This is the second in a three-part series. In it, we explore how to build a studio environment inspired by locker room design.
It was written by my good friend and colleague, Christina Whitlock, NCTM. I asked her to write this series for you since, of all the conference sessions I attended last year, it was the one that impacted me the most.
If you missed the first posts in this series, I would recommend reading it first.
In part 1, we looked at a few ways to incorporate a sense of interdependence in your studio. Today’s post is going to focus on your studio environment or, in keeping with the theme of this series, your Studio “Locker Room!”
I realize we all have varying degrees of control over the physical space we teach in, but I hope this post will inspire you to seek out similar applications that work for you.
Creating Studio Legacy – Tradition
Let’s consider this picture of the Hofstra Ladies’ Lacrosse Team locker room.
The first thing I notice is the statement, “Tradition Never Graduates.” Friends, we all know, sports are ALL about legacy! Why should your studio be any different?
The phrase varsity musician’s playbook likely stopped you in your tracks as it did me – especially if you’re someone who has ever said: Once my piano students hit middle school, I often lose them to sports.
At every conference I attend, while there are many excellent sessions, there are always one or two whose message sticks with me for good. At this past MTNA Conference (2016 San Antonio), my “sticky” session was by far:
The Varsity Musician’s Playbook: Commitment Building Strategies from Team Sports to the Studio.
Bam! Wow, the title hooked me. As someone who enjoys the business side of running my piano studio – this was my type of session.
I have a fever, a fever that never breaks. It’s a sickness, really.
It’s called organizational fever; more specifically to this post-file fever – and I don’t know how to stop it! Being organized is fuel to my body. It gives me clarity and peace of mind.
My studio gets organized and reorganized every few months and rearranged to some degree once to twice a year. I’m getting to the point where I’ve nearly perfected the arrangement, but rearranging and organizing are like a breath of fresh air. I’m a better teacher when everything is in its place. I have my moments – we all do – but I strive to keep my studio and workspace tidy for my and my students’ sake!
This post will share how I organize my (physical) student files.
After hearing me share how I built my studio to 45 students in less than two years, a colleague recently sent me a message on Facebook inquiring about one of the specific tactics I mentioned,, which was marketing to music teachers in the schools.
I thought her questions were ones that many of you might enjoy hearing my answers to but first here was her inquiry:
I’ve heard you mention before that you had good luck meeting with school music teachers, letting them know about your services and asking them to refer students to you.
How did you find out which teachers to contact?
Did you call or email?
Did you meet with them in person?
What did you say to make them more likely to agree to the meeting, and what things did you bring up during the meeting?
One of the many marketing tactics I took in the first two years I was open for business included contacting and meeting all the school teachers in the county and surrounding counties in person.
Psst…there’s a freebie at the end to help you organize your new marketing strategy, so stick with me!
Why This is So Important
Who is it that parents go to when they look for lessons? They ask the kid’s music teacher.You should know who they are and what they look like, so if you see them around town, especially in a small town, you can at least put a face with a name.
Building rapport with school music teachers is building your referral network.
Since I keep detailed records of every inquiry, conversation, and contact I have with potential students, I can announce for a fact that 6% of my total inquiries thus far have come from the school music teachers. This includes those who only inquired as well as those who ultimately registered. Even better, 8.7% of my total registrations have come from this marketing effort – nearly one in eleven.
One of my biggest goals and projects for this summer was to develop my studio website. I am proud to say I designed and did all the work myself on WordPress.
I have a lot I want to share with you today about my site including why I waited until 5 years into my business to do it.
This post is NOT a tutorial on what your site needs because, good grief, there are already plenty of wonderful posts out there for piano teachers on what elements are needed for a good studio site. I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel!
What I am going to give you are the best resources I’ve found and used for inspiration to guide me through the planning and design of the site.
Do you give out awards to your students for various achievements from the past year?
Would you like to do more awards but aren’t really sure what to do besides recognizing student achievements in festivals and competitions?
Do you struggle to implement or track something like this with any kind of consistency?
This post is going to look at a few types of awards that can be integrated into your studio’s awards program, as well as how to track everything by creating a simple “policies and procedures manual” of your own.
Right on the tail of my lost-a-student-out-of-the-blue email, the very next day, I received possibly one of the best compliments you could hope to hear from a parent who was completely off-cuff.
This mom almost always sits in on lessons and engages with her children’s practice and learning. As I took a step back from the piano to my bookshelf next to her chair to switch out sightreading cards, she said (and I paraphrase):
*Sigh* I just love coming here. If only I could make my life as orderly and structured as you run your lessons. You know exactly what you’re doing when, it’s like boom-boom-boom. It always smells good in here (I diffuse oils), and it’s always neat and clean.”
Wow! Mama, you have no idea how much you made my day. I’ve always wanted my studio to feel like a place of comfort and like home. I take pride in my space, and as I told her, it takes work and planning for my lessons to run smoothly.
This makes me smile again as I sometimes catch this working mama with her eyes closed in my black leather chair, taking a quick shut-eye or simply enjoying the music-making happening with her children. She’s there to say “good job” when they play especially well for me and to know exactly what’s expected that week.
What most people need, then, is a place of community that has purpose, order and meaning… A place in which being human is a prerequisite, but acting human is essential.
A place where the generally disorganized thinking that pervades our culture becomes organized and clearly focused on a specific worthwhile result.
A place where discipline and will become prized for what they are: the backbone of enterprise of action, of being what you are intentionally instead of accidentally.
A place that replaces the home most of us have lost.
That’s what a business can do; it can create a Game Worth Playing.
It can become that place of community.
It can become that place where words such as integrity, intention, commitment, vision, and excellence can be used as action steps in the process of producing a worthwhile result.
What kind of result?
Giving your customer a sense that your business is a special place, created by special people, doing what they do in the best possible way.
A few weeks ago, in preparation for my first national conference presentation, I traveled to Butler University in Indianapolis to give a trial run of my session to their MTNA Collegiate Chapter.
Local teachers were invited, and several attended. It went really well, and in the end, as usual, I offered time for questions. Although the session was 100% about marketing, the questions that emerged had nothing to do with marketing but with studio policies.
How do I handle students who quit out of the blue? Do I make families sign a contract? How do I word my policy and enforce it?
I was happy to answer the questions, but they took me by surprise at first since I had just gotten done talking about marketing for 60 minutes.
Later that afternoon it dawned on me that it really wasn’t surprising at all. Why? Studio policy will forever be an issue with independent teachers, and when we talk to someone or see someone who has been successful, we want to pick their brains for the toughest issues we face.
That is why I am opening my dirty laundry today and sharing a complete email exchange with a studio family that happened recently.
Rather than giving you a general idea of what to say in this situation, I hope sharing the word-for-word exchange will help you see one example of how to handle the email we never like seeing.
Luckily, the exchange was not outrageous or nasty. Overall, it was pretty cordial and well-handled, in my opinion. This is just a little dose of reality.
More than anything, I want this blog to be real. I don’t want just to show you the perfect sides of my job, but the hard parts as well.
Around 11:45 today, I received a call from the mother of my 1:00 student. She wanted to check with me as “M” had been complaining of a sore throat and said she was feeling a little achy. Although she didn’t have a temperature or seem sick otherwise, the mother wanted to see what I wanted to do. Thank you! I was grateful to her for being considerate of my health. She knew I would be traveling for the next week and wanted to be especially cautious.
At first, I suggested I would do a video lesson for her; I have been trying this for the first time this year and have had good feedback from parents. (I still need to figure out a better way to record videos other than with my iPhone but that’s another conversation). It then dawned on me that I had not yet replenished my Piano Adventures 3A studio copy. It makes it hard to do a video lesson without the music they are working on!
Then I remembered I updated my policy this year to read:
Students who are ill should not come to piano lessons. I reserve the right to send a student home if they arrive sick. If students are only mildly ill, please contact me and we can do a FaceTime lesson or I can record a short video assignment for them during their regularly schedule lesson time.
I had yet to try FaceTime with a student so we decided to go for it and I’m so glad we did – we all agreed it was a great success! The mom held the phone and was able to maneuver around as I needed. We were able to cover all the material we normally do during her 45-minute lesson. Mom dropped by the studio about 30 minutes later on her way to Walmart to pick up new sight-reading cards, a fresh assignment sheet and a few other things.
My baby, my life, my dream, my passion, oh yeah, it’s also my place of work!
I GET to come here every day.
I remember my undergrad professors telling us repeatedly that being in this profession is amazing because we don’t just get to do a job; we get to “do” our art, which happens to be our profession.
by Michel E. Gerber, which wrapped up her feelings spot on:
