During our potpourri discussion in January, Roger Gable posed an interesting business question which got me thinking.  He asked how some of us were always scheduled a month or two ahead?  Although I can't answer for others, I can tell what I do myself.
    Years ago Don Galt spoke on how he handled his schedule. What he said made an indelible impression on me.  To begin with, he was very selective with his customers, and serviced only his favorite pianos that belonged to the people he liked being with the most.  "What a positive way to control one's life," I thought.  As he developed his clientelle, he would end each service call the same way.  He had a little calendar that he would give to his customer, and together they would put it in a convenient place.  Usually they would put it in the piano bench or on the refrigerator.  Then he would take out his own schedule book and together they would select a date for the next tuning three or six months away. He would write their name and time down in his book so they could see it was definite with him, and then he would write his name, phone number and the time on the same day on their new calendar.  He made a point of saying that he would be there and he would expect them to be there.  Although everyone needs to be relatively flexible about major schedule changes, as he of course had to be, he was actually quite strict about missed appointments.  If the people wanted him to be their tuner, they had to respect his schedule; otherwise, he would drop them as clients, since he always had a waiting list.  As a result of this scheduling technique, or maybe it would be better termed a scheduling habit, he was scheduled for every single day of the year that he wanted to work.  Remember, too, that Don Galt was a fine person as well as a superb technician, so not only were his services well appreciated, but his kind, thoughtful and insightful personality were equally well appreciated.
    Looking at how many days are in a year and how many pianos are comfortable to tune in a day, the mathematics are simple.  For me, the ideal number of house calls is about three in a day, so if I tuned every single day of the year, that would be 1095 tunings.  If each customer's piano were properly serviced twice a year, that's a total of  not even 550 customers.  In reality, of course, I don't think anybody wants to work every day of the year, so if the work year were 11 months, that would be about 1000 tunings.  Add shop work to this and the number of house calls shrinks even more.  With these numbers, let's assume that the number of people who disappear or never call back is about equal to the number of new calls we get to replace them.
    Over the years, I have built up a database file of around 3000 customers who currently own pianos.  There is no way I am going to all those houses within a year.  Also, within all likelihood, most of those people are never going to call me on their own.  I know this, so I send out reminder cards.  I know that the quiet season for piano work is January into February -- after Christmas and before taxes -- and the summer time, particularly July and August when everyone is on vacation and piano lessons are put on hold.  Logically, I send my reminders out every January and June, and I always get a response.  Although I have never calculated the response percentage, I don't really care because the result is that I get enough calls to keep me going full-swing until the season picks up again.  I am never short of work.  If the response is smaller than usual, then I can make follow-up phone calls to see if they received my card; in reality I have very seldom had to make calls.
    There is always a balance between quality of life and quantity of work.  Working a lot brings in lots of money but leaves little time, whereas working less provides more time for family or vacations but doesn't help as much with the bills.  Of course, the ideal is to do the fewest amount of jobs for the greatest amount of money for those who have income as the goal.  Ironically, most piano technicians hold the value of quality workmanship over the value of the dollar and are prone to spend whatever time it takes to do the best job possible -- at least this is my attitude and that of the technicians I know.  All this means is that each technician must decide how much work is enough.  Five to seven pianos a day for seven days a week is too much, and one piano a week wouldn't quite pay the bills.
    Since I live on an island and I don't want to spend all my days commuting, I have designated two days a week to go to the city,  two days a week to work on the island, and one day a week for shop work and emergency calls on the island.  This gives me only eight days a month to devote to pianos in the city, and the same for the island. If I do only three pianos a day, that's only twenty four pianos I can work on in the city in a month.  Of course, I could add another piano and do thirty-two, or work super-long days and make forty separate visits in the city each month, but this makes getting home rather late and cuts down on time for talking with the customer, which should always include scheduling further work on the piano.
    Talking with the customer is actually quite important, since part of the customer's impression of the tuning hinges on liking, respecting and understanding the tuner.  Developing a personal rapport with each customer goes a long ways toward building customer loyalty.  If they like you and they like your work, you will have a customer for life.  At three pianos a day, if I tune everyone's piano only once a year, I need only 288 customers in the city and the same number on the island.  If I tune them all twice a year, that's only 144 loyal customers in the city.  Likewise, if you were to divide your customers into regions, it becomes apparent how few times you actually are available for work in each area.
    In order to make travel time even more efficient, the ideal would be to go to one neighborhood and tune three or even more pianos within a radius of a few blocks.  When I was in my twenties I did just this.  My thoughts then were that the only significant overhead cost of the piano tuning business was travel. Driving a car involves earning enough money to pay for the car, buying gas and oil, spending money for maintenance and parking, and paying for licenses and insurance.  To eliminate this excess, I did all my travel by bicycle for nearly fifteen years, carrying up to 200 pounds of tools and equipment in a bicycle trailer equipped with lights, raingear and spare tires.  What I liked the best was that after spending a couple hours in one spot doing sometimes tedious work in a stale room, I could jump on my bike and feel the freedom and the breeze as I exercised my way to my next job.  To keep things efficient, I scheduled all my tunings close to each other, and made ample use of asking for referrals in the neighborhood.
    Even with a car it makes sense to schedule appointments close together.  Some time during the tuning, ask the customer, "Who else owns a piano in the area?" or  "Do any of your neighbors have a piano?"  Suggest that if  your customer were to call these neighbors and arrange for you to tune all of their pianos on the same day, you will offer a small discount or some extra repair work.  Providing some sort of incentive to the customer is well worth avoiding the time that would otherwise be spent in rush hour between appointments. Not only that, by asking this simple question, you will be gaining new repeat customers who already trust you because their friend recommended you.  Building a strong customer base within convenient travel range is the key to a thriving piano business.