People start piano teaching businesses for a variety of reasons. But no matter what reasons you’ve had in mind, chances are two of the top are:

• To help people bring piano into their lives
• To make money

If you are in business, one of your top goals is to make money; without it you won’t have a business. But even the concept of making money varies widely from teacher to teacher. Some simply want to supplement their income with a little extra spending money, while others want a full time career.

There are a few strategies that can help you bring success to your piano teaching business, no matter what goals you have in mind.

Planning

The end of the year is a great time to map out the following year. This helps you see how many clients you’ll need, what you’ll have time for, plan for vacations, and help you increase sales by doing extra things. How about a bootcamp for adults? Or a summer camp for kids? By mapping it out early, you can start the planning process for getting your marketing ideas together, and advertising it early enough to have a full house.

Budget

Its easy to add up the checks to see how much money is coming in. But that isn’t taking everything into account. How much is insurance, taxes, marketing, and other studio expenses … like rent? How often will you have to replace your pianos? How often will you buy accessories, music, tune your pianos, photocopies for recitals, etc? Be careful to estimate all of your expenses and budget accordingly.

Forward … Back

What worked well over the past year? Where do you hope to grow? In some cases, the best way to plan is to look back over the past year and find things that worked, as well as areas you wish to grow. Don’t just look at your actions, look to the numbers as well.

Grow

How big do you want your studio to become? Are you happy with spending money? Or do you wish to have a six figure income? Put numbers to it now so that you can see how large you will have to grow in order to achieve the results you are looking for. When you see that boosting your income only needs an additional 10 clients, for instance, it can change your perspective on what is possible.

Partner Up

You can’t build a business alone. If you don’t understand marketing, you may have to hire a consultant to help you put the pieces together. And when it comes to keeping your piano equipment in good working order, it also benefits you to have a trusted source at your fingertips. From regular tunings, to periodic repair, to complete restoration, or maybe purchasing a brand new piano, part of the process is having someone you can trust to be there when you need it most. What would you do if you had a major repair the day before a recital? When you choose a reputable piano company to have on board as a resource, you know you’ll always be at the top of your game.