I’ve often blogged ideas and advice for growing your studio, and in the past few years I’ve managed to triple my load of piano students. You may find it odd that this spring, I’ve actually decided to let go of my private lesson students and move solely to group lesson teaching. Yup — I’m downsizing. It was a [...]

Spring is here and the phone is ringing! As I respond to the many phone calls I have received about studying piano, I was inspired to do a little research on how to best handle the phone interview. Even though many of my first contacts come through email, I always make a phone call before [...]

What if you injured your hand and couldn’t play your instrument? What if you developed a chronic illness? What if you were diagnosed with cancer and needed months’ long treatment? These are questions no one wants to face. Especially, small businesses or those who work for themselves. Health insurance is expensive and disability insurance even [...]

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle In the November issue of Clavier’s Piano Explorer (a wonderful little magazine for piano students), there was an article on creating good practice habits. The challenge was for students to practice 100 days in a row. Students that [...]

Festival, exam and competition season is upon us. How do you prepare your students for these events? I take this part of my teaching very seriously, mostly because I had a negative experience at a music exam as a student myself. My first piano teacher registered me for a piano exam and I had absolutely [...]

I believe that in order for my students to be successful, and in order for them to become long-term students, the most important thing I can do is have a strong and broad base of parents. The parents must be willing to invest a great deal of time into getting them to lessons and practicing [...]

As I write this blog post, I’m fighting a terrible sore throat, cough, and runny nose. All sorts of worries are running through my head…will I need to cancel this afternoon’s lessons? What about the class I’m teaching later this week and the recordings I need to make for my students? Not to mention the [...]

“Gratitude is the best attitude.” ~Author Unknown The holiday season is a time for giving thanks. Do your customers really know how much you appreciate their business? What do you do to express your gratitude? In order to develop good customer service and build your brand, recognizing your clients for their loyalty goes a long [...]

I’ve stated this before, and I’ll state it again: communication with parents is absolutely essential in my studio. Many parents come in before or after their students’ lessons or wait in the waiting room, so I have a chance to briefly chat and give a progress update. But other parents simply drop their students off [...]

Previously, I wrote about how to use time effectively while teaching a lesson in Self-Help Pedagogy: Part 2. In this month’s blog, I will address the topic of how to make the best use of our most precious commodity as studio business owners – Time. Time is very valuable; once it is used, it is [...]