Fees

[pianolover 88]

I don't believe it's a good idea to tell the customer, "I charge $100 per 
hour", or whatever. I charge by the job based on everything involved, plus 
travel time, mileage and gas.
If you went to have Laser eye surgery and the Doc told you "I charge $20,000 
per hour", you'd run outta there so fast you'd leave your shoes behind! That 
figure is not exact, but we know that the actual procedure takes only a few 
minutes per eye, and costs, depending on the deal you find, between 
$1,000-$3,000 per eye! Of course, the Doc isn't charging JUST for those few 
minutes, but for post op, all the pre-op prep, and has to pay his staff, 
office rent, and the cost of his laser.
But if he WERE to advertise his "hourly" rate, he wouldn't be in business 
very long. I have NEVER been asked to "justify" my rate, and I don't; I 
charge for the particular job I'm doing and that's that.



Terry Peterson


>From: Wimblees@AOL.COM
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: Re: Fees
>Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 01:34:46 EST
>
>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.


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