Where's the money

[ANRPiano@AOL.COM]

Brian,

You asked a question awhile back about earning a large income from this 
trade, since no one really went after that part of your question I thought I 
might added my $100,000 worth.

Simple math my friend will lead to the mother load.  If you want to make 
$100,000 (or plug in your own number) in a 2000 hour year you will need to 
earn $50 an hour, every hour your work from 8 AM to 5 PM.  If you can't earn 
$50/hr because of excessive drive time, you have to work more hours.  It is 
really that simple.  But wait there is more.

What if you don't have 40 hours of work every week?  Buy a carcass and 
rebuild it.  If you are efficient and don't make any stupid mistakes you 
might earn even more than $50/hr when you factor in your profit.  But you 
don't want to rebuild?  How about starting a piano rental business?

Other ideas: How many grands and uprights do you tune which are digging holes 
in the carpeting or denting the wood floor.  Sell them a set of castor cups.  
It is not a lot of money but that sale might add $10 -- $15/hr for one hour.  
What about climate control?  That is installation time and markup on the 
unit.  We might be over $100/hr for that hour.  What about bench cushions, 
lamps, dust covers, special services like hammer filing, cleaning, 
regulation, etc.

How about having an employee?  Well, be careful on that one.

The upshot is if you don't give your services away there is no reason a 
reasonably tuner/technician/rebuilder cannot earn a respectable living.  I 
think the problem comes in when we start giving our services away for chump 
change to institutional accounts and the like.

This is only the start Brian.  The good news is even a lowly Associate can 
out earn the RPTs.

Andrew Remillard
6 figures for 6 years