What I Learned Interviewing 15 Piano Teachers from All Over the Globe

Something that not everyone knows about me is that I am all about growth. Business growth, personal growth, and family growth – that’s right, I would absolutely LOOOVE to have 4 to 5 kids ? (we’ll see if I can get my husband on board LOL). But seriously, a big family is my life-long dream, and we all know that kids cost money!!

Having such a strong drive to grow my family is one of the reasons why I have such a strong drive to grow my business as well — I guess it all kind of ties together! With some extra time to think about my goals this summer, I decided to really delve into developing my business and I committed to taking a few online courses to help make me a more well-rounded business owner and bring more value to all our Cascade Certified Teachers and customers!! 

If there’s one thing I always try to do during the summer months, it’s HUSTLE. I don’t have a full-time teaching schedule so it gives me time to really dive deep into my business and think of different ways I can make my lessons better, our products better, and work on my training program.

Now, another thing about me is I tend to go all out when I decide to do something. Hence why there is a long list of courses I signed up for below. 

Business Development and Piano Teacher Courses I’m Taking Right Now 

Some I’ve already completed and some are still on my to-do list!

• Nicole Riccardo’s Social Media
• Nicole Riccardo’s Create Your Career
• Carly’s “Teach Music Online” Program
• Sara Campbell’s Social Media
• Laura Rike’s Pintastic Rockstar
• Jaime Slutsky’s All-Access Pass
• How to Promote Your Music (and Biz!) Without Being Sales-y
• Christen Schneider Coffee Break Marketing Course
• Piano Marvel Certification Course

In taking Jaime Slutsky’s “All Access Pass” course, I’ve learned all about expanding online. This course included 16 sessions, which I’m still in the midst of completing. I also completed an additional masterclass from Nicole Riccardo which included her Social Media Sales Academy. This has to be one of my favorites so far, so I ended up taking even more of her courses, including “Create Your Career.”

What does this have to do with interviewing piano teachers?
I’m glad you asked. ?

In both of Nicole’s courses, she placed a lot of emphasis on using the “message mining workbook” to figure out the true pain points of your clients and audience. Basically, the goal is to interview your target audience to truly talk to them and figure out how you can best help them. So, that’s why I decided to start interviewing other piano teachers from all over! It started out as a business development exercise and now, it’s transformed into so many new friendships, further networking, and more enrollments into my teacher training program!!! ?

In these interviews, I asked different teachers what some of their life goals were, their dream goals, and what frustrations they’ve faced as teachers.  

***Fill out this survey if you’d like to better understand some of the interview questions I asked, and you’ll get a $7 credit towards any downloadable product in my shop!***

My goal with these interviews was not at all to talk about my course. It was to better understand my audience so I could better serve them. The fact that it led to some sales is just a win-win!

Some of the Most Memorable Interviews

Through interviewing, I learned that talking face-to-face is by far one of my strong points – I’d even go as far as to say it’s my new superpower!! 

But that’s not all that these interviews taught me… 

• I learned the importance of connecting in person. 
• I made some valuable connections with other piano teachers from all over the world. 
• I spoke with long-time clients who have been following my journey for years.
• And I even gained some new clients in the process!!! 

One teacher whom I talked to for over an hour was a beautiful momma named Pepper. She ended up buying our Pop Song Course and later sent me videos of her students using NoteMatch, which just made me so happy to see the product in action so quickly! Now she’s even chosen to upgrade from the Pop Song Course to the full Cascade Method Course since herself and her students are having so much fun with these new teaching methods!! It was so exciting to get a firsthand view of students and teachers benefitting from my course!! Literally, this experience wouldn’t have been possible without the interviews!!! Crazy!

Getting to know other piano teachers and hearing how the training course has helped their students was the greatest gift of all. It felt like I was getting to see my years of hard work manifest right in front of me.

It all started with the lovely, Laura Duni! Laura and I have been connected for a while over on the gram, but never actually talked to “face to face.” It was so fun getting the chance to “meet up” and really get to know each other! Since she’s a mom of three, we were able to really relate to one another. Laura teaches other piano students in addition to her own kids! She was the first teacher I interviewed and being able to have that immediate connection really put me at ease going into the following interviews. 

It was really exciting to interview Caleb, a choir and band director from Mississippi, who actually bought our piano theory book four years ago! He still uses my books to this day, and it was so cool to finally meet each other after all of these years. There were some other teachers who I spoke to that had been following me for years and I had no idea!! 

REMEMBER: You never know who is watching. Social media is such a powerful tool. (We teach you how to utilize social media for your piano teaching career in the training course as well!) 

I also met Kristina, a 24-year-old piano teacher from North Carolina. Kristina doesn’t teach full-time (yet), but that’s her ultimate goal! She actually heard about my course through another teacher who is currently in the program, Susan Pope. Susan continuously raves about my program to other teachers and I am so, SO grateful for that! Kristina has spread the word about my program to some of her coworkers who are also piano teachers and even asked if I would be interested in doing a workshop/ masterclass in October for all of the 500 teachers at this company… that is HUGE! 

And guess what? We’re going to go through with it!!! This company has three galleries around North and South Carolina. We are hosting an in-person workshop and encouraging 40 teachers out of the 500 to attend. There’s always some sort of incentive right… ? One teacher out of the 40 who attend will win my ENTIRE training program for FREE!!!! What’s the most exciting part, the 500+ teachers throughout the entire company will be streaming with us LIVE! 

Now, I may have 500+ piano teachers learning about my program and it all came from NETWORKING. This is such an honor and I’m beyond excited and humbled by these women that are positioning my program in this way.

With all that said… Exciting New Incentives Are Coming to the Cascade Method Course!

What all of this is leading me to is a little announcement! Now that I’ve seen how big of a success it was to talk with other piano teachers one-on-one, I’ve decided to create a new incentive for interested teachers wanting to lear more about the Cascade Method course. Now, I personally will be utilizing Zoom calls to talk with piano teachers who are interested in the course, and I’ll also be adding quarterly office hours to those who are already signed up to help teachers even more on their certified journey! 

Fill Out This Discovery Call Intake here! 

BUT WAIT, THERE’S ALWAYS MORE!

We are also rolling out the Cascade Method Affiliate Program, for teachers who take the course and want to recommend it to others! You can also join the Cascade Method affiliate program!

I’ve always known that my piano students teach me just about as much as I teach them, but I had no idea how much I could learn from talking with other piano teachers in general. I’m going into this next school year with an increased understanding of my own skills as a piano teacher and business owner, as well as brand new knowledge that I’m excited to apply to my teaching methods and the Cascade Method Course. 

Here’s to growth!! I can’t wait to share more with you in the following months on where Cascade Method is headed. The best way to stay up to date is by joining our email list! We send out a monthly newsletter, freebies every other Friday, and a BIG SALE BLAST! We don’t believe in overwhelming you with hundreds of emails. ? So, that’s seriously all you’ll get unless you want to email one-on-one (which I love to do, too!) 

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