Business For Musicians
You came to the right place if you're a skilled musician looking to break free from the 9-5, the public school system, the gigging trading time for money, and the one-to-one teaching studios.
Here at the Business For Musicians Podcast, you'll learn all the tips, tricks, tools, and knowledge that have allowed me to build a MULTI-SIX-FIGURE music education Business online.
Business For Musicians
E5: Redefining Music Education: 6 Reasons To Build An Online Music Teaching Business
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Have you ever dreamt of swapping late-night gigs for the comfort of teaching music from your own home? You're in luck. In this enlightening discussion, we'll guide you through our journey of trading traditional teaching for an online music education business. The shift didn't just pique our passion, but it quadrupled our income in a few short years!
We're talking about liberating schedules, boundless revenue opportunities, and the untold advantages of outsourcing. Find out how we transformed our lives and replaced both our incomes, allowing more quality time with our young children. This isn't just about boosting your pocket; it's about achieving a rewarding work-life balance. So, tune in and embark on this exciting journey towards building a profitable online music education business together.
I have been teaching music online for the past seven years and it's been the most exciting, rewarding and fulfilling thing I have ever done in my musical career. So today I want to share with you six reasons why I believe you should also build an online music education business if you're a music educator. So that's what we're going to discuss today in the Business of Musicians podcast, episode 5. Stay tuned. Years ago, I took my teaching skills online and now I make multiple six figures in annual revenue, teaching piano to students worldwide while working less than eight hours a day. My name is Warren McPherson, the founder and CEO of Piano Lesson with Warrencom, and if you want to learn how I broke free from the nine to five piano studio teaching, the late nights and weekend gigging schedule, you came to the right place. At the Business for Musicians podcast, I'll share tips, strategies and tools to help you break free from the trading time for money hamster wheel, so you, too, can build a profitable online business while working fewer hours and from the comfort of your home. Now, if you've been listening to the previous episodes of Business for Musicians, I sort of stumbled into the online piano platform online world of teaching music. It's never something that I really set out to do Never something. I thought that was possible and slowly but surely, I've discovered new information and I've learned new things along the way, and I was able to quadruple my income in a few years, and I just think it is such an opportunity that a lot of other musicians are missing out on. A lot of other musicians out there can and should be taking advantage of this opportunity, because there's still only a few people teaching music online. There's still a lot more avenues and potential for folks to jump in and also grow their income, grow their revenue, in teaching music online. So, for me, my first reasons that I want to give you is that you get to make money doing what you love. This is probably something you've heard being thrown around from time to time make money, do what you love, or you should pursue something that you love and the money will fall in place. Well, that has never been true until today, or I should say until now. With the age of the internet, you can really now pursue something that you're passionate about, something you love, something you enjoy doing, while making money. The internet now makes that possible and for me as a musician, I remember when I set out to pursue music. A lot of folks in my community say so what are you going to do when you graduate? And I could not give them an answer, because back then your two options as a music school graduate is either to go teach in the public school or you try to find a band and tour with an international artist or something like that.
Speaker 1:Piano studios, especially where I grew up in the countries of Jamaica, wasn't really a thing. There wasn't really a piano studio. It was not a thing. It was more popular in the city of Kingston. I grew up in St Thomas east of Kingston, so there was no real sort of piano studio opportunity in the rural areas. So those were your two options. I didn't want to do either of those things, but I just knew I wanted to pursue music and I thank God every day that I never gave up on that dream, because it is what has led me to now doing what I'm doing running an online business, teaching music, doing what I love, and making multiple six figures from that annually. So that's my first reason for you you get to really do what you love while making money from it. So if you're a drummer and there's a specific style or type of drumming that you love and you want to teach, you can get to do that online. Because here's the thing why this online thing is so magical Before the online world opened up like this for musicians, you were pretty much limited to people in your community to teach.
Speaker 1:That was it. There was a certain radius. Outside of that either gets too far or you would have to travel very far to find people to teach that's interested in the thing that you want to teach. It just gets super difficult. So that opportunity wasn't really there. And I remember when I used to teach piano before I got online I had to teach stuff that people wanted to learn. Some of the things that people wanted to learn. I didn't want to teach, I wasn't interested in that, but I had to teach it. If I wanted to make a living, if I wanted to keep my piano teaching thing going, I needed to just focus on what students wanted to learn.
Speaker 1:Online. You don't have to do that. You can completely shut out a whole subset of people and focus on the ones that you want, because now we're talking about an international audience, no borders. You have people from literally all corners of the world at your disposal when you go online, and so whatever your niche is and your niche is sort of the thing that you're interested in, that thing you can find a community of people a lot of them as well to pay you to teach the thing that you want to teach. Because, likewise, I mean like mind, if you're interested in something, then there are other people out there that are a sheer similar interest and those are the people you're going to try to attract to your teaching. So the online thing makes that possible. You get to pursue what you love, teach what you love, knowing that there's going to be hundreds and thousands of people from around the world that also share that same interest. So you no longer have to be stuck bored teaching weird stuff and just random things. You really get to focus on what you want to do.
Speaker 1:Like, for me, my whole thing is teaching gospel piano online. That's it. That's the other genre of music, not because I can't, but I've just decided to niche to just that one thing. It's a very narrow niche, because I don't teach Christian contemporary songs either. Hardcore gospel, that's it. That's my lane, and my YouTube channel has well over 200,000 subscribers, so that tells you that, whatever your niche is. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there that wants to hear from you. So that's reason number one for starting an online Music education business. You might be thinking will people be interested in what I have to offer? Absolutely, If you're an expert, if you have knowledge, if this is something you've been doing for years, there are people out there who wants to learn from you and is willing to pay you.
Speaker 1:I Recently came across a podcast. I was listening to this woman who pretty much lives on a boat. That's it a boat and and she decided to start writing blogs about how you can transition to living on a boat. Now she's making like 30 grand a month from her blogs. Now, there's a whole lot of business prying that goes on the behind the scenes To be able to, you know, scale up a business to that level. However, that's her niche. She only write blogs about that stuff, and now she's also doing blogs about living out of your van. You know the whole nomads lifestyle and she's making multiple six figures, and that goes to show you that there are so there are hundreds of thousands of people From around the world who are also interested in that lifestyle, as Neat as it might be. There's enough people out there to have her running a multiple six figure business. So, whatever your thing is, you might think there's not enough. People know there are, and so jump online Today, this week. Start making content about what you love. It will start to grow, people start to find you and Eventually you'll be able to turn that and monetize that skill into some form of business revenue.
Speaker 1:Now, number two reason number two for starting or in creating an online business as a music educator, is that you get to create your own schedule. I know it might sound simple, but, man, if you're like me, I Was never a good employee. I was always late Because I would sleep in. They were talking about when I was in. I'm talking about when I was in college, but I was just never really a good employee. I was just my mind was always elsewhere. I like to do things differently. I was just never the guy that likes to follow a lot of rules in terms of being a good employee. Now, when you, when you're building your own business online, you really get to build your own schedule. Now, this is something that comes a little bit later, because if you're already, if you already have a nine to five. You can't just quit To go start an online business. You got bills to pay, family to feed, so you're most likely going to be working your nine to five while Building this thing on the side, right. But once it's built to the point where you can quit your day job and transition into this online thing, it's magical.
Speaker 1:I Don't start working before noon Any day and this is something I've been doing for years now. I Start working at like noon, 12, 30, 1 pm. That's when I start working. That's when my work day starts. Why? Because I spend the mornings with my sons, hanging out with them, taking them to appointments, going to the park. I Just I do whatever I want in the mornings, that's it. The mornings I hang out with my family. We have breakfast. We do whatever we want.
Speaker 1:Because I work online, there's no opening and closing hours. I get to build my own schedule. I Start working at noon. If, at five, I said, ah, I'm done for the day, that's it. I don't have to ask anyone. I don't have to request hey, I'm leaving at five today, I just literally say I'm done and I get up.
Speaker 1:Some days I wake up if I don't want to work. I don't when I'm sick and I'm not feeling well for days at a time. I just don't work for those days, literally don't have to answer to anyone, do have to submit anything to anyone and to me. That's what living is about that freeing and refreshing feeling, knowing that you're in control of this thing. And so that's my reason Number two why you should start an online business. It really does free you up, give you the time, so you can then reinvest that into whatever you want. If you have a family, you get to spend more time with your family. And that leads me into Reason number three, which is that you get to do this from home. Everyone I know who runs an online business and I know a lot of people who do this now. I mean a lot of online groups and forums of Similar business owners, educators some of them are musicians themselves, some are in other fields, but they're all doing it online and they all work from home. I mean, just think about it.
Speaker 1:You never have to navigate traffic anymore, especially if you live in a city. City life, the nine to five traffic it's aggressive. You know, down here in Florida, and, like Orlando, it's easy for you to be in traffic for 45 and out 45 minutes an hour, hour and a half on your way home. It's, it's insane. I Remember the last time I've been stuck in traffic because I've been working full-time in this business since 2019. I started the business really sort of in 2017 and by 2019 I was able to make it my full-time business.
Speaker 1:The wear and tear in my car Significantly decrease because I only drive now to go to the groceries Appointments. You know leisure activities. I don't do a lot of driving every day. I do everything from home. I roll out of bed, I eat, I hang out. When I'm ready, my office is upstairs, I go upstairs. I don't have to change clothes. I don't have anything work related. I work in my sweatpants, in my shirt. I have these branded t-shirts that I create and these are sort of like my work thing, and I only wear these shirts when I'm Shooting videos. If I'm not doing any video, sometimes I'm shirtless, sitting by my computer doing my thing or sitting by my keyboard creating a new track. Whatever it is, I'm wearing slippers. It's just such a relaxed way of living, a relaxed way of working. I Love it and everyone I know who does this Love the fact that they don't have to leave their home to work.
Speaker 1:So that's reason number three why you should start an online business in and teaching and music. Right Number four. Let's jump to number four. So reason number four for building an online business in the music industry or music education industry is unlimited revenue potential. I mean, think about it. If you're in your day job right now, you know exactly how much you're gonna make the end of the month. You've probably been making that same amount for a few years right now, it doesn't matter how much work you put in. It doesn't matter how early you show up to work. You could be the hardest worker teaching music in a school or in your studio. You know exactly how much you're gonna make at the end of the month. Your effort doesn't mean anything. This is what you make and that's it. If you wanna make more money, you have to either work overtime, if your job allows that, or you have to get a second job. That's it. When you work online, your potential, your revenue potential, is virtually unlimited. There's no caps.
Speaker 1:I remember when I made my first $100 online, I was like, wow, this is amazing. In a few months I was making a couple hundred dollars online. By the end of the year I was making $1,000. And every month it grew. The amount of work I was investing didn't change, so my work volume stayed the same, but every month my income kept rising 500 a month, 5,000 a month, 10,000 a month, 12,000 a month, 15,000 a month, 20,000 a month. My income kept rising even though my workload stayed the same. Think about that ratio. So it's not like I'm putting in more work to increase my income. My workload stays the same, but my income keep rising.
Speaker 1:And that's the beauty of online because we're talking about, instead of just your immediate community, your immediate surrounding community or your state, being your reach, the world now becomes your playing field. That's your potential reach. Eight billion people right, I mean not eight billion people is gonna be following your niche. Little online music, but you only need to have like 1,000 people paying you monthly. Just think about that. Only need like 1,000 to break into multiple six figures in revenue. It's not a lot, right? And so that's one of the beauty of teaching online. You don't have to put in more time to make more money on the backend, because the reach is so great, and if you've listened to my previous episode, you know that I'm a huge fan of YouTube. If you're going to build any form of online teaching platform, youtube needs to be your central hub. And if you want to know why I'm such a big advocate of YouTube, go back and listen to the previous episodes episodes four, episodes three I give all of my reasons why I have pretty much built a multi six figure business on the back of YouTube. Youtube is my largest audience and that's where 99% of all my paid customers come from. That's where they find me. So, reason number four unlimited revenue potential.
Speaker 1:If you're struggling to make ends meet, if you're tired of living hand to mouth and it's just not working out for you, then you should probably consider online. Now let me pause here to say something. It might sound like I'm talking about some form of fairy tale situation. You just get up and start making all this money online. It does take real work. So this is not some form of get rich quick or make money quick thing.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I've been at this since 2017. So I've been at it for a few years and I've poured hundreds of hours into developing my skills learning about online marketing, learning about content creation, learning about SEO. A lot of stuff to learn. But again, just think about it. In seven years, I was able to build this. If you've been teaching out there in the school or running your own studio for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and you're looking at your income and you'll be like, ah, I wish it was more. Just imagine investing not even seven years because, like I said, I already overshoot the six figure mark, three years in the business. Just imagine if you can invest three years in working on these things that I'm talking about. You can potentially replace your day job. If your day job isn't paying you six figures a year, you could potentially replace that in three years online. This is serious. This is some game-changing thing I'm talking about here. So think about it.
Speaker 1:While it takes work, this is work that the benefit far outpace the hours you're gonna put in, because you're putting a lot of hours up front, but then after a while, you're able to back right off. Like I said, if tomorrow, me and my wife decide you know what we're gonna go on a trip for a week, I can do it and I'll still be making money Every day. Money will still be coming into my bank account. Think about that level of freedom. Now, reason number five is no more trading time for money. That's what we've been talking about With the online thing. It's not a trade where you put in your time and you get paid for that time in terms of hours. It's not that direct trade and, like I said before, in the initial stage you're gonna be putting in a whole lot of hours up front that you won't get any payment for. So you can't shoot one video uploaded and then where's my money? For the first year. Let me back it up.
Speaker 1:I started my YouTube channel in 2014. It has just a hobby Posted a handful of crappy videos, disappeared for two years. Then I came back in 2016 and took it seriously. I shot videos Every day. I was shooting a video in 2016. I mean not every day, every week. So I shot 52 videos on average for 2016 and I didn't receive a dime for any of that work. And that was hours, because back then I barely knew how to do audio editing and video editing and recording. Everything just took me a lot of time to complete back then. So a lot of hours invested for that first year with zero returns.
Speaker 1:2017, I decided to sell my first course because people kept asking me about online courses and where can I purchase my courses. So I created a course and I sold it for $12. Took a while a few weeks, but then somebody buy it. Then I kept promoting that course and a second person buy it, and that was when I started to see. Like I said, I remember the first month I made $100, approximately $100, selling this little one-hour course online, but that was the affirmation I needed to say huh, this thing really work right, it can really make money online.
Speaker 1:So I put in a year of work, basically in 2016, without getting any monetary returns. That's what it really takes. And so a lot of people jump online and they put in a few months of work in terms of videos and stuff, and then they don't see any monetary return and they get discouraged. I went for an entire year before I was able to see a dime and then, once I saw that there's potential, people will actually open their wallet and purchase what you have to offer. That motivated me to learn more about how this thing works, because you don't just create a course and put it out into the abyss and say, how am I not getting any sales? No, you have to learn about marketing. Marketing is everything, and we'll be talking more about stuff like that in the future episodes of this podcast. I had to learn about marketing because you can have the best course in the world, but if nobody knows about it, it doesn't matter, and so if you're considering doing this, it's important to know that you're gonna need to put in a year's work of a lot of hours upfront, but you will reap the benefit of that later, and so that's the most important thing.
Speaker 1:Now let's take a look at the last reason for building an online music education platform, and that is you get to work less hours 8 hours a day, 9 to 5,. None of that stuff really matters when you're online. You work when you want and for how long you want. Some days I work 3 hours. Most days I work 5 to 6 hours 8 hours. I don't remember the last time I cranked in 8 hours a day.
Speaker 1:See the other thing, too, about the way my work life is set up because I work from home, I work in bits and pieces, so it's kind of sometimes hard for me to calculate how many hours a day I work, because I might put in 2 hours, and then I get up and go downstairs to have lunch and I'll hang out for 3 hours down there with my boys or just watching a TV show or something, and then I'll come back up and I'll do another hour and I'll go back down and I'll come back up and I'll work another 3 hours and I'll go back down and that's probably the night for me. And so I just work in bits and pieces and so because of that it doesn't really feel like work and it's hard for me to tell how much hours of work I put in today, because I no longer think in terms of hours. I think in terms of tasks. So I said, okay, this is on my to-do list for this month or for this week. Let me knock out this thing right here.
Speaker 1:So one of my biggest tasks for the week are video recordings. I record quite a bit of videos every week, up to probably about an hour and a half worth of video every week. So I just sit down and I'll spend an hour and a half just recording content, recording videos, right. But outside of that, all of my other tasks are a little bite-sized 20 minute here, 30 minute there, things that I have to do. I no longer edit my videos, so I shoot the videos, I send them off to my video editor and she does the editing and everything like that. So I've outsourced a lot of the work that I used to have to do in the day. So I have a team of people now that I work with. I have a video editor, I have web designer and developer. I have virtual assistant that respond to all my emails, so I barely do any email work anymore. I have a social media sort of virtual assistant that does all my social media uploading stuff, making sure that the SEO search engine optimization is right so that my videos get ranked in Google and in YouTube search Right. I have a bookkeeper that does all my books. I have a CPA that does all my tax filing. So I have a team of people now that I work with, which is partly why my days are so freeing, because I don't need to do all of that Now.
Speaker 1:Like I said before, fast forward to like 20, or I should say back up to like 2017, 2018,. I was doing all of that stuff and I felt like man. I was burnout, but I knew it was necessary. I had to learn all the different ins and outs and the different parts of the business, so then I can begin to outsource, and this is what Michael E Gerber calls creating a franchise business. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the book that helps me to start think in terms of building systems and outsourcing work to people. It's called E-Myth, revisited by Michael E Gerber. It's a brilliant book if you want to build an online business that generates multiple six figures, where you have multiple sort of outsource work to.
Speaker 1:I call them subcontractors. I wouldn't call them sort of employees because they don't work full time for me. They do work a lot of hours every week for me, right? I don't have to pay them health insurance or anything like that. And all my subcontractors out of all the people I listed, only four of them are from the US. My web developer is from India, from Pakistan, one of my virtual assistants from Bangladesh. My video editor is also US. One of my content creator social media person, she's from the UK, and so I have sort of this international team of people too. You don't need to hire just within your ecosystem or within your country.
Speaker 1:The beauty of outsourcing. The internet again makes that possible, and so I am telling you all of this because it has really changed my life If I didn't discover the beauty of online teaching, I would still be doing what I was doing back in 2014, 2015, which is, I was teaching piano locally to like 30 students. I was playing multiple gigs a week, late nights, traveling across multiple states, which really took a toll on my family. Being away from home for all that time and the length of time takes a toll on you physically, on your family, because you're never really around, and then your income. After all that work is the same. I'm glad I discovered this online thing, which is what inspired me to start this podcast, sort of like a journey, a journal of me documenting my journey but then also sharing the tips, sharing the things that has worked for me, sharing the things that allowed me to build this wonderful life. Right now I'm recording this podcast.
Speaker 1:My wife and my sons are out at a theme park enjoying themselves. I'm home recording this podcast because my wife no longer works. She hasn't worked since 2019 because she don't need to work anymore. The revenue that I make online not only replaced my income that I was making back then, it also replaced hers. So now she gets to stay home with our kids I have young kids. She gets to take care of them, so we don't need babysitter and we don't need daycare, right, because she get to play the role of all of that which she loves to do. She loves staying home, she loves spending time with the boys. Now she's out entertaining with them. When I finish this podcast, I'll go join them, and that's the beauty of building an online business.
Speaker 1:So, to recap, six reasons why you should build an online teaching music business, and that is reason number one make money doing what you love. Reason number two create your own work schedule. Reason number three work from home. Reason number four unlimited revenue potential. Reason number five no more time trading money situation. You don't need to be trading money, trading time for money anymore. You need to think in terms of hours and trading time for money when you're building an online business. And the last reason is you work way less hours than you will than you would in your day job. So that's what I have for you guys today for the business for musician podcast.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, what has allowed me to start to think in these ways think about the business this way is the book the E-Myth, revisited by Michael E Gerber. It's a great book Anyone who desired to start a business and this book is not only applicable for online. In fact, I think it was a more written for brick and mortar business, but it applies really to any business style, whether it's online, which is brick and mortar. You need this book because one of the things I learned in my early years of building this online business was that I needed to change the way I think about being a business owner. Think about, because that's what you're doing when, when you create this online thing, you're becoming an entrepreneur, you're building a business, something to run and sustain on its own, and this book gives you the model and the mental shift needed to do that.
Speaker 1:All right, so thanks for listening to the business and musician podcast. If you haven't done so yet, please give me a rate and a review in the Apple store podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast. If it has a rating and review feature, please do so. I know that the Apple podcast has this feature to be able to rate and review a podcast. When you do that, it helps us to rank higher in the results of podcasts, so that definitely helps me to continue to create content like this, sharing my knowledge, sharing my journey in how I built an online business and change my life. All right, so stick around for next week. Try to drop out new episode every week for the business or musician podcast. Have a blessed week and bye for now.