Comments for Studio Helper Blog

Comment on Readying Your Studio for 2012 by ronnie

ronnie — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:46:08 +0000

Hi Shirley. Studio Helper helps studios and small business manage their teachers or employees, as well as maintaining accounting and scheduling of classes for the teachers. Teachers, on the other hand, can manage their students through Music Teacher’s Helper (musicteachershelper.com). I hope this answers your question and thanks for the interest.

Comment on Readying Your Studio for 2012 by Shirley

Shirley — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:41:27 +0000

Hi. Im wondering, how can this help me to manage students to check and see my profile?
Thanx!

Comment on Communicating with Your Customers by Studio Helper Blog » Blog Archive » Using the Internet: Part 2-Communicating with your Clients

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:40:29 +0000

[...] few months ago I wrote a blog post about ways to communicate with your customers. I will now focus on specific ways the Internet [...]

Comment on Updates in November 2011 by admin

admin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:30:34 +0000

@Kelly – Auto-draft from checking is definitely on our list. Students can already pay by credit card, and you can setup a recurring subscription payment through authorize.net or Paypal. That works well if you’re charging the same amount each month, but not so well if you want to charge different amounts automatically.
To help us create this feature more quickly, please vote for it on our features page and leave details in the comments about how you’d like to see it work for your studio:
http://studiohelper.uservoice.com/forums/119061-suggestions/suggestions/1980765-automatic-recurring-credit-card-billing-

Comment on When to Hire Someone to Help by Rebecca Brown

Rebecca Brown — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:38:25 +0000

When I was still teaching at home, I had two parents I bartered with for lessons. One cleaned my house in exchange for her son’s lessons. The other logged expense receipts, filed papers, etc. in exchange for her son’s lessons. These were the two primary tasks that I wanted to delegate to save me time. While working at home, I wanted to maintain the personal touch of returning my own phone calls and emails. (Although I did have my teenage daughter call students to cancel when I came down real sick a time or two.) The mother who cleaned had great work ethic and worked hard the entire time she was cleaning. That is an important thing to look for. The one who did office work, however, worked VERY slowly, learned VERY slowly, and kept track of every single minute she was here to be sure she was credited enough to her account. This is not the type of person you want to hire…especially if you are actually paying them an hourly paycheck. It’s important to know that, if they are set up on work/study status, and their pay is credited directly to their account, you are not required to pay minimum wage. My students usually get $5/hr for work/study, unless I’m having them do something really big and I see that they are doing a good job.

Now, I run a studio of 14 teachers and 135 students, on multiple instruments. We quickly reached a point of needing a receptionist/office assistant. She fields all phone calls, schedules prospective students for consultation appointments, registers new students, receives/records tuition payments, responds to general emails, manages the studio schedule, does minor clean-up at closing time, sets up rooms for group lessons, etc. The primary things I looked for when hiring her were: a very friendly personality, a bit of a salesman, good work ethic, and enough intelligence that I could teach her the rest. Some experience with the computer was important, but not critical, as the programs she would be using (primarily Studio Helper) were very easy to learn and weren’t typical programs that she would have had experience with elsewhere. Oh…and neat handwriting and good spelling/grammar. She would, after all, be the one taking phone messages for me and other teachers, sending emails to students, and proof-reading text for me.

Comment on Updates in November 2011 by Kelly Bowlin

Kelly Bowlin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:26:35 +0000

When are you guys going to get auto-draft from checking and or credit card features set up for students?
It is the trend. Having to wait for students to initiate the transaction is a detriment to cash flow.

Comment on Grow your Studio, part 2 — In Touch with Students by Glady Paguin

Glady Paguin — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:11:12 +0000

Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didnt appear. Grrrr well Im not writing all that over again. Anyway, just wanted to say superb blog!

Comment on Taking Risks by cseifert

cseifert — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:24:19 +0000

I took a class from a middle school in Wisconsin that they offered about teaching to groups. It was offered through the school and geared towards band teachers. It was actually necessary for me to get an education certification to teach at the public school there, but we moved and I never pursued the certification. Since I teach out of a home studio now, I took a number of webinars from the group method I use mostly for my own personal benefit and so that I would feel qualified. The method I use is Mayron Cole: http://www.mcpiano.com/ She provides a great DVD about opening your own group studio, and then a number of specific webinars you can purchase and watch on You Tube that were extremely helpful.

The group classes aren’t for everyone–there are definitely students who do better in the one-on-one setting and even though there are resources to teach advanced students to learn through group classes, my personal belief is that late intermediate to advanced students should be in private lessons. My group students are all beginners and do very well with the group setting–they are motivated by working with their peers and have developed amazing rhythm skills (better than my private lesson students). When I feel like one student is having trouble with a piece and needs individual attention, I’ll have the other students work on theory worksheets for a few minutes while I help him. For the most part, though, I teach to the group.

I charge $20 for a private half hour lesson and $15 for a 45 minute group lesson.

Hope this helps. Good luck to you!

Comment on Taking Risks by Dan Georges

Dan Georges — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:08:16 +0000

This is a great story. I’m in a similar situation and have thought about group lessons.
What training did you take to prepare you to teach groups?

How do parents deal with a group lesson format, where their child may not get as much individual attention as a private one-on-one lesson? You said you charged less, but if it was my child, the price would need to be substantially less in a group setting.

Thanks,
Dan

Comment on 3 Books That Helped Me Become a Better Teacher and Business Owner by Laura

Laura — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:22:32 +0000

One of the most helpful books I’ve found on being self-employed is: The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan (http://bit.ly/umjcMT)