At 06:37 PM 1/13/2006 -0500, you wrote: >When I first started in the business and had a *very* open schedule I still >would say something like - "the first openning I have is next week at ...." > >Debbie L. Hi, Debbie It is, admittedly, a little white lie -- but when I was very new in the business I did it that way. It sure beat cold calling, ["pullllleeeeeease don't you want me to tune your piano?? I can come ANY TIME you want!"] Confession Time: I used the same approach with a fairly miserable store, whose manager wanted to beat down my warranty tuning price from its already abysmal rate. "So, how's your business -- don't worry, it takes time to get it going ..." "I'm way too busy!" I replied, when I had tons of leisure, but I already knew about being underpaid and taken for granted by stores. They ended up getting some other flunky for the floor tunings, and would send me out on the "special" jobs, such as where somebody else had failed at a repair, or the better quality pianos (there were a _few_) or the store had put off scheduling the warranty so long (hoping that some of them would never happen at all) that some irate customer would say, "Tune this thing now, or you can come pick it up off the street on Monday." Suited me. The irate customers never were, once they finally got called. The store thought I was incredibly diplomatic. It didn't take a whole lot -- _I_ wasn't the one who had put them off, after all. sssnn
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