Transcript: Episode 064 – David Barnard

Transcript for Episode 064 – Lee Stockner on Firsthand Experiance with Lead Generation Platforms

Transcript

I get a lot of questions about online platforms like TakeLessons.com and Thumbtack, that connect teachers with students.

I haven’t used these platforms myself, but after Allie Tyler mentioned in our interview a couple of weeks ago how she used Thumbtack I wanted to investigate further.

When I met a teacher who had firsthand experience with several of these platforms, I jumped on the chance to pick his brain.

Here’s my conversation with Ryan:

Interview

[00:01:03]

Andrea: Hi Ryan. Welcome to the podcast today. Thank you for being here. Can you introduce yourself and tell us just about your life as a musician?

Ryan: Thank you for having me, Andrea. Yeah, so a little bit about myself. I am a musician born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. I graduated from STLCC with a Fine Arts degree and Music in 2013 and then I went on to finish my undergrad studies with a Bachelor’s in Music Composition with a minor in Jazz from the University of Missouri-St Louis. I studied classical piano with Alla Voskoboynikova. I also studied jazz performance with [00:01:40]. I did jazz pedagogy and performed in the [00:01:44] Jazz Ensemble with Jim Widner and I also mainly studied Music Composition with Barbara Harbach. I write a lot of my own music. I’m an original composer. I’ve also been a touring musician for the past couple of years with the Jackson Stokes Band and I was actually on tour with them all the way up until March 13, I believe, and we were in San Luis Obispo and that’s when the pandemic hit and California shut down all music and that’s what changed everything for this year. So now I’m focusing pretty much 100% on private teaching and at building up an online lessons business.

[00:02:20]

Andrea: Yeah. You’ve really done a lot and I think that’s so interesting that if you’ve got the composition side, the performing side, the jazz side, the classical side, you kind of encompass everything.

Ryan: Yeah. I love music. I can’t get enough of it. There are so many different areas. I find that if I’m in classical but I get too stuck in that way I jar things up a bit and I go into studying some classical. And then, I kind of like taking both and putting that into my original music as well. I’m very influenced by both those worlds but I mainly like to focus on originality and performing music in small ensembles. That’s mainly what I’ve done but my future goal is that I start working with larger orchestras and start working with more university orchestras and ensembles to continue moving forward with composition.

[00:03:09]

Andrea: Alright. And while the world is on hold with live performances and things like that or in-person performances anyway, you’re filling your time with teaching it sounds like, so when did you start building your studio? 

Ryan: Well I started private teaching a while ago back in 2012, actually late 2011 into 2012. The first time I started working as a music teacher, I was a student at STLCC. I was finishing an Associate Degree with a focus in Music and while I was there I met in one of my theory classes there was someone who worked at Zarkie’s Music in Oakville. Actually that was my first teaching job and they actually started me off with about like 10, 12 students right off the bat. It was really awesome but then a year went by and I think they started getting less and less business and actually they ended up going under. But by that time I had already been starting to branch out into some online platforms.

I went on TakeLessons.com and I made a profile on there and I just started putting it out there that I was doing private teaching. That wasn’t the only outlet. I wasn’t just relying on them. I was also making business cards and making flyers and I was going out to cafes and music venues and at school and I would advertise myself on bulletin boards and stuff like that, and also through one-on-one connections as well, word-of-mouth, which actually I found is probably the best way to give lessons is word-of-mouth. It really doesn’t get better than that.

[00:04:38]

Andrea: Yeah. Those were definitely the strongest connections. The students are already a little bit vetted, you know you’re vetted for the students too because they know your mutual contact and yeah, definitely word-of-mouth. Okay, so this is around 2013 when you started on take lessons?

Ryan: It was 2012 and I also go into school but then I started slowly getting more and more students so I was kind of supplementing my rent and my bills through my part-time job but anyways, that gave me time later in the afternoon to have my students so I actually did both in one day. And I started getting to the point where it was kind of slow at first getting students, really slow like four or five for the first half year or so of 2012. Towards the end of that year going into 2013, I really started picking up students and it was based off of getting reviews. I started getting more really positive reviews and I started noticing an uptick in calls and people signing up through TakeLessons. It worked out really great and over those next few years I ended up getting quite a few students. It was about half and half. Some with TakeLessons, some were the word-of-mouth. It wasn’t all through TakeLessons but they helped get me a way from that second part-time job that I was doing and I decided “You know what? I’m going to make this the full-time venture.” I was already a Music student at the time so I wanted to immerse myself into something that I want to be doing by the time I was in my 30s. I was a full-time student while I was doing teaching and I was also picking up students at the university, you know people in other departments.

Actually, being a student at the university gave me more credibility with people there like I think that connection, that personal connection, also being really great to work with. I think even more so than like a teacher who is like very technically proficient and can teach all the technical stuff. That’s only maybe 25% to 45% you know. I do believe that technique is extremely important but you need, like especially for kids, it needs to be like super fun like “Oh, my gosh. I got my lesson.”

[00:06:45]

Andrea: Yeah. That personal connection definitely matters in connecting with students and just building a studio in general. So can you talk about how TakeLessons works from the teacher’s perspective?

Ryan: So I’m no longer working with them. Some of their policies a couple of years ago we just didn’t see totally eye to eye with how they were taking a good chunk of the student revenue which at first I was totally cool with. But then they introduced this feature where it was like an “Ask a teacher a question” feature and that was the one feature where it started creating issues because the students wanted to keep reaching out to me and being like “I want your phone number. I want to talk to you on the phone. Are you right for my kid? Is my kid going to want to take lessons with you every week?” So they had this feature where they could ask those questions and it was good and it was regulated because if they didn’t want students going around the platform and once they found a teacher they don’t need the platform anymore.

So what they would do is they would screen the emails between teacher and student and they would remove any kind of contact, any kind of address, location, any kind of phone number, any kind of email. They would go in and remove it. So it will be like, “Hey, my name is so and so. Here is my number [blank]. Can you give me a call?” And then I would have to respond to them. I have to be like “I’m sorry but you have to contact through support. I can’t talk to you on the phone or anything,” and people would get worked up about that. For whatever reason, people get worked up over smaller things but they would be like, “I just want to talk to the teacher” and I actually noticed that less people booked. Some people did but most people wanted to meet up and be like “Hey, let’s talk. I want to tell you my musical goals.”

This is something I would do. I would do that with many people through word-of-mouth but through this platform, they created this situation and then they would give me calls and it would be like “Hey, I saw this one person was trying to give you their number and this is against our policy,” and I’m like “I’m not controlling what these people are saying.” I would always direct them back to support and so I just decided to hop off it but they were a decent platform and they’re very big. They have good results on Google Search.

[00:08:49]

Andrea: Yeah. That’s definitely true. So the way TakeLessons works and I haven’t used it personally so correct me if got any details wrong here, but a teacher registers and when students are looking for lessons they can reach out to different teachers and take lessons and manages that relationships. So TakeLessons I believe handles the scheduling like students schedule through TakeLessons and pay through them?

Ryan: Right. And you have an availability that you can give but honestly, what I would do is I would just let them know a schedule. They would see my availability that I would give TakeLessons and they would just pick a slot.

[00:09:24]

Andrea: Okay. And then TakeLessons receives all the payment from students and then distributes payment to you?

Ryan: Yes, exactly. And you would mark after the lessons were done you would mark what happened, if they attended, if they missed it. If they missed it, I did like that policy, you would still get paid and it will get marked.

Andrea: Okay.

Ryan: And then there’s also a Cancel option and Reschedule, pretty much a lot like any other music studio that you go to.

[00:09:46]

Andrea: Yeah. Did you have any flexibility with your cancellation policies like could you say they have to cancel within 48 hours or…?

Ryan: I was actually flexible. I would give them 24 hours.

Andrea: And the platform, it’s like you have that flexibility, that ownership over how you set that up?

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. After they paid, I could totally have the connection with the student. I’d have all the contact and it was great. It was before they paid that things were getting very like unnecessarily tensed. Here’s another thing I did not like is that you had to respond and I would get bombarded with the most ridiculous questions sometimes. If you do not respond within, I think, 12 to 24 hours, they would block your account from accessing. You cannot access your account until you responded to every single question. So sometimes I would just send a yes or no just like to get back into my account.

Anyways, they were good. There were good things and there were some things that needed improvement. I don’t really want to talk bad about TakeLessons because they gave me hundreds of students. I got a lot of students through them but now I have been focusing on some other platforms and I’ve actually been really liking going through now I’m going to Lessons.com.

[00:11:10]

Andrea: Okay. Yeah, tell us about that one.

Ryan: Yeah. So Lessons.com, so here’s the thing that I liked and they both have these great models that are extremely successful. I mean, they connect students to teachers and otherwise people who just are like looking up everything and they’re trying to find from different sources and they kind of put it all at one place. I like that. It’s like an aggregator service. What Lessons.com does is you, as a freelance teacher or tutor in whatever you’re giving lessons in. You pay them for a certain amount of quotes between $25 to $30 for a set amount of quotes. I love that because then you just pay them and they get what they need to offer their services and then that student can give me their number. They can give me their email. They can call me. They can set up lessons. I keep 100% of what they pay me and then I don’t have to talk to Lessons.com after that. I just pay them for the quote, to send the quotes and that’s it.

I love that model way more because now there’s no like tension from the company where it’s like “Is this teacher trying to take students?” They don’t even let you contact anybody until you purchase a certain amount of quotes. And since I get paid a good amount whenever a student signs up, it’s totally worth it to pay a small amount and even if I get one or two leads and I pay like $40 to $60 for that, you make that back pretty fast.

[00:12:38]

Andrea: So instead of where TakeLessons.com, their model is to be kind of the back end for your business and Lessons.com is set up to just be lead generation. They’re going to send you leads. You take it from there.

Ryan: Right. Yeah. Exactly and I’ve already gotten quite a few people who will also do the asking and question things through that as well but the way that they do it is they’ll type up their kind of goals and questions beforehand then they’ll reach out to potential teachers from there. They already have it all typed up instead of like reaching out directly to a teacher and asking them very specific questions.

[00:13:13]

Andrea: Okay. Yeah. Let’s talk about how you get connected to students on Lessons.com. So a student it sounds like creates like a brief of what they’re looking for in lessons and what their goals are. Is that accurate?

Ryan: Yeah. And you know what? I also got turned on to the Thumbtack platform which I’m new to. It’s like you really say too much about it but it is similar to Lessons.com and I really like both of their models because they’re actually similar to each other. I noticed on Thumbtack and on Lessons.com they’ll say what they want. 

They want singing lessons and then they’ll say why do they want singing. They say like, “Well I want to get back into it” or “My four-year-old is taking lessons for the first time” or “My 12-year-old is joining choir. She wants to get better with music.” Whatever the reason is they’ll just have that typed up. Then potential leads will be generated by the site based on the details that that student gives. That actually kind of takes away a lot of the work from the student a little bit because they do not have to go find specific teachers and ask them all questions. Instead, they just have what they need and the platform will bring them in. That’s what I noticed that Thumbtack and Lessons.com are kind of similar.

[00:14:23]

Andrea: Okay. So those two platforms send the student information to teachers and then it’s the teacher’s responsibility to reach out to the student?

Ryan: It’s actually a couple of different ways that they can do it. If the student is kind of totally unsure and like “I just need some choices. I’m going to type it in and I’m going to see what choices I get,” and there’s that option. Or if they want to go and search themselves, they can totally do that because you will show up in search results on both of those platforms. Thumbtack, I noticed you have to have a certain budget though, too, for more people, I mean, you have to pay these services. But, I think it’s well worth it because even as I said, two or three leads is huge for a teacher.

Andrea: Yeah, for sure.

Ryan: And if they just find me on there and they just want to contact me directly, there is also that option. So there’s not just one way of doing it and I like that.

[00:15:10]

Andrea: Alright. So similarly I use Upwork a lot to hire freelancers for graphic design or whatever random things and I could post a job and anyone can apply or I can reach out to specific freelancers through the platform that have the skillset I’m looking for. It sounds like it works similar. So on Lessons.com, how long have you been using that platform?

Ryan: Just this year. I’m brand new to Lessons.com and I’m liking it so I could see me staying on it for a little bit. But I don’t like to just rely on one business. I like to go out and connect with people and kind of find leads as well on my own whether be it by reaching out to parents, being in touch with schools, and also, that’s just kind of me bringing leads to my home business. Now, I also work at a music studio. I took a job at a private lessons studio in Boulder, Colorado so I’m actually outside of Boulder now and I work at a studio called The Lesson Studio in Boulder. So I’ve been working there and they’ve actually been getting me a lot of students. The advice I would give to private teachers is don’t just rely on one source. Sometimes you just have to find the lead yourself. Message people that you know or send out emails, prospective emails with like a good professional template and maybe some pictures and quotes. Even just one or two leads with a parent for some kids, well their kids go to school, one parent took lessons with me and they really liked how I was doing lessons so they told another parent. So they’d be like “Hey, well my kid is looking up for teachers. Do you know anybody?” And they’d be like “Oh well, my kid’s taking lessons with Ryan,” so I got a lead from there and then they talk and I think I got seven students in that one area without any advertising at all—word-of-mouth.

[00:16:55]

Andrea: And when you get into one of those packets like really valuable.

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. 

Andrea: Let’s talk about the finances of these other platforms that you’ve been using. So how much have you been spending on Lessons.com? How much have you spent in the last few months and what results have you seen from that?

Ryan: I think for quotes, I think I’ve spent between $50 and $60 in the past couple of months, so it’s like 30 bucks a month and I have currently gotten, I think, six students that are active right now. They’re still taking lessons with me which is actually pretty fast through a service to get students because I haven’t been with them long. And then also, a reminder, that once they contact me and everything, everything is through teacher-student. It’s not through Lessons.com at all anymore. They just found me and then that’s it, and then they send me checks in the mail or do online payments and it doesn’t go through Lessons.com.

Andrea: Yeah. That’s really a small investment for that return.

Ryan: Yeah. You know and if I can keep getting more students I might erase that because, obviously, if you’re putting more in you’re going to get more leads. It’s about how many students that you want. My goal for the next few months is to get at least 10 more students than what I already have so I’m still trying to grow as well.

[00:18:07]

Andrea: And how many quotes do you generally send out? What’s your conversion rate there?

Ryan: So what happens is students get on and they’re looking for a piano lesson and essentially I’ll show up in a search and Lessons.com will send me an email and be like “So and so was looking for piano lessons. Do you want to send them a quote?” And then I will and they don’t charge me at all and the only time that they charge–and actually I noticed that Thumbtack does this too–is only when the student responds to you or sends you back a message. If they don’t do that, even if they look at it and they don’t respond, I’m pretty sure they will refund you that quote so you can keep using your quotes until people respond. So that’s nice to not have to keep spending more than you need to.

[00:18:52]

Andrea: Yeah. Alright, so is it like if you send out five quotes is that enough to get a student or does it take 50 quotes or what’s the numbers breakdown there?

Ryan: If I sent out 20 quotes I’ll be happy to get one or two students out of that. I’ll be happy with that and especially since Lessons.com would refund me most of those quotes if none of those students respond. Generally, if they respond, they’re interested and almost always I get the student if they respond.

[00:19:20]

Andrea: Alright. It sounds like a really affordable way to get some qualified leads.

Ryan: Yeah, totally and I have found that those platforms are definitely better for private freelancers and private teachers, more so than something like Facebook and stuff like that. And I will reach out to personal connections to people I know through Facebook and be like “Hey, if you know anybody who’s interested in lessons or if your kids are interested in signing up this fall,” but I haven’t paid any ads and done anything through ads. I found that that has been good for advertising performances and events but I’m not as adept using it as a tool for private teaching.

[00:19:57]

Andrea: And what do you write in your proposals when you send those out?

Ryan: Well generally, I’ll have the price and, you know, I’m still kind of trying to perfect this. I’ll kind of change it a little bit to see what some people respond to more than others. I give them a general background. I can tell them the sum of how I teach. I also will throw in some bulk discounts as well. I throw in my discount pricing in there too.

[00:20:21]

Andrea: Okay. So it’s if they enroll for multiple months and pay upfront for multiple months at once?

Ryan: Right. I charge $55 an hour and then if they sign up for six lessons I drop it to $50 an hour and in the end it’s pretty much almost getting a free lesson by then. And then if you get six more then you actually every two months you get a free lesson, technically. It’s an incentive because then all the lessons are paid for and generally people are locked in a schedule and if they don’t show up they already paid for it and it works out fine. I’m generally very generous with makeup credits with my own students. If I’m working for another studio I really follow their protocol for the makeup credits.

[00:21:00]

Andrea: And then you mentioned that reviews are really important. How do you make sure to get reviews on those sites?

Ryan: So I’ve already gotten a few reviews on Thumbtack by pretty much just reaching out to close students I’ve had that I still have. I’ll reach out through email and text and be like, “Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, just writing a short review, you know I really appreciate your time.” Generally, that will get you a few off the bat and then you just got to keep reminding your students. You have to like make a note. After we’ve taken lessons for a month or two just be like, “Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, just write a small review and that will be great.” And it only takes a second. Really, if you send them this link they just click on it, hit 5 stars hopefully. Usually parents, especially, like to do this, especially if they’re happy with their lessons they’re happy to help you out.

[00:21:49]

Andrea: That’s awesome. Yeah. What do you notice about the audiences, like the type of parent or student who’s looking for lessons on a site like Lessons.com or Thumbtack? Is there anything that you noticed about characteristics of that audience?

Ryan: It’s pretty diverse. Thumbtack, I think you can set up targeting on there and you can actually put that in your budget to where if you’re looking for a certain age range, 18 to 35, you can put that in. You can even dial it in as much as you want. I’m just looking for 20 to 24 year olds who are just interested in piano and who know already how to read sheet music. You can go in that specific, I’m pretty sure, and then they will find those people because these persons are very finicky about who they teach. I could break it down into three groups.

The first group would be parents looking for lessons for their kids. Of course that’s a big one. Number two are teenagers to early 20-year-olds who could have been taking lessons for a little bit or have taken lessons and just want to get into to maybe work on their own music. I used to get a lot of students who were into songwriting and so not only will I teach piano, I’ll also teach how to go about writing music as well. So I get some of those ages like people who are really interested in maybe creating it themselves and looking at getting into it maybe professionally. And then I get the older students who are really looking just to keep it up as a hobby and maybe they even took it as a kid. I get a lot of older students who are just like “I just want to get back into singing” or back into playing because they just really want to keep that hobby up and keep that skill up or get back into that because they love it. They grew up and they love piano or their mom played piano or I want to see if we can maybe do this as a family having it more around my kids; pretty much those three groups and then everything in between. You’ve got students in between 20 and 30 who are looking to really develop a skill whether they’re going to school for it or performing looking to get into performing.

[00:23:55]

Andrea: Have you noticed that people who are looking for lessons on these platforms are pretty motivated to enroll like are they going to send out or post that they’re looking for lessons and they’re ready to enroll right away or are they kind of just casually looking and testing and seeing what’s out there? What is their motivation level?

Ryan: Well it’s pretty diverse as well. For instance, I had a mom sign up a couple of weeks ago for her son’s surprise birthday party. So I was the birthday present and she, as soon as I responded–and this was through Lessons.com–and I noticed if I’m prompt and if I get that email I get back to them, they will respond. If I’d wait like hours or even till next day, I either lose the opportunity or they just won’t respond. So I responded in the 10 to 20 minutes after she did the inquiry. She got back to me right away and she called me. She sent me a check that day. It only took like an hour. So she was ready to go and she liked it. It’s also about having like those really good reviews, quality pictures, the credibility behind it. She also had that fun connection and it was like “Oh, well this is the music I’m into.” Think of your resume with that. I mean, if you can retain a student, that’s even more valuable than getting a whole bunch of leads and then you only have a student for like a month or two and you failed to resonate with them and capture their full attention.

[00:25:21]

Andrea: Yeah. That’s a good point. Do you notice retention? Is it any different than like what the student who comes by word-of-mouth?

Ryan: Yeah. I have done a good job of retaining my students. Some of my students have been taking lessons with me for going on four years. Some students I’ve been teaching for two years and they’re around my age like in their late 20s and early 30s. So I do have older students who have been taking lessons with me for a long time.

[00:25:45]

Andrea: I guess you haven’t been on these platforms long enough to really test if the retention is different for students coming by those platforms.

Ryan: Exactly. And generally, people stick with me for at least most of the year and then whenever they discontinue with lessons or it comes time they’re like, “You know what? I got this other thing,” then generally, you know, it’s like, okay, well you got this other thing or it’s not in your budget, but then, sometimes they will come back and I have had students who discontinued and then I’ll reach back out like in the fall. If they quit spring I’ll reach back on the fall like “Hey, this semester is coming up, just seeing if you’re interested.” That’s also important doing follow-up and people entering into email lists. It’s like the same thing, just kind of a little reminder.

I just had a student who used to take lessons from me. He’s in his 50s and he took lessons from me for last year for most of the summer and into the winter and then he’s like “I’m doing all this travelling with my job. I just don’t have the time and I don’t think it’s fair to you because I’m so sporadic.” So I’m like “Okay. It’s totally up to you.” I do always say “Hey, I want you to continue, I mean, I’m your teacher and I really enjoyed our lessons.” So I always kind of fill that in there but I don’t like to be like “Oh man, you have to continue,” because I want them to do it on their own. That’s how you really retain is if people make the choices on their own instead of you like kind of manipulating them into doing it.

[00:27:17]

Andrea: Alright. Well this has been really interesting. Is there anything before we wrap up that, say I’m a teacher who wants to get started or try out one of these platforms, any parting words of advice for getting started on these platforms and making the most of them?

Ryan: Yeah. I would say, “Really have confidence in yourself and also think for yourself as well,” because people are finding out new routes all the time. Don’t have other people really tell you what to do but take in the advice. Do the research. And you’re going to fail multiple times but you can’t be afraid of that, but that’s good. My teacher in college who I look up to very highly as a musician and also as a friend, she gave me great advice I like to pass on and one thing that she said while we were working on some music by Nikolai Medtner, which I find very challenging, I’m not just playing it the way that I want to and she’s like, “You know, you have to sometimes play it the way it’s not supposed to be played in order to know how it’s supposed to be played.” You have to know how it feels like to not do it in order to know how to do it. And that’s a part of practice because if you’re practicing like something like Chopin, you have to literally just go for it. Go for it in your teaching business. And if you find out that you missed a note it is okay, we’re still practicing. You’re going to get to that point where you can do it.

You need to not be afraid of trying out things and I think the big thing is also having a pursuit of knowledge for yourself. You want to learn more not just about music but also about growing yourself as a business person, growing and learning more about marketing, even just tiny tidbits of information that you can apply to your model. Just know that it will grow if you stick at it, if you keep at it, like I didn’t get over 10 students until I’d almost been working at it for a year. Then, all of a sudden, it will exponentially grow and just make great impressions on your students. You should never have to strain but you do have to put in the research and the work of finding out what platforms work for you and that knowing your stuff whenever you get to that lesson. That’s my advice.

[00:29:31]

Andrea: For sure. Is there a book that has had a strong influence on you either as a musician or as a business owner?

Ryan: Yeah. I have not read many business books but I like to take different works of fiction and nonfiction. I’m a big nonfiction reader. I read tons of biographies. Generally, whenever I read biographies on like Jimi Hendrix all the way to Bach, I kind of learn what their creative side of it is. I would say as a teaching resource, Mark Levine’s Jazz Theory, hands down, one of the most influential books because it has all transcriptions in there. It goes through all of the major and minor stuff, all of the modes. It’s so easy and he attaches it to all of these great examples of actual transpositions from all these great recordings for people who are into classical and jazz, because I believe jazz is an extension of a classical mind.

And then in terms of fiction, I would say The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That’s a big one because there’s so many snippets of philosophical wisdom in there that Douglas Adams hides. Never leave your house without a towel.

[00:30:38]

Andrea: Great life lessons.

Ryan: Yeah and that as a touring musician, yes, because sometimes you’re going to be wearing the same socks for five days in a row. You just got to find the shower in whatever green room you’re in that day and be willing to adapt. You’re not stuck. And so anything, any kind of books that kind of help you think for yourself and for your from thinking that other people are making decisions for you, so Jazz Theory, Mark Levine; Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And then also for people who are into spiritual books as well, Ram Dass “Be Here Now” because I feel like whenever we lift ourselves up into a higher frequency consciousness, I think more answers are going to happen, more solutions are going to happen. So I think there’s the intellectual side, there’s the imagination side and then there’s the spiritual side. Those are books that I’m drawn to so I gave you three.

[00:31:32]

Andrea: Alright Ryan. Well thank you so much for being here today and sharing everything you’ve learned about your experiences so far in these platforms and giving teachers some new things to try. Thank you for being here.

Ryan: Thank you, Andrea. It’s great to be here.

[00:31:45] [End of interview]

Recap

It’s really helpful to hear Ryan’s firsthand comparison with all these platforms. Overall, it sounds like the money and time he’s invested in using them has paid off.

You may have noticed some commonalities in Ryan’s approach and what Allie Tyler mentioned about how she uses Thumbtack in episode 061.

Both Ryan and Allie talked about giving these platforms lots of attention while they established their reputation, being responsive to prospects, tweaking that initial message as they learned what customers responded to, and above all – collecting testimonials!

Sometimes we try to search for a magic bullet or shortcut, but it really comes down to just doing the work. Sending the 50 quotes. Following up. Staying the course and resisting the urge to jump ship even if we don’t get life-changing results in the first week.

Hopefully Ryan’s experience gives you some idea of whether or not one of these platforms makes sense to include in your studio marketing plans.

If you’ve tried these platforms, I’d also love to hear what has worked for you. Feel free to chime in on the posts for this episode on Facebook or Instagram.

As always, the show notes and transcript for this episode can be found at MusicStudioStartup.com.

That’s all for today. Thanks for listening. I’ll be back next week!