Intro
When you think of a successful piano teaching business, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Did you picture dollar signs? Financial success is what we all want, and we should map out a plan to get there.
Why Do Piano Teachers Need to Set Financial Goals?
Perhaps you know a small business owner with a heart of gold. Working long hours, going the extra mile for their customers, sacrificing for their business… In some cases, their hard work pays off, and in other cases–not so much.
I’m sure you’re prepared to work hard to get your piano teaching business started and I’m sure you truly want to help people, but unless you see financial success in your business, it will not be sustainable. If you end up a burnt-out, overworked, broke business owner, you won’t be able to help anyone!
Building a healthy, successful piano teaching business takes intention, goal planning, along with continued evaluation and adjustment. To get you off on the right foot, we’re going to map out a path to whatever you consider to be financial success.
Define Your Main Financial Goal as a Piano Teaching Business
Ask yourself:
How do I picture the business doing financially in five years?
Do you picture a certain number of students? An hourly wage for yourself? An annual revenue number for the business?
We first have to know where you want to end up financially before we can plot a course to our dollar-sign destination.
[Freebie] How Much Should I Charge For Lessons?
If you get stuck in this phrase of writing your financial plan, I have a worksheet accompanied by a blog post and YouTube video that can help you figure out how to align your income goals with how much you’ll need to charge to how many students.
And if you haven’t already signed up for my free 30-Day Challenge to Start Your Studio, be sure to get on board! Writing your financial plan is just one of twelve actionable steps I’ll walk you through to get your business started on the right foot.
Once you have your ultimate goal written down, you’re ready to move on to the next step: planning how you’ll get there.
Financial Plan: Write Out How Your Business Will Achieve Your Goal
Ask Yourself Questions
With your financial goal in mind, here are some questions you can ask yourself to help formulate how to get there.
- What is my prospective annual revenue for the first year? Divide by the number of weeks you plan to work throughout the year to calculate your prospective weekly revenue needed to hit your goal.
- How many customers will I need to reach my goal?
- How many lessons will I teach each week?
- What is the estimated revenue from special events or classes offered seasonally?
- What is the estimated revenue from other services I will offer?
- How much do I anticipate growing my piano teaching business from Year 1 to Year 2? And Year 2 to Year 3? Etc. Think money figures, customer count, lessons taught, employees hired, expense growth, and anything else you think may change over the first five years.
Write a Plan
Armed with the answers you’ve just compiled, you are ready to write out your goals.
The format for this is really up to you. You could write out your financial plan using the following formats or a combination:
- Paragraph
- Bullet points
- Excel sheet (or Google Sheets)
- Table
- Q&A
Conclusion
There’s no right or wrong way to articulate your financial plan in the beginning stages of your piano teaching business. Just get it on paper (or screen) and adjust it as needed. Regularly reevaluating your financial plan will become a natural part of your yearly or quarterly planning and you’ll learn as you go.
[My favorite tool for easily tracking my business’ income and expenses is MyMusicStaff.]
Remember, we learn by doing. The only mistake you can make is skipping this step entirely.
Great job, my Pianopreneur Friend! You’re one step closer to financial success in your business.
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