224: Online Music Education; Reflections, Observations and Opportunities - a conversation with Sam Reti

This episode is far different than the regular episodes you’ll find on the feed, but I know it’s going to provide you with insight and value that will benefit your online music education business! Sam Reti from Muzie.live invited me onto his platforms (FB group and YouTube channel) to debrief the Expand Online Summit, discuss what If you didn’t catch the Expand Online Summit, here’s a coupon to grab the All-Access Pass for $100 off. This coupon (PODCAST224) expires on May 31, 2022. I mention providing a coupon to the members of the Muzie community and want to extend it to you as well. Click here to redeem. Sam started the conversation off by asking me to share a bit of my story… So, in case you’re new to the podcast, I am including it here in the shownotes! I am a technology strategist. I am not a music teacher. I am in awe of the music education space because the thing that differentiates music education from a lot of other spaces is the opportunity and the exploration and the creativity that you bring to your students. For me being able to put my tech stamp on that and to be able to make it so that you can do more of what you are amazing at! For me, music education is kind of like the vertical that I chose to say “this is where I know tech can make a difference.” We take the conversation into Muzie and into the music teaching landscape. There is a divide right now between the MUST BE IN PERSON and the I CAN DO AMAZING THINGS ONLINE. Sam and I are both in the online camp (imagine that!) One big stumbling block for a lot of music teachers is the business side, which is something I make sure to address each year during the Expand Online Summit and we get into during the conversation as well. Business-savvy-ness is not taught in music school, even to the students who want to become teachers and studio owners. The focus always seems to be on the music… someway somehow this will get changed, and hopefully my products and services will become part of that solution! My big thing this year with the summit was scaling beyond sessions! The question is really what else can we do? We don't have to just teach one on one lessons anymore because online gives us a new way of teaching. It's a matter of shifting perspective… can I be a successful teacher if I am not doing X, Y or Z? X: teaching in real time Y: teaching in person Z: teaching private (one-on-one) If we're not real time, what does that mean?  If we're not in person, what does that mean? If we're not one on one, what does that mean? Because I think I'm not a music teacher, I come from the perspective that we can eliminate all three of those and still be a very successful music teacher. This works when we make sure that we put the student and their journey and their musicality at the forefront of our courses and content and delivery. It doesn't matter what you're teaching. If you don't keep your student front of mind as you're creating it, then what's the point? Keeping your student front of mind as we're building out online courses, is one of my biggest pillars that I work on with my clients. Constantly I’m probing with questions like How is your student going to feel successful? How is your student going to walk away from this time that they spent in front of the computer learning something that is foreign to them and feel good? An online course is a way to get perpetual and passive income. It’s all about adding another vertical to your teaching. It also helps ideal prospective students realize that you’re the right teacher for them and absolutely elevates your private one-on-one lessons to a higher price point and exclusivity! We then go on to talk about being location and time independent… be sure to listen to that part because I had a bit of a hard time pulling all the nuggets out without making these shownotes way too long! In the online space, it’s super important to help people to say yes early and often! Yes to your freebie Yes to your low priced offer Yes this is the right teacher for me Yes I want to take this course Yes Yes Yes! I tout email marketing so so much and that was the topic of my talk during the summit last week. It is so crucial and a significant step to treating yourself more like a business owner than just a teacher. There are pillars to developing your online business. Student facing, back-office, marketing/social media and mindset/psychology/motivation/inspiration. To be successful, these need to be in balance. Focus on one, get it where it works for you and then move onto the next. We then went down the rabbit hole of tech tools… which is sometimes fun and sometimes overwhelming. While I didn’t say this, I want to emphasize that you don’t need to evaluate every piece of software, just evaluate a few and make a decision. A decision is better than indecision and it doesn’t have to be permanent. Honestly, one of the motivations I have for hosting the summit is to tap into and excite the audiences of my speakers. It's amazing to me how many disparate music education communities there are online. And I think because I'm not a music teacher, I can kind of come in and be friends with everybody. At least that's my goal is to be friends with everybody and be able to just help the whole industry elevate. There is always going to be something new to learn or way to grow as a teacher. Sam said “we have sort of signed an agreement to always be learning … as soon as you stop learning, you stop teaching because you're not teaching the newest thing anymore.” Fear is a topic we discussed. Fear around trying something new. Fear about falling behind. Fear about perception by others. Do what is best for you. Today and always! Sam and I are both passionate about software (I think I said that already) so we go back to it again and again in this conversation.  And Sam was able to strategically shift my love for all things code into something that is totally applicable to teaching… love that! And we got back to the Expand Online Summit again… click here to buy the All-Access Pass if you missed it. Sam noted that the summit has evolved year over year. So I shared a bit about the way the world was and that I catered the content to what the attendees needed at that time. And right now, you need to see what options are available to scale beyond sessions! The enrollment in the summit in 2021 was higher than the enrollment this year. BUT the engagement and number of hours of content viewed this year greatly surpassed the amount from last year – because the audience was right for the material and the time and place were setup for growth and opportunity! I'm really excited to see where we take things next year. It's gonna be awesome! Be sure to check out Muzie.live, look into the Online Music Course Accelerator and Book a Call with me! It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.