since I often have to travel by train/bus to reach my appointments. My wife does drive me to some of them that are not attainable by public transit. I'm also curious as to how I can up my numbers since I've been told, speed will come as I get confident. I feel confident. I know what to listen for, but I'm still not tuning under an hour and a half. sometimes two depending on the piano and how much the customer talks to me as I experienced today. Marshall As several other have indicated, more business will come over time. We are in a down economy, and even some of the old times are tuning fewer pianos. But hand it there, and soon you'll be tunings 3 or 4 pianos a day, 20 a week. But I want to respond to two things you said above. Instead of taking public transportation, and if your wife can't drive you all the time. perhaps you should consider hiring a driver to take you everywhere. This will do three thing. One, it gets you to customers faster. Two, you'll be able to take more tools and supplies with you. More tools and supplies means you'll be able to do more on the spot repairs and regulations, which allows you to charge more on each visit. And third, and more importantly, the driver will be able to keep the customer busy and away from you while you're working. This person could engage the customer in conversation, or answer questions about you condition, etc.. But it will allow you to keep working. Perhaps you can find a retired person who is looking to earn a couple extra dollars. You can either pay him/her by the hour, or per tuning. And who knows, if this person is handy, he/she could help you taking a piano apart, look for buzzes, or retrieve dropped tools. Just a thought. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician 94-505 Kealakaa Str. Mililani, Oahu, HI 96789 808-349-2943 www.Bleespiano.com Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -----Original Message----- From: Marshall Gisondi <pianotune05 at hotmail.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Sat, Oct 31, 2009 5:18 pm Subject: [pianotech] the thread regarding number of tunings Hi everyone, First I want to congratulate everyone who is tuning so often and doing so many in a week. That's great! Upon reading the thread concerning # of tunings, I am amazed and asking myself when will this occur on my behalf? I finished my training at the Piano Hospital now called the School of Piano Technology for the Blind, and I have a great foundation, plus what training I received in Chicago from who is my good friend Nick Kircher. I've read this thread with amazement and asked, "when will I reach this, and will I since I often have to travel by train/bus to reach my appointments. My wife does drive me to some of them that are not attainable by public transit. I'm also curious as to how I can up my numbers since I've been told, speed will come as I get confident. I feel confident. I know what to listen for, but I'm still not tuning under an hour and a half. sometimes two depending on the piano and how much the customer talks to me as I experienced today. So I'm not envious, but wondering is there a missing piece in this puzzle, or have I been at this not long enough to experience the awesomeness that tuning more than a piano or two a day brings? Les also mentioned word of mouth as his way of receiving customers. So far no word of mouth going on here. Is this also a time factor since I've only been back here in Philly since early July? My customers are happy even the ones I tune as a subcontractor are happy, and they still try at times to pressure as to what I charge, which I cannot offer since they are not my customer. So will I be back to tune their piano or not, depends on the person I subcontract for, more than likely yes, so word of mouth cannot occur there. So I apologize for my lenthly post, but I'm wondering am I missing something, or is it simply a matter of "not being in the business" long enough? I sit here and think, man 8 tunings a day? If I could tune that fast, my family would have everything they coud need and want, bills would be paid and not piling up. What am I missing? I have the training and continually learn of course, and when money picks up I'm joining the PTG again. So please understand I'm grateful for the customers I have and the school district I have although the last guy I believe finished the fall tunings much quicker than I, but I'm told teachers are all positive about my tunings. So I'm thankful for what I have, but would love to increase this for my family's sake. I'm planting a lot of seeds, and seeing some results. Is this just a matter of time as Brooke Benton sang? Thanks for listenig everyone, You're all great and I appreciate you! Marshall Marshall Gisondi Piano Technician Marshall's Piano Service pianotune05 at hotmail.com 215-510-9400 Graduate of The School of Piano Technology for the Blind www.pianotuningschool.org Vancouver, WA Windows 7: I wanted more reliable, now it's more reliable. Wow! = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091031/4f8fe86e/attachment.htm>
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