Episode Summary
In this episode, we are going to chat about one of my favorite business practices for piano teachers: Reflecting on your piano teaching business so you can determine the specific strategic goals you need to set for the coming quarter. This will help you run your piano studio with relevance, action, and efficiency so you can make decisions on how to operate your studio with your strategic goals in mind!
- Free Goals Workbook: https://melodypayne.com/goals
- Quarterly Review Workbook: https://melodypayne.com/review
Guest Host
Dr. Melody Payne, NCTM, is a piano teacher and educational resource author who believes that all students deserve the best musical experiences possible. She publishes pedagogical teaching materials and articles for piano teachers at melodypayne.com. Melody and her husband, Greg live in Marion, Virginia, where she teaches children and adults of all ages.
Transcript
Amy: I am Amy Chaplin, and you’re listening to the Piano Pantry Podcast, where we talk about all things related to living the independent music teacher life. Since the start of the year, I’ve been so excited for you to know who I have lined up as special guest hosts. If you missed the first one, jump back and listen in on episode number 58, where Abigail Prophet shares insights into motivating students with ASD and ADHD.
Today, I’ve invited Melody Payne, who will help walk you through a quarterly process for reflecting on your piano teaching business, so you can run your piano studio with relevance, action, and efficiency moving forward.
Dr. Melody Payne is a piano teacher and educational resource author who believes that all students deserve the best musical experience possible. She publishes pedagogical teaching materials and articles for piano teachers. At melodypayne.com, Melody and her husband, Greg, live in Marion, Virginia, where she teaches children and adults of all ages.
Melody: Hi, piano teacher friend. Today we are going to chat about one of my favorite business practices for piano teachers reflecting on your piano teaching business so you can gain clarity on exactly what strategic goals you need to set for the coming quarter. This will help you run your piano studio with relevance, action, and efficiency so you can discover specific ways to make decisions on how you operate your studio with your strategic goals in mind.
As piano studio business owners, we spend a ton of time planning ahead. We plan ahead for piano lessons, festivals, and recitals, and we do our best to create the ideal piano teaching schedule, which doesn’t always work out. But, once the semester or year is in full swing, do we ever look back on our businesses to review and reflect on what has already happened?Do we ever take the time to perform a quarterly or even yearly review of our piano teaching businesses?
When I realized how important reflecting can be as a business practice, I started doing a yearly reflection exercise to help me see the bigger picture of my business more clearly. It was so eye-opening that I started completing the exercise quarterly, And now I even complete it at the end of every single month.
Doing this exercise regularly helps me see more clearly where I am, where I want to go during the next quarter, and what I need to do to get there. So today we’re going to focus on your previous quarter. Then, we will also look ahead to your goals for the upcoming quarter. So grab your favorite notebook and a pen, and let’s get started.
Are you ready to think more deeply about your piano teaching business? For me, reflecting helps me get a better understanding of how things are actually going in my business instead of how I think they’re going. And I hope this exercise will do the same for you. For part one of our reflection exercise, think about your piano teaching business over the past three months.
If you can spend a few minutes with pen and paper as you listen to this episode, go ahead and write down a minimum of five things that went well over the past quarter in your piano teaching business. If you can’t write things down at the moment, that’s okay. Just think about them, and you can always write them down later today when you have a minute.
The main thing to remember is that there are no right or wrong answers. You can include anything related to your business. Here are a few ideas to help you get started.
You could mention specific things about your students, tuition, schedule, your commute, your piano or your student’s instruments, whether they practice or not, student motivation, communication, piano parents, literally anything at all related to your business. You’re welcome to write down as many things as you like that went well, but not less than five.
Was your list of things that went well easy to put together? I always love listing the things that went well. Now that you’ve thought about the things that went well over the past quarter, And I hope you were able to write down lots. In part two of this reflection exercise, you get to write down three to five things that maybe didn’t go as well as you expected during the past quarter.
These could be things that you already know you need to change. Things that you procrastinated doing because you just don’t enjoy them, and you might need to consider delegating them. Or even things in your piano teaching business that simply got on your nerves over the past quarter.
You’re welcome to write down more than five things for this part of the exercise as well, but be sure you write down at least three. So take just a couple of minutes to write down a few things that didn’t go quite as well as you wanted them to.
Were you able to think of at least three things that didn’t go as well as you would have liked last quarter? Was it easier or more difficult to create this list than the list of things that did go well?
For me, the first list was so much easier to create, probably because I’m an optimist and I’m always looking for the good things. But there are always a few things that didn’t go well for me each quarter that I do need to face head on and address.
For part three of this reflection exercise, We are going to use our first two lists to determine our key observations. Go ahead and write the words and key observations on your paper. Here’s what we’ll do.
Take a look at both of your lists. Your things went well last quarter, and your things didn’t go as well. What do you notice as you look at both lists? Are any of the items in your list closely related to one another? What could this mean? Do you see patterns in your list of things that went well and things that didn’t?
Is one list much longer than the other? Why do you think that is? Do the items on your list reflect anything in particular? Basically, what do you notice when you look at your list and think about the things you wrote down? Those things that you notice. Those things that are ah-ha or lightbulb moments are your key observations.
Take a few minutes, compare your lists, and write down three key observations. Those lightbulb moments when all the dots connect, and things suddenly become clear.
What did you notice as you compared your lists? Were you surprised by your key observations that you discovered?
I’d love to share with you something that has become one of my biggest key observations in my entire business. The interesting thing about this observation is that my husband actually saw it before I did when we did this exercise together a few years ago.
So he helped me connect a few dots in my lists so I could see this tremendous key observation. I realized from looking at my lists that within my business, It is an absolute necessity for me to work with people who share my vision and my passion for my business and who genuinely care about piano teachers, about my business, and about me as an individual.
If they don’t, we’re not a good fit to work together. And that was a very difficult lesson for me to learn that particular year. It’s also a lesson that I might not have learned without doing this exercise. And this one key observation has literally changed part of the trajectory of my entire business. Key observations can be incredibly powerful.
Now we’ve arrived at part four, the last part of our reflection exercise, which is setting strategic goals for next quarter. Based on your list of what went well and what didn’t go well over the past quarter, plus your key observations. Those magical aha moments right down where you’d like to see your piano teaching business at the end of next quarter.
Here are a few questions to help you think about that. Where do you see yourself at the end of next quarter as a teacher and as a business owner? Where do you see your studio at the end of next quarter, particularly your students or even your physical teaching space? What does your overall business look like by the end of next quarter in size, revenue, and knowledge as a thriving business that runs with efficiency and clarity?
What changes will you make in your business to help you get from where you are right now to where you see yourself and your business at the end of next quarter? For example, do you need firmer policies? Longer lesson times? A CPA? Or maybe an assistant. What will you need to embrace to make this a reality?
In other words, how are you going to make this happen? And this last question is probably the most difficult one to answer. What will you need to leave behind to make this a reality? Do you need to eliminate makeup lessons? Do you need to stop participating in certain social media circles that are making you feel less than as a teacher, business owner, or person?
Do you need to dismiss a particular student? Take a few minutes to think about these questions and write down your answers.
It’s pretty amazing what you can discover about yourself and your business just by writing things down and reflecting. Author Seth Godin said the art of moving forward lies in understanding what to leave behind. In our piano teaching businesses, trends in materials, policies, and even teaching styles come and go.
The important thing is to know when to embrace something new and when to leave something else behind. Doing this reflection exercise regularly will help us make those important decisions so we can run our businesses with as much relevance, opportunity, action, and efficiency as possible. Now that you’ve written down where you’d like to see yourself and your business by this time next quarter, you can start taking steps to make those strategic goals a reality.
Just take it little by little. Before you know it, you will be running a streamlined, efficient piano-teaching business that works for you to help you reach your goals. Thanks so much for joining me today. It has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. And I hope to see you over at melodypayne.com.
Amy, thank you for inviting me to be part of your fantastic podcast. It has been so much fun sharing with your listeners. Have a beautiful day, everyone.
Amy: Today’s tiny tip is to remember that if you’re looking to do any kind of professional development, continuing education, or research in the coming year, you can apply for grants through various organizations. Start by checking with your local and state music teacher groups. Or any other specialty groups such as organizations like Suzuki or GIML, the Gordon Institute for Music Learning.
Music Teachers National Association, MT& A, also offers a variety of grants including teacher enrichment grants, local affiliate group enrichment grants, community engagement grants.
In 2016, I was awarded a grant that helped me travel to Boston for a two-week training through Gimmel on applying music learning theory for piano. Keep in mind that applying for a grant requires some forethought, as you often have to apply several months before you can even use a grant. So, if you want to do a training in May of next year, you have to submit this year’s grant application through MTNA by May 3rd, and so forth.
