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Episode Summary
Your business is a living, breathing thing with the beautiful ability to be flexible and evolve with culture, client needs, and/or personal life. Sometimes, changes and adjustments are needed at the micro level and sometimes at the macro level. In this episode, we’ll explore what that could be like for your studio and also hear about some of the adjustments Amy’s making to her own.
Items Mentioned
Episode 003: Group Class Schedule Experiences and Ideas
Episode 113 – Taking Time Off: The Tradeoff
Episode 114 – ICYMI: Free Student “Award” Programs from MTNA
Episode 115 – An Alternative to Student Evaluations
Episode 116 – The Case for Your No Makeup Lesson Policy
Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire by Mireille Guiliano
An example of the way Amy highlighted policy changes in an email to clients:
GROUP CLASSES
OLD – Approximately 6 times during the school year, students had a 75-minute group/performance class in lieu of the weekly lesson.
NEW – Approximately 4-10 times during the school year, performance/musicianship classes may be offered in addition to the weekly lesson. Attendance is optional but strongly encouraged. These classes will be studio-wide and multi-level. Dates and times may vary throughout the year.
Transcript
Welcome to episode 117 of The Piano Pantry Podcast – a place where we embrace all that living the life of an independent music teacher entails. I’m Amy Chaplin. This podcast is brought to you ad-free by some pretty special people over on Patreon.
At the MTNA Conference in March, I was chatting with teacher friend Diana Tritapoe, who told me she kept meaning to join my Patreon, but every time she thought about it, she wasn’t in a place to do it. Four days later, I saw her name come through. Many thanks to Diana for helping bring this content to you today.
Joining is pretty easy from your desktop or device. You can either visit Patreon.com or download the Patreon app. If you log into the app, click the magnifying glass icon in the bottom left-hand corner to search for Piano Pantry Podcast, where you can then join at the $4 or $7 per month level.
These past few weeks, we’ve covered topics related to year-end events, such as recital awards, alternatives to student evaluations, and the case for your no-makeup policy. Today, we’re going to talk about business evolutions.
I want to encourage you to look at your business not as something that has to pick a format and stick to it for years on end but as a living, breathing thing that is flexible and can and should evolve. This can happen at two different levels—at a micro level, where you’re making small tweaks and improvements, or at a macro level, which might involve a complete 180.
While making adjustments in our studios could be a conversation related to our actual teaching, chosen methods, resources, and processes, in today’s episode, we’re talking about the business side of things, such as lesson formats, offerings, and policies. You’ll also hear some of the macro adjustments I’m making to my own studio design this year. Let’s get going.
Pete Jutras, professor of piano and piano pedagogy and director of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, presented a session at the 2024 MTNA Conference on the future of music teaching. Pete is one of those people who, when he presents, I’m there.
He shared a lot of research he’s been doing over the years on trends in music education and ways we can respond. One thing that stood out in particular to me was an example of how the music recording industry has adjusted to societal change.
They moved from selling physical recordings of entire albums to paying for individual song downloads for $0.99 each to streaming. Shockingly, the numbers show revenue has risen 29% as the industry continued to reinvent itself through changes in society and technology.
One of Pete’s big findings was that data doesn’t indicate people are walking away from the arts, but they are walking away from some of the traditional delivery mechanisms.
Right away, this statement got me brainstorming… For example, lack of student practice is one thing that teachers complain about—here are a couple of what-ifs in response to this dilemma to ponder…
…what if you ran private weekly lessons but also had a small keyboard lab and offered monitored practice sessions in small groups that students could sign up for each week?
…what if you ran classes that met twice a week for 30 minutes rather than once a week for an hour?
…what if you tried a buddy lesson format where two students come for an hour instead of just 30 minutes, but they rotate 15 minutes with you, then 15 minutes to a keyboard to practice, then back to another 15 minutes with you, then 15 minutes to practice? You could flip-flop who starts each week.
I mean, right there, we have 3 very possible variations on what it could be like to design our lesson offerings around a pain point. Yet, we are incredibly stuck on our traditional once-a-week private lesson. Don’t get me wrong – I still do weekly private lessons – I just want us to keep our minds open to considering that if you are struggling to get students or if you are tired of the same old same old and need to shake things up in your studio – the doors are wide open to creative formats.
Essentially, what we’re talking about here today is rethinking and allowing yourself to make adjustments and experiment at whatever level you need or desire.
Let’s take a closer look at what micro and macro adjustments could look like in your studio. Some of these might be hard to tell if they’re micro or macro; they might feel like they’re in the middle, but I’ll do my best to segment them.
Micro adjustments are the best type, in my opinion, because they require little effort or shakeup but have the potential to be just what you or your students need to keep things fresh or to fit with where life leads.
Here are some examples:
- Build in a 2-week Spring break instead of one so you can attend a conference. We talked about that in episode 113 on taking time off.
- Build in a free flex week for yourself as a teacher to cancel without having to make up
- Rather than raising prices, you could move from a 33-week school year calendar to a 32-week one
- Change up what recital themes you offer for the next year
- Move everyone from a 40-minute lesson to a 45-minute lesson
- Move all your 40-minute students into overlapping buddy lessons: Everyone still has a 40-minute lesson, but you’ll overlap it with another student for 10 minutes.
..and on and on and on! The ability to make little tweaks like this is a beautiful benefit of running our own business. I like to just put a general blanket statement in my studio policies that says “lesson offerings and performance opportunities may vary slightly from year to year.” If you make little adjustments each year or so, it will just be expected and not feel like such a shock.
Macro-level adjustments, however, are a little more involved. Examples of significant changes might be things like:
- Moving from a per-lesson rate to a flat monthly rate.
- Moving all students to a group lesson format
- Moving to online lessons only
- No longer allowing makeup lessons (listen to last week’s episode for more on that.)
- Moving away from optional summer lessons to more of a year-round format that includes a set amount of summer lessons.
This last one is actually a change I decided to make in my studio for the upcoming year. I’ve always offered summer lessons because I wanted a lighter summer, so I charged a small holding fee for those opting out of summer lessons to hold their spot for the fall. I would say about 40% generally opted out.
Sometimes, the need to make adjustments comes upon you like a slow burn, and sometimes, it hits you over the head where one-minute things are going along fine and dandy, and the next, you’re suddenly just OVER it and ready to change it up.
Author and business woman Mirelle Guiliano says in her book “Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire”: You can wake up one morning and find that your prospects and perspectives have changed overnight. Sometimes, it is simply that you are ready to enter a new stage in life and embrace new opportunities and challenges.
That’s how I felt this year – like I just woke up and was suddenly ready to streamline and simplify. First, as I already stated, I am moving from optional summer lessons to a 12-payment flat monthly rate that includes approximately 33 weeks from August to May and 4 lessons in June and July.
I no longer invoice for annual registration fees or holding fees, nor do I have to stop and restart payments for summer opt-outs. I’m also no longer accepting annual payments. All payments will be set up through Coinhop, my payment processing app of choice until they discontinue lessons.
I’m also hoping this design will help minimize the amount of prep work that usually goes into the start of fall lessons and will remove the feeling of needing to transition back into lessons while still giving everyone enough of a breather we don’t get burnt out.
Another significant change I made is that I will no longer do group classes 6 times a year in lieu of the lesson that week. I’m actually a little shocked about myself on this one. I have been a big proponent of this arrangement for years, which you’ll know if you’ve listened to episode 3 of this podcast, called Group Class Schedule Experiences and Ideas. I love group classes, but this year, I just really started to tire of organizing the schedule every 6-8 weeks and having a hiccup in their private lesson time. The missed week always seems to slow their progress.
Part of the reason I always loved having the group class week was that it helped give a breather to the regular schedule. What I’ve realized is that that particular format was very important to me when I was teaching 35-40 students, but now that I’m in the low 20s, I don’t feel like that’s as needed. What I want now is simplicity and consistency.
I will still offer group classes – that aspect is important to me – but they will be more sporadic and considered a bonus. The way I stated it in my policies was that there may be 4-10 classes per school year, and the dates and times may vary. They will be more of a performance and musicianship class, so they can be multi-level and make it easier for students, no matter their level, to attend together.
Macro-level adjustments will likely require a complete overhaul of your policies and very direct and intentional communication with current clients. Significant changes aren’t always easy, but the biggest thing to remember when making cultural changes is to communicate the benefits to your customers. Don’t focus on why you need these changes but what the changes will do for them.
I knew I was planning on most of these changes last year, but rather than doing it the right way, I gave all my current clients a verbal heads-up so they knew it was coming the following year. Giving a year’s notice is definitely not necessary – I very well probably have just notified them two months ahead of time but since it felt fairly significant to me, I decided to prompt the changes further ahead of time.
Last week, when I sent the updates email, I attached the new policy form and made it clear the action that was needed from them was for them to sign a simple digital form acknowledging they received the new policies, understood, and were planning to continue lessons as of the June 1 start date.
Rather than just attaching the new policy PDF and calling it a day, however, I took extra time to highlight the major changes, noting what the old policy was and how it was changing. Because I know you all love getting extra help with these details, I’m including one of these statements in the show notes so you can see exactly what I mean.
At the end of the email, I used four bullet points to recap “in a nutshell” what these changes meant for them. It stated things like:
- The weekly schedule (August-May) will be consistent, with no schedule changes for group class weeks.
- You will get 6 more private lessons (August-May); Group performance/musicianship classes will be a bonus.
- Those who used to opt out of summer lessons will now be taking some lessons. This will be a time for us to review and maintain skills so there isn’t a backslide or period wasted to readjust.
- There is no stopping and starting of payments nor assessing separate fees for summer, registration, holding fees, etc. Monthly payments will be continuous until you discontinue lessons.
Whether you are making micro or macro adjustments in your studio offerings and policies for the upcoming year, just look at it as an opportunity to experiment, learn, and grow with both your student’s needs and your own as a business owner.
If you’re stressing a little over it all – which I totally get – and would feel better having someone to talk it out with, I would be happy to help you through your time of change. You can find the link to my consultation service as well as everything I mentioned in today’s episode at PianoPantry.com/podcast/episode117
Two more quick things before we go today, friends!
If this topic has sparked your interest and you have a local or state association that is making plans for the upcoming year, I have a whole session around this topic called Evolutionary Entrepreneurialism: Grow Your Studio One “Yes” at a Time. I would love to come and share it with your group.
Also, I know a lot of you are just now getting around to planning your summer. If you would love to use some of that time to dig in and get your digital workspace in order, consider attending my digital organization retreat which will be held Wednesday June 12 – Saturday June 15. The $345 fee includes all of your breakfast and lunch meals for 3 days, evening drinks and snacks, accommodation and all the coaching I provide. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
As Gabrielle, one of last year’s attendees, stated:
Amy’s retreat is a brilliantly thought-out and unique experience that every teacher could benefit from! She was so patient with helping us understand and set up organizational systems. She is a wonderful host, with a beautiful house and delicious food that you’d expect from a top-tier bed and breakfast. Top to bottom, it was worth every dollar!
Visit PianoPantry.com/retreat to register.
