Hi Daniel, Here's how I decided to work it: I have a certain servicing area here near Peoria that is my local rate. Then there are towns that I normally travel to--up to 40 miles away in my case. Some time ago I came up with rates for them based on miles & time--charges that don't leave me feeling me totally underpaid, but it's always better when I have more than one piano in the area if I'm just doing tuning calls. My rate for the town 40 miles away is 50% higher than my local area rate (when gas was really high, I charged a bit more). Though I usually have more than one piano to do there,every once in a while I don't, and then I take advantage of going to see my dad who lives in an assisted living place there or visit with other relatives & friends, or I take care of shopping errands. Sometimes I just drive right home, depending on what I have going on. When I started in business eons ago, I would travel just about anywhere to work, but I always managed to get the first caller from a distant town to find another piano or two for me to tune the same day. If you book ahead (6 months, a year) or have people that agree that they want you to contact them when you're going to be in the area, it's easier to fill the day. As always, finding the people who want to book ahead is best--they are the types who want to take care of their pianos and will be your bread & butter--and the work is easier! When you ask the out-of-town folks about other possible pianos to work on, be sure to ask about schools and churches. It's important to come up with some sort of plan that you are comfortable with, so you don't end up feeling resentful--and you don't lose your shirt. Good luck! Barbara Richmond, RPT near Peoria, Illinois ----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Carlton" <carltonpiano at sbcglobal.net> To: "Pianotech mailing list" <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:25:45 PM Subject: Re: [pianotech] ideas on mileage hi terry I figure that if I need the work so bad that I have to go long distances, that's my problem. Out here there's lots of distance between towns, with lots of ranch and farmland in between. If the population were denser(?) in between I definitely wouldn't be driving this far for work! So basically, I have to. If I were in Tampa, (where I did live for about a year and half) I can see not having to do this. I lived there '95-96, and it seemed denser(??) between surrounding towns, than out here (see the photo) Seems like it would be onerous to try and figure all that out..... ...yeah, it is. dunno. maybe i'm too worried about covering every single cent. i've thought about a flat fee for each customer, as Wim said. :) daniel carlton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101013/aabb3a98/attachment.htm>
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