Business expansion is not for every teacher. If you’re thinking about growing your music teaching business, read this article first.

My job in this post is to persuade you NOT to expand your music teaching business.

Why am I doing that?

I’m taking on this project because everyone else seems to be taking the opposite one. Everywhere you look you might be hearing about entrepreneurialism (what a word, hey?), profitability and impact.

But, maybe, you can have a bigger impact by staying small. 

Consider these 7 factors carefully. Then, if you still want to expand your music teaching business know that I am 100% behind you. But if you want to stay small and mighty, I support that too. 💛 💙 💚

You're listening to the vibrant music teaching podcast.

I'm Negla Canton.

And in this episode, we're talking about seven different reasons why?

I don't think you should expand your music teaching business.

Hey there.

Beautiful teachers and welcome to 2022.

Oh my gosh.

We made it it's another year.

And another wonderful year in our studio.

And we've decided to start off this year by talking about business expansion.

So all this January.

If you're listening, as soon as these episodes go out, we're

talking about business expansion and we've lots of wonderful content.

Lined up to help you expand your business.

Whatever that means to you.

And if that's what you're interested in doing.

However I wanted to kick this month off and this whole year off.

By giving you seven reasons.

I don't think you should expand your music teaching business.

Now let's start by considering what I mean by expansion, because.

That could sound really big or it could be.

It could have many different interpretations, right?

So by expanding our music, teaching business, we might mean hiring other

teachers and turning it into what most would call a music school.

Right.

Or it could mean that you're growing your student numbers and you're

going to expand your own hours.

Or it could mean moving into group lessons and therefore expanding your

student base, but not your own hours or at least your contact hours with students.

Or can mean various other different things.

Maybe it's about the space you're teaching in and you're not going to change the

student numbers, but you're going to expand your actual teaching space,

your physical teaching environment.

I hope we'll be able to unpack some of those different

variations all this months long.

But no matter what type of expansion you're considering.

I wanted to put this post out first, mostly to send the message.

That it's okay.

If you don't want to expand, I feel like the world is so focused on.

Bigger bigger, bigger, right?

Especially our Western culture.

Is everything has to get bigger all the time and you have to do all these extra

things and hustle, hustle, culture, right.

And.

Even if you're not within that, you can have these perceptions that

your little music teaching studio.

Of five students, 10 students, whatever it is from your living room.

Doesn't count in some way that it's not as valid as some large music school.

And that's just not true.

It might be better.

It might be worse.

I'm not here to judge that because that's about your teaching and

what you do for your students.

That's a whole separate conversation, but the size of your studio.

Does not make it more or less.

Quality or more or less valid in my eyes, certainly.

And I believe in the impact it can have on the world.

So I wanted to give you seven different reasons.

You shouldn't expand.

So that if you're considering this, you can step back and really consider it.

I'm not actually trying to dissuade you from expanding.

I think it's wonderful.

If you're creative teacher, who's invested in their professional

development, listening to this podcast.

And all the things that go along with that, I think it's awesome that you want

to expand, because I think there should be more students who get to experience this.

But it's not the only route for everyone.

And so if you're considering some kind of expansion or want you to.

Think about each of these seven things.

And if you do want to move ahead with expanding your business,

That you have an answer to these for yourself that you felt them through.

And that, you know, Where the balance lies for you.

So consideration number one.

Is money.

This may be the reason you want to expand, but I'm including

it in my list, not to expand.

So why am I doing that?

Because many of us don't fully consider going into a situation,

how much we want to make.

And it's a difficult question to answer, and it can be tempting to say as much as

possible, but we all know you wouldn't be in this profession if that were the case.

So I'm going to guess that's not it.

You don't want as much as possible.

You don't want to maximize your earning potential entirely.

Without considering other factors.

So how much do you actually want to make to be able to live comfortably?

To be able to have the life that you desire.

It's a big question, but I want you to consider it.

Because in some cases, if money is your primary reason for expanding.

You might be going the wrong way about it.

If you're only looking for say a 10% increase when it comes down to it,

when you've really thought through what you need to live comfortably,

at least for the next little while.

And provide yourself with the luxuries that are important to you.

Right.

But not the ones that you just buy by default.

The ones that actually matter.

Maybe it's only a 10% increase.

Well, There might be other ways to achieve that.

A combination of say a five or 7% fee increase plus.

Maybe an extra student or reduction in expenses.

Might get you there.

You might not need to take on all this.

Expansion idea.

If money is the root of the reason you want to do it.

I'm going to guess.

It's probably not.

But in case it is, I wanted to put that out there.

So consider your expenses, raising your rates and budgeting better within your

studio before you consider expanding.

And either way, no matter, even if you want to raise by a hundred percent and

you know, you need to expand to do that.

Either way, have a real number, a concrete number.

I want to make this much and then I'll feel good about it.

I'll feel successful financially, at least for the time being.

Consideration number two.

Is the other people.

So, if you want to expand your business, depending on what you mean by that.

Chances are it's going to involve some extra people.

You're probably going to have to manage someone else.

Now, maybe it's just going to be extra students.

But if you're going for a traditional expansion, creating a music

school with multiple teachers.

It's going to mean managing other people.

And if you're currently self-employed.

A sole trader or whatever you want to call it.

A one man or woman show.

Then managing other people might be a whole new ball game for you, right?

And.

Skill.

It's a different thing entirely.

Have you ever heard of the Peter principle?

This is the idea that we're.

Um, Promoted to the point of incompetence.

So you keep getting a promotion up and up and up the ranks of some corporate ladder.

Until you're not great at your job.

And that's when you don't get provided.

Cause you're, nobody is impressed with you anymore.

So you end up managing people.

Really poorly, but you got to that stage because you were good at doing.

The actual work as we call it.

The craft.

If the thing you love is a teaching.

Stacking concern.

What do you want to manage other people?

If you're going to add other teachers.

That's going to mean management.

And it's a whole other skillset and a whole other.

Mind space to go into.

So it's not to say you can't take on those skills.

Everyone can learn almost everything in this life.

I believe.

And it's maybe something that didn't always come naturally to

me, but I've learned these skills over time, so you can do it.

But I will tell you as an introvert and I'm guessing since many musicians

I talk to are So if that's you.

Really take the time to consider this.

Because if you currently feel maxed out on your social interactions by

your teaching time or other social engagements that you participate in.

This is one more thing to add.

So I want you to be careful not to out extrovert yourself.

Don't go so far that you're just burning yourself out.

And you're not an effective teacher anymore.

This may mean taking off some of your teaching time so that you

have that management and time to spend with your other teachers or

whatever, there's ways to manage it.

But you need to factor that into your decision here.

Consideration number three is that you'll have more admin work.

Have you noticed a theme it's more and more and more right.

More money, more admin work, more management.

So more admin work is pretty much inevitable.

If you're going to expand in any way.

If you're going to rent a commercial space instead of teaching from home,

if you're going to, um, hire other teachers and have admin to do with

that, if you're going to have extra students, you can automate some things.

You can create great systems.

But you can do that now as a solo teacher.

So there's no way to make it.

The same as you would have as a solo teacher.

With more students with more teachers working under you or

whatever the situation may be.

You are going to have more office work.

It doesn't mean that you have to do it, but some.

Can I afford to pay them that little bit extra and I should factor

that into my budgeting for this.

Projection or whatever you're putting together for, for your business expansion.

If you're not currently hiring someone else to do it consider whether you

could afford to do that, or whether you quite like admin work, you put

on your music, you get through it.

And you don't mind to expanding that if that's the case, just consider

where that time is going to come from.

You're going to take on fewer students.

Are you going to just work more?

What's going to happen because that time is going to come from somewhere.

No matter how efficiently there will be extra time.

And if you need help putting together great systems for

your business, then we have a.

Awesome course for that inside vibrant music teaching it's

called smooth studio systems.

Consideration number four has sort of come up a few times as we were talking

about the first three considerations.

And that is time.

If you are going to expand your business at the very least, you're

going to have to re allocate time.

So you're going to have to take some time that you were spending, teaching doing.

Uh, office work doing, uh, your own compositions or playing gigs.

And you're going to have to reallocate that to your business.

Are you willing to do that?

If not, do you have extra time in your week that you can spend.

Working on your business because you're simply going to have to expand your hours

if you're not willing to reallocate time.

Or hire someone else for some of those tasks, which is just

a form of reallocation, right?

So if you're going to keep the same student load.

Consider where that time is going to come from.

If you're not going to do either of those things, you

don't have the scope to expand.

There's no way to do it.

There's nowhere for this stuff to go.

So consider carefully what extra time this might take and where that will come from.

Consideration number five is a quick note about tax and accountancy.

This will depend.

So much on where you are and the systems.

Your government has in place, et cetera, et cetera.

But I want you to investigate what this will mean for you.

Tax wise and accountancy fees wise.

If this is going to push you up into the next tax bracket.

Is it going to be worth it?

I'm not advocating anyone cheat out on any tax.

By the way I'm just saying, consider the implications.

This has on your tax.

And on the accountancy fees you need to pay.

If it's going to mean a different business structure, there are all

sorts of costs involved in that.

So make sure you're going into that.

A decision with your eyes open.

Consideration number six second.

Last one is your lesson location.

Where are you going to teach these lessons from if you're

currently teaching from your home?

And you're going to be hiring other teachers.

Are you going to have to rent a studio space?

If that's the case, of course you have all sorts of costs involved there.

You have the rent?

Yes.

But you also may have rights to pay or different bills to pay.

Um, you may have.

A lawyer to pay when you're setting up the lease agreement,

all these sorts of things.

So it was a big consideration.

It might be worth it.

It might be exciting for you.

But you need to think through all of the costs and talk to some professionals.

If you're not sure about everything that's involved.

Another cost here.

That's kind of hidden.

Is your commute.

If you're going to rent a space and it's going to be not

at the front of your house.

Then there's going to be some sort of commute involved.

So depending on how far that is, I want you to consider what this

will cost you in time each week.

Because time is our most valuable asset.

Right?

So consider where this time is going to come from.

If it's from your personal life, are you okay with that?

If it means teaching less, are you okay with that?

It will take you time to get over to the studio.

And then finally, number seven.

Complexity.

This is really summing up all the other ones.

Isn't it.

They all.

Add complexity, all these different factors.

Now expanding your business kind of has to increase the complexity.

That doesn't have to be a negative thing.

But do you want it?

Maybe you do, maybe you're like me.

I don't like every form of complexity.

I don't think any of us do, but the opposite.

In many cases with the decisions I make when I'm taking on all sorts

of projects and having a couple of other teachers working for me

here and everything else I've done.

And continued to do it to the future.

I do because it's what keeps things exciting for me.

The opposite of this complexity in my life is the mundane it's boredom.

But simplicity can be beautiful too.

There are many decisions where I've chosen to keep things simple on purpose.

Even though there was some exciting, cool looking idea because.

It was actually just unnecessary complexity for my life.

And the simplicity was more valuable.

So I come back full circle to why I recorded this episode as

our first, one of the new year.

There is nothing wrong with simplicity.

If you want to keep your studio simple, if you want to make it simpler, still.

You have my full support.

If you want to expand your studio.

I also think that's wonderful and I hope all our content will help you in that.

You're one thing this week.

Is to consider one decision you're making for your studio at the moment, it can

be anything from expansion to changing a policy or reducing your student load.

Take a moment to look at the list of cons.

The reasons you shouldn't do this.

And then when you really consider all of these, if you're still excited,

Do it anyway.

Thank you so much for listening to this first episode of 2022.

I hope you loved it.

And it gave you some food for thought as always.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

So do let me know in the comments under the show notes for this

episode, or go visit the blog.

If you're not on it right now.

And I will see you back here next week.

Vibrant music.

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Go to V M T dot Ninda and become part of the revolution.