Fees

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
In a message dated 3/16/02 4:34:12 AM !!!First Boot!!!, 
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net writes:


> Don't take me quite so literally.
>  
> David Love
> 

David

I realize that the story you gave is not a word for word telephone 
conversation, and neither was mine. And I am not trying to persuade you to 
change your practice. I wish you all the luck in the world with it. I just 
wanted you to be aware that what you are doing might not solve the problem 
you described. It doesn't make any difference what you charge, and how you 
justify it. Someone is going to ask you to explain your fee structure, and 
they will not be happy with it.  

One of the problems we have in this business is that we are dealing with two 
different price structures. One is a set fee for a set task. ($80 to tune a 
piano). The other is an hourly wage to do everything else. Now we may have 
come up with set fees for doing other things, ($250 to put on a set of bridle 
straps, $800 to regulate an action, $350 for a new set of keytops). but they 
are all based on the amount of time we spend doing them, multiplied by the 
hourly rate we charge, (plus parts). 

That is why we should set our tuning fee by what we charge per hour. But you 
first need to figure out what that hourly rate is. Vivian Brooks and I both 
have excellent classes on this, and if you look in the archives, or on the CD 
ROM, you will probably find many articles on the subject. 

One thing I find disturbing, is there are tuners who charge $70 per tuning, 
and take an hour and half to do that tuning. But then they charge $70 per 
hour to do technical work.  That means if they need to charge $70 per hour to 
pay the bills, every time they go do a tuning, they loose $35. If they did 20 
tunings in a week, they will have lost $700. They should be charging the same 
for a tuning as they do for technical work, which would be $105. But that 
would be way over what everyone else charges. So something's got to give. My 
recommendation is to learn to tune faster. 

Again, David, please don't think that I am arguing with what you are doing. 
As I said, if you think it is fair, and the customers are satisfied, go for 
it. 

Wim. 

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/cb/3a/93/35/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--