Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Promo materials research project - free PDF's available

Good morning, all.

I am looking for 6 piano technicians who would enjoy taking part in a trial run to develop a series of promotional materials for the types of jobs that the ordinary technician runs into on a day-to-day basis.

If this trial balloon is successful and participating technicians seem to like this product, I will be advertising in the near future here on Piano World, in the Journal and also through Schaff. (If there is no interest or response, I'll rethink the whole thing, and put my creative efforts elsewhere.)

Participants in this research phase will receive the first six promos at no charge in return for simply critiquing each one as it is sent out.

The promos will come to you in PDF format, and will be personalized with your name, business address, phone number, etc.

The idea is that this will make your job in selling your services faster and easier. You may print as many copies of each promo as you wish, to give to customers when a particular job is needed, or you may simply offer to send the customer an email with the PDF as an attachment for each job recommended.

Not only would this save time on the job (you can be tuning the piano while the customer is looking over the material and making up his or her mind) but also it will allow for the secondary sales pitch (the wife explaining the procedure and the cost to the husband [or vice versa]) to be more successful.

These promos will be written on a much simpler level than either my articles ("Small Shop, Big Results" series) in the Piano Technician Journal, or the detailed technical articles that I am writing for the Schaff webstore. Instead, they will present the reason for the repair and the techniques involved with rather broad brush strokes - enough to interest and inform without actually telling the customer how to do the repair himself. High quality photographs used along with the simplified text will make each promo an easy read for the customer.

If you are interested, simply email me privately at behmpiano@gmail.com and I will send more information. The first promo (bridle strap installation) is complete and ready to personalize for you. Everyone who responds will receive that promo at no charge. In addition, the first 6 to respond will receive 5 more promos (as soon as I have them completed) free of charge.

If you would rather take a "wait and see" approach, watch for ads here on Piano World, plus an ad near my article in the Journal (tentatively set to start in January - if the interest is there) and also from Schaff. These promos, I promise, will be priced at a very reasonable rate. (This would be something I that even I could have afforded when I was just starting out my business back in the 1970's.) Of course free is even better!

For anyone who would like to bring more variety to their work day, or who would just like to drum up more work period, I think these promos will really do the trick.

So, if you would like to receive a free-of-charge promo about installing bridle straps (and potentially 5 more free promos), please e-mail me the following information: (I'm included my own for clarity sake.)

1. Name (Chuck Behm)
2. Business name (Chuck's Piano Service)
3. Business (or home) street address (410 Monona Street)
4. City, State, zip (Boone, IA 50036)
5. Phone number/numbers (515-432-1190 [business] (515-212-9220 [cell])
6. email address (behmpiano@gmail.com)
7. website address (www.IwishIhadone.com)
6. Shop located at (410 Monona Street)
7. Optional - Price you charge for installing a set of bridle straps (If you have differing pricing depending on if the straps are cork, spring clip, or original braid, please specify) If you don't wish to specify price, just omit and I'll leave it blank on the promo.

If interested at all, consider taking a look at this. If the interest is there, I intend to spend a great deal of my time putting together a truly comprehensive set of promotional material. Enough so that whatever the job at hand, you would have a promo to let the customer look over.

Have a really great day, all. I'm off with my wife to watch some college football (Ia. State vs. Nebraska). I hope it's not a one-sided shellacking! Chuck Behm

Everyone - One other thing. If you don't feel comfortable sending me the information requested, but would like to see a generic copy of the first promo, I would be happy to send one out. It will have all the places that your information would go in red font, so you can picture what it would be like personalized for you.

It pays to be cautious, I know. You can decide after seeing the "John (or Jane) Doe version if this would be something you would be interested in. Thanks, Chuck

Chuck, thanks for the free promo. That's wonderful. Great pictures! And good texts. The approach is right, not too technical so it can be understood by non-piano-techs, but deep enough to make people understand what are their piano needs.

Here in my Country, people barely knows what maintenance a piano needs other than tuning and it is difficult to explain for me that the piano needs regulation, voicing and other repairs without seeming a salesman trying to sell repairs instead of a technician woried about their piano.

I think that if people can see this kind of promos in my web site they will be sensitized to what their pianos need.

I guess it will be a good way to reach people interested in having their pianos maintained in good shape.

Keep going

Thanks for the comment Rafael.

Although I will be writing these promos as opportunity presents itself, I would welcome a list of say a dozen topics which you would find particularly useful. I'll be asking everyone who signs up for a list of their preferences, and will really try to be looking for pianos which fit the bill for the topics that technicians would most like written up.(What I need, of course, are the pictures. Although I have extensive photo files for topics I've written about for Schaff and the Journal, common repairs that I do all the time often don't get photographed. That will have to change.)

I predict there will be some customers of mine who get a pretty sweet deal on a repair job, if they have a piano needing a job I would like to shootphotos of. Everybody will be a happy camper.

By the way, for you technicians who have not looked into this opportunity as of yet, you are still welcome to sign up. You will receive, at no charge, a personalized promo for bridle strap replacement. I'll include a copy of the subscription packages that are available for you to consider.

This is not, by any means, a limited time offer, so you are not out if you wait. You are, however, missing out on an opportunity to start utilizing a valuable tool for increasing your business. (That is, if the need is there to add to the volume of work you have coming in).

If you would like to sign up for the free personalized promo on bridle straps, just send the following information to me at behmpiano@gmail.com and I'll return the first complimentary promo to you pronto.

1. Name
2. Business name
3. Business (or home) street address
4. City, State, zip )
5. Phone number/numbers l])
6. email address
7. website address

By the way, if you need a super small file size sent because of the speed of your computer, let me know and I'll send a highly compressed version that should be acceptable for even someone with dial-up service.

One of the most valuable aspects of these promos, I believe, will be in the secondary sales talk that often goes on when the primary player of the piano talks to her (or his, as the case may be) spouse about having the work done. Oftentimes, I've had jobs I've given an estimate on that have gone undone
because, "Larry (or whoever) doesn't think it needs to be done." If only the spouse who played the piano had some well-designed sales material to present, many of those jobs might have been contracted instead of lost.

But maybe I'm the only one who has had this experience.

Anyway, drop me a note if your interested in seeing what I have to offer. I guarantee that if you enjoy my series in the Journal and / or my articles on the Schaff webstore, you will like this.

Finally, if those of you who have gotten the initial promo already would be so kind as to comment, I would appreciate it. Thanks a bunch! Chuck

P.S. Go Cyclones! What a game last Saturday! You Huskers out there, did we show you a good time, or what? What a way to end the series. (No one left the stadium early, I can tell you that!) Good luck, Nebraska, in the future. I only wish the series didn't have to end. Chuck

I have got Mr. Behm^s first promo about changing bridle straps. I find it very well written and photo documented. It explains the importance of their good condition in an upright very simply to a potential customer, and saves a lot of talking to them. I think making of these promos is a very good idea. He also gives a personalized version, ready to be given to your customers, which improves your presentation. I hope rest of you would agree. Regards to all.