Founder Matthew Rusk
FounderForum Replies Created
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@owen-evans, @leigh-fuge – excited to update you that the “Skype Guitar Lessons” page is now on the third page in Google today, having moved up from the 7th page in Google last night when I posted my previous message:)
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@hawi-gondwe, thanks for the message & I can provide an update on Skype Lessons:
Firstly, in regard to Ultimate-Guitar.com. I have had lots of meetings with them since autumn 2017, with the aim of hopefully looking to generate enquiries via the UG platform, passed over to our network of guitar teachers to teach on Skype. We made a lot of progress last year in regard to it, then in early 2018 UG updated their website design and lots of other resources got pulled from other projects (like our Skype Guitar Enquiry project).
January & February passed without any progress at all. March we had some progress with a meeting taking place on the 12th March, with the result being from UG that “I’m still discussing to try to run a cheap experiment that you suggested, just need to convince the guys that one experiment won’t really hurt if we make it fast and cheap and see what happens:) Will keep you posted.”
This was followed by an update yesterday from UG that was “There are a lot of tasks right now that should be solved, and the team doesn’t really see when they’re ready to launch the experiment, always suggesting me to discuss that later. I’m afraid we should move this to some time in future.” Which suggests it has been kicked into the long grass for the time being. I will keep trying to push for the experiment to take place as I think it will be a real success. So on that front it seems that there is no specific time-frame and 2018 as a year will determine whether it will take place or not. It might be that by the summer they are ready to explore the project again, or it might be shelved indefinitely.
At the turn of the year I began to focus on creating a possible enquiry stream for Skype Guitar Lessons of our own, via the https://musicteacher.kinsta.cloud/skype-guitar-lessons/ page of this website. I am starting to get some good early ranking signs, with the page moving up Google from 12th page for the search “Skype Guitar Lessons” in February to 7th page as of today. I am hopeful to see this rise into the top 3 pages over the next few months, then the real challenge begins in terms of trying to break it onto the first page & then high enough to start generating enquiries. So this is a defined business plan that by the end of 2018 I hope to be able to position a page of this website high enough to generate enquiries for Skype Guitar Lessons – if so that opens up new possibilities for teachers.
Hope this provides a detailed update:)
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Leigh Fuge sounds awesome – can you Skype anytime this Thursday / Sunday?:)
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Owen Evans can you help out Leigh with your experience in regard to teaching online – you are the most experienced of all musicteacher.kinsta.cloud teachers I think in regard to Skype lessons. Leigh Fuge I have had some really interesting conversations recently about Skype lessons with Ultimate-Guitar.com – we might have a big development at musicteacher.kinsta.cloud in regard to providing Skype lessons for UG users. Could we arrange a Skype meeting next week to talk more about it?
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Owen Evans this might be a great one for you to jump in on, especially with your plans to teach the majority of your lessons via Skype in the next few months:)
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Latest Xmas voucher enquiry came in today (24th January):) via the Guitar Lessons Reading website
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Just a small update on Xmas vouchers & why I hadn’t given my final update on them…well it is because we are still getting enquiries for “late Christmas vouchers” haha! The latest one has come in this afternoon for Drum Lessons Sheffield…is end of January too late to buy Xmas vouchers?:)
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Haha, love it – I think you should respond to Xmas voucher enquiries on the 24th with the question “are you buying them for this year or next year?”:) people get so stressed out at this time of year they go crazy!
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When is your cut off date this year?
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p.s. I will post a running update on the latest Christmas Vouchers we get this year, starting from afternoon of the 24th right up until the last Xmas voucher enquiry we get…my bet around 1am on the morning of the 25th:)
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Great question, I know that a few teachers offer “off-peak” lesson prices to try and draw more of there students to come earlier in the day. Aiming to draw as many students away from the “peak time” hours is really valuable as it means that those slots are only being booked up by individuals who really can’t come another time.
I would recommend going through all your students and seeing if any would be tempted to move to a day time, during one of their days off etc.
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Hi Richard,
Great question, often organisations are required undertake their own DBS checks meaning that as you rightly point out the process is duplicated multiple times. This is unfortunately par for the course in the sense that a DBS check is only a historical profiling of an individual, so School B could encounter problems if they relied on School A’s DBS certification, or indeed the teacher’s, if an issue arose between that certification and a new that School B should have carried out.
That said gaining your own Enhanced DBS certificate is no bad thing, you can find out more about doing this here:
https://musicteacher.kinsta.cloud/dbs-checks-music-teachers/
Interested in getting thoughts from other teachers about this as well – how have other people found this problem of needing multiple DBS Checks each school?
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Unfortunately, the two situations are not really comparable as they are different instruments – so enquiry numbers are very different. With on average 4.14 enquiries per month coming in for Jake during 2017, compared 18.00 enquiries per month for Eliza so Eliza has so much more scope to increase prices and retain her teaching capacity – even a slight overshoot in prices for Jake could see his enquiry numbers drop below a level that makes his teaching viable as a full time income.
A carefully considered approach for Jake is really important to keep the enquiries at a level that makes the teaching viable – lets explore the locational ideas, is there a possibility to get more students to travel to you?:)
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Hi Jake,
Great post – absolutely, it sounds like a sensible and justified move. My broad advice would be (a) tell your students well in advance of a price change, giving a set date when prices change – the new year is always a good time to change the price, though that might be a bit far off at the moment (b) when informing student provide a good reason for the change, blaming it on third party factors is a good idea… (c) be prepared for a few students to leave – this is natural in a price change (d) know that the change of price might effect new enquiry numbers coming through, but those students who do take up future lessons won’t bat an eyelid at the price as they have never known it to be cheaper.
It is always worth focusing on the target output, which is for you to be 100% book up for all the hours you want to teach at the highest possible value price for those hours. Having a blank price increase might not necessarily help achieve that – however, when combined with perhaps a discounted daytime rate with your new higher peak time rate that might really help achieve that aim.
In addition, keeping a flexible approach to pricing is a really sensible way to go – if you find that enquiries dry up or throughout the summer it gets particularly quiet then having discounted rates during those times makes a lot of sense as holding out for a higher price if people aren’t coming to lessons doesn’t help. Alternatively, if enquiry numbers and student attendance stay roughly the same it suggests that you are entirely justified in the price increase as the market can take it – my feeling is that Bath is likely to be able to take a slightly higher price point as a location, whereas a location like Middlesborough might not be able to.
Last thing to consider is whether you want the change to apply to all students, or only all new students – some teachers decide to apply a change to all new enquiries, while others implement it across the board. There are pros and cons to both – my thoughts are if handled in the right way your students will be very understanding of a reasonable price increase.
So it is a balance of analysing the marketplace in terms of new student enquiries, implementing a challenging political change for current students and reviewing these changes over time to see if they were the correct ones to make – all while keeping the single focus in mind of having 100% lesson time booked out at the highest possible price.
Some teachers who have higher prices actually earn less overall income than teachers with a slightly lower price point who can attract enough of the marketplace to have consistent student numbers each week. I have seen this a lot in the UK with teachers who go past the £30+ mark, where sometimes – depending on the location and instrument – their overall teaching income can decrease by passing that threshold.
In terms of how to introduce it there is a great post in the MGR Music Tuition forum that might help explore that more (you will need to be logged in to view) – https://musicteacher.kinsta.cloud/community/groups/music-teachers/forum/topic/price-increase-tips/ – hope this helps. If you would like to explore it more then I am more than happy to Skype sometime as it is something that I have helped a lot of teachers implement.
On another note, exploring the possibilities of getting all students travelling to a single location might be a really interesting one to explore – this will allow you to increase your potential teaching capacity as you reduce your travelling time, as well as justify a price increase if the location is a genuinely nice location to teach from (though this might also be an additional expense as well). Would you be interested in having all students travel to you in the long run?
Kind regards,
Matthew
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Eliza is going to love this…I also have one for you as well called MailTrack.io that is a Google Mail plugin to see when someone has read an email. Super useful if you are wondering whether your email has gone into spam or is a student has read it but hasn’t replied as yet:)
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Haha, can we Skype about this something next week…sounds like something I should know about it:) thanks for sharing it!
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Very clever – I really see the use for this…Eliza Jane Fyfe I am sure you can see the application of this too:)
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Am I right in my understanding that it is a way of connecting and integrating Google Calendar to Google Sheets?:)
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Yes, Gumtree is certainly a place where you can promote yourself as a music teacher forming a nice income stream of students. In addition I would really recommend introducing yourself in local music shops and really getting to know the staff, as well as connecting with other music teachers locally – word of mouth enquiries really still count for a lot of teachers enquiry streams. If a teacher cannot take a student on they might be happy to point them in your direction – especially if you specialise in a specific area of piano tuition. Becoming involved in such a community also means that you can direct students who might be more suitable with another tutor over to them – keeping both students and teachers happy. Hope this helps:) my biggest advice would be to introduce yourself to the people in your local music tuition community, great place to get the ball rolling & also met some really interesting people along the way!
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Gail Bater is this something that you might be able to advise on?:)
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Hey Mark,
Great post – I know a few teachers are starting to move towards provide supplementary video content alongside their tuition. Like Tom Jackson in Ipswich (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oVQ5Hk_GAs) and Paul Crame in Norwich (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8sAQPuvIO4).
Indeed, so much so that I am starting to develop platforms for teachers who do create online content, either for their own students or for the online community, to have a sales page to push their viewers to. Essentially the idea would be to get the free content viewers to click through from YouTube onto the sales page, where they complete an action (sign up for a free webinar, sign up to gain more content etc.). From there they are presented with a freemium model and a premium model of X, so whether that is free group webinars basically advertising to entice students to come for paid 1-2-1 Skype lessons, or free content with more content unlocked with the premium package etc. Just in the ideas stage at the moment – but really interesting that you brought it up.
Would you ever consider making videos for a wider audience, if we were able to design a sales process where there was a direct financial outcome for doing so?
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I bought these ones and used to had them out to all new students at the end of their first lesson suggesting that they should stick it on the fridge door so that they had my contact details if they needed it (also worked well as if a friend asked about a good guitar teacher then that student could pass on my business card) – https://www.moo.com/uk/design-templates/business-cards/pack/guitar-silhouettes.html – I also used to have a good splattering of them in local music shops, at the university, colleges and local schools (not to mention battle of the band nights etc at local music venues!). Would also recommend Vista Print as well for bigger posters and adversing – http://www.vistaprint.co.uk/search/guitar-teacher.aspx – as for getting “off peak students” I use to implement an “off peak rate” to entice more uni students to come in the day:)
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Hi Matt,
It is great question, I used to get a sore back from teaching from a guitar stool (probably just my posture when playing guitar to be honest) but started using the base of my office chair (http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/chairs-stools-benches/office-chairs/markus-swivel-chair-glose-black-art-20103101/) and that seemed to really help as it was much softer. I didn’t have the arms or back on it – so just the base, the wheels were useful as well to move around if needed. Guess it looked a bit odd but worked really well for sitting on for hours.
More of a concern for me what that I have developed low level, but sometimes painful, tinnitus. Something that was really effected by teaching 30+ hours per week, as once it was aggravated it was very hard for me to allow it the time to recover. So I guess another questions might be around suitable ear protection for full time music teachers – interesting to get your thoughts.
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Great question Steph, I would recommend broadly a nice image with “Singing Lessons Southampton” as the main header “Singing Lessons” being the most important of that so the person knows what the voucher is for, your name, email address and phone number on. Teachers also sometimes put T&Cs on the back.
I would recommend doing one lesson vouchers each, so when someone is given 5 lessons they get five vouchers (looks like more than a single “five lesson” voucher). If you need any help designing the vouchers don’t hesitate to let me know, some examples below of what a voucher can look like:
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Hi Eliza,
Thanks for the question – just to clarify on that specific point, I leave it essentially with the teacher whether they wish to record the full commission at the time of payment or as the lessons take place. Either way I do not mind as long as that teacher is consistent in the manner that they record these transactions. Hope that helps to clarify it:)
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My personal advice would be, yes we do have incidents when clients request refunds (often for reasons of falling out with the person that they have bought them for…girlfriends/boyfriends breaking up etc.). In terms of the commission that isn’t a problem, business policy is that if you generate income from the lessons than commission is created, if you make no money then no commission is created – so in this case if you were to refund a client then I would refund you the commission on that clients lessons (or more likely deduce the refund amount from the next months payment). The more likely thing we find that happens if that the receiver doesn’t claim their lessons for months/years and turns up one day demanding their lessons…I would therefore recommend a 3 month expiry date to take your first lesson. That said it really is something to play by ear as lets say Student A is suddenly admitted into hospital it seems very harsh to prevent them from taking their £100 worth of lessons as they didn’t make it to their first one due to serious illness etc. Interested to hear what other teacher think/have done this year:)
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Always up for Skype skills swap:) I think a lot of teachers would be benefit from this as well – I will speak with a few teachers to see if they are interested:)
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My advice would be to do 1/2 the lesson price +£10 for each student. So if you charge £30, then each student pays £15 + £10 = £25 per hour, meaning that you earn in total £50 per hour for two students, or £75 per hour for three students. Pretty much the same as what Eliza says above:)
Though I also take into account who is the bill payer, so if it is two siblings (meaning the parents are paying for both) I would charge it at the normal rate since to the bill payer it makes a big difference if it is £30 or £50 (so a £5 saving for each student doesn’t make much of a difference since they pay for both). With three students I wouldn’t imagine that is a problem, though other factors come into the equation for example what will you charge if two of the three turn up for a one lesson etc.
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It is a great topic to open up – worth reading through this previous thread as well (https://musicteacher.kinsta.cloud/community/groups/music-teachers/forum/topic/christmas-voucher-policies/) as it has some relevance:)
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Just on the CRB check – now known as a DBS check – I can confirm that the last time I spoke with a lawyer that for private music tuition lessons it is not a legal requirement to hold a valid certificate to be able to offer to teach young students or vulnerable adults. That said I would thoroughly recommend that all teachers obtain one, not only as it is a mark of professionalism but also as something that can be added to the websites to help encourage more parents to get in touch for lessons with their children. DBS checks can be obtained from here (https://www.gov.uk/disclosure-barring-service-check/overview).
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I thought I would open this popular topic up to the community as many teachers ask me how to improve the conversion of enquiries to students. One of the first things I would recommend looking at is the first reply communication a teacher makes to the student’s enquiry. Kevin Armstrong, a guitar teacher based in Oxford, accidentally emailed his standard reply email to all enquiries, which I have enclosed below as I thought it was an excellent example of how to reply to a student enquiry:
Hi Student Firstname,
Thanks for your enquiry about guitar lessons.
I have some free space at the moment, though it’s a bit limited. Let me know which days/times might work for you.
I teach beginners to advanced levels acoustic and electric guitar – rock, pop, folk, classical (to grade 5), blues and jazz styles. I also teach on the Oxford Brookes University Music Performance courses.
Some students like to be challenged with harmony theory and technique exercises while others come mostly for fun and relaxation. I adapt the lesson style and course programme to fit the needs of each student.
I give lessons in my home in Oxford (Postcode) Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays; from 1pm to 8.30pm. Lessons are one-to-one and can be 1 hour, 45 minutes or 30 minutes. My fees are 30, 24 and 17 GBP respectively. Lessons can be weekly or fortnightly or just from time to time. There is no commitment to a course of lessons though I ask for 24 hours notice for cancelled classes.
Aside from teaching, I also perform as a jazz guitarist so I occasionally have to reschedule lessons to fit round my performing commitments.Kind regards
Kevin Armstrong
mb 01234567890
t 01234 567789
[email protected]
PS Please use above contact info as contacting via my website is indirect and can get delayed.Please note that I have removed Kevin’s personal information as seen by the italics above.
I am interested if other teacher have template reply emails to students, what tips they can give to improving the number of enquiries that reply to the teachers first reply email (rather than simply never getting in touch again) and any other general advice teachers have about improving the conversion of enquiries to students.
From my experience the speed a which a teacher replies to an enquiry is critical to getting that enquiry booked in. In addition striking a warm friendly tone, providing lots of info about the operational side of your lessons (location, prices, possible lesson times), giving a call to action, increasing urgency of a student to book in as letting them know that you have limited slots available, providing additional contact info – all really help. I would also love to pick out Kevin’s “PS Please use above contact info as contacting via my website is indirect and can get delayed.” as a great tip – I have seem other teachers do something similar by putting their cancelation policy in the footer which I would also recommend!
So how do you respond to enquiries as they come in for you?
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Great to see this developing into a really interesting and valuable thread. Lots of interesting ideas here – personally I would agree a lot with Mark Palmer’s points above, in the sense that from my experience of teaching how you explain what it means to book a lesson to a student can impact the way they perceive that commitment and the way Mark describes it above is a very professional approach to that.
To respond to a few other teacher’s:
@Lewis Leeming, as mentioned in my email, it might be worth looking into a pay one in advance model during the first two months with new students – this gives you some guarantees for attendance & money in the bank should they cancel, while keeping the upfront costs for the students quite low (I have often found with new students and beginners they are reluctant to commit financially until they have got used to a teacher & know that they really want to play guitar). After two months moving students to a 4-week block-booking model is much easier as they know they like the lessons and the teacher. This is from experience with working with teachers from across the UK, as well as my own teaching – enabling the students to slowly buy into financial commitment, which ultimately makes the teacher more money even though earlier on it leads the teacher a little more exposed in terms of potential no shows etc. early on.
I have some very interesting examples of how a payment model can effect the revenue generated by a teacher. Specifically I worked with a very good guitar teacher in Sheffield during 2013, his policy was that all students had to book a 5 lesson block booking for £120 – this was the only option & students had to make that booking upon their first lesson. The conversion of enquiries to students was non-existant, despite high levels of enquiries. As this was early on in the business I was interesting in exploring the impact of changing the student payment model with him and I convinced him to reduce this initial commitment to 3 lessons for £75 – again the conversion of enquiries to students was absolutely minimal. After a few months of evidence that this high financial commitment model on the students behalf wasn’t working I re-approached the teacher with evidence from across the UK that a more flexible financial model for students actually generates the teacher far more money (he was in need of students and time slots he wanted to fill but was determined not to be “messed around by them”). Ultimately as this teacher wasn’t interested in moving to a more flexible approach to the student’s payment model I stopped working with him and appointed a new guitar teacher in Sheffield who had a more flexible approach to payments. This teacher is now one of the leading guitar teachers from across the UK in terms of student numbers and lessons taught per month and reaffirmed my understanding that creating the right payment model for our clients, in this case students, is absolutely critical to ensuring that as a music teacher you generate the revenue needed to continuing being a music teacher.
However, there is a very fine line to ensure that by offering less up front financial commitment clients don’t take advantage of that by cancelling or wasting your time. My advice for this (A) cancellation policies are vital in reducing the losses caused by “no shows”, but cannot entirely alleviate their occurrence (B) that the visibility of cancellation policies can impact the effectiveness of their existence – I would recommend all teachers to have their cancellation policy in the footer of all email communications to students (a strategy that has worked well across the UK), as well as on the wall in direct line of sight in your lesson room (something Amanda Pike’s singing studio in Sheffield does very well); (C) the communication of what it means to book a lesson to a student very early on, as well as when they “cancel a lesson” is very important – I always think of one teacher’s comments that “in a very loving way I explain that they have booked my time, reserving that slot preventing me from generating income from any other source during that hour” – (D) dramatically varying the the model from the payment of either a single lesson on “pay as you go”, or a lesson in advance or a deposit based system – all three of which have been proven to work across the UK – does not bring in the results desired and ultimately reduces the teacher’s income as it tends not to suit the clients. This excludes block bookings, which I think fulfil a different role whereby students who know that they are committed seek to gain a reduction in the lesson price by booking lessons on mass – this is also to the advantage of the teacher in the sense that they therefore have the arrangement pre-paid for, this is dramatically different to the majority of individuals commencing lessons who are not yet necessarily committed to learning the instrument or indeed learning it with that teacher.
@Sally thanks so much for you thoughts and getting involved with the thread. My personal thoughts in regard to your post are two fold (A) often it is not the cancellation policy that is the challenge but gaining the money from the client for a lesson missed, rather than them going MIA never to be heard from again. The length of your cancellation policy therefore might be less important than the process alongside it that needs to be implemented to ensure that clients that does miss a lesson both pays for that lesson and continue to return for lessons thereafter – my question to you would be if I cancelled within the 7 days what are you next steps as a teacher to ensure I make payment & come back for lessons?
(B) business models evolve, I know you mentioned that hotels have a one week cancellation policy – however, many have 24 hour cancelation policies as it suits a different kind of client. In an area that is getting more competitive re-analysising what makes you different from your competitors is increasingly important – this is not to suggest you should be promoting your services on account of a flexible cancelation policy – but rather a continued and evolving look at how you are shaping the service that you are looking to sell to people in the form of 1-2-1 music lessons so that you both generate the highest level of income from it possible within a framework that you feel comfortable with as a teacher. For me increased competition should lead to increased innovation and flexibility on the businesses part to cater better for the clients that are more finite on account of more competition.
Ultimately my person view is that businesses succeed over the long term by continually ensuring that they cater for their clients in the most effective way, despite this at times leaving the business open to a degree of risk. I know in this thread we have talked about what is most beneficial for us, as teachers, to have in place in regard to student cancellations – but if we were students what could we reasonably expect from our music teachers?
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A question from a teacher came in today, with reference and similarities to this topic: Would you recommend Calling, Emailing or Texting Clients?
This was my response:
Thanks for the email – I would recommend a combination of all three, tailored to the way that they enquire. For an email or contact form enquiry I would email them back, sending a text alongside my first email saying “Hi *Student Name*, thanks so much for your enquiry for guitar lessons on the Guitar Lessons *Location* website. My name is a *Name* and I work alongside *Tutor Name* tutoring guitar students from across *Location*, *Name* is currently fully booked up so passed your enquiry onto me – I have just dropped you an email there now to arrange our first lesson. Should you have any questions or wish to book in your first lesson via the phone you can reach me on this number, thanks again, *Name*” – or something similar.
Then perhaps 3 days later following that up with a phone call if you haven’t heard back from them, 7 days after that perhaps sending them a email + text following up that enquiry one last time. There is a bit of skill following up enquiries in a way that is no too pushy, but enough to ensure people who are really busy and genuinely do want to take lessons and perhaps have been distracted / overloaded with work etc. get a chance to book in with you.
If it is a phone enquiry I would call them back, following that up 48 hours later at a different time of the day (say if you called them on Thursday evening then calling them Saturday afternoon might be a good shout), alongside a text – then again 7 days after the original enquiry. You can work out a suitable program that fits with what you feel is appropriate, but my advice is don’t be scared to follow up an enquiry multiple times across all the ways that they have given you to get in touch with them – after all they got in touch with you to book a lesson!
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Opening it up to a more general “Funniest Things Students Have Said To You” – my one has to be, I was teaching a young student about 5 years of age and she came in one lesson very quiet. I asked her what was on her mind and she said “I’ve been thinking, you know drain covers – they are like cattlegrids for beetles”. My mind was blown:) haha!
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I was surprised that Roger Love had coached Eminem…somehow wouldn’t think the two would have got on, Love being full of energy bouncing around and Eminem seeming the slightly quieter type prone to exploding now and again! But anyway apparently they hit it off!
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Hi Josh, I had a listen, which YouTuber is the song about? Seemed very focused on one person, so as a listener it was hard to relate – most love songs are a bit broader and more generic in the lyrics so that more of the audience can relate. Though I get this might be an ode to a particular person. I think the vocals could also be stronger – if you want to get some support by taking online lessons do search for an online singing teacher and I am sure they would help you out. Did you write/record the backing music or was that a default backing track?
