Do you identify as a business owner? Do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? The more you treat your piano teaching as a business, the more others will too. Even if you’re happy with how things are running at the moment, some business savvy could improve your studio.

The first business month podcast profiles the fascinating story of Brandon Pearce. Brandon started Music Teacher’s Helper because of a frustration he was having in his own teaching. Over the years he has grown this business, putting in hours and hours of work on top of his day job. Slowly but surely, he went from piano teacher to CEO and now travels the world with his family while running his company.

You may not want to run a company of 20 employees from a beach in New Zealand (are you sure?!)…but we can all learn a lot from Brandon’s approach to business. Whether you do want to go from teacher to CEO, start selling something on the side of teaching, just want to make your studio run more smoothly, or are simply fascinated by how someone can travel the world while raising kids; listen in!

You’re sure to learn something new.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why you should think of yourself as an entrepreneur
• How and why Brandon went from piano teacher to CEO of Music Teacher’s Helper
• What inspired Brandon to create Music Teacher’s Helper
• Why you should stop feeling guilty about making money as a teacher
• How to make what you’re worth
• How Brandon manages to travel the world while running a successful business
• Where to start looking for new business ideas
• What to do if you start to feel burnt out by your business
• Brandon’s other upcoming projects and what’s in store for Music Teacher’s Helper

This Month’s Sponsors:

Yes, this month I’m sponsoring my own podcast!

The Inner Circle is my private community of the best piano teachers from all across the globe who are committed to creative teaching, progressive piano pedagogy and creating the best learning opportunities for their students.

As a member of the Inner Circle, you get access to all of my resources including my top-rated PianoFlix 8-part video course all about teaching pop music, videos of me teaching my students, tech-training videos to help you see how to use apps in your teaching, recordings of all my live workshops and keynote speeches and much more.

You’ll get to hang out with me and all the other members on our Monthly Member Masterminds and you get free access to all my downloads, PDFs, lesson plans and resources. You may also like to accept one of our regular member challenges designed to get you trying new things, pushing your comfort zone and improving your teaching.

Connect with expert teachers from all over the world including the likes of Bradley Sowash, Hugh Sung, Paul Myatt, Leila Viss, Daniel McFarlane, Nick Ambrosino and many more. Access exclusive member bonuses including discounts on courses and sheet music that are simply not available anywhere else.

Best of all, you’re membership gives you access to our members’ forum where you can ask any questions you want, share ideas, upload resources and generally hang-out with the most dedicated, creative, fun and friendly teachers from all over the world.

Keen to try it out? Click the button below to learn more.

Forte School of Music has been a success story in Australia and around 4,000 students with music schools in all major capital cities and in New Zealand and the UK. Many of you will know Gillian & Paul from Episode 33. Paul Myatt is one of my Expert Teachers in the Inner Circle.

Gillian and Paul are looking for entrepreneurial music teachers who are interested in building successful businesses in Australia and other countries along with the opportunity to be the master franchisor for a territory. Forte schools can build to the size you’re able to manage, some schools are small with just a couple of hundred students while other have nearly 1,000 students and a million dollar turnover.

Having been in business for 22 years the keys to success are simple, quality courses with a pedagogically sound curriculum, business system, current marketing strategies and a positive attitude for success. Some of the backgrounds of the school owners are: AMEB Examiners, Piano Teachers, Opera Singers and Guitarists. Check out the website to meet the other Forte Business Partners to download a Forte Prospectus.

Items mentioned in this podcast:

• Music Teacher’s Helper
• Studio Helper
• Pearce on Earth
• Teachers Pay Teachers
• Bitrix 24
• Khan Academy
• Fancy Hands
• UpWork
• Fiverr
• The Savvy Music Teacher
• The Soul of Money
• The 4 Hour Work Week
• How I Spend My Time Now
• TTTV007: Building a Multi-Teacher Studio with Carly McDonald

Thank you for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine.

Being a full-time teacher myself, I know how busy teachers are and how much time, effort and passion we put into our students. Sometimes, the last thing we want to do in our time off is listen to more piano teaching stuff! So, well done for using this time for self-improvement.

Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run. Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.

Do you see yourself as a business owner?

Do you take the business side of your teaching seriously? Did Brandon’s story inspire you to branch out into a new area?

What aspects of piano teaching do you wish you could automate or hire out?