About 10 years ago I had one of the toughest realizations about being a musician up to that point - I had to start managing my finances, my schedule, learning songs, rehearsals, and that list seemed to go on forever. Once I decided to start teaching more seriously, I added scheduling lessons, preparing materials for students, managing payments…it was honestly overwhelming! That is, until I started putting good systems in place, which I’ll list out below.
If you’re just starting out with running a home studio and teaching music lessons, my hope is that this will help ease some of those tensions and set you on a path to continue following your dreams as a musician. If managing a professional home teaching studio is stressing you out, follow these steps and I PROMISE it will make your teaching experience simpler and easier!
For CHW Studios, I break down the “business side” into 4 main categories, with one extra “mindset shift” as the last point:
1. Free Meet and Greet for new students
I know this may seem counterintuitive to making money teaching lessons, and at first it was a hard step for me - but after seeing how much it helps, I’ll never go back! The free “meet and greet” is such an easy way to get new students in the door, plus it takes so much pressure off of the student and parent. The way I set these up is by offering an available 30-minute time slot in my schedule (important: make sure this is a time when you would normally schedule a weekly lesson - if it works for the meet and greet, you can easily transition to a normal lesson time). Then I let the parent know that we’ll just take 20-30 minutes total to talk about goals for music lessons, what kinds of music the student is into/wanting to learn, and I go over scheduling, payments and policies. I even have a cheat sheet printed that I go over, keeping the information the same every time! It takes a lot of the stress and thinking out of it.
Also, and it may go without saying, but I’m saying it - people love free! Do I have some people who do the free lesson and never come back? Absolutely. But 80-90% of the time, they show up for an enjoyable experience and then keep coming back!
2. Scheduling (weekly, yearly)
Ok, on to the specific that I go over for the “meet and greet”. Let me say this first - DO NOT offer lessons every week out of the year. Out of 52 weeks, I teach a total of 44, taking time off according to the local school system (Fall Break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, one week each in June and July). This also may seem counterintuitive to making more money, but it has actually done the opposite for my business while giving me more time off each year - with 0 complaints from parents or students. It makes it easier for them to schedule vacations and trips throughout the year because the time off lines up perfectly with the school schedule! Oh and another thing that I’ll likely write more about later - while each lesson has a specific cost, I combine that cost for the year (or 44 weeks) and spread it out so that the monthly cost stays exactly the same. It makes it so much easier for clients rather than going lesson by lesson.
As far as your weekly schedule, make sure you create a schedule and stick to it. This past year (2020) has been absolutely insane - when we were just getting into quarantine and I went fully online, I spent about 4 or 5 months offering way more of my schedule than I normally would (Saturdays, later evening times, etc.) and didn’t realize it was stressing me out until about September! So the bottom line here: if you’re just starting out, don’t leave your schedule wide open. Instead, offer lessons Monday through Wednesday, 3pm-6pm. If you start getting home-schooled students who are interested in earlier times, open up just one day, maybe Wednesday morning from 9am-11am. As much as I want you to be successful and make money teaching, it is equally important to protect your time. And as a musician who will hopefully be playing a lot more gigs in the next few months, your time is extremely valuable!
Something you probably have questions about that I’ll get into later is make-up lessons - while I had a good system in place pre-COVID, I’ve had to change that up a bit, and suffice to say that moving to more online lessons has made make-ups much easier. But more on these in a later post.
3. Policies
To save some time on this one, here’s a link to my policies page: https://www.chwstudios.com/policies Disclaimer: hardly anyone ever visits that page BUT it’s important to have handy and always be pointing back to it when students or their parents have questions. This will also protect you legally in case anyone slips and falls in your driveway when it’s raining - I know that sounds really specific, but thankfully nothing like that has ever happened at my studio! While the top portion of that page lists some of what I offer for lessons, the bottom half or so lists specific policies that every home studio should have.
4. Getting Paid & Budgeting
Ok just a little math for you here: as I mentioned above, I charge the exact same rate every month by taking the cost per lesson, adding it all together, and then dividing by 12. So let’s say you wanted to charge a competitive rate in your area, somewhere around $20 per lesson. I would recommend rounding that up to $20.50 per half hour lesson, and let’s do the math on what you would charge per month. $20.50 x 44 = $902 per year. To get a more even rate per month, I would round that down to $900, then divide by 12 to get your consistent monthly cost of $75. Yes, I realize that’s an odd number, but when I say “even rate” I really just mean more manageable!
I will likely be changing this around later this year, but I currently take payments through Venmo and PayPal, with just a couple stragglers who pay by cash or check. This is very much a “do as I say” scenario, and if you are just starting out you are in a better position to do this: taking payments by only offering one payment method is WAY EASIER than doing what I’m currently doing! What I’d like to have set up by this summer is an auto-draft system to where I don’t have to go looking for monthly payments ever again. Ever. While it’s not that hard to manage, taking some of that stress away will be so much easier and free up my time.
Budgeting is also something I’ll address later on, probably in a bigger “making a living as a musician” angle, but if you’re utilizing a home studio, your cost should be pretty low month to month. But once you start budgeting, it makes it that much easier to set aside money for tax season, plus you can start saving for upgrades to your gear, speakers, recording equipment - the list is endless!
5. Care and Generosity, especially during COVID
Last thing, and I’ll keep it brief - run your studio with generosity and care in mind. Do not, and I repeat, do not ever hold money with a higher regard than your relationship with your clients! Here’s where I’m coming from: I recently had a couple of students temporarily stop lessons, but they had already paid for their next month. While it was not an easy thing to offer financially, I told them we could credit the payment to the next month when they are able to start back, likely in 2-3 months, or I could refund them the money. They took the refund. While it may have been a bit difficult, it was SO WORTH IT in the long run because I have maintained a good relationship with them!
Bottom line here: running a business well means caring for your clients, and in the world of teaching music lessons, sometimes that means offering a refund during a pandemic. Sometimes it means breaking policy to let someone know you care about them as a person, not just as a client. I know there may be situations where you shouldn’t be a glutton for punishment or abuse from an angry parent, but as much as you can, be generous and operate your business with care in mind!
If this has helped you or if you have questions, I’d love to hear from you! Shoot me an email at chwstudios865@gmail.com to let me know, and I’ll get back to you ASAP.