In November of 1987 I completed an intense course with the American School of Piano Tuning and was awarded a Certificate of Completion and Diploma on the 21st day of the month. I Immediately started looking forward to tuning my first piano.
The first tuning after my accreditation and licensing with the State of Virginia was one of my wife's students. I had no confidence in those early days. I returned to two different customer homes to re-tune as I didn't feel satisfied with the work. Once I returned (on the same day) to a West Point nursing home as I felt the repairs were not up to a good standard. Repairs, string replacements, etc. fell naturally into place as I became familiar with the pianos of my customer base.
A business license with the State of Virginia is important. This may be done at the County office. Only once as a piano technician was I asked by a customer if I had a local business license. The gentleman was under the impression that you needed a license in every town in which you worked. I explained that the license covered the State of Virginia.
Business cards may be significant in building a customer base. An example of this is a contract I acquired with Riverside hospital to tune and clean the Grand Piano in their lobby. During the process I would leave a small stack of business cards on the piano to be available as folk stopped by to watch my work. Tuning a piano in the lobby of Costco and placing my business cards there as well is another example of their importance. Business cards are a useful method anytime a technician is tuning in a public place.
In those early days I was working a full-time job and tuning pianos on the evenings and weekends. Scheduled tunings during the week were after 5:00 p.m. with several more on Saturdays. I worked this schedule from 1987 until September 2000 when I retired from the City of Newport News.
I had a delightful career tuning and working on pianos. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. I've made many good friends with fond memories.
The mileage on my car attest to the wide area of my customers' base. The areas of coverage included Eastern Shore, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk, Smithfield, Williamsburg, Richmond, Hopewell, Gloucester, York County, New Kent County, Deltaville and Matthews County.
