5 Secrets to Skyrocket Student Retention in Your Music Lessons

Keeping students engaged and excited about lessons and practicing is one of the challenges teachers face in retention for lessons. If the student isn’t having fun, they won’t want to practice; lessons become challenging because you, the teacher, have to reteach the previous lesson, and you can’t accomplish what needs to be done in the lesson and the student doesn’t make the progress they are hoping for. To help combat this cycle, here are 5 secrets to Skyrocket your Student Retention.

1) Give A Little: Have a fun studio atmosphere. Be a little less formal than the teachers were a couple of decades ago. Play music online for them. Have them bring in the music they want to do. Talk about their favorite music and see if you can find sheet music just for that as a “fun song”.

2) I Am Not Above Bribery. Candy is sometimes the best incentivizer. I like to have a bowl of candy in eyeshot of the students during their lesson and allow them to pick from AFTER their lesson. They only get the candy at the end. And you better believe they are thinking about what candy they want to pick from the bowl for most of the lesson.

3) Make Practicing and Assignments Fun. Have fun activities for them to work towards. Create a sticker chart where students can earn prizes for practicing or completing assignments in their theory workbook or other outside assignments.

4) Embrace Holidays. Use holidays to decorate your studio space, and special candy or themed activities year after year so students know what to expect and look forward to each year.

5) Get The Whole Studio Together! Offer group classes, or performance classes where students can practice performing for other’s in a safe space, but also allows them to meet other students in the studio. Never hurts to have a short pizza or ice cream party afterward too!

Mastering Time Management: A How-To Guide for Balancing Teaching, Staying on Schedule, and Implementing a Duplicable Teaching Style

As a mom of 3, I have had to work really hard to keep that work life balance especially since I teach in my own home. —Between you and me and there really isn’t a balance it’s just being honest with yourself about what you can really do in the time allotted to reach your personal goals.

Decide How Many Students You Need To Teach

Before you start advertising you’re ready to open your music studio, sit down and do the following:

1) How much money are you wanting to earn from teaching? For me, teaching is my job that contributes to our household living.

2) How many days are you truly able to teach? (I teach 4 days a week)

3) What are those times that you can teach? 🎶 It’s best to put all your lessons back to back, you’re able to fit more students into your schedule.

4) With the number of days you can teach, and the lesson slot times based on 30 minutes (or whatever the shortest time slot you offer) How many students can you fit? ( 4:00-6:00 4 days a week is 16 - 30 minute lessons a week) - likely you’ll have a combination of lesson lengths, but this is just getting your baseline tuition amount.

5) Next step is to take your desired income and divide it by 4 (4 weeks a month) between the number of minimum lessons. ex: $2000/4/16=32 (I rounded up). So your weekly 30 minute lesson price would be $32. Tuition Per month, based on 4 week months is $128. To configure your 45 minute and 60 minute tuition rate you just multiply it based on the $24 per individual lessons. (45 minute lessons $48 weekly /$192 month; 60 minute lessons $64 weekly/ $256 month.)

The key is to know what the average rate in your area is and don’t go too low and don’t go too high. Be in that competitive sweet spot. And by using some of the other recommendations that I’ve suggested in other posts like this found here on this blog.

Stick To Your Schedule

Now that you have your schedule you’ve got to stick with it. You have now defined for yourself that “time is money”. It’s your job to stay on time with each lesson, don’t be a doctor’s office that’s always late, because that affects everyone else following.

Also accept, you can’t teach everyone. There are going to be people that really want to work with you but they can’t commit to the opening you have. Add them to your wait list. It’s a really hard thing to do. And I’ve had to tell someone I don’t have any available time even on my speciality instrument, but, if they really want to work with you, they will wait. And if they don’t, then that’s not on you. You have to honor your time. For me, I get 1 day a week with my kids after school. And honestly, if I say that, the 1 day a week after school with my kids, to a prospective parent, they understand (yes, I have even told that to a parent, 2 months later I had an opening and they took it.)

Use The Same Method Books

Most of your teaching will likely be beginning through elementary. When you decide on the method books you are going to use, use them for every student as much as you can. After the first year of teaching, I knew the series of books I use (especially the Primer books) inside and out. I didn’t have to prep for the lesson. I knew what it was about, and how to effectively execute the teaching of it. So I had zero prep time going into those lessons. That left more time for me, or to do other research on pieces, find other music for recitals, or work through teaching prep on more advanced pieces of music for my advanced students.

The key is to keep things duplicatable from student to student as much as you can. I get not every student is the same, but the principals that you are outlining through the help of the method books is. Music in general is a series of rules. So it’s a concept that can be duplicated. Also, keeping the pricing the same from student to student and just using a base figure for all of your tuition makes it easier and predictable.

How many days a week would you plan on teaching?

Happy Teaching!

Becky

Pre-Made Holiday Themed Canva Recital Program Templates

Need help with a quick and easy recital program? I made 6 different Holiday Themed Recital Program Templates this year you can use using Canva.com

You must create an account to access, and be sure to save the templates to your account before you make changes so everyone can access them as they are now.

Happy Teaching!

Becky

Unleash Your Income Potential: Discover New Ways to Increase Your Revenue Streams

Ever find yourself doing the same thing over and over again in your music studio and wonder, what if I just made something so I don’t have to keep writing this same thing out all the time?

That was me. Always write out the fingering chart for scales, week after week and student after student. I have a general rule, if I’m consistently doing the same thing, find a way to automate it. So I took my own advice and created a scale book for double horn.

But wait, there’s more. There’s nothing like this already out there…so what if I were to sell it, and increase my studio earnings through the book sales, but wait…what if I self-publish it on Amazon and have the potential to reach a greater audience?

In my area, I’m limited by how many students I can have in my studio by my county. So I have been thinking outside the box on how I can help more people on a broader scale and ultimtetly increase my revenue streams.

• Online sales of products like ebooks

• Offering Online Lessons, or premade lessons someone can purchase as needed

• Create a Presence on social media (playing famous solos, or your students playing, or ways that you teach have a creative spin to it. But something duplicatable that you can recreate over and over in a slightly different way.)

These are some ideas on how to make your studio successful outside your teaching space. The world is a big place and there is so much growth potential ready for you and your ideas and knowledge to share!

What are other ways to help make your studio successful outside of your teaching space? Comment below!

Happy Teaching!

Becky

The Top Challenges You'll Face When Starting a Music Teaching Business (And How to Overcome Them)

Starting any new business is not without any risks. It takes time, effort, and determination to get any business started and ultimately hit that goal of a thriving business. Thankfully, music studios are one of the businesses that can thrive sooner rather than later, you decide how many students, you decide when and where to teach. You are offering a SERVICE. And most likely a service that is needed in your area. But let’s talk about some challenges you can face and how to better prepare for them just in case. I’m Becky, and I’ve built my music studio twice in 2 very different cities and I share all my tips and tricks on how to start, run and build a successful and thriving music studio!

1) Lack of students. Getting your name out there is going to be the #1 challenge in starting your studio. It’s all up to you on advertising that YOU are a teacher. That means, telling all your neighbors, friends, asking all of them to pass along your info if they know of anyone. Getting on Facebook, Instagram and putting yourself out there tagging your city or County location so that when people look in your area your name and studio pop up. Order business cards to hand out when needed and always carry some in your wallet. Leave the business card or flyer at a coffee shop, or local establishment (I like leaving my info at mom and pops locations). This is to get you started! You can check out more at this post here: 5 Marketing Strategies to Help Your Music Teaching Business Stand Out.

2) Pricing. Determining your tuition rate CAN be a challenge. It’s all about finding that Goldilocks pricing that works for you, and works for the family so that you aren’t over and above the local average for teaching. Check out this post to confidently price yourself and set you apart from the other studios!

3) Student Retention. Once you start a student, it’s easy to see working with them for years to come, especially if you teach beginning through advanced. But, students will come and go in your studio. The #1 goal is to keep students LOVING lessons so much that they beg their parents to keep taking lessons (yes it can actually happen!) Create a fun and exciting atmosphere in your studio. Decorate for ALL the holidays. Have candy (always a winner with kids) Pick songs that they will like along with your standard rep. I like to have a fun Halloween song for each student to work on in October. Plus let them pick the Christmas song for the holiday recital. I also like to have a “challenge” or reward-based incentive in the studio. Keeps them working towards something plus it helps them practice more regularly.

4) Avoid teaching Burnout. Set your schedule, and be firm with it. I get wanting to teach everyone that sends is interested, but also, be realistic with what you can handle with your already busy life and schedule. Be really honest with yourself in how long each day you can teach. How you can still spend time with your family. Remember, most lessons are an A-typical work schedule. For me, my husband gets home from work around 3:30 and takes care of the kids while I teach until 6:30. So I don’t get a lot of after school time with my kids. But I also, don’t teach every single day of the week. So I make time, and I keep it that way. Not everyone’s schedule will align with yours so…Start a waitlist if you have to so that if you do lose a student you already have someone or a list of someones waiting to work with you. And schedule in BREAKS, spring break, Thanksgiving and Christmas are guaranteed break for the whole studio and for me personally, I take June through Mid August off from teaching.

What are some challenges you have faced or fear facing when you start teaching?

Happy Teaching!

Becky