ZERO TO 950 MUSIC STUDENTS IN 3.5 YEARS

 HOW ALISTAIR DID IT

1. To start something right, get the right strategy

When I started my school, I didn’t really begin to understand what I was doing until I passed the 500 student mark, and even then, it wasn’t until our seventh year that we had over 950 students learning with us each week.

Alistair effectively halved the amount of time it took to reach that goal because he invested time up front into make his strategic plan clear; he knew what to focus on, what to ignore, and which marketing strategies to employ to build a business that would serve his needs, and not the other way around.

Knowing what lifestyle you want is a key part of planning your strategy.

Do you only want to work during school hours so you can spend more time with your kids?

That will immediately inform your decisions about the kind of team you will need to build to help this become a reality like it is for Alistair.

2. Be humble, hungry, and smart 

In our interview, Alistair’s story demonstrated he had the qualities of being humble, hungry, and smart.

This idea is taken from The Ideal Team Player book by Patrick M. Lencioni, who suggests that if one of these qualities is missing in a leader, it spells to trouble for them and their aspirations.

Being humble means being OK with asking for help from people who know more than you, and also willing to change what you had planned to do if their advice is better than yours.

Being hungry means doing what it takes to work out your plans to the best of your abilities, but doing that within reason.

Remember that your business doesn’t own you, you own the business.

I think it’s OK to have a strong hustling work ethic as long as it’s only happening during regular work hours like Alistair did.

And finally, being smart requires amazing people-smart skills.

Knowing how to build a team, make connections, and get people through the door of your business is crucial for the success of your plans.

These are three things you want to develop in yourself, but also, they are things you want to identify in people you hire.

If someone isn’t teachable, hard working, or good with your people, they will cause you pain and frustration.

Which one of these things you could work on to improve not only your business, but your character?

3. Invest in shortcut solutions that will save you time and money

Alistair made sure he utilised tried and tested methods and resources to help him save countless amounts of time and money to fast track his business.

Most of those resources came from our Build a Music School library which contains fully written curriculum books, and customisable templates for emails, staff contracts, terms and conditions, and more.

Alistair knew that if he’d needed to create all of this content on his own, it would have cost him hundreds of hours of time, and tens of thousands of dollars to achieve on his own steam.

No matter what part of your music teaching business you’re hoping to work on next, spending money on a solution that will help you get a massive leap forward when you first begin will be money well spent.

Do your research, find a solution you think will work for you, and invest in it to save time and money.

4. Always be asking yourself: What is the real problem I’m trying to solve?

In Alistair’s case it was solving the issue of a poor retention rate for his 5-6 year old students who often struggled to maintain music lessons because of their physical and mental development.

The solution of creating a dedicated music programme just for that age group has meant that these students now make up 15-20% of his business. 

Your business may have a completely different ‘hole in its bucket’ where revenue is leaking out that you haven’t quite been able to identify just yet, but taking the time to ask yourself ‘what is the real problem I’m trying to solve?’, and then digging down deep to identify and name it will do wonders for helping you find your next steps to fix it.

Once you know what it is, you can apply the other three principles in this list to help you plug it sooner than later.

The resource that Alistair created is now sitting in our Build a Music School library and available to our members as part of their small weekly/monthly fee.

If you’d like to watch Alistair’s full interview in Module 7 of our private library, or get access to all of the resources I’ve mentioned and more, you’re welcome to take a free, no obligation 7-day trial of our membership below to see what it’s like being a member of the #BAMSQUAD.

If you agree the four principles I’ve shared would help your business in some way, then I strongly believe taking a free trial of our membership could be the most practical step you can take towards bettering your business.