Have you ever wondered what to do about a disrespectful piano parent or a student who doesn’t practice? Have you ever wished your students had better practice instruments?
This step-by-step onboarding process will help you learn who’s who before you choose who to accept into your studio. Since I developed this checklist, I’ve built the best studio I’ve ever had. If you want to know what it’s like to teach the students you want, read on!
I’ve noticed a puzzling trend on piano teacher online forums over the past number of years. A frustrated piano teacher asks for advice about a disrespectful parent or student. Half of the teacher respondents recommend the teacher fire the student or family, saying ‘…replace them with someone on your waiting list!’
I can’t help but wonder whether this approach becomes a giant revolving door. There’s no guarantee that your new student and parent from your wait list will be any better than the one you’re presently thinking about sacking.
Why is it important to take the time to screen new parents and students? Isn’t it easier and less effort to simply accept every student from your waiting list?
There was a time recently when I forgot the steps of my onboarding process, when I accepted a new student without first asking for a photo of their instrument.
Then, when I visited their home for my one-time at-home lesson (to set them up for good posture at home), I saw their synthesizer keyboard in person. It had four octaves and lightweight ‘living room organ’ keys on a standing-only stand. They also had an office chair on wheels instead of a bench. The height of the chair was a mismatch for the height of the keys. This explained why none of my weekly technique tips were sinking in. But I had already accepted them into my studio. The mother was NOT convinced that they needed a new instrument and had no intention of getting one. Needless to say, I had to take personal responsibility for this situation.
The screening process I outline below has the potential to save you time.
AND will help you save your teaching spots for the students and families you want to work with.
1. When to accept a new student
There are two ways to accept a new piano student into your studio.
The first is to accept everyone who contacts you, sight unseen. There was a time early in my career when I did this. And over time, I have taught every student profile and interacted with every parent personality that you can imagine.
Some of these student families cost me dearly in energy, effort and frustration.
The second way to accept a new piano student is to follow a step-by-step onboarding process that helps screen new students and parents. This process will help you learn more about them and help you assess ahead of time who you can work with.
If you are ready to have a piano studio that’s full of students who practice and parents who respect your policies, here is the process I’ve created through my 30 years of experience.
I endeavour to follow each and every step prior to giving my ‘yes’ to a new family.
To be clear: the time to accept a new student is after you’ve already met with the parent and prospective student, and after you’ve had time to consider what they’d be like to work with.
2. Answer the inquiry
If you are a piano teacher who likes blurred lines around your policies, or likes piano parents who are also friends who ask for favours because they know you, then it would be okay for you to onboard your students through ‘social’ avenues. Texting, Facebook messenger, Instagram messages (and other messaging apps) all count as social interactions, not business interactions.
Social media messages and hearing from friends have one thing in common: such conversations are not strictly ‘business’.
If you are serious about your piano teaching business and want to be respected for your policies, answer the very first inquiry about lessons in the most businesslike ways.
- Move your conversation to email. It’s old-fashioned now and can’t possibly be interpreted as social. Email is slower. It does not demand immediate responses from you or the parent. You will be able to get a vibe and know whether you want to meet them. You will have time to check in with yourself whether you want to take this conversation further and invest more of your time to onboard this potential new student.
- Second option: move your conversation to a phone call. Speaking and listening can give you an instant sense of the nature of the parent. Are they respectful? What do their first questions say about them?
- If your personal friend is asking you for piano lessons, explain that you like to give ‘equally-professional’ piano lessons to all your students. Therefore, you’d like to handle piano lesson conversations the same, even though you already know each other as friends. This immediately draws a very gentle boundary around you as a piano teacher. Don’t speak about lessons at length in the schoolyard or at the playground or on a playdate. Simply say that you’ll be in touch so you can go over the details. Then email or call them with piano being the only topic of the conversation.
Why is it important for you to begin with a boundary with your friends?
It’s because they are the ones who are the most likely to ask you for exceptions to your policies. They might ask to move their lessons around, ask for random make-up lessons, discounts, or to apply the fee from a missed lesson to the next month’s tuition.
If you want to avoid building resentment that grows from special requests from personal friends, communicate with them in a businesslike way from the very beginning. Perhaps before any of this happens, explain in a very friendly way that piano is your livelihood and you find it works better to keep it separate from friendship, which you value highly.
3. What to say (and not to say)
In the first conversation or exchange of emails, cover simple preliminary topics.
Do’s
- Say how exciting it is to hear that their child is interested in piano lessons.
- Add how lovely it is that they are considering you as their piano teacher.
- Say that your studio is full but that you are willing to meet. Regardless of how full your studio is, say that it is full.
Dont’s
- Don’t accept the family and student before you’ve met. This includes wait list students. I recommend against putting a name on your list without first meeting the family.
- Don’t divulge your tuition fees. If you sense that the parent is searching for cheap lessons, perhaps you could state your fees up front to save yourself time. Otherwise, with serious inquiries, I speak about fees only in person.
- Don’t state any of your policies. Yes, you’re running a business, but stating policies this early seems too cold and uncaring.
Why it is wise to lead with the statement that your studio is full?
It allows you to meet with new inquiries with no expectation of acceptance into your studio.
It allows you to make an exception to your ‘full’ status for a select student and parent you want to work with.
It gives you a reasonable ‘out’ when you encounter a family you cannot work with. It is far gentler to say you cannot accept them because you have no more lesson spots than because you feel you wouldn’t be able to work with them.
If you can’t take them on, it helps if you can pass along the contact information of other local teachers when you give your answer.
4. Photo of their instrument
Before you offer to meet, the next step (which may come at the end of your first email), is to ask for a picture of their practice instrument. I accept students who have tuned acoustic pianos or weighted keyboards with 88 keys, pedals and proper stand and bench.
Requiring this photo accomplishes so much.
First, if the family doesn’t know that a piano student needs their own piano or keyboard at home in order to take piano lessons, this flags them right away.
Second, if they send you a photo of a toy synthesizer or a two-octave keyboard sitting on the floor, you save yourself time.
You now have the opportunity to explain what kind of practice instrument you require and why.
At this point, you have screened serious parents with business-like exchanges over phone or email and narrowed down your selection by considering only the students who have access to quality instruments.
Either you’ve discovered a family that’s ready for the next steps of onboarding, or you’ve given the family some homework to find themselves a suitable instrument.
If it’s the latter, ask them to get back to you once they’ve found one. The ball is now in their court and you need not put any more time into onboarding them until they can send a photo of their instrument.
The message you are sending to your prospective piano parents is one of standards. If they move on and find another teacher who does not check on their instrument, that’s okay!
Your studio will be stacked with quality practice instruments and parents who are more invested in piano lessons. Other teachers will be faced with the students and parents who are less invested. This is not lost revenue, this is a curated top-notch piano studio.
5. Send Questionnaires
Once you’ve confirmed that the new family has a suitable instrument, the next email can include two attachments, questionnaires for the parent and prospective student. These ask questions about their goals and thoughts on piano lessons.
Normally, I ask them to print and fill them out at home and bring them to our first meeting. At times I print them and we fill them out during our interview.
Long term, I like to retain these completed forms in my binder section on each student. I refer back to them at times to make sure we’re on track with their initial goals.
These questionnaires are available in my printables section and you may download them for free.
6. Set the interview time
When I email the questionnaires, I also offer some times that I’m available to meet them in my studio. I explain that I like prospective students to get acquainted with me and my studio space.
I ask the child to bring a favourite toy or a favourite thing, favourite book, and something they’ve made or drawn, and to be ready to tell me about it/them.
7. The interview
I’ve already written at length about the interview that I have with prospective new students and you can read all about it here: Interview New Piano Students: Questionnaire and hints for success [Printables].
In short:
- We begin with a focus on the child’s show-and-tell.
- If they filled out the questionnaires at home, we read them together. Or, I ask questions and fill out the student and parent questionnaires during the meeting.
- The child colours a picture while I go over my choice of piano method and written policies with the parent. From the colouring activity, I get to assess the child’s motor skills, artistic imagination and ability to work on their own. This is when I discuss my registration/materials fees and tuition fees. My reason for waiting for this moment is that I want them to see the quality I offer before they hear my fees.
- If I already know at the meeting that I’d like to work with the parent and child, I begin to speak in terms of accepting them into my studio. If I’m unsure, I remind them that my studio is very full, so I’ll need to get back to them on my availability.
One of the most important things I look for in the interview is the parent-child interaction. Does it appear to be balanced and healthy?
Does the child seem genuinely interested in taking piano lessons?
Is there a weird, pushy, petulant dynamic between them?
Is the child polite? Are they able to listen to you speak uninterrupted?
Is the parent paying attention?
Is the child bouncing off the walls while the parent is passively waiting for you to address their behaviour?
Is the parent bragging about how busy they are? Boastful in general?
If something feels ‘off’ in the room, it gives me reason to pause and ponder. More and more, this is the deciding moment.
Yes, as the owner of my piano teaching business, and you as the owner of yours, we have the prerogative to accept or not accept a student into our studios. That is our purview. We are doing more than making a living, we may need to protect our mental wellbeing and our physical space from families that may not have the capacity or awareness to respect us or our belongings.
And we are curating a piano studio that will help build our brands and our reputations. When you uphold high standards, you attract people who want high standards.
Word of mouth from good students begets other good students.
Good people tend to know other good people.
Pretty soon, you won’t need to advertise anymore.
To sum it up
Prospective new parents can contact piano teachers in several ways, including through social media. If your personal friends are asking you to teach their children, you’ll want to answer with extra care. To build your professional brand from the get-go, push your conversations to ‘business-like’ channels like email or phone conversations.
Some parents don’t know what kind of instrument is required for piano lessons. Screening for instrument from the very beginning is smart and savvy and will save you time.
For parents who seem ready for lessons with a good instrument and they seem friendly and reasonable, the next step is to meet with questionnaires in hand, and get a feel for what the parent and child are like in your studio.
In short, you may accept the students who you feel are right for your studio, and the steps outlined above lay out the process that will help you be extra sure.
Do you have other ideas or steps you take while onboarding new students? Please leave a comment!
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Video of the Week
Penny for Your Thoughts (Early Elementary/Beginner/Rote). The Impressionist composers loved the idea of music from cultures and countries around the world. This ‘intro-to-Impressionism piece’ is based on the black key pentatonic scale and has an Eastern flair. From the print and eBook First Impressions, or check out the Penny for Your Thoughts eSheet!
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