piano tuning- fickle church accounts

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

At 08:47 AM 11/1/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>Reminds me of one thing:  They only value your work as much as they pay 
>for it. I don't think it's a good idea to give either your work or supply 
>instruments at no cost. There should always be a fee. You can discount it 
>if you want, but if you give it away, customers will think it's not worth much.
>
>My 2 canadian pennies,
>
>Marcel Carey, RPT
>Sherbrooke, QC



I concur and add my old 2¢.

I, too, used to do pro bono work at my own church and gave discounts to 
churchs, generally. Confusion grew on all sides as to what my rates 
actually were.

I recall being almost at the point of eliminating discounts just on the 
theory that I didn't do any less work at the churches, and frequently 
more!  One thing which finally pushed me over was getting to a church 
organist's home to tune her piano and seeing a check for the discounted 
church amount waiting on the piano (she wasn't home).

I obviously hadn't indicated the discount on the church invoice, and she 
saw it... and assumed...

Conrad 
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