It occurred to me that since many of you have not heard the “Stress-free Business Practices for Your Studio” workshop, you may have missed one of the most important points about all of these posts about money! It may be that you think I must literally be obsessed with making tons of money (or to be more realistic, enough money to make a comfortable living) to be writing so many posts on this.
Nothing could be further from the truth, though it was true at one point point in my life and can definitely be a temptation. So let me tell you why I am obsessed with helping you make good business policies. The truth is, when I had bad business policies, I was obsessed with money. The reason I was obsessed was because I wasn’t making enough and I was constantly stressed out because I knew I was putting way more energy and time into piano lessons than what I was being paid for. When I would bend over backwards to accomodate everyone, I became rather irritated with all my families. Instead of thinking about how to effectively communicate the concept of staccato with a struggling student, my thoughts were interrupted by the fact that the family was late on their payment, or this lesson was a makeup lesson that was inconvenient for me, or any number of other business issues.
When I finally set down good policies, started charging what lessons in my studio were worth, and stopped giving makeup lessons, I suddenly had much more energy and time to be creative in my teaching! It was such a freeing experience that I want to help each of you do it through these articles as well as through the “Stress-free Business Practices for Your Studio” workshop.
At the beginning of each workshop, I remind everyone of one thing that I ask them to keep in mind through out the workshop. I’d like you to know about this one thing and encourage you to take the bold steps you may need to take to make this happen:
The reason for making and implementing good, stress-free policies is to create a framework so that we can have the best possible relationship with our families and be as creative and effective in our teaching as possible!
So in all the new policies that you are thinking of implementing in the next year (read suggestions in the Dollars and Sense posts), please remember to keep relationships number one! The relationships with your family first and foremost, but also the relationship with those wonderful creations which you have the privilege of teaching. A good policy that is straightforward and firm will help free you from being obsessed with money and help you be as creative and inspirational to your students as you can be.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…”
Happy teaching and loving!
