Our “Dollars and Sense” feature is back! Kristin Yost will be sharing some fantastic articles containing useful business advice for piano teachers. She and I will also be sharing answers to your questions on business matters. Simply email me (Wendy) with your questions and we will try to answer you in a future post. Here is this week’s business advice for the piano teacher:
A Better Image Can Translate to Better Money
by Kristin Yost (PianoTeacherSchool.com and CentreforMusicalMinds.org)
You know as well as I do that the prettier the package in the window, the more sales the company will have. When I say “better image,” I’m not talking about the ten pounds we could all probably shed, or those bad hair days that you wish you could avoid. I’m talking about your online and print image to the public. If you are struggling with enrollment and you are asking yourself “What online and print image?”, well, you may already have your answer to why your enrollment is struggling. It’s time to ask yourself an important question that can truly make or break your enrollment numbers: Is your print image consistent with your personal image?
Let’s take a look at the ways your “image” is portrayed to the public, both in print and “real life.” As someone who is educating children through adults, your personal image needs to be one that is desirable to a large and wide variety of people – your print and online image should also match this. I love hot pink, but that doesn’t mean it should appear on my website. As an example, my company website appeals primarily to women who are in their 30’s and 40’s – this is on purpose. The vast majority of people going to our website happen to be in this age group, and they are also mostly female.
As a musician, we have so many options of what we are going to teach, how we are going to teach and what kinds of activities we offer. If your emphasis is on younger children say with Music Together or Musikgarten classes, it would be in your best interest to cater your website to that clientele/demographic. If you are primarily teaching students over age 6 or 7 in private lessons, then it would benefit you to tone down the early childhood “cutesy” things and focus more on your core philosophy (whether that be western classical, pop or something else). Your personal image needs to be one that people want to surround themselves with, and this also goes for your print image. Does your name and “ad” draw people in? If not, what can you do to change it so that it does?
- Website
Your biggest asset to the general public. You don’t want a fabulous website and slightly less than stellar teaching environment, or vice versa. If your teaching environment is awesome and your website isn’t, this is an easy fix. - Recital Programs (this is a print advertisement!)
Parents love to brag about their wonderful children and all of that talent…you never know who may see it! My former student’s grandmother commented on her lovely recital program. I found out later that her grandmother is Margaret Thatcher. - Notifications you may post on your door
If a prospective parent happens to stop by or is a friend of one of your students and rides along to the lesson one day, what will they think when they see your sign? Pay attention to the details. - Email correspondence
Tone, grammar and punctuation – show you are educated, kind and professional. - Visual presentation of yourself
What does a prospective family think upon first meeting you? - The state of your teaching space and everything that leads up to it
What does a prospective family think when they drive up and walk to the door? Organized, cluttered, demonstrating self-worth? - School Announcements
If a student at that school saw your ad, would it interest them?
2012 is finally here and we are at an exciting time where entrepreneurship is higher than ever before and people are spending more money than ever before (See articles here, here, and here) . What is different however from a sales perspective, is that the money is harder to get than say ten it was years ago. People (just like you and me) are spending their hard-earned not-to-be-taken-for-granted salaries on things and experiences they value rather than gotta-have-it-because-the-neighbor-does kinds of trinkets and junk that have so filled our closets in the last decade or two. Thankfully parents are enrolling their children in music lessons for what I consider more of the “right” reasons, and they are more invested in the education and development because they know many people who are struggling and cannot afford them. I think this is a wonderful change – we are hopefully becoming less of a frivolous society and one that puts meaning into our actions and spending habits.
