looking forward to fall!

This week we are only open 3 days (Labor Day weekend) and next week we start a new fall schedule!
Many students have enrolled online (including some new students who just enrolled themselves). However there are several scheduling challenges that still need to be worked out so this week I'll be focused on making calls and helping office staff make the calls so we can get everything scheduled and ready to go for next week!
I'm anticipating 100 students starting in Sept. Most likely about 10-15 will be Groupons, 10 will be new and the rest will be returning students. We have been getting steady steam of calls as well and I'm typically meeting with 3 families a week.
Another goal for this week is getting the office staff manual completed and training on Saturday so that they were on board with what to do.
I'll also be planning/preparing for the fall for my own students as well as scheduling a time for me to practice myself and do training on new programs each week. Intentionally planning these things is crucial.
I'm excited for the future of Lozier Music!

SM conference at Lozier Music

Several months ago I thought it would be a great idea to have a Regional Conference for Simply Music teachers at Lozier Music in the summer. My reasoning was that I wouldn't have to travel to a conference with a new baby! We checked to see if we'd have a good turn out and it looked like at least 10 people would be able to attend so we went forward with organizing it. Terri, Roberta and I got an agenda and things together. Meanwhile I decided to go to Kansas City since they were having the Play a Story as part of the conference! So much for just having one at our studio..

Anyway.. we organized it and ended up with 15 people attending!
Teachers came from Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio.
We started out with Friday night dinner and Open Mic. Saturday we started at 8am with Jacob/me talking about our venture with the new studio.
9 was a discussion about Nashville, then Playful Piano demo, then Roberta about Skype and some about the Piano Conference she attended, followed by Lunch from Wright Stuff, followed by Terri Book 1-4, a Roundtable discussion.. then dinner with 6 of us at CK Diggs.
It was an awesome conference! A chance to reenergize with other teachers, hear what they they were doing, learn new things and share.

I'm exciting about doing Skype lessons. Found out Renee is very techie and would be comfortable doing them!

Got to see my college roommate who is now teaching Simply Music.

Loved the fact that out of 15 SM teachers, 4 of them were men! How common is that among piano teachers!

Fall and looking ahead!

September and the fall schedule is coming up in only 4 weeks! Where did the summer go!!?

Our fall schedule will entail being open 6 days a week (Monday-Saturday), starting violin lessons on Thursday, guitar will continue on Monday and Thursday and Music Together, Percussion and Playful Piano classes will start up new session. There will be 4 Simply Music piano teachers with Angela, Renee, Rachel and I teaching.

The schedule will be online with on-line scheduling options. This is exciting and will take less time for the office staff and me to manage. It'll also give students the option to enroll themselves in a class and go online to schedule and pay! There will be other features for the Studio Director software we purchased.

We'll also have online attendence check in.

Things are looking ahead to have a smooth beginning to the fall.

Goal is 100 students enrolled and starting in September and by October 140 students. Then goal will be to grow by 10 percent each month.

As we grow we'll be able to offer more to the community.. more open mics, more nursing home opportunities, more chances to give back.