This blog post was written by Georgia Sears, BM, MM. Georgia has been teaching piano for over 30 years. She has taught at San Jacinto College, Grand Canyon University, Orpheus Academy of Music and now maintains a full time private studio. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona with her husband, two tween boys and dog. When she isn’t teaching or playing piano you can find her out on the trails hiking, mountain biking, doing yoga or reading. You can reach her at pianowithgeorgia@gmail.com.
When I was expecting my first son, I turned many times to the classic book “What to Expect When You Are Expecting.” While teaching piano and making all the decisions about how and where to do so isn’t exactly like starting a family, there are a shocking number of similarities. Both parenting and teaching come with overwhelm, exhaustion, emotional highs and lows, long to-do lists, self-doubt… and, of course, huge doses of satisfaction.
Business expansion is as much a part of business as breathing is a part of life.
They could be the smaller types of expansion such as growing as a teacher and musician, finding a supportive teacher community to join or recruiting new students.
But they could also be the larger types of expansion, like:
- Going to work for someone else – an institution or music school
- Becoming your own boss, transitioning to or adding online teaching
- Adding additional teachers to your studio
- Starting a music school
- Starting a YouTube channel
Or maybe even initiating that side hustle which has been lingering in your imagination for years.
Whatever the scope of your expansion, I guarantee you ARE expanding. So, let’s take a bit of a deeper look at how to do so in a way which brings you more confidence and happiness!
Expect the Long Game
Let’s face facts: We live in a very instant-gratification world. Most of our needs – and even our wants – are available to us with very little delay. Expanding your business in any way is not instant. It’s a long game.
Have you ever attended a webinar, read an article or gone to a lecture on a topic which was a total “easy” change-up to add to your students’ lessons?
The speaker was so engaging and enthusiastic, and they presented the topic so clearly that it seemed like implementing this change into your studio was going to be an amazing, instant improvement.
For a couple of weeks, it sure was. Then as time passed, you found yourself returning to your former teacher self and that topic was completely forgotten.
Business expansion can be a lot like that. We find an area to expand, we go all in for a couple of months, then it falls into the background when life gets busy. We all have the tendency to return to our status quo.
It’s necessary to keep our business priorities and intentions at the forefront of our minds so we don’t get distracted and simply forget. Try making a list of the ways you would like to expand, then:
- Set a weekly reminder with your list of priorities which pops up on your phone.
- Keep the list somewhere in your physical world with easy access.
- Keep a digital copy of the list somewhere with access from your device.
- When that reminder pops up, read your list as soon as possible and don’t dismiss the reminder until you have.
These simple things will keep your expansion goals in the forefront of your mind.
Expect Hard Work
Expanding your business will be very gratifying, but change can be scary. 😬
It’s also really hard. Have you ever tried to break a simple habit like putting your keys in a certain place, so you can always find them?
Embarrassing confession: I am a key loser. There’s the hook on the wall – I totally know this is where my keys should go the moment I walk in the door. Yet training myself to actually put my keys on that hook has been a difficult, almost insurmountable life hurdle!
Why is something which seems so ridiculously actually so hard??
It’s not a habit.
If we can accept that developing habits is hard – like turning lights off and putting objects where they belong – it’s easier to understand why implementing new things in our teaching and business is hard.
Keep Things Focussed
Hard work requires focus. If we want to build something, we can’t just aim our hammer at the nail; we have to aim for the head of the nail.
- Revisit that list of things you’d like to expand. Pick one thing. (Honestly, all we can ever do is one thing at a time.)
- Make a new list of what you need to do for this one thing to happen
- Get organised about it – formulate a realistic timeline
- Break down your big timeline into smaller objectives until you have something small to do every day
- Commit to doing something every day – even if it’s just a 5-minute something for days when time gets away
Does this sound a lot like practicing your instrument? Mmm-hmm. See? You’re already good at this!
Expect to Get Discouraged
Yes, this is unfortunate. But feeling discouraged is inevitable.
Things won’t always go according to those plans and goals we just worked on. However, expecting things to go wrong before they actually do makes all the difference.
When we know our hands will sweat before we perform, it makes it a predictable event. Then when it happens we have a tissue in our pocket which we can use.
When we know something difficult is coming, we prepare for it. And preparation helps to dissolve the fear.
- You’ll miss deadlines. Stay flexible, forgive yourself and make a new deadline.
- You will get distracted and go off on tangents. Recognise it when you do, and bring your focus back to your one goal
- You’ll try to do too much too fast. Seriously, who amongst us hasn’t tried to play that really cool, fast passage at full speed before we are ready? You’ll do this in your business too. It’s ok; just slow it back down.
Expect to Sacrifice
Deep breath.
This is a tough one for me. It is physically impossible to do everything we want to do.
When I make a morning to-do list, it tends to take a full sheet of notebook paper. I add on and on, but when I take a look at it, I know it’s absurd for me to expect all that of myself.
There are so many things. And making matters worse, they’re all good things!
There are so many resources out there, memberships to join and courses to take. They’re all wonderful and created by amazing people. Yet focussing on too many good things means nothing is getting your full attention. We can’t go all-in on anything if there are too many things.
You have to give something up to create something new.
Even as I typed that sentence, my mind was trying to convince me “No, that’s not really true.” But it is!
Find Support
There’s no need for you to do all the research and hard work alone. I guarantee that whatever your expansion goals, there are other fantastic people who have made it part of their expansion. And those fantastic people are usually happy to help others expand in that exact same area.
The cost of memberships and courses can add up, though. So, my advice is to look at that list again, look at your one chosen thing again then find the membership or course which supports you right now.
Take advantage of a free trial and carve out at least a few hours to really explore it and see if it’s for you. If it feels more like a chore to be involved in than a joy, move on to another option.
Once you find your people, commit. Most memberships are yearly. Even if it’s monthly, I’d plan on spending a year diving deep into the content of what the group, course or membership has to offer.
Go all in on one membership, and you’ll find the support you seek. Stay on the outskirts of several opportunities and you’ll probably feel like you’re wasting your money everywhere. “Overwhelm” will rear its ugly head again.
Side note: We may be biased here at Colourful Keys, but we think our own Vibrant Music Teaching membership is the bee’s knees of music teaching communities! 🐝🐝
Expect to Succeed
When you stay clear, make good plans and focus, you will succeed.
Learning to play an instrument is the perfect analogy for expanding your business. You’ve already tackled that long-game, hard-work demanding, discouraging, sacrificial feat: Here you are – a professional musician and teacher. You’ve got this! You’ve already been expanding for your entire life.
It’s time to do it again.
Expect to Share with Others
I’d love to hear about your expansion ideas and what worked for you. We’re all works-in-progress, and we’re in this thing together.😍
If you liked this article, you’ll love the resources on Nicola’s Studio Business hub page.