Start A Piano Tuning Business
And Turn Sour Notes Into Cash!

Every piano needs tuning annually. You can create a profitable piano tuning business servicing pianos.

You don't need to know how to play a piano to become a piano tuner and start a piano business. You do need a good ear to hear the different pitches. You will also need good mechanical skills such as woodworking.

Education

Most piano tuners are certified piano technicians. They usually train for this profession in a school that trains in piano technology. In these apprentice classes you learn everything from tuning procedures, piano maintenance, to complete piano restorations.

The North Bennet Street School in Boston Massachusetts (www.nbss.org) is one school that teaches piano tuning, repairs, and restoration.

Business Opportunities

Piano tuning may be your main business activity, but there is the opportunity to expand into piano repair and restoration. Having shop space at home is ideal if your zoning permits this activity. Otherwise, you will need to find a warehouse or similar facility to handle this task.

Many piano technicians also install piano humidifiers-dehumidifiers. This device is installed in pianos to control the humidity in the piano. Piano humidifiers-dehumidifiers prevent the rusting and corrosion of piano strings and pins.

The Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver System (www.pianolifesaver.com) is a popular and proven piano humidifier-dehumidifier.

Marketing Your Piano Tuning Business

As with any business, you will need to have a business card and stationery. Leave a stack of business cards with every piano and music store's owner in your service area if possible. Piano stores need piano tuners. They can be a great source of referrals.

A small ad or listing in your Yellow Pages® phone book can bring you piano tuning leads. Don't forget to get a business telephone number so you can be listed in the business section of your phone book.

If your local newspapers have a business service section, advertise your piano tuning business there.

Piano teachers are also great people to network your services. A friend of mine, has a piano teacher give piano lessons in his shop. Every student should have their piano tuned before beginning lessons. Piano teachers can refer some business your way.

Every business needs a website. Your piano tuning business isn't any different. I recommend building your website using Site Build It! . If you follow their Action Guide, there isn't any reason why you can't get local web traffic to your website.

I built a website for my friend's piano tuning business (new window) using Site Build It! Before I got four pages written, he had his first visitor from a Google search. It was a previous customer looking for his website. This customer then called him. This is the most wanted response for this type of a website.

I can't say you will get a visitor that fast. Usually it will take a bit longer to get any traffic. In this case, the visitor searched for his business name and found my friend's website on the first page of Google's search results.

In my honest opinion, if you use Site Build It!, you have an edge over your competition. SBI's software tools help you find the necessary keywords that people actually use to find piano tuners and related topics.

The software will also analyze your page's content for search engine optimization. SBI is the only web host that I know of that offers this service. No extra charge!

When the web page is published, SBI automatically notifies the top four search engines. This saves you a lot of time, believe me!

Don't have the time to build a website for your piano tuning business? You can hire a certified webmaster who specializes in using Site Build It! They have already demonstrated they know how to build a website that gets traffic.

I am an affiliate of Site Build It! You can become one too and earn commissions from your website's visitors. Sign up here! It's free.

How Much Can You Earn?

My friend charges $90.00 plus tax for a basic piano tuning. It usually takes him two hours if the piano has been tuned in the past year. If it has been more than one year since the piano was tuned, then the job will take more time. Likewise, the charge will be higher.

I would add in an extra charge for travel. It is not unusal to charge a trip charge for service calls. If you don't, then your profit will be much less. Remember time is money. Charge for your time.

I hope this article encourages you to start your own piano tuning business. It is nice to be an independent business owner. See you at the bank!

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