studios a week, plus
the school and privates.   The studios required the pianos tuned before
working hours, so that meant getting up early enough to have three tunings
done before 8:30 a.m., which means that my day began at 4:00 a.m.  Because of
this, it has never been easy to tune late in the day, so I early on developed
a private clientele that would leave the key, have someone meet me or let me
arrive before they went to work, locking up afterward.   
    The performance work happens on weekends, so, like Bob B. ,  I have never
been shy about taking a weekday or two off. (a touch of arthritis and
tendonitis make this a necessity)  As far as charging extra, I don't.
Instead, for the last 22 years, I have been charging the highest prices on the
market here, and to do that requires careful testing of the waters, so to
speak.  This is how I did it. 
    With my tuning work split into three groups,(private customers, recording
studios, and the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt),  I raise my prices for
one of these every three years.  This allows me some cushion for customer
loss.  If I overdo it, and see a more than substantial drop in one area, the
other two make up for it.  All three of these groups have different prices.
Presently it is $88 for the studios, $70 for the school, and $94 for homes.
This is based on the volume, as a studio that has me tune 150 times per year
often requires a lot less work than the homeower that sees me every six
months. And the school gets the discount rate because it is the source of a
major part of my private customers, a lot of restoration and technical work,
as well as keeping me in the public eye around here. 
    The self-employed tech that sees an opportunity to raise their price by
20% and only lose 15%  of their customers should do it.  You will have more
time and money, more respect from the customers you retain, and  less stress
and wear on the body, etc.  
    A self-employed person needs to keep the pressure on, there is no one else
to look out for you.  The longer a tech works, the more valuable their time
should be.  Of course,  there is a lot of difference between having 20 years
experience and having one years experience 20 times.  
Oops,  it is 4:15 a.m., coffee just got finished and I gotta get out of here
before I trip over all this soap that fell out of the box......(:)}}
Regards,
Ed Foote