The Practice Revolution The ultimate guide to practicing. What works, what doesn't, what really happens in
the practice room - and how to fix it.
The Thirty Minute Myth
Maybe thirty minutes of daily practice is not such a good idea - here's why.
Practice Hats
Polish your pieces with your own personal army of portable music teachers.
The Notebook PowerUser!
Fresh ideas for getting the most from that little book you write in each week.
Scales Boardgame
We show you how to build it and play it, to make your scales bearable.
Promoting your teaching studio
Setting the right fee
The temptation is to keep your price low...don't fall for this.
Setting your fees too low is one of the worst things you can do to promote your studio
It’s one of the toughest decisions you’ll have to make,
but is one that can have a tremendous bearing on your ability to attract
students. How much should you charge for the lessons you provide?
The temptation is to keep the price low, particularly if your
studio is establishing itself. To ensure that when people call you, they are
pleasantly surprised by how modest your fees are compared with other teachers
they may have spoken to.
Don’t fall for this. Setting your price too low is one of
the worst things you can do to promote your studio. You have to remember,
you are a service provider, not a retailer, and when people hear your price, they
will make assumptions about the quality of your service. So if your lessons
are $8 for half an hour, when most other people seem to be charging $15, the
caller will start to wonder why you’re so cheap.
In fact, if most other people with similar qualifications to
you are charging $15, you should be charging $17. Your price is part of
your lobby, and the ticket will sometimes say more to prospective students about
your studio than all your copy writing combined.
Think how you would react as a potential client. Let’s
assume that you were getting your house painted. Most quotes came in at around
$1500. One comes in at $950. Another at $1700. Ask yourself right now—who do
you think the best painter is likely to be? Knowing nothing about them except
the price, it’s hard to shake the feeling that if you wanted the best job
possible, you should at least talk to the painter that charges the most.
Whether or not you actually go for the $1700 job is a
separate question, and might be a function of your own financial limitations,
but the fact will remain that part of you will wish you could have afforded
the premium service—and if you go with a cheaper option, every tiny
blemish will have you regretting that you didn’t spend the extra.
Well guess what. Parents who are conscientious enough to be
contemplating music lessons in the first place are usually conscientious enough
to want a first rate job, and they’ll be quite prepared to pay a couple of
extra dollars per lesson to make it happen.
And those odd parents who are think they can save a couple of
bucks by going somewhere else? You’re better off without them. When the first
question I hear from a parent is "how much are the lessons?", I have
lost interest already, because I know their priorities are suspect.
