I really didn’t know what to expect when I decided to expand my piano teaching business. I had never hired an employee or contractor before. I hadn’t conducted an interview or reviewed an application.
The truth is, I wasn’t sure I was ready to hire another piano teacher. But I had a dream for the business, and I moved forward with the hiring process–ready or not!
In this article,
- I’ll go over the positive aspects of hiring another piano teacher. I’ll outline all of the “wins” I’ve experienced since hiring and onboarding two piano teachers.
- I’ll also highlight the setbacks and negative aspects I’ve experienced while hiring another piano teacher.
I’m hoping that my experience will bring clarity to those trying to decide if they should hire or not, to those wondering if this is the right time to hire, and those just in the brainstorming stages of dreaming of the future of their piano teaching business.
Why Consider Hiring Another Piano Teacher?
Visions of Growth for Your Piano Teaching Business
Does this sound like you?
You have big dreams for your piano teaching business.
You can picture a beautiful space with several practice studios ready to host piano lessons, or maybe guitar, voice, drums, trumpet, etc.
You want to become manager or maybe just owner and take more of a backseat as you get older.
You envision making a big impact in your community by extending the reach of your business.
If you can vibe with these dreams, you might be ready to think about hiring another piano teacher!
You’re in High Demand
Does this sound familiar?
Everyday you open your inbox or voicemail to reveal new lesson inquiries, but you’re all out of lesson openings!
In fact, you actually have a long waiting list.
Students tend to stay with you for years and years. And any openings you do happen to have tend to get filled right away.
If you find your piano teaching services in high demand in your area, it might be time to think about hiring another piano teacher!
You’ve Got This Business Owner Thing Down
Does this sound like you?
You’ve been in business for a few years. You know what you’re doing.
You know how to write the best studio policies.
You know how to deal with disappointed customers.
You have a streamlined scheduling and billing system.
You’ve taught piano lessons long enough to really know your teaching philosophy and values.
You’ve hosted successful recitals and events.
You’ve worked with students of all backgrounds and ages.
If this sounds like you, and you’ve got this piano teaching business owner thing DOWN, then you might be ready to think about hiring another piano teacher!
Pros of Hiring Another Piano Teacher
Increased Revenue
The most obvious appeal of hiring another piano teacher is the increased revenue for your business.
By adding on more students, you are able to increase the amount of income earned each month, with little increase to your expenses.
You should expect your expenses to increase a little bit. After all, you’ll need to provide a suitable space, training, materials, marketing, and supplies for your newly hired piano teacher. And then there is the most obvious expense: paying the teacher!
But it shouldn’t be hard to make more than enough to cover all of these expenses and still collect a profit for your business.
Passive Income
As mentioned in the previous section, your business’ revenue will increase. And the best part is, revenue will increase while your teaching hours do not!
There will be some work to do, especially when finding and onboarding new students, but once in place, you’ll spend very little time maintaining your hired teacher’s students.
You’ll collect a portion of the profit each month, which will be mostly passive income.
Rewarding Partnership
Ideally, when hiring another piano teacher, you’ll find a kindred spirit–someone who shares your teaching philosophy, love for teaching, work ethic, and general values.
If you can find and hire the right person, you’ll be blessed with a very rewarding partnership!
A rewarding partnership can look like…
- Someone to help with events
- Someone to help brainstorm
- Someone to vent to
- Someone to offer suggestions
- Someone who brings their own expertise and experience
- Someone who specializes in different areas than you
- A friend!
For piano teachers who mainly work solo, this sounds pretty nice!
Expanding Your Reach
Most piano teachers would say they got into this career because they wanted to help spread the love for music and the piano to their community.
If this dream resonates with you, hiring another piano teacher means you can reach that many more eager learners in your area.
Talk about dreams come true!
Paving the Way to Your Goals
You have goals. Income goals. Ownership goals. Outreach goals.
If you’re reading this, it probably means you dream big.
And by hiring another piano teacher, you’re taking a step towards all of those big goals.
Want a big piano teaching business with a building and several talented teachers?
Well, guess what the first step is? Hiring your first teacher!
Cons of Hiring Another Piano Teacher
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Nobody told me about these not-so-great aspects of hiring another piano teacher. I share them with you so you know what you’re getting into.
More Work
Yes, it’s more revenue. But it’s not free money. Especially at the beginning of the process.
If your week is already full to the brim, you might want to make some schedule adjustments before thinking about hiring another piano teacher. There will be a noticeable time commitment added to your plate when hiring.
Here are some of the extra tasks that happen when and after hiring another piano teacher:
- Job posting and searching for ideal candidates (this can also be expensive)
- Writing a job posting and adding it to your website or other websites
- Writing an application and linking it to your website or other websites
- Sifting through job applications and responding to each one
- Contacting a potential candidate by phone or email
- Scheduling an in-person interview
- Preparing for an in-person interview
- Conducting an in-person interview
- Researching contract work and figuring out tax implications and payroll processes
- Preparing a guide or training manual for a new teacher
- Setting up a space and purchasing supplies and materials for a new teacher
- Training a new teacher
- Helping a new teacher with any logistical or technology questions
- Marketing on multiple platforms to find new students for the new teacher
- Going through your waiting list and contacting potential students for the new teacher
- Connecting with and onboarding all new students
- Being present on the first days of the new teacher’s schedule to make everything goes smoothly
- Answering questions of new students’ parents and following up about first invoices, policies, etc.
Administrative Work
Read back over the previous list of tasks and you’ll notice something…
No, you won’t be teaching the hired teacher’s new students, but you will be doing a lot of administrative work to get them all set up with a schedule of new students!
If emails, phone calls, marketing, researching, writing, and training are not your thing, you might not enjoy hiring another piano teacher.
It doesn’t mean you can’t hire, but it may mean temporarily taking on tasks you don’t enjoy to reach your end goals.
Manager/Trainer Role
Along with the administrative tasks, you’ll be training your new hire, and you’ll be managing them for the duration of their time working for you.
If you do not like managing people, you may find this difficult.
If you, like me, pictured finding a person who was completely self-sufficient and didn’t need managing…I’m sorry to tell you–those people have their own businesses!
If you hire someone, it is because they want to teach piano. Only. They do not want to manage a business, spend hours at a computer, collect payments or keep track of everything. If they did, they would be you!
You’ll need to be prepared to take on the high-level role, and to keep track of things that your hired teacher may miss. You may also need to guide them, reprimand them, or even let them go. Are you prepared to do that if necessary? Being a boss means you must be.
Wrong Person
We talked about the ultimate dream of finding a rewarding partnership with another piano teacher. Perhaps even a teacher friend.
But the reality is, you could hire the wrong person.
You might think someone is a good fit for your studio through the interview process and even through the training and onboarding process. And they could still turn out to not be a good fit.
And that’s okay. You weren’t perfect for every job you tried either.
But you do need to be prepared to part ways if necessary (i.e. do the firing) and start the process again.
If you are not willing to do this, you’ll end up with someone dragging down your business and keeping you from your dreams instead of helping you get there. So, think about that now before you hire.
Loss of Control
Up until now, you’ve been a one-person show. You have decided your schedule, what books to use, what prices to charge, when to have recitals, what kind of students you’ll enroll, how your teaching space is set up, and so on. Every decision has been all you.
If you bring someone else on board, you’ll still be steering the ship, but you’ll need to let your hired teacher be their own person.
They may not teach the same way you teach.
They may not prefer the same method books you prefer.
They may not be great at taking attendance.
They may struggle to end each lesson on time.
While you are welcome to conduct the training in your own way and set policies in place on the big, important things, you need to be prepared to relinquish control of certain aspects of the business so the hired teacher has the freedom to do what they are good at. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine how you would want to be treated as a hired teacher.
One other related area I did not think about before hiring, was the simple act of having to open up your space to another human. They may leave things out of order. They may prefer the temperature at a different level. They may not enforce a “no shoe” policy as emphatically as you do. (Read as: you may have to clean more often.) But that is just part of inviting another person into your studio space.
If you’re a control freak (like I can be) this may be difficult to implement.
Wrong Path
This is a big one. And one that I’m still working out for myself.
You see, right before I hired two piano teachers, I was advised by a brand expert to do so.
You could say I was slightly coerced into hiring additional piano teachers.
This expert told me I would have to make a name for myself and my business in order to reach my goals.
Looking back, I took what he said and ran with it. I didn’t really think it through for myself.
In the end, I believe that hiring at the time I hired might not have been the best way to my personal goals.
So think about this thoroughly before making any big decisions.
- What do I really want out of my business?
- Where do I see myself and the business in 5 years? 10 years?
- Is a big studio really what I want?
- Do I want to work with other teachers to achieve my goals? Or is it just the expansion and additional income that is drawing me towards considering hiring?
Do I Regret Hiring Another Piano Teacher?
I’ve shared the good, the bad, and the ugly from my personal experience hiring piano teachers for my lesson studio.
So the ultimate question is:
If I had to do it all over again, would I still hire additional piano teachers?
The honest answer: I’m not sure.
As I write this today, I still have one hired piano teacher working with me. And the other hired teacher has left to pursue another career path.
I have mostly positive things to report about my current partnership with my hired teacher.
But I don’t plan to hire any more teachers in the immediate future.
One thing is certain: I’ve learned a LOT about myself and my true goals for my business through the experience of hiring another piano teacher.