[Editor’s note: Mark Powers is a percussionist, educator and soon-to-be Omahan. He will be documenting his move to Nebraska, a new musical marketplace, and in the process, hopes to offer advice on how other musicians can work hard to break into their scene.]
by Mark Powers
Breaking into a new music scene can seem like a daunting and virtually impossible goal. But the decision’s been made to relocate to that new city, so what’s one of the fastest ways to start generating a decent income in this new area (without getting one of those dreaded non-musical “real jobs”), while simultaneously making yourself known in this new target music scene?
Simple answer: Teach private lessons on your instrument(s) of expertise. Preferably, at a music store. Or multiple.
The going rate for a 30-minute individual music lesson is $20-25 in most parts of the country right now, and you can usually expect to be charged somewhere in the $4-5 range to use a facility’s studio space for that same period of time. We’re talking $30-42 per hour (pre-tax) here; good luck getting anything close to that at Starbucks or for a data entry position through the local temp agency.
THE PROBLEM
Chances are, if you decide to go this route, that you’ll get on the ball, call up a couple music stores in the area, ask if they need a teacher of your particular instrument, and they will politely but quickly say “no.”
A few of you out there will get lucky and happen to call the right place at the right time. Serendipitously, they were just thinking about their need to replace someone, fill that empty studio or what-have-you and BAM, the phone suddenly rings with your voice offering to solve their dilemma. It happens, and when it occurs, luck is an awesome thing.
But more often than not, they’ll say “no,” and for a variety of reasons. They already have someone (or multiple someones) teaching in the store; they don’t have adequate space or sound dampening to accommodate your instrument (in my case, a drumset and world percussion); they don’t have enough student requests to make it worth your while; they don’t offer music lessons at all; and on and on. I’ve even had more than one individual cut me off mid-sentence and jut in with “nope, not interested,” before quickly hanging up, like I was cold-calling from an outbound telemarketing call center, trying to sucker them into the latest snake oil scam.
THE OPPORTUNITY
You’ve heard the old axiom that suggests altering your mindset, taking a “problem” that arises and reframing it as an “opportunity.” It’s cliché as hell, yet precisely what I’m going to urge you to do here in our current every-music-store-in-town-turned-me-down scenario. Why? Because there are two extremely, extremely important things that most people fail to realize at this point:
1. Most of the “reasons” that you were given above are essentially bull. You are just yet another random nameless dude (or dudette) who has called on them out of the blue, hoping to use their studio space and clientele to make money. You approached them in the wrong way, and we can fix that.
(right) courtesy photo of Mark Powers
2. For nearly every other musician (dare I say “competitor” of yours) out there, that two-letter word coming from the earpiece of the phone is where it all ends. Seemed like a cool idea for a minute there but, nope, didn’t work. Time to somehow come up with something else to try. Or perhaps return that Starbucks application after all.
Let me break all that down one more time for you, a bit more succinctly: They don’t know you and other people quit at this point. Are you kidding me? What an absolutely enormous opportunity right there. The correct response (read: solution) is slapping us in the face here: get them to know you and don’t freaking quit, at least, not yet.
HUNT AND GATHER
My initial response was the same as I mentioned above. While still living in Portland, I first put together a Google spreadsheet of every single music store and private lesson facility I could find in both the Omaha and Lincoln areas. OK, I’m going to pause right there to catch myself in a bit of a lie. I initially created the spreadsheet, yes. But I didn’t honestly sit down, search the interwebs to find potential teaching locations and copy-and-paste all of that info into the spreadsheet. I hate doing that kind of stuff. That chore got delegated to my virtual assistant, Brittany. I told you in the introduction to this series that we were going to utilize some creative approaches in this process. Hiring a VA (which we’ll discuss in future installments) is one of them.
Once Brittany had collected business names, contact names (when available), phone numbers, addresses and website URLs, it was my turn to get to work. I blocked out a chunk of time over two days and telephoned every single one of them, inquiring as to whether they might have a need for a percussion instructor. I added a “Notes” column to the spreadsheet, so that I could keep track of all communications with each company, as well as what their responses were. It’s easy to get confused after talking with 20+ people. As expected, nearly everyone said “no” but I made sure to ever-so-gently find out why.
The few that I decided were absolute “nos,” perhaps due to them simply not offering lessons at all, got color-coded and grouped together at the bottom of the spreadsheet (not deleted, mind you — those contacts can still come in handy down the road). Every other place — whether they said “yes” or their “no” was attributed to reasons such as, “We don’t have much of a demand for drum lessons,” or, “We’ve already got someone,” stayed on the top of the list, color-coded and grouped together by general response, with notes added about my interaction with each. Oh yeah, and I casually mentioned that I’d swing by and say hi anyway, when I was through town in about a week. In my head, these are all still possible “yeses.”
SHOW YOUR PRETTY LITTLE FACE
The difference between you and the guy/gal who would have deleted those contacts and given up at right about this point? You show up in person.
Just before a recon visit to Omaha a week or so later, I had Brittany map the addresses to all of those potential “yeses” and organize them into two tidy roundtrip routes that I could take from my hotel on the two days I’d made available for that purpose. Each day, I followed the route that she’d prepared for me, ultimately visiting every location on our spreadsheet (aside from the absolute “nos”).
Reviewing our notes via the Google Drive app on my phone right before stepping out of the car at each stop, I was able to walk in, ask for a specific person, refresh their memory with details about our phone conversation a week ago, and hand a resume or CV directly to him/her. I cannot stress enough how extremely valuable the experience is of being there face-to-face in situations like these. The music store manager gets to see that you’re a friendly fellow, gets to flip through your CV right in front of you and pose off-the-cuff comments or questions based on something that catches his or her eye, and gets to hear, straight from the horse’s mouth, what you’re hoping to offer to the area (even if it doesn’t happen to be at their store).
Which leads us to something else we really must cover: what you’re offering.
FORGET YOU, FOCUS ON VALUE
Why do you want to teach there? To make money, and hopefully because you truly care about educating the future’s next generation of talented musicians.
Why does the store want someone teaching there? As with you, hopefully they do have a shared genuine desire to offer quality music instruction to their community. But by and large, they create studio spaces and have music teachers in-house with the hope that those teachers will develop large rosters, bringing a steady stream of excited students (read: potential consumers of instruments, method books and accessories) and their parents (read: the actual buyers) through their doors on a daily basis.
Ever see a music store that’s put the lesson rooms right inside the front doors, with the sales area stuffed in the far back of the building? Yeah, didn’t think so. Notice, in your neighborhood convenience store, how you’re forced to pass by all the tempting candy bars and snack foods on your way to get to the bottle of water that you really came in for, situated along the back wall? Not really as “convenient” as their name implies, is it? Set up that way for a reason — same goes for music stores.
Make sure you keep this in the forefront of your mind when you introduce yourself and discuss what it is that you’ve done in the past, and plan to do in the future. What are you bringing to the table that other instructor might not? A speciality in some unique style; publications you’ve contributed to; award and accolades; someone significant that you’ve shared the stage with — show (without needless braggadocio) how you’d be too valuable of a resource to let sneak away.
Two of the “nos” in my spreadsheet have, because of taking this mindset, becoming two places that have offered me studio space to teach drum lessons in when I move to Omaha right around the first of the year. It’s a result of the process of collecting all potential prospects, not letting a “no” stop you, and being that rare person who just shows up — it really works — and not only when trying to find a location to teach music lessons. Where else could you apply this in your life? Touch base and tell me your thoughts via the email address below.
Mark Powers is a Hear Nebraska contributor, drummer, percussion educator and Omaha newcomer. Reach him at PowersPercussion.com and powersdrums@gmail.com.