These Music Schools Increased Their Profits
From a musical standpoint, I think we all can agree that private lessons are a great way for a kid to learn music. It’s a high-value offering. You probably view it that way and your customers probably do too. I’m going to guess that 99.9% of prospective, students that reach out to you are specifically interested in private lessons. The problem with private lessons, of course, is they yield a low-profit margin. 50% of the sale per student is probably going to cover your payroll expense. Your music teachers can demand high hourly pay. If you can’t pay them well, they’re going to either go to another music studio or if they’re ambitious enough, start teaching out of their house and make even more money per hour.
The Problem With Private Lessons
With a music school, you have a lot of fixed expenses. Each student is helping contribute to those expenses. You’ve got rent, utilities, taxes, office supplies, a cleaning service. Perhaps you have a lease on your printer, common area maintenance fees. After the teacher is paid, and money is set aside for your fixed expenses, you’re not left with that much money. Obviously, the bigger your school is the lower contribution each student has to make to those fixed expenses.
Nonetheless, at the end of the day, the private lesson yields a low-profit margin. So you have to have a high volume business to be profitable. That puts a lot of pressure on a music school owner. You have to keep getting more and more students. You have to retain students for longer. Music schools that get up into the 300,400, and 500 student count range, start becoming profitable.
A More Profitable Model for Music Schools
Group classes are another story. They’re considerably more profitable. Four kids enrolled in an hour-long class only require an hour of payroll expense. If those same four kids were all enrolled in 30-minute private lessons, instead of having an hour of payroll, you’d have two hours of payroll. The problem with group classes is that people aren’t interested in group lessons. They call specifically for private lessons. If you try to pitch them you’re group class-they’re often not interested.
Most music schools lower their rates for group classes to make them more attractive. For the more budget-conscious parent, that makes a lot of sense. Group classes can also be appeal appealing to the parent that just wants to get their kids started out. Maybe they’re not so sure if their kid’s really going to connect with the instrument.
How To Help Parents Re-Consider Group Classes
The group class then might be an attractive offering, but still, these parents typically view the group class as a lower value offering. Perhaps you do too. Your pricing reflects that lower value. Most parents want to give their child what’s best and they’ll be drawn to the higher-priced option, private lessons. Besides private lessons fits the narrative that they already have in their mind – that the private lesson is the best way to learn how to play an instrument. So many music schools I talk to struggle with how to position the group classes. To truly be successful with group lessons, you need to position the group class as something that’s equal to, or even of greater value than the private lesson, which then means you have to offer a group class that provides an experience that can’t be replicated in their private lesson. An experience that’s clearly more attractive to a parent.
I was able to do that in my music school, by focusing on turning the group class, not into a group lesson, but into an ensemble experience where kids learn how to play an instrument, but they’re doing it as a group. A proper rock band class entails kids at least having some basic skills so that they can play easy-to-play rock songs. I tried doing that with beginners and it didn’t work. I developed classes for kids that didn’t know how to play an instrument at all. I developed teaching methods that would allow a teacher to work with kids on different instruments and teach them all at the same time, the basic mechanics of the guitar, piano, and drums. You can’t do that in a private lesson. There’s no social component in the private lesson. The social component is, is between the teacher and the student, but there’s no peer interaction in the private lesson.
Limited Time Offer
if you’d like to increase your profit margins and serve this underserved age group, January or February are really the ideal times to launch Kidzrock. I know most music schools see a nice boom in enrollment from January through May. Now is a great time to ride that tidal wave of growth. I have a few bonuses I’d like to throw in for listeners of this podcast.
Bonus Offer Worth $400
If you reach out and contact me before the new year and commit to launching the program in the new year, you’ll get a free one-hour coaching call with me. We’ll pop open the lid of your business, take a look at your operations or your marketing. In that hour, I’ll help you put together an action plan to help grow your school in the new year.
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
I also provide a 30-day money-back guarantee with Kiedzrock. I’ll also do an in-depth video review of your website. I typically charge $225 for a coaching call and $175 for a website review. I’m throwing in $400 of added bonuses for free. The 30-day money-back guarantee eliminates any risk on your part. I’ll absorb that risk. All you have to do is implement the marketing strategies that I map out for you in the training and have your teachers complete the training and implement the program as it’s documented, you can’t go wrong with this program.
