Episode 4: You’re Self-Employed. So Why Does It Feel Like You Have No Choice?
I work for myself, which means in theory I get to decide when I teach, how many days I work, and what my week looks like. So why did it take me years to actually act like that was true? In this episode I share the story of how I restructured my teaching week around my life rather than the other way around, and what happened when I did.
In this episode:
Why teaching music doesn't have to mean evenings and weekends, every week, forever
The story behind clearing my Thursday afternoons, and what actually happened when I did it
Why rescheduling is costing you more than you realise, and how to start pulling back
How to attract daytime students and why your website is the place to start
How to build your teaching week deliberately, rather than reactively
The lesson notes trap: how new teachers accidentally use up their evenings trying to prove their value
Switching off when your brain wants to keep going
Links mentioned:
Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit (£12)
One to One Focus Sessions (60 min, £67)
If you find this episode useful, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts: it goes a long way in helping other music teachers find my podcast!
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Part 1: Why your week happens to you
Think about your teaching week
I'd like you to think about your teaching week for a minute. How many days a week are you teaching? Five, maybe six? How many lessons do you teach in one go? Are they blocked together, or spread out during the day? Are you able to eat dinner with your family, or are you still in lessons at seven or eight o'clock at night? Do you dread certain days because they're so packed that you have to summon up the willpower to see them through?
These are really important things to think about, because we are self-employed as music teachers, but often we don't feel like we have any control over our time. More often than not, our teaching week is something that just happens to us, rather than something we intentionally build. But think about it: you are self-employed, which means you decide your own hours, or you should be able to. So why does it feel like you have no control over your working week?
This episode is about the gap between being self-employed and feeling like you have control over your time, with some practical tips on how to close that gap. That way, you can look forward to every week, knowing it's built intentionally to work for you, and not something to endure while being grateful you got to the end of it intact.
I'm Victoria. I started teaching piano part-time 18 years ago, alongside a career in pharmaceutical market research, and I made pretty much every mistake you can make when it comes to running a teaching business. But today I run a thriving studio from my home on the south coast of England, with students I love and a waiting list I'm proud of. I started this podcast because I want that for you too.
If you've ever said yes to a reschedule you really didn't want to do, felt your heart sink when your phone buzzed with another last minute cancellation, or found yourself putting off increasing your fees for another year because the timing never feels quite right, this is the podcast for you. I've been there and come out the other side with a teaching business that lights me up every single day, and I'm here to help you do the same.
Why it feels like we have no choice
Okay, so let's look a little bit closer at why it feels like we have no choice in how our time is organised. For starters, there's quite a strong assumption that to teach children, we need to be available for after school and evening lessons, and for the most part that's true. We also assume that if we want to teach adults, we need to be available in the evenings, because they're working during the day.
When you're first growing your studio, there's a really strong urge to accept every single student who comes your way, whether or not they're your ideal student, because you want to fill lesson slots and start making an income. You want to know that music teaching is a valuable and validated career choice. There's a fear of being a music teacher without enough students, and feeling like you can't quite make it. So there's this invisible pressure to say yes to every slot a student requests. It's undeniable, and it takes a lot not to accept everyone who comes your way, even when you know in the pit of your stomach that you're not the right teacher for them, and they're not the right student for you.
One of the biggest things that makes it feel like we don't have much choice over when we teach is student availability. I don't think any music teacher has gone into this profession thinking they'll only teach during standard working hours, nine to five, and be free every evening, because that's not the reality. Our students are school-age children who are only available after school and in the evenings. Our students are also adults who probably work normal hours during the day, so to teach them, we need to be available at weekends or in the evenings.
That said, not all of our students fit into those categories, but the general assumption is that you need to be available in the afternoons and evenings to get enough students to pay your bills. When you're a new teacher growing your studio, your week can fill up very quickly if you accept every student who comes your way and place them wherever works best for them. You'll end up with a studio schedule that is all over the place.
I'm not going to say we're sacrificing our weekends as well, because we don't have to teach at weekends unless we choose to, or unless you're a part-time music teacher with a full-time job during the week, so weekends are the only time you can teach. I did that in the very beginning when I started teaching part-time. I had a full-time job in London, so I taught children at the weekend and adult students on a couple of evenings after work.
What I'm really talking about here is when you're teaching full-time, or without so many restrictions on your availability. That's where you have the opportunity to design your teaching week to suit the lifestyle you want to live. You don't have to give up every single evening, and you don't have to give up your weekends. You can structure your time so you take on enough students to make the income you want, without missing out on life.
This is one of the biggest problems: it's not just one lesson here or there. Many of these are long-term students, and we know how long it takes to master an instrument. So this isn't a short-term situation where you'll get your evenings back by chance. You have to make it happen by being intentional about when you teach.
What it costs you
The cost of not questioning where you spend your teaching time is missing out on your life, and on family life. If you have children, you miss out on collecting them from school, or from after-school clubs at odd times, attending parents' evenings, or taking them to birthday parties after school. It could be anything. There's a lot of life you can miss out on if you don't question whether you want to teach every single day after school.
Because you don't have to. That's an assumption a lot of us make, but I'm here to tell you that you don't have to teach every day of the week. I'd caution you if you're already teaching seven days a week, because everybody needs downtime. Even if you feel superhuman, it can't last forever, and it's a bit of a dangerous path to go down. But we can talk more about that later.
My scattered first schedule
As always, I'm talking from experience, and I want to share my experiences to help you structure your teaching week in a way that serves you best. When I first switched to full-time teaching back in 2019, I had a lot of imposter syndrome (I've said this before), as we all do, so I was taking on every student who came my way. I did a trial lesson, but the whole time I was hoping and wishing they'd want to sign up for lessons. That leads you to accept whatever times they're available.
The problem is that once you've had a few, someone will say, "Oh, I'd really love to start lessons. Can I come on Wednesdays at 5pm?" When it's the first one, it's fine; it doesn't matter. "Yep, sure, I'd love to start teaching you. You can start next Wednesday at 5pm. I'll send over my studio agreement for signing." Then the next few come along, and if everyone suggests their own ideal time slot, you end up with a teaching week that's so disorganised and sporadic.
I ended up teaching on most days of the week. At that point I had to be strict with myself, and I chose not to teach on Fridays because I didn't have childcare on Fridays. My husband was working in London, and I didn't have support from grandparents, so I needed to be available for school drop-off and pickup at unusual times.
So right from the start, I chose not to teach on Fridays. A couple of times along the way I've wavered and thought, "Hmm, should I take someone on? I could make it worthwhile and take a few on on Fridays." But I'm glad I've stuck with it. Between having a full studio, two children and chronic migraines, by the time I get to Friday, I'm so grateful to have a day off, a day where I don't need to be switched on and ready to teach. We've got to be on it when we're teaching, haven't we? We can't be half-hearted about it. It's all or nothing.
So I get to Friday, I've done my week, and I'm really grateful for a day when I can just concentrate on taking the kids to school and collecting them when they need to be picked up, and do my admin tasks without being "on". Any of you who are introverts like me will understand what I mean. You can use up your social battery pretty quickly as an introvert. Of course, one-to-one teaching is wonderful, and I love it. I don't find it overwhelming in the way one-to-many teaching, like groups, would be. But it still takes a significant amount of energy and thought to give good in-person lessons. I love them and they energise me, but once I've done 30 or so in a week, I'm ready for an "I'm not speaking today" kind of rest day.
Dead zones
My sporadic week, as it was when I'd switched to full-time and was taking on new students, had so many dead zones. That's what I call them: pockets of time that weren't long enough to do anything significant. They weren't long enough to go out and get chores or errands done, or to do a workout (not that I did any exercise back then anyway). They were really awkward small slots of time that felt like a waste, because I couldn't do anything useful in them.
That was a little bit frustrating, because your whole day is used up and you've only taught four or five lessons. Because you accepted whatever time slot each student preferred, the lessons are spread out just enough through the day that it ends up being quite a frustrating day. All that time in between feels like a big waste.
There is something you can do about it, I promise. There are practical tips coming; I'm just painting the picture of what it's like. Some of you may be experiencing this, where you've taken on new students and popped them in wherever they wanted, to be the most available and amenable music teacher you can be, and to make starting music lessons as easy as possible for them.
Taking back my Thursday afternoons
Earlier this year, I decided to make myself available to collect my son from an after-school club. To do that, I had to shift my lesson schedule around so that I no longer taught on Thursday afternoons and evenings.
At that point, my teaching week looked a bit like this. I taught Monday to Thursday, every evening on those four days, and on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays I also taught during the day. I kept Wednesdays free during the day for appointments, because (I don't know if you find this) more and more these days, dentists, doctors, hairdressers and whoever else don't tend to work on Fridays. So Wednesday is my appointment day.
But I needed to make myself available so that my son could go to a club he'd really wanted to attend. Up until then, the only way my children could go to after-school clubs was if my husband could pick them up, which he couldn't when he was working full-time, or if I enlisted grandparent help. But the way our family is structured now, I have family in lots of different countries, which isn't great for childcare. That's just the way it is.
So I chose not to accept that just because I'm a piano teacher, I can never pick my kids up from school or from after-school clubs, because I need to get back in time to start my afternoon lessons. Not living by that rule meant I made an active choice to let my son attend a club he really wanted to go to. And that's a really important thing. You don't need to apologise for having a family. You don't need to pretend you don't have a family if you have children, or if you have other personal or family commitments. You don't have to apologise for them as a music teacher. You protect your time and give the time you have available, but you don't have to give all of your time at the expense of your family or your own personal choices.
In practice, I contacted all my Thursday afternoon and evening students and explained that I would no longer be available to teach on Thursday afternoons and evenings, but that I had made some new slots available on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I opened up an extra slot in the evenings after my last lesson, and an extra slot in the afternoons before my first afternoon lesson. That was a change I could make without disrupting any other part of this well-oiled machine.
Because we have to remember that there's a limit to the number of lessons anyone can teach in one go. We all have different limits. My limit is four lessons in a row, either four half-hour lessons, or three half-hour lessons and a 45-minute lesson. After that it's a bit too much, and I need 15 minutes to reset and recalibrate. So I wanted to keep those conditions in my teaching schedule while opening up these extra slots.
I was moving five or six students from the Thursday afternoon and evening slots to other slots during the week. I made enough slots available that everyone could have one; I think I made more slots available than there were students, because you can't expect everyone to fit neatly into the slots you offer. As it happened, everyone except one student was able to pick a slot that worked.
Two things I did when I asked
There are two points I want to make here. First, when I put the proposal to them, I didn't apologise for not being available on Thursdays. I just stated that I would no longer be available on Thursdays, because you don't have to be sorry for it. Your time requirements have changed, and that's fine.
Second, I told them which lesson slots I'd made available and asked them to tell me every slot they could feasibly manage. Not their favourite slot; all the feasible slots. As you know, scheduling is a balancing act between everyone getting their favourite or most convenient slot, and being able to fit everyone into a slot that pretty much works for them. It might not be totally ideal for everyone, but everyone gets a slot, if that makes sense.
I heard back from everyone. A couple of people could only manage one of the slots because of other commitments during the week. And there was one student for whom none of the slots worked.
Don't squeeze them in
This is what we all fear, isn't it? When we change our teaching schedule, we fear we'll exclude one of our existing students, and that feels horrible. It's a student, teacher and family relationship you've built up over however long you've been teaching them. You're established, you've made progress, and you've got the teaching path roughly mapped out. Then something like this happens, and of course you don't want to lose them.
The thing is, when you get to this point with a student who can't make any of the slots you have available, the overwhelming temptation is to open up a slot that didn't exist before, to (I say this in inverted commas) "squeeze them in". This is never a good idea. Never, never, never.
When you open up a slot you hadn't intended to teach in, there's a reason you hadn't. There's a reason you designed your teaching week the way you did, which I'll talk more about in a minute. You've mapped out the days and times you want to teach, and you've limited yourself so you don't get overstretched. You don't want to be completely overwhelmed after teaching six lessons in a row, then reflecting on those last couple of lessons later that evening, wondering, "Did I cover the right things with them? I can't remember. I was so frazzled by that point." You don't want to be in that situation. It lowers the quality of your teaching, and that's the last thing you want.
Maybe the slot you'd open up was allocated as downtime, even if you don't fill your calendar with "this is my downtime" (some people do, which I think is remarkable). But downtime is important. We all need to switch off, even if we can't switch off properly. We need non-teaching time to collect our thoughts, plan and prepare for the next lesson, do some admin, and consider which books to move students on to next. All the things buzzing around our heads all the time as music teachers. All of our time is valuable, whether it's teaching time or not.
So there's the overwhelming urge to make some time available. But the problem, aside from what I've already mentioned, is that you didn't intend to teach then. When you open up that slot, it will forever be one of those slightly resentful slots. Say you opened up an even later slot. You never planned to teach that late, but you did it so you wouldn't lose a student. These lessons happen every week; it's not a one-off, it's a commitment. So every Wednesday, for example, you get to eight o'clock with another lesson still to go, when you'd otherwise have finished. You're completely exhausted, but you know you opened that slot yourself to keep that student.
Resentment is going to build up, because you wanted to stop teaching before eight o'clock. You wanted that to be part of your schedule. And you feel that because you decided you wanted to collect your son from an after-school club on a Thursday, it was your doing, so this is the sacrifice you have to make. Well, I'm telling you right now: you don't have to make that sacrifice, even though it's a really difficult thing to think about.
What happened with the one student
For me, this one student couldn't make any of the lesson slots I'd made available on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. So I sent a message back saying, "That's unfortunate that she can't attend any of those lesson slots. What we can do is put her back on the waiting list, and when a spot comes up that works for you, she'll be at the top of the list and can come back to lessons." That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's professional, warm and kind; it's just sticking with the lesson slots you've agreed to teach.
The next day or the day after, I received a message back saying they'd made it work and could attend the last slot available. It was all fine, and she's been coming ever since.
What happened in this situation is something not many of us get to experience, because we're so afraid of losing students. I didn't want to lose her as a student, and I didn't want her to go back on the waiting list, but I had to be very pragmatic with my time. Whatever arrangements they made, they prioritised piano lessons above something else so that she could continue coming.
When a student family does that, they are your ideal students. They're prioritising piano lessons. I'm using piano lessons as the example because I'm a piano teacher, but it applies to any instrumental or vocal lessons. When a family prioritises lessons above something else, they're automatically one of your ideal students, because they value what you offer more than something else.
We all have a limited amount of time in our week. We'd all love to do a hundred different activities. Well, I wouldn't; I'd be exhausted. But we often want to do more than we have time for, and that's just part of life. You have to prioritise and choose what you want to spend your time on. That's what happened in this instance.
It meant I then had Thursday afternoons and evenings free, so I could collect my son from his club and feel like a present parent. I think this is an issue for us. If you have children and you're a music teacher, there's a level of sacrifice involved in needing to teach after school and in the evenings, albeit not every day of the week. So I felt really positive about making this change, and it's been wonderful. I get to collect him from his club and hear about his day, and I still get to teach all of my students. I've just packed a few more in on a couple of the days earlier in the week.
Part 2: My schedule now, and the reschedule trap
My week now
My schedule now looks like this. Monday is my busiest day. I have 14 lessons on a Monday, which you might think is a lot, and it is. But they're structured so that I'm not starting so early that it's a rush. I teach in groups of no more than four lessons, and they're all half-hour lessons on Mondays, so I never teach more than two hours without a break, even if it's only 15 minutes in the evening. After the morning lessons, I have an hour's break, which is time to get lunch. Then I have another two-hour group of lessons, and then an hour's break before the afternoon and evening lessons. It works really well for me. I just go into Mondays knowing my day is completely full and there's nothing else I can fit in, and that's okay. So I don't feel pulled in lots of different directions.
It also means I've taken control of my time during the week, and I'm telling you this as an example because you can do it too. If you feel like your weekly teaching schedule has you running all over the place, with lots of annoying pockets of dead time, rushing from one thing to the next, it doesn't feel very nice. And if everyone has the same slot every week, it's going to be that way every week you teach. There is something you can do about it, which I'll talk about in this episode.
What made it possible
Reflecting on how I felt when I'd just started teaching full-time, nearly seven years ago now, if I'd been in the position of needing to free up my Thursday afternoons and evenings, I don't think I'd have had the confidence to send that email and stand by my available lesson slots. My fear of turning away students was bigger than my confidence in my ability to attract new ones. I had all that imposter syndrome, and I'd have considered it the kiss of death, as they say, to say, "I'm sorry, these are the only slots available. They can go back on the waiting list, and I'll let you know when something's available." I'd have thought, "That student's gone. I've upset them, or made them feel unwanted." All these personal, emotional things that have nothing to do with it. It's just a scheduling issue. We can't all be available at all times for everybody; that's a fact of life. But back then I'd have found it very difficult.
The biggest thing that's made it much more feasible these days is the mindset shift I've had over the last three or four years: being in control of my time, and understanding that I'm running a business, not a hobby. I'm not doing favours for anyone. The way it works is to be professional, and then things run smoothly and everybody's happy.
Having an active waiting list is obviously a big support too. By an active waiting list, I mean I contact the people on it every so often (I should probably do it more often, to be honest) to keep up to date with their availability, check whether they're still waiting for a teacher, and answer any questions about getting an instrument, that sort of thing. So I know there's a big group of potential students waiting for slots to become available. That's very reassuring, and it obviously made this decision a lot easier.
But even if you don't have a waiting list, have faith that you attracted these students in the first place, and you will attract more. Attracting your ideal students will definitely be another podcast episode, because once you have this system going, you don't need to fear running out of students or not finding enough. They'll find you because you're visible. But enough on that for now.
The reschedule trap
Something I do have to mention here is rescheduling, because it's relevant to having a good teaching schedule: one that works for you week in, week out, that you don't dread or have to endure, and that works for your energy levels, your lifestyle and your family commitments.
So, the reschedule trap. I've talked about this in previous episodes, and no doubt I'll talk about it in many more to come. As you know, I don't reschedule lessons. It's one of my policies, and I stick to it. One of the reasons is that if you can't guarantee the same rescheduling flexibility to every one of your students when they miss a lesson, then it's not a policy, and it's not fair on all your students. Only the ones who ask get this special treatment that's more convenient for them, which isn't right, and it's not good for you as a teacher dealing with your whole cohort of students.
I understand it, though. I've lived it, and I've come through the other side, but it's something I really want to touch on. You get into the guilt cycle. A parent messages to say their child is ill, and you offer to reschedule the lesson even when you haven't been asked. It's one of those automatic things that happens in the beginning before you've trained yourself not to: "Oh no, I'm so sorry they're unwell. It's not their fault they're ill, and they're going to miss their lesson, but that's okay, don't worry. We can fit them in another time this week." Then you look at your schedule, you can't see any spaces, so you make something available that was going to be your time to switch off and catch up with your spouse after a day of teaching, or to relax with a bath or a book. You get into this guilt cycle because it feels like the right thing to do.
The reason we don't do this is that you cannot accommodate every single illness that every single student might get that interferes with their lesson slot. At least, you can't do it without consequences that fall directly on your shoulders, in lost time and lost income.
One of my favourite analogies for this is the gym. If you'd booked a session at the gym, you wouldn't expect a refund or a free rescheduled session if you missed it because you were ill. It's the same with a lesson. The fee isn't just for the 30 minutes they're in the room with you. It covers your expertise, your preparation, all of the planning you've done, and the slot that has been held open just for them. That's why they don't need a refund. A refund doesn't come into it, because the money has already been spent. The slot has been kept open for them by their payments.
Holding the boundary
When you tighten up your teaching schedule, and hopefully start to shift to a no-reschedules policy, the big fear of losing students is there. It's inevitable; we all have that fear. But when you look more closely at the situation, it's not quite as drastic as you might think. Music lessons are a personal thing, often one-to-one. You've built up a relationship with a student and their family, and that's not something most families walk away from without a second thought just because they couldn't get a reschedule. Their fees aren't increasing, and they're not missing out in any other way. They've just missed a lesson and aren't getting a reschedule. For the vast majority of students and families, that's not a reason to stop lessons and find another teacher. They'll stick with you.
The very small minority who do end up quitting lessons were definitely not your ideal students to start with. They were more than likely the ones already pushing other boundaries: turning up late and expecting you to make up the time, sending a student who was unwell despite your policy that students shouldn't attend lessons when sick, or sending a sibling in place of the child you'd planned the lesson for. All these little niggly boundary-pushing habits. Generally, it's these people who aren't your ideal students, and if they choose to leave, great. It's made space in your schedule for your ideal students.
Holding this boundary by not rescheduling lessons has a very positive effect on your relationships with your student families, and on your self-perception. You end up acknowledging, consciously or not, that you're a business owner and a professional. You're running a business and providing a service of music education to your students. You're sticking to your policies to protect your income and your time, but also to protect your students from having a frazzled teacher who doesn't teach as well because they're so burnt out from rescheduling 30 lessons a week. I exaggerate, but you get my point. The ones who stay are your ideal students.
The other thing that happens when you hold this boundary is that it tells families the lesson slot is fixed. It's not movable, and it's not something to negotiate. That's very helpful for all the other requests that come in about missed lessons, late lessons and other things affecting attendance. It narrows things down, because it sends the message, which is the truth, that this is your lesson slot. That's it; it's not movable or flexible.
I did have a parent who asked on several occasions for reschedules for their child's lesson. Every time, I got that kind of "blah" feeling in my stomach: everyone's aware of the policy, they know I don't reschedule lessons, but they're still asking. All I had to do was stick to my guns and respond the way I've responded to all the other requests, explaining that no, I don't reschedule lessons, my studio is full, and if they can't make the lesson, it will be a missed lesson and still charged for. Whenever I've sent that message, all I've had back is an accepting response: "Okay, thanks for letting me know." Everything's fine, and we move on. It's a big, terrifying thing until you get used to responding in this way and realise it's not as terrible as you think.
Part 3: Attracting daytime students
Who takes daytime lessons?
Okay, so now we're on to the practical part of the episode. If we're not condemned to taking only after school and evening students, such as school-aged children and working adults, who else can we teach? We need to attract daytime students, and there's quite a big population of them wherever you are, even in a less heavily populated area. They're always there. And we have the option of online lessons, which removes the geographical restrictions anyway.
So which kinds of students take daytime lessons? First, you've got retired adults, maybe returning to an instrument they learnt as a child and gave up, who've always wanted to come back and play. You've got adults who work from home and have flexible working hours. And then you've got home educated children. The home education community has grown enormously since COVID, so it's quite a big pool of students you can access. I currently teach two home educated students and have taught a handful of others in the past. They are out there, and because they often don't conform to school hours, they're your ideal students if you'd like to fill your daytime slots.
COVID had a huge impact on lots of things, as we all know, and in my experience the biggest impact has been on the working week. People working from home more has really shifted the landscape. So many more adults now have the flexibility for a mid-morning or lunchtime lesson. The other effect of COVID was that people realised there was more to life than work, and that they could make more use of their time doing things they enjoy: picking up a hobby, learning something new, learning to play the piano. All of this emerged as a result of COVID. So your student audience is out there; it's just a case of letting them find you.
Be visible online
This is where we come to websites. I know not every music teacher has a website, because it's something you have to pay for. Certainly in the beginning, when I was trying to attract students, I didn't want to pay for anything I didn't have to. But quite early on I learned that to attract students, you need to be visible online, even though the students you're attracting live locally enough to attend in person. The vast majority of people look for any kind of new service provider by searching online.
The biggest one is, of course, Google, and the way to show up in location-based Google searches, like "piano teachers near me", is to register for a Google Business Profile, which is absolutely free. It means you show up on a map in Google searches when someone searches for "piano teachers near me" or "flute teachers near me". So that's the first thing.
Beyond that, a website is your own tiny little piece of real estate on the internet. It's a place where you control exactly what's on the pages, and when people search for whatever instrument you teach, you'll show up higher in the listings if your website has more information about that particular thing. I won't go into all the details of SEO (search engine optimisation) and the rest of it, because it's not my forte, but I know enough to understand the value of a website that tells people enough about you to attract your ideal students.
Until you tell people who you are, what you care about, what your teaching approach and ethos are, and what you love about your instrument, music and teaching, you're just one in a line of potential teachers, with nothing to help you stand out from the crowd. The thing that does give you an advantage is being spotted on a Google map, which is where the Google Business Profile gives you a big leg up.
What a website costs, and what it gives you
The cost of a website varies wildly depending on the route you take. I chose Squarespace. Even though I understand the tiniest amount about coding (I've done some work for my sister, who builds websites), I went with Squarespace because I needed something drag and drop, for someone who's not good with all the tech stuff, that would look pretty and let me write text in boxes and add images. It costs me only £200 and something for the whole year.
As a first cost, that probably feels like quite a lot. It did for me. But once I'd realised the value of having a website, it more than paid for itself very quickly. When people see you have a website, you become a more legitimate music teacher in their eyes. That's not to say anyone without a website isn't a legitimate teacher, but it increases the trust factor. You're appealing to people who have no idea who you are. They don't know how wonderful you are yet, because they haven't got to know you. A website is a big flag that says, "I'm trustworthy, I'm a real person, this isn't a scam, and I'm not going to disappear." It goes a long way to encouraging a potential student to contact you.
Your website isn't just a contact page. It's where your ideal student decides whether you're the right teacher for them. If your website only talks about beginner children and exam preparation, those are the only enquiries you'll receive. If an adult looks at your website and you only talk about those things, they'll think, "Oh, they probably don't teach adults, so I won't bother contacting them."
When you appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody
There's a mistake I made early on, and one I see lots of other teachers make: trying to appeal to everybody. When you appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody. It's one of those rules. The more specific you are about the types of students you teach, or the type of teacher you are, the more likely you are to connect with whoever's browsing your website. It tips them over to the point where they want to contact you, book a trial lesson and find out more about whether you're the right teacher for them. If you're bland and don't give enough detail about yourself, they've got nothing to help them decide whether you're the right fit.
In the beginning, I said, "I teach adults and children of all ages." You've probably heard that phrase lots of times and seen it on lots of websites: "I teach adults and children of all ages, whether you're playing for fun, preparing for exams, entering festivals, learning to read music, improvising or composing." I was covering everything, thinking, "Oh, this is good. Anyone who wants lessons will know I can offer all of these things." But it has the opposite of the intended effect. It makes you "unconnectable"; that's not the right word, but it stops you making that connection with your potential students.
So here's some practical advice. If you're trying to attract daytime students, such as retired adults, home educated children, or adults with the flexibility to work from home who could come for a lunchtime lesson, you need things on your website that speak directly to them. Mention specifically that you teach adults, and that it's okay if you're an adult who's never touched the piano (for example) before, or if you learnt as a child and want to come back to it but aren't sure what you remember. I have quite a few retired adult students who fit into that bucket exactly. There's a lot of vulnerability around adults coming back to lessons, or coming to lessons for the first time. Addressing that vulnerability with some reassurance and kindness goes a long way to them clicking the button to contact you.
Showing who I am and how I teach
When I realised I needed to be more specific on my website, I had to rework not only the copy (the text on the website: the descriptions and so on), but also the imagery, to show who I am and who I teach and attract my ideal students.
I decided to make a bigger point about exams, because I feel quite strongly about not taking on students to process them through an exam treadmill. I'm sure we've all heard the stories. I've recently taken on a student who has been on the exam treadmill. There are teachers out there who have never known any better, so that's what they experienced, and that's what they do. They literally go from exam piece to exam piece with brand new students, pushing them through exams, and the students have a terrible time, because there's no repertoire development outside the exam pieces and no time to develop technique. It's just a terrible situation.
I wanted to make it clear on my website that I don't teach like that. So I spelled out the purpose of exams in the way I teach: exams are there to validate a level that has already been achieved, but not at the expense of developing repertoire, technique and musicianship. So right away, any well-meaning parent who wants to put their child through piano lessons and get them through the grades by a certain time will know I'm not the teacher for them, and they won't bother contacting me.
If they happen to miss that bit of copy on my website and do contact me, it's one of the things I find out fairly quickly from their first message. If they say, "I really want my child to do their Grade 2 next year. They're seven years old and they've been learning for six months," that's my red flag. That's where their head is, and I'm not the right teacher for them, because that's not the way I teach.
Sometimes you might think, "Well, maybe I could re-educate the parent. Maybe I could help them understand that this is not a good way to progress through music lessons, and that it will suck all the joy out of them." But to be honest, that's a harder shift to make, and I want to focus my time on attracting my ideal students and helping them on their way. Sure, if I can explain my approach to parents with this other approach in mind, I will, but I don't hold my breath that things are going to change, because it's a big mindset shift, and often it's a bit of a waste of time.
The point I'm trying to make is that when you talk to your ideal students about the things they're going to want from lessons, and reassure them if they're feeling vulnerable (like adult students often are), they'll connect with that on your website and reach out to contact you.
Sharing my why
So that's one of the things I did when I reworked my website: talking about exams, and about not running a treadmill in my studio. Another was sharing a bit about my why: why I teach.
As some of you know, if you've followed me for a while, the reason I switched to full-time teaching in 2019 was that, shortly before, my mum passed away fairly suddenly from pancreatic cancer. It all happened within the space of a month, and it really brought into sharp focus just how short life is. It made me realise I needed to do the thing that makes me happy full-time, not just part-time. So I made the switch, and I decided to put that in my story on my website.
I did have a few second thoughts about it. I thought, "Am I oversharing? I'm a music teacher; I don't need to share my full life story." But you never know what sharing something about yourself will do in connecting with a potential future student, an ideal student. Obviously you don't have to put your life story on there, but opening up a little and telling people who you are and why you do what you do goes a long way to attracting your ideal students.
Part 4: Building your week deliberately
Decide what you're protecting
Okay, so how do you build your week deliberately? The first thing is to decide on the days you don't want to teach, not the days you do. Decide what you're protecting. For example, I've protected Fridays and weekends. I don't teach on Fridays because that was the day my husband was working in London, so I needed to be available for school drop-off, pickup, clubs and all the rest of it, and I didn't want to worry about getting back home in time for lessons. So I made it an absolute rule that I wouldn't teach on Fridays.
Fill your slots in order
When student enquiries start coming in, and you have a consultation or trial lesson with them, don't ask when they're available. Instead, ask whether they need a daytime lesson or an after school or evening lesson, or whether they could do a daytime lesson, on the basis that if they're available during the day, there'll be a bigger choice of slots. Something like that. Then you can look at your timetable and offer the next lesson slot that makes the most sense.
A lot of the time, students will have a whole bunch of days and times available, but if you leave it to them to suggest a time, you'll end up with a scattergraph of a working schedule, with all that dead time in between. So try to fill your lesson slots sequentially and deliberately. It's okay if you offer the next available slot on the day you're currently filling, and they say they're not available. You can either offer the next available slot, or look at another day where you could have two lessons back to back. Anything that groups lessons together the way you want them grouped.
Know your limit
Just a note on that: beware of grouping too many lessons in a row. You may not know your limit until you try it. I worked out through trial and error that about two hours was my limit, as I said earlier. Some people can go longer and they're fine, and it certainly depends on the lesson lengths you teach. I tend to teach half-hour and some 45-minute lessons, and I think, because I have lots of beginner and intermediate students and not yet lots of advanced students, the amount of brain power needed can vary depending on the type of student you're teaching. So that's something to keep in mind.
If you're not sure how long you can teach without a break, I'd limit it to three or four students to begin with. You can always add to it later, but once you've given students a slot, it's much, much harder to take it away and move them elsewhere.
Younger children earlier
Another consideration I discovered through trial and error is the age of the child. If you're placing a child in the afternoon or early evening, the younger the child, the earlier in the afternoon you should schedule them. It sounds obvious, but a six-year-old is going to have such poor concentration later in the afternoon. It's already their dinner time, or they've had dinner before coming out to the lesson, and they should be winding down for bedtime. They won't be able to concentrate very well in the lesson, compared with coming straight after school for a 4pm lesson. So consider the specific ages of the children. If you can schedule the younger ones earlier and the older ones slightly later, they'll have a better experience, you'll have a better experience, and there'll be better progress all round.
You don't have to fill every gap
The other important point not to forget is that you don't have to offer a lesson slot just because a gap exists in your timetable. Not every last moment needs to be filled with teaching; in fact, it shouldn't be. It's okay to limit yourself to certain days and times. If you only want to teach in the mornings on certain days of the week, for example, do that and stick to it. You'll continue to attract more ideal students who suit your timetable.
Fortnightly lessons
Something that has come up a number of times is potential students contacting me through my website who were adults doing shift work, so they couldn't guarantee coming for a lesson on the same day and time each week. More than a few have contacted me in this situation and asked if they could have a lesson once a fortnight. The old me would have said, "Yeah, okay, anything you want, I'll do anything." But luckily, by that point, I knew what I wanted my week to look like and how I wanted to control it, and fortnightly lessons didn't fit with the way I wanted to teach.
In theory, you'd think that if one student could come on Tuesday mornings at 10 o'clock every other week, and you found another who could come at the same time on the alternate weeks, it would work out fine. But the chances of that happening are infinitesimally small, so you'll always end up with an inconsistent schedule. If you want the same schedule every week, which is what I value, taking on a student who's available every two weeks isn't ideal.
It also means you make half the income from that student, because they're having lessons half as often. But it doesn't change the amount of input you give very much. The active teaching is obviously halved, but the planning effort is all still there. And then it's compounded by the fact that a lesson once every two weeks is a huge gap when you're learning something like a musical instrument. As we know, it needs regular follow-up for feedback and to maintain motivation. So it's a model I've never taken on, and I've turned away a number of adults in the past.
I didn't turn them away unfeelingly, because I'd love to be the type of teacher who can accommodate those students. These are people like nurses doing shift work, doing really valuable jobs, and they want to learn an instrument. But for me, and the way my schedule had to work, I had to accept that these were not students I could take on. I know there are other teachers out there who can take on students like that, and that's wonderful. They're not my ideal students, though, so trying to shoehorn them into my schedule was never going to be a good idea. Again, it would always end up with that little bit of resentment: "I've agreed to take this student on and it doesn't fit with what I wanted, but it was my choice. Oh well, there we go." It doesn't make for a good working relationship.
It's harder to move students later
There's a point I really want to make. If you're a music teacher who feels you can't be deliberate about your scheduling yet, because you're still building your studio and finding new students, and you feel the need to accept everyone who comes along, I want to tell you that it's much harder to move students once they've started lessons than to place them in a logical lesson slot from the start.
Have faith in your ability to attract more ideal students. They will always come and find you, as long as you're making yourself visible online. Social media has a huge role in all of this. Whether you love it or hate it, it's a big place where people can find you, and it's quite a useful tool for local recommendations. So have your Google Business Profile, have a website (it doesn't need to be all singing, all dancing; it can be basic, but tell people real things about you), and be active on social media, even if it's just a business page. But again, I'm going to do another episode about that, because we need to talk about all these things, don't we?
Lesson notes: a big time sink
All right, now let's talk about an area of teaching that's a big time sink: admin and lesson notes. When COVID happened, one of my students encouraged me to try online teaching for the first time. I was terrified, but it all worked out for the best, and it was a great medium. To this day I still teach two of those students online; they don't live anywhere near me, and it works out brilliantly.
For those online students, I can't physically write in their planners. They both have planners (my piano planners), but I email them after the lesson, sometimes a couple of days after, because things get away from me. I send them an email with lesson notes so they know what to cover during the week.
In the beginning, when I was doing all this online teaching during COVID, I got carried away with the lesson notes. After each half-hour lesson I'd spend at least 15 minutes per student, if not longer, explaining all the concepts we'd covered, finding further reading links they could read up on, and selecting YouTube videos to demonstrate certain concepts. I went into far too much detail. The lesson notes took up loads of time and weren't that beneficial to the student.
Even when you have the most dedicated family and student, who provide all the support and read all your notes, they're in the small minority. For a weekly lesson, you don't need to give them a ton of stuff to read; in fact, it's counterproductive. The notes just need to be specific practice tasks related to what you did in the lesson, online or in person. This applies to in-person lessons as well.
For the vast majority, the problem with extensive lesson notes that took a lot of time relative to the length of the lesson is that, more often than not, the planner or notebook doesn't get opened, the links are never clicked, and nothing is read. That's not a failure of the teacher or the family; it's just the reality of weekly life. In my opinion, the limited time a family has should go on active practice: encouraging the child, and sitting down with them to do their practice, rather than reading up on all the things we find fascinating as music teachers and think will be really helpful. They don't need that level of detail, not at this stage. The in-person learning is much better and more feasible.
I've spoken to a number of music teachers who write up their lesson notes after in-person lessons and email them to the student or parents later that evening. This is where you can fall into the trap of sending really detailed notes as a way of demonstrating your value as a teacher. It might all be brilliant stuff, but the practicality of it is questionable, because there's not enough time in the week to cover all that material, do the extra reading and watch the video. What the student needs is specific practice tasks, so the parent can support the child with their practice.
In the early days, this extensive lesson note writing can very easily become a significant time drain for you as a teacher, without much added benefit. You might feel you're giving lots of value in the parent's eyes, but it's highly likely the parent feels guilty about not getting through all the notes, or not letting their child watch this video or read that bit of text, because you've put the effort into putting them together. So it could have a negative impact on both sides, which is definitely not what you want as a teacher.
Write the notes in the lesson
What I've found over the years is that the better alternative is to make the lesson notes during the lesson itself, not afterwards. As you know, I use my own piano planners with my students (I used to use a notebook). The student plays their piece for me, we discuss things and work on the different elements, and then I take out their notebook and write the heading: the name of the piece, or the scale or arpeggio they're working on, or whatever we're doing. Then I ask them what they think is the best part to practise, and what they need to focus on this week.
Sometimes they'll pause and say, "Well, I just need to practise it, don't I?" And you say, "Okay, well, what have we talked about this lesson?" Because you'll have focused on that bar, or section B, or separate hands practice, or starting to put hands together, or dynamic changes, or whatever. If they don't realise it, reiterate the point as you write it in the notebook, show them and say, "Right, this is what you're going to practise. When you practise this piece, you're going to be trying to join bars six to seven." It's specific enough to be memorable. Their notes are written down for them, and they've been involved in the conversation, so they're more likely to remember it. It's a winning combination all round.
Alongside this, I make notes in my own Teacher Piano Planner, in my own kind of unofficial shorthand, about what they're working on in any particular piece. So they have a log of it, and I have a log of it. Week to week, we can all see what was supposed to be practised and whether the practice was done, and move on to the next thing, without using up the valuable evening time you really need for winding down after a full day of teaching.
Notes for online students
As I mentioned earlier, my current approach for online students is a simple email template divided into the different elements, like scales, arpeggios, pieces and theory. It's all bullet points with sub-bullets, to stop me writing prose. I'm very specific about which scale or arpeggio they need to practise, and which element of each piece. It's literally what I'd have written in their notebook if they'd been with me in person. It works really well, because they can see at a glance, "Oh, I need to do this, this and this." Occasionally I'll send them a link, if I want them to watch a performance of a particular piece or a video explaining some theory, but I limit it to one external link to demonstrate a concept. That way I don't get carried away.
So this is what I'd recommend to any teacher who's currently writing lengthy notes after every lesson, or doing them all together in the evening, which is even more difficult, because depending on how many lessons you've had that day, that can be a lot of information and detail to keep in your head. I know I'd certainly struggle with it. If you're one of those teachers who wants to prove your value and worth to your piano families this way, I'd recommend you start scaling back the extent of the lesson notes you send.
You could communicate it to them by saying, "I'm restructuring the way I write lesson notes to make them more specific to practice tasks and more manageable for the student." No doubt the parents will be happy with this. I can't imagine any parent saying, "No, we want all that extreme detail." It's very unlikely, because you're putting it forward as something that's going to be more efficient for the student. Of course, it will be more efficient for you to write as well, because you're getting straight to the point, without describing concepts or reiterating things you said in the lesson. You could say they'll look different, but the quality is the same, and the aim is to streamline practice sessions so progress is even more efficient. Something like that; you can word it however you want.
What I recommend is switching to bullet points, so you don't write big long sentences. It limits how much you can reasonably type. And if you're used to sending a bunch of links to different videos, concepts or websites, limit it to one: the single most important link you want to share. That way it's not overwhelming for the parent to receive, and it's much more manageable and digestible.
The whole point is that it saves you so much time. I've brought my time down to about five minutes typing up notes for my online students, because that's all it needs. They get the direction they need, I've communicated what we covered in the lesson, and if they choose, they can transfer it into their planners. I think one of them keeps an email folder of them so she can access them regularly, and it works.
Switching off
I've mentioned switching off a couple of times in this episode: having downtime as a music teacher. I'll acknowledge right now that I'm not one of the best at switching off. I find it very hard, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Our brains are constantly problem solving, and when you teach music, there are so many potential problems to solve. At the most unexpected times, thoughts pop into my head: "I could try this book with this student," or "That piece would work really well for the student who needs to work on this concept." It's just part of being a music teacher, so I've accepted it. However, downtime is an essential part of your week.
I used to think switching off would mean going and playing my favourite piano pieces. No, no, no, that doesn't work, because you're in the room where you teach. If you teach from home, you're in your workspace, surrounded by your students' books and materials. You might start playing one of your favourite pieces, but inevitably you'll grab another book you're planning to use with a student and start playing those pieces to make sure you're on top of them. Suddenly you're working again. You're not switching off; it's not downtime. It's a very easy line to blur.
For me, one of the things that really helps me switch off is getting outside, because unless you're a travelling musician who plays in a marching band, being outside isn't associated with your teaching or working life. Just going for a 10-minute walk for the sake of it (not to run an errand, pick something up or go somewhere in particular), just 10 minutes walking around the block in the fresh air, is really, really good. If that's all the time you have in your break between lessons, it's a really valuable way to spend it, refreshing your mind and resetting your senses. It's brilliant.
My really good wind-down activity is knitting. I'm a knitter. I learned to knit at about the same time I started to learn the piano, when I was maybe six or seven. One year I had a birthday present I remember very vividly, from Galt Toys (G-A-L-T; I don't know if I'm saying that right): a little pair of red plastic knitting needles and paper instructions for garter stitch and purl stitch. I had some yarn, and I taught myself to knit, and it was brilliant. I love it to this day.
It has nothing to do with music or teaching, so it allows me to switch my mind off a little bit. Well, I'm not switching off; I'm being mindful when I'm knitting, because you're counting stitches or pattern repeats or whatever, and it keeps my hands busy. For me, it's such a satisfying hobby. I love the repetition and seeing the project grow, and the satisfaction of turning yarn and two sticks into something beautiful, like a cardigan, will never cease to amaze me. It's something I really value. So having a hobby that has nothing to do with your teaching life is very valuable, and if you don't have one yet, I'd encourage you to try something new. You won't know whether you like it until you try it.
Comparison on social media
Just a side note, because I got a message from a fellow piano teacher last week. It's not a new concept: looking at things on social media and feeling bad about yourself by comparison. But hearing that this piano teacher had been feeling quite down about herself and her teaching because of everything music teachers are posting on social media, I wanted to touch on it.
It's a fallacy to believe everybody else has it together and you don't. It's just how social media works. Very few people post about their failures or insecurities. More do now, but the vast majority share their wins, because they want to celebrate the things they're proud of, and that's fine. But when you compare yourself and think, "I'm not doing any of those things. I must be a rubbish teacher," it's very easy to fall into that trap.
I'm raising it because I've felt that on many occasions. I look up to a lot of music teachers and piano teachers and think, "Oh, it's wonderful, they're so organised. They do this and that. I wish I could do that. I wish I was like that." But there'll be a whole bunch of things I'm doing that they're not, and you don't realise it because you're not talking to them. So I want to reassure you that you are doing enough, because you are you. The fact that you're conscientious enough to worry about it means you care about your quality as a teacher, and the value you're providing as a music teacher. What you see on social media isn't the full picture. Just remember that.
You're a responsive teacher
When it comes to your students' progress, know that it always takes longer than we realise. We went through it ourselves, but that was many, many years ago for a lot of us, and it can be hard to remember just how long it takes for students to progress. They all progress at different speeds.
Something I worried about a lot in the beginning was feeling that I needed every student's path mapped out in the finest detail. But that's not possible, because you don't know your students inside out, or how they progress, especially when they're new to you. At different times in their lives they'll progress at different speeds, because of whatever else is going on for them personally, their own brain development, and any other stresses or pressures they might have. You can't plan for every eventuality, and you shouldn't, because that would be a massive waste of time.
It's okay to have an overall view of the direction you're going in with a particular student. As long as you keep them on that track, that's fine. What's more valuable is recognising that you're probably a very responsive teacher. You're not just ploughing ahead through your materials regardless of how the student responds. In every lesson, you're watching their response and seeing how they've taken the information in: whether something has clicked or not, whether you need to go over a concept or some technique again, or whether they've got it and can move on to something else. You're a responsive teacher by nature.
I wanted to add that in, because it's an area where I felt very lost in the beginning: "I'm not lesson planning everything. I'm planning what we're doing, but I don't know the full picture, and I don't know whether I'm doing the right things at the right times." It can be quite a vulnerable time for us as early career music teachers. So just remember that you are a good teacher. You don't have to compare yourself to everybody else online, and you shouldn't.
One thing to do
To finish this episode, I'd like to end with something actionable. Just one thing. Write down the days and times you want to teach. Not the days you currently teach, and not what you think is feasible; just the days and times you want to teach.
Then try to identify and write down one thing in your current week that's using up some of your time and energy that you could start to pull back on. Only one thing. You don't have to write a whole list. If a list comes to you, that's great. But as a starting point, see if you can identify one area where you could pull back some of that time and energy, to make your working week that much more manageable.
We've touched on a lot of things in this episode. If you haven't already made use of my free studio policy template, it's available at victoriaclarkpiano.com/freebie. It will help you put boundaries in place, such as not offering reschedules, and that will do wonders for your weekly schedule.
If you feel you need more support, I offer online Focus Sessions: a one-hour video call where we can talk through your specific situation, and I can help you on to the next stage of whatever you're trying to change, whether it's fixing your weekly teaching schedule, your policies or anything else about your teaching life. I'm here to help with that. You can book via the website, and I'll put the link in the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening today. That's the end of the episode. I really hope it's given you some inspiration and motivation to take control of your time and your weekly schedule, and a place to start turning it into the kind of teaching schedule that works for you, rather than a fragmented one that happens to have landed in your lap. You can do something about it. You can structure your week to suit you, your life and your family commitments. You just need a place to start. So thanks so much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again in the next episode.
