Start Your Own Piano Teaching Business Home
Are you looking to start your own piano teaching business from home?
It’s a great way to start a side hustle and bring in a lot of extra cash each month!
On average, private piano teachers make $56,000+ a year in the US!
Additionally, this side hustle provides meaningful purpose by teaching others how to learn and play piano.
Do you feel you would make a good piano teacher?
Do you believe you have the teaching skills to teach children and adults music lessons from your home?
If you have answered yes to these questions, then this article is for you.
What are the steps to start teaching private lessons at home?
I researched and gathered expert advice and proven strategies from a piano teacher with 20+ years of experience.
In this article, the expert advice in starting a piano business will focus on:
Before you read further, please know that this post may contain affiliate links, for which I may receive a commission. There is no cost to you if you purchase through one of these links. Thank you.
In-Home Piano Teacher Success Story
Meet Zoe Madewell-Harrington.
She is the owner of the largest independent music teaching company in Irving, Texas called the Irving Fine Arts Academy.
Zoe started teaching children 20+ years ago in her home in Irving while a stay-at-home mom of 7 children.
Growing up she was completely self-taught.
However, as an adult, she received music degrees and training from some of the best musicians and degree programs.
Her training included the Suzuki Pedagogy Training in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Including, attending institutes directed by Master Teacher Trainers, Leah Brammer, and Robin Blankenship with additional training from the late Dr. Haruko Kataoka.
Her teaching style along with music theory has shaped hundreds of students’ lives and their education as well.
Additionally, she is a huge advocate for teaching children how to play the piano as early as 2 years old.
As a matter of fact, she’s observed higher levels of reading and math skills, including critical thinking skills and interpersonal skills in her years of teaching children during the early adolescent years.
Because of Zoe’s passion for teaching children and adults of all ages, she grew her business to over 500 students.
Including over 30 highly sought-after music instructors.
After many years of teaching piano in her home, she stepped out in faith and moved her business into a commercial location.
Her music company has a variety of programs that include summer camps, art classes, adult classes, and ballet lessons, with multiple instrument lessons offered including drama, and voice lessons.
She has overcome significant obstacles, even the 2020 shutdowns that almost closed her business down.
Here are her suggestions, expert advice, and proven strategies.
Create a Business Plan
Create a mission statement, and business plan and apply for an LLC for your music teaching business.
Research your local area for private piano lessons and find out what they are charging.
After you complete your research, set a competitive price to charge your new students.
Choose a reputable music theory and lesson plans that are adaptable to different age groups like the “Suzuki Method”.
Decide Where to Teach
After you have established your business plan, decide where you are willing to teach piano lessons and where not to.
The goal of having this business in your home is to gain financial freedom.
And, it’s to have a flexible schedule that you are in charge of.
The cost of gas, the hours lost driving around town, and navigating with GPS would be a coordinating nightmare.
Your time is valuable.
They can come to you, not the other way around.
Schedule your appointments back-to-back and come up with a cancellation policy.
As your business grows, you can explore ideas of renting out space and other ways to host piano teaching events.
Try to focus on hosting the majority of your private piano lessons inside your home to start.
Marketing and Promoting
Start by creating a marketing plan focused on promoting your private music lessons.
Reach out to your local public schools, preschools, churches, private tutors, and after-school programs to build up your student clientele.
Partner with homeschool families and other co-op groups.
Find mom’s groups with children of preschool age for “sing and play” time for young 2–4-year-olds.
Create an online presence with a professional website and make it cohesive throughout all social media platforms.
Apply to Google for “Google Business Listing” to connect your website to local searches of “music lessons near me”.
Follow these Proven Marketing Steps:
Word of mouth is key! Gain your connections through the above process and ask them to refer you. We have a 3-tier marketing growth strategy that has been very successful for my teaching business.
- Referrals Incentives: Current students and their friends each get a $25 gift card for referrals.
- Pay for Facebook boosts.
- Pay for Google Ad words.
For gaining new ballet students, Facebook “Boosts” has been our number one growth stream. The entire ballet school of 150 students was built through Facebook because the moms are also on the same platform.
However, we heavily rely on Google Ad words based on the SEO searches in our local area. Most of our music students have come from these paid google ads because people are searching in Google “music lessons near me”.
We also have had great success through what is called “text magic”, a Customer Relations Management tool that sends text Ad messages to warm leads and current students.
Magazine and Grocery Cart ads have never been successful in my advertising campaigns for my teaching piano business.
Please do not waste your money on this form of advertising.
Referrals by word of mouth will give you much longer retention than any paid marketing ad.
Creative Ways to Find New Students
How do you find new piano students?
By getting creative and thinking outside of the box!
Like any small business, marketing and promoting your creative ideas can be key to getting word-of-mouth referrals.
Here are just a few ideas that you could utilize to find new music students:
- Host birthday parties with music-themed “dance and play instruments” for toddlers or other musical special events for young children.
- For adult piano lessons, teach group lessons with a fun twist of BYOB and finger foods.
- Host Monthly “Piano Game Days” where students come for group music team-building sessions.
- Host “duo piano lessons” where students can bring a buddy to play piano with them for free.
The possibilities are endless, you just have to think outside of the box and get creative in building up your student base.
Best Payment Structure
It’s important to be as professional as possible, and that includes setting up easily accessible ways for your students to make payments for piano lessons.
One of the best ways to accept cash is through mobile apps like Venmo, Apple, or Google Pay which provide an ongoing record of each payment.
Get an account with PayPal or Square and invest in a credit card/debit card reader.
If your student is paying by cash or by one of the mobile apps, always give a receipt via email.
Keep a record of all payments for each student through some kind of bookkeeping and invoicing system.
Send out monthly statements showing lesson dates and payments made.
Consider setting up a prepaid schedule to help eliminate confusion for your clients.
Expanding Your Music Business
As you begin to grow and expand your music teaching business, you may want to consider moving it out of your home and into a commercial building.
Zoe’s private piano business began to grow so much, that she took a leap of faith and moved her business into a commercial studio.
One of the biggest challenges in moving a music business into a commercial space is soundproofing the noise from the musical instruments from other tenants.
She hired a sound engineer that recommended she build out each individual room with an incredibly unique idea of angling each room at a 5-degree angle to absorb the sound.
They built in a complete surround sound barrier and added double insulation for each of the practice rooms.
The cost of materials and labor had doubled since Covid. In the middle of the construction build-out, I was informed after I signed a contract and put $25K that it would be an additional $20k due to unexpected material costs.
It’s a risk, but a risk I would do over again.
After I did the math and asked God to help me, we opened a completely new and renovated space. I am paying back the $50,000 buildout loan including the relocation expenses that were accrued for the next 5 years.
But because I took this leap of faith, we are growing at a rapid pace.
I am trusting that this growth will help offset the risk of the move. If we trust our instinct and truly believe in what we are doing, it’s an easy risk to take. However, I strongly advise seeking professional advice from contractors, including structural and sound engineers to avoid costly mistakes while building out your commercial location.
Hiring Music Teachers
If you have expanded your music business into a commercial studio, you will need to hire employees that are going to give the same level of care and devotion to your students as you have.
Where do you find music teachers that have this level of care?
How do you prevent turnover of hiring or firing employees?
Music teachers primarily work with children.
This should be a priority in hiring individuals who enjoy working with all ages.
In the past several years of hiring and firing employees, Zoe’s experience has taught her a motto that she stands by – “Hire Slow or Fire Fast”.
It’s crippling to invest in training desk staff to have them quit or have to fire them in a short amount of time. It’s time-consuming and expensive! I personally have worked in every position in my company to ensure every new hire matches the position they are applying for. Teachers are easier because they come with references, however, I rarely will ever hire a brand-new teacher. They come with extensive references and experience.
Here are my recommendations:
- Hire employees not contractors.
- Run an ADP background check.
- They must provide at least three references.
- Require at least 3-4 interviews prior to officially hiring.
Your music-teaching employees will make or break you.
Take the time to find the best and do not settle.
They represent you, and your business, and especially the fact that they again will primarily be teaching young children, it is imperative that they work well with them.
“Hire Slow” or you will end up “Firing Fast”.
Find a Business Mentor
Zoe highly recommends finding a mentor to help you in starting your music teaching business.
Mentorship can be key to your success and business growth.
She enrolled in free programs like SCORE which has resources and mentors to help serve you and recently graduated from the SBA Thrive program.
I wrote about finding a mentor in my article How To Find A Mastermind Group to Bring You Success, where I talk about the challenges of running your own business and how mentorship can propel you to huge growth.
In closing, Zoe had this to personally share with you.
I was unsure and lost as to how to scale my business. In searching for mentorship, I found free programs like SCORE, and recently graduated from the SBA THRIVE program. They are just waiting for you to ask for help. I hope one day to be a SCORE mentor. I believe that no matter how many mistakes we make, we can truly learn from them and pass that knowledge on to others.
My advice is to never give up!
Seek mentorship for the growth and success of your small business!
Surround yourself with those who believe in you!
YOU WILL SUCCEED.
In-Home Piano Teaching Business ~ Summary
Thank you Zoe for this amazing advice! I know that you are going to help many aspiring music teachers looking to start their own piano-teaching businesses!
If you are a busy mom looking for additional side job hustle opportunities, check out the 9+ Best Side Job Hustles for Busy Moms!
