I am blessed to have a husband that in addition to his full time job, watching both kids while I teach at night has also been the studio's business manager for years. He also has forseen the entire construction project and learned how to have employees and do payroll among many other things that I don't care to do!
Our Anniversary was on July 4th and I look at all the adventures we've had throughout 8 years of marriage. I think we'll slow down for a bit before any more!
It occurs to me that expanding has been the most challenging adventure that we have taken on. Many things have not gone as smoothly as I've liked but I do know we are taking the actions to help them move slowly.
Part of the challenge is maintaining our current student body of students while expanding to many more very quickly. My guess is that throughout my years of teaching I've gained 10-15 students in one month and that seemed like a large number of students. In June/July we've gained about 40 new students and each day there seem to be inquiries to start lessons. While we have staff to handle the new students, the scheduling and legistics have been challenging.
I've prided myself at really working to maintain solid communication, friendships and 'good service' as well as teaching skills for years... and I've felt this has definetely lacked since April. Again we're taking actions to improve this to exceptional service!
We've purchased a software for scheduling that will have capability to enroll online and even pay online for many classes. It will also help us with billing, communication and general organization!
We also have one excellent office staff worker, Julia, and will be looking to find another to help share the hours. Getting them trained will relieve the load for me a bit.
We're so blessed to have incredible teachers as well.
My hope as a teacher and now owner/manager... yikes.. bit shoes to fill... is to set the example for students, office staff and other teachers as well as take time for our family and for me by giving up some of the responsibilities to trained office staff, teachers and other professionals.
My next step is to find a mentor to help me with filling the role I need to have to keep the studio growing to the next level! While we have awesome mentors through Simply Music all around the country, I need one to regularly meet with me to keep me filled!
Here's to continuing to improve each day. : )
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
summer schedule!
Summer schedule starts this week. July/August will be lighter and for several students it will be maintenence mode for a the summer. Others have special projects they are working on. Summer for Lozier Music tends to be a time where many students start taking lessons or 'try it out' for a few weeks.
We also have about 8 weeks to get things worked out and in great shape for the fall schedule. We will be purchasing a scheduling software this week, Jacob (my husband) will be working on our new website that will have much more capability than our old, we'll also be getting other systems in place this week and next while Jacob is off from his full time job.
I'm excited about what lies ahead.
We have a new teacher for percussion classes and she'll be training for Simply Music piano as well. We have a guitar teacher that students LOVE and will be interviewing another this week. Our violin classes will be starting in Sept. as well as Music Together.
Goals for July/August---
get systems in place so that scheduling is 'easy' and works well for students and teacher train office staff
get the new website updated and running
Figure out legistics of skype lessons so that can be offered.
have some great offerings-
percussion class for 6-8
demo classes for Music Together
Piano Workshop with Rochester Enrichment
New students starting with 6 week sessions that found out through Groupon and various places
Playful Piano classes for age 3-5
Carrie to get trained in Jazz programs and 'beef up' in other areas, Rachel to get Accreditation with RAVE reviews from 5 of her students who went through Level 1. She'll move on to get trained in Level 5 and other programming. Angela and Renee continuing and finishing more training.
Lots of new things to learn and train and figure out for Jacob and I as business owners! It's been a great experience so far one that has stretched us further than I thought possible and there's much more stretching to do!
We also have about 8 weeks to get things worked out and in great shape for the fall schedule. We will be purchasing a scheduling software this week, Jacob (my husband) will be working on our new website that will have much more capability than our old, we'll also be getting other systems in place this week and next while Jacob is off from his full time job.
I'm excited about what lies ahead.
We have a new teacher for percussion classes and she'll be training for Simply Music piano as well. We have a guitar teacher that students LOVE and will be interviewing another this week. Our violin classes will be starting in Sept. as well as Music Together.
Goals for July/August---
get systems in place so that scheduling is 'easy' and works well for students and teacher train office staff
get the new website updated and running
Figure out legistics of skype lessons so that can be offered.
have some great offerings-
percussion class for 6-8
demo classes for Music Together
Piano Workshop with Rochester Enrichment
New students starting with 6 week sessions that found out through Groupon and various places
Playful Piano classes for age 3-5
Carrie to get trained in Jazz programs and 'beef up' in other areas, Rachel to get Accreditation with RAVE reviews from 5 of her students who went through Level 1. She'll move on to get trained in Level 5 and other programming. Angela and Renee continuing and finishing more training.
Lots of new things to learn and train and figure out for Jacob and I as business owners! It's been a great experience so far one that has stretched us further than I thought possible and there's much more stretching to do!
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