Pianotech

Hi Brian,

Welcome to the industry, and the Guild! Several thoughts here:

The only way you get experience is by getting experience. In other words, you actually have to tune pianos to get better at tuning pianos. Notice I don't say tune your own piano a million times. It was my experience and now observation that tuning ten different pianos brings your skills up about as much as tuning your own piano 75 times or so. That's because each piano responds very differently. The more pianos you experience, the better you'll become at judging what will work on that particular piano, and the better your tunings will be. But it all starts by starting. (Sorry, I'm feeling in a bit of a zen mood, LOL.)

Maybe it's just me, but I've never viewed teachers as necessarily more picky than non-teaching clients. Some clients are picky, some aren't, and you'll learn how to deal with them in time. A great deal of humility helps in these situations. As Wim said, don't be afraid of 'failure'. View anything that you perceive as 'failure' as a learning experience, and as perhaps even a divine course correction. When (not if) you fail at something, feel the pain long enough to learn the lesson, then get back up and move on. It won't be the end of the world, I promise.

Regarding your website, I wouldn't necessarily pay for SEO help to market it, but do publish it and get it tied in to a local business listing on Google. When you feel ready to invest money into it, try Google AdWords before something more expensive. 

Going full time vs. part time: 10 tunings is not enough to pay your bills on if that's the only thing you do. It may feel like you're making the big bucks, but unless you have enough demand to keep you busy and pay all your bills and then some, I wouldn't make the leap quite yet. Dave Ramsey says, "Get the boat close enough to the dock to step on, don't leap and risk ending up in the water."

Maybe set aside one day a week to tune pianos. When you're consistently booked on that day, open another day to tune on. When you're consistently booked on both days, open a third, etc. Or do evenings, or whatever. Keep your day job / part time job until you can transition over to full time piano work in such a way where it makes your life a dream, not a nightmare. 

Good luck! Feel free to email or call me if you need help with anything. I've walked a few newbies through the starting process, and I'd be happy to help where I can. 

Some thoughts Paul,

Tuning one's own piano 100 times doesn't give nearly the experience level as tuning two dozen pianos for clients. Not only that, but but one also can't learn customer service without, you know, serving customers. Of course no one's very good when they first get started, but as long as the client knows that the tuner in question is a beginner up front, I think it would be ok. 

As far as not running into problems you don't know how to fix… uh, that's pretty much how we all learn something new. And it's not something that goes away with experience, LOL. 

John hit on this, but there's motivation involved in getting $ for one's work. Doing 100 pianos for free is going to be draining with all the time and gas money spent with seeing nothing in return. 

BUT - I also understand not wanting to inadvertently rip off a client because you don't know what you're doing. Here's what I did when I started. I offered a 2-for-1 deal. The client would pay for one tuning, and at the end of the appointment I'd set up another appointment for one month out. That gave me the opportunity to come back and fix whatever was wrong, but also make some money in the process. I think I did that for my first 20(?) clients. It worked out well for me, plus I got to actually see my progress. Also, it doesn't build you a database of clients that want everything for free. 

Some thoughts Paul,

Tuning one's own piano 100 times doesn't give nearly the experience level as tuning two dozen pianos for clients. Not only that, but but one also can't learn customer service without, you know, serving customers. Of course no one's very good when they first get started, but as long as the client knows that the tuner in question is a beginner up front, I think it would be ok. 

As far as not running into problems you don't know how to fix… uh, that's pretty much how we all learn something new. And it's not something that goes away with experience, LOL. 

John hit on this, but there's motivation involved in getting $ for one's work. Doing 100 pianos for free is going to be draining with all the time and gas money spent with seeing nothing in return. 

BUT - I also understand not wanting to inadvertently rip off a client because you don't know what you're doing. Here's what I did when I started. I offered a 2-for-1 deal. The client would pay for one tuning, and at the end of the appointment I'd set up another appointment for one month out. That gave me the opportunity to come back and fix whatever was wrong, but also make some money in the process. I think I did that for my first 20(?) clients. It worked out well for me, plus I got to actually see my progress. Also, it doesn't build you a database of clients that want everything for free. 

Some thoughts Paul,

Tuning one's own piano 100 times doesn't give nearly the experience level as tuning two dozen pianos for clients. Not only that, but but one also can't learn customer service without, you know, serving customers. Of course no one's very good when they first get started, but as long as the client knows that the tuner in question is a beginner up front, I think it would be ok. 

As far as not running into problems you don't know how to fix… uh, that's pretty much how we all learn something new. And it's not something that goes away with experience, LOL. 

John hit on this, but there's motivation involved in getting $ for one's work. Doing 100 pianos for free is going to be draining with all the time and gas money spent with seeing nothing in return. 

BUT - I also understand not wanting to inadvertently rip off a client because you don't know what you're doing. Here's what I did when I started. I offered a 2-for-1 deal. The client would pay for one tuning, and at the end of the appointment I'd set up another appointment for one month out. That gave me the opportunity to come back and fix whatever was wrong, but also make some money in the process. I think I did that for my first 20(?) clients. It worked out well for me, plus I got to actually see my progress. Also, it doesn't build you a database of clients that want everything for free.