This "salary" thread comes up from time to time, and the experience seems so varied that for the most part it's not statistically valid. I keep seeing our surveys showing a majority earning less than 20k per year. I've been in this business for a long time. When I started the going rate for a tuning was $16.50. I was working for a dealer at that time. From then to now, my annual gross has been right around 1000 times the going rate. It's not that I have done 1000 full priced tunings to get that figure, but that's the way the figures are at the end of the year. I don't promote or call people. For a while after I left the dealership I sent out reminder cards, but I haven't done that in many years. >From my observation of technicians who have made a living at this, and those who couldn't, the main difference was personality. Now, you have to be technically competent to stay in business. That should go without saying. However, I've seen some pretty marginal technicians who have made a good living, and some top notch technicians starve. I remember one excellent tuner - possibly the best "tuner" in town at the time - who never could get a base clientele because he always wanted to argue about religion to his customers. He ticked off his first customer of the day by arguing with them, and ticked off the second customer because he was very late from arguing with the first one. There's always a lot more involved with achieving "success" than meets the eye. dave David M. Porritt dporritt@swbell.net Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275
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