Transcript: 167 – Mimi Zhang on Being a New Teacher in a New City
Transcript for 167 – Mimi Zhang on Being a New Teacher in a New City
Andrea: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s Andrea with Music Studio Startup, the podcast about the business of teaching music. Learn from the startup stories of music teachers who are doing incredible things with their studios. Be inspired by creative musicians who are branching out and thriving as entrepreneurs. Be empowered by the insights of experts who will help you grow your own studio.
Let’s get started.
A new cohort of our Business Building 101 course is starting this week. If you’re launching a studio, rebuilding after a move, or just wanna build a more intentional, financially sustainable business, this course is designed to help you do exactly that with clarity, structure, and support. And today’s guest is a perfect example of what can happen when you combine a fresh start with the right tools.
Mimi Zhang is the 2024 grand prize winner of our Studio Launch Grant [00:01:00] Competition. As part of her prize package, Mimi received a $1,000 startup grant, gift cards to Alamo Music and Alfred Publishing, and enrollment in the Music Studio Startup Business Building 101 course and more. All of which she put to great use as she launched her studio in a brand new city.
When Mimi won the grant competition, she had just finished grad school, moved across the country, and was starting from scratch. In less than a year, she grew her studio from just three in-person students to nearly 40, added group classes, implemented strong business systems, and started building the studio she really wanted.
In her conversation, Mimi shares the strategies that helped her grow quickly and sustainably, the mindset shifts that made a big difference early on, and how she’s continuing to evolve her studio now that the foundation is in place. Here’s my conversation with Mimi. Hi, Mimi. Welcome to the podcast. Can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Mimi Zhang: Hi, Andrea. Thank you for having me. My name is Mimi Zhang and I teach piano, primarily piano and some violin. [00:02:00] And my studio is called the St. Augustine Piano Academy, and I teach in St. Augustine, Florida.
Andrea: Awesome. Okay. And you were the 2024 Music Studio Startup Grand Prize winner. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about that today, but also just like what has happened in your studio in the last year.
So before we get into the questions, can you maybe just take us back to May 2024? What was your studio like at the time?
Mimi Zhang: So in May, 2024, I was finishing up my academic year teaching at Arkansas State University, but I was also still working on my dissertation from the University of Oklahoma.
So I wasn’t physically in school, but I was kind of remotely finishing up my dissertation while working. That year and later on that summer, my fiance received a wonderful position in Florida, so we decided to go [00:03:00] and I think we officially settled here in St. Augustine around early July. So my dissertation had finished just weeks prior to moving here, so everything was done by then and the academic school year had ended. So I had July to kind of figure out what I was gonna do.
Andrea: Yeah. So very in flux at that, like May of last year, just everything kind of finishing and starting all at the same time as things usually do.
Mimi Zhang: Yes, yes, for sure. Yeah. And in August when I received the grant, I had three students in-person students, and four online students which I had inherited from previous grad school locations.
So when we moved here, no one really knew me. I had some friends in Jacksonville, but not really any down here. It was definitely a fresh start. Which was really, really great and exciting, but also pretty daunting. But the [00:04:00] support and you know, the grit really gave me the push that I needed to continue building the studio and to have faith in what I was doing here.
Andrea: And you did a lot really early on that I’m looking forward to digging into so others can learn from that because I think you did some really smart things right when you moved to St. Augustine. So we’ll get into that. So part of the grant competition prize package is enrollment in the Business Building 101 course.
When you started that course, did you know anything about it? What were you hoping or expecting to get out of it?
Mimi Zhang: Actually, I had found out about the Business Building 101 course from my friend in Oklahoma. Her name is Jennifer Walschap. She had taken the course. And right before I moved, I was talking to Jennifer and I said, what am I supposed to do?
Like, how do you start this whole thing, you know, and do it correctly? And she just said, you know, there’s a really wonderful class Business Building 101, you should do it. And actually they’re having a grant competition, so you should do that too. So it all kind of started from that conversation from [00:05:00] Jennifer, which I’m very so grateful for connecting me to this, you know, to you and this wonderful community of people.
Well, what I was hoping to get out of it, which was your question, I was hoping that it would, you know, teach me how to start everything correctly, you know, start building a studio in the correct way. I was hoping, you know, you would hold my hand and tell me what to do and what not to do, and it, it’s kind of what has happened.
So. Yeah, it’s definitely fulfilled what I, my expectations and definitely even surpassed it quite a bit.
Andrea: Oh, I’m glad to hear that. In the end, what were your biggest takeaways from the course?
Mimi Zhang: There were so many, but I think the biggest one is asking myself, does this particular decision serve my goal? I remember you asking me that a lot during, you know, our coaching sessions and during Mastermind.
So really taught me to look inward and decide if whatever I was doing was serving [00:06:00] my larger goal, or just kind of like putting a bandaid on a situation. One other really great takeaway was I had to verbalize what my ideal studio would look like. You know, what is your ideal student? What is your ideal work life balance, et cetera.
I think I never really thought about those visions and values before. Before working with Business Building 101 and with Andrea. Even with previous careers, I was just, you know, doing whatever had to be done. And I think this experience had opened my eyes in the sense that, you know, it is in the end my decision, it’s my life, it’s my job.
And if I wanna work on these days, and I don’t wanna work on those days. That’s totally fine. ’cause it, you know, my decision in the end, and having that power to, to do that and to just make the decision was really, really empowering and wonderful and has really helped me prevent [00:07:00] burnout. Tremendously. But yeah, it, it really is kind of the complete how to start your studio package the Business Building 101. I, I really can’t think of anything that it misses in the whole process. It’s very big picture and it’s also very nitty gritty. Covers all of the what if questions and really great tools and examples to help you with those scary moments in your studio, which I feel like come at me.
Every single week there’s something . You know, that I, that I like need a solution on, but there’s something in the course that kind of addresses it. So, I mean, I really can go on and on, but it’s really wonderful. It has everything like, you know, marketing, website, building studio policy, taxes, legal processes. Just everything. It’s, it’s really been a great, great course.
Andrea: Well, thank you for that. Yeah. And I have seen you, we’ve gotten to work together a lot over the last year and just seen you really proactively manage your studio and like you said, the ways to avoid burnout. Like, I can tell I can’t keep up this schedule forever.
Making decisions to, for your policy for [00:08:00] next school year and things like that, and you’ve really like taken those hard things. Sometimes I see teachers like, Oh, someone might do that, but that’s not a thing that I would do. And then they experience the burnout or something and you just have to like, mm-hmm.
You actually have to do the hard thing sometimes to avoid the hard thing later on, on the line, the burnout there. So I’ve seen you like really proactively make some of those hard decisions, which can be scary when you’re also trying to build at the same time, because you feel like every student is so precious and it can be scary to say even though I could say yes, I’m going to say no for the long-term health and viability of my business. Well done with that.
Mimi Zhang: Thank you so much.
Andrea: What impact has doing the course had on your studio?
Mimi Zhang: I think overall it has made me a more confident teacher and business owner.
You know, not only with the business side of studio management, but also with interpersonal skills. My soft skills, like how to talk to parents. The wording of emails, how to [00:09:00] word, you know, difficult, touchy subjects. But yeah, it’s just a constant resource. Sometimes when I have a question and I, I know I can’t see Andrea until next week, I can go into the course and kind of look around to see if there’s anything, and usually I do find something tangible to do.
It’s really great. It’s helped me learn how to set a routine and automate some of the situations in my studio, like setting a, I am out of town email or a new student inquiry email template. New studio policy or rate increase email template, and also helping me stay organized, like starting a variety of Excel sheets. Where I have, you know, enrollment information or expenses, enrollment breakdown. And my favorite one is the enrollment projections where I get to test all of the what ifs on the really cool Excel sheet chart that you have. And you know, for example, I have a pie chart of my group students enrollment [00:10:00] and private student enrollment in my Excel sheet as well.
So all of those little things have helped me stay organized and on task to my ultimate goal.
Andrea: Excellent. Were there any challenges you had to face and overcome while going through the course?
Mimi Zhang: Oh yeah, absolutely. So there were definitely some personal challenges, but, and, you know, other challenges like financial. For example, last year I, I was doing calculations and I was still in the beginning stages of growing the studio and I was just cutting it all sorts of ways and I couldn’t figure out how to make more than, you know, 35, 40 K a year. So there’s like a financial hump that I really wanna get past and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. So, you know, during some of our meetings we talked about creative solutions to getting more students, not just more private students, but more group classes, which is really going to be the, you know, the cornerstone and getting [00:11:00] past this financial hump.
We talked about, you know, creative marketing solutions, posting on specific kinds of Facebook groups, NextDoor, targeting specific groups of people, you know, like homeschoolers, co-ops, private school students, Montessori students, and just coming up in general with like creative classes.
For example, this summer I’m teaching, I’m really excited about this. I’m teaching a sip and play class. Where it’s, it’s geared towards retirees and busy adults where we each week have a different bottle of wine and little snacks, and we learn how to play the piano together. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to that.
Andrea: Alright, so it sounds like just like looking outside the box of one-on-one lessons to other ways to reach those income goals that you have. Kinda the, the mindset shift there. Okay.
Mimi Zhang: Yeah. And I think one other thing that I am working, still working on overcoming is the people pleaser complex. You know, I think it’s difficult [00:12:00] sometimes when you’re starting, like you said, you know, every student seems so precious and you don’t want them to not enroll because you set this one thing or set up this particular boundary.
You know, the fear that people wouldn’t sign up or could afford the rate, you know? As I have slowly worked past that and setting, being okay with setting the rate and not budging on it, and setting different studio policy boundaries, I’ve noticed that parents and students take you more seriously when you do set those boundaries and don’t let yourself be a pushover, you know, it’s just I’ve seen that parents do take you a little more seriously when, when you have those boundaries set.
Andrea: Yeah, and I like, I’ll say, I dunno if this is encouraging or discouraging, but the group that you’ve been in has been new teachers, young teachers primarily, but I also have groups of teachers who’ve taught for 20 years or more, and these kinds of questions still come up.
So you get more experience with them, but they don’t go away. You just have different ways of dealing with them and yeah.
Mimi Zhang: Yeah. For sure. It always finds a [00:13:00] way to come back to you in a new way.
Andrea: And new ones. I mean, I was in a group this morning and there were three of us with collectively probably 60 plus years of piano teaching experience, and we were all like, huh? Yeah. That’s a new one.
So when you first got to St. Augustine, or maybe even before you left, you did something really smart that I’m always telling teachers to do, but not everyone actually does it, and you did it. Can you tell what you did when you first moved?
Mimi Zhang: Sure. Yeah. So I, I not, you know, not all of this worked out, but I think it did help.
I emailed I think every single music director at every church within like 30 minutes of where we were moving. And I also emailed for the emails that I could find most of the, you know, the choir directors in town, band teachers, just school teachers that I could find in the community. And one of those emails led [00:14:00] me to a teacher, a music teacher at a private school here. And I think she’s responsible for at least 20% of the enrollment in my studio. So I just kept on emailing and, you know, she’s really responsible for, for a, such a huge chunk of my studio’s enrollment. So I’m very, very lucky and thankful that I found her email.
Andrea: Yeah, and I mean, you said that not everything worked out and I, I think with that sort of thing, like one out of 30 is a, or however many you emailed, like that is great and that’s all you want. It takes the 30 emails to get the one. So can you tell us what you wrote in that email? Like what was your, what was your ask or offer?
Mimi Zhang: Absolutely. So for the music director emails, I, you know, introduced myself. I told the music director that I would be moving to this town on this date and why I was moving my, my fiance got a, a job offer here. I told them what I [00:15:00] did and all prior to this, I made sure that my website was done and it was in my signature. So that if they really wanted to find out more about me, they could go just click on the website.
So, and I would, you know, offer, you know, if you ever needed a substitute for mass for service, please feel free to reach out. And that’s usually what I would write for those emails. I didn’t even write I am a piano teacher because I, I thought that it might have been obvious by my signature and my email.
So I did that for the music director emails, and then for the music teacher at like, private school, public school, those emails. I introduced myself the same way, and then I said, if you ever wanna collaborate on like a Christmas concert or you know, choir concert, I’m happy to offer my services as a collaborative pianist, and then some of those emails I would write at the end, like, you know, and if you have any inquiries for piano lessons, please feel free to, you know, send them my way.
I also emailed a bunch of wedding [00:16:00] planners as well. Because I was, at that time, I wanted to make sure that I had also collaborative work. So I emailed a bunch of wedding venues and planners to offer my services. I also emailed the local M-T-N-A-F-M-T-A coordinator chair. Told ’em about myself in the same way, and one of those emails kind of circled around into this. She’s a close friend now. But yeah, the, the lady that’s really helped me build my studio because she’s the teacher at a private school and just told everybody about lessons. It’s great.
Andrea: Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. And doing that, that step, I think can seem so insignificant. Or because you do see so many of the emails do get no response.
And so it can look like, oh, this was a failure, but it’s not the 30 that you need. It is just the, the selective ones. And you never know, like even with school music teachers, like. Who’s the other new person in a school music teacher [00:17:00] position who’s new this year and also has no network, and you can be the first person they meet and you, you know, and they’re looking, they’re, they’re building their network as well, so, yeah. Just don’t underestimate that for anyone.
Mimi Zhang: Yeah, yeah. It was, yeah, it wasn’t like, you know, I had some templates and, you know, you wanna make each email just a little bit different so that you can address, you know exactly who you’re talking to. But yeah, I, I do feel like it was probably good that I started that about a month before I moved here. Because once I moved here, there were so many other things that you had to do. So I, I didn’t have too much time to be doing that, you know, after I moved. But it was good to kind of give me something to do while I, like nervously waited to move.
Andrea: And I would bet that emails still sitting in some people’s inboxes.
Like I was a church music director at a time and occasionally I would get these emails. When I needed a substitute organist and a pinch, I would go back to, you know, anyone who had emailed me that I never had reason to talk [00:18:00] to. Over the last three years or whatever. And that is when I would call them up, so I bet you’re not done seeing the fruits of that. And I should say too, you did not do that because I told you to. You had done that already on your own. So full credit to you.
Mimi Zhang: I think you had given me a few more ideas though, like of additional people to email. So yeah, it, it was, it was a group effort.
Andrea: Maybe so, maybe so. But you, you followed through with all of it, so thank you. Since that time, how has your studio evolved since the course and just over the last 12 months of being a studio owner?
Mimi Zhang: Yeah. I think it’s, yeah, just about to be 12 months. Absolutely. So, like I said, when I started teaching here in basically August of 2024, I had three in-person students and no group classes. And we just finished up with our spring recital and I’m up to base almost 40 students and four group classes. Hopefully five group classes soon. And you know, with that, my income from [00:19:00] August to now has increased 1500%.
Andrea: That, that’s better than Silicon Valley numbers.
Mimi Zhang: I started very low, but it’s changed everything. You know, at, at that time when I started, I, I wasn’t sure if I had the faith in myself to make this a job that I could like live off of. But, you know, like just talking to you, you just, you know, Andrea just acted like it was possible the whole time.
Like it wasn’t even like a question. So that was really, really transformative.
Andrea: I don’t have doubt for most teachers because I’ve just seen it possible so many times, so yeah. That’s great. So that beginning stage can be hard though. I often describe as you almost have to just withhold judgment on yourself. Like, I’m not gonna question whether or not this is possible. I am going to borrow the faith of someone else. Who believes it is maybe, or just like quick questioning it myself and go forward and do the things I need [00:20:00] to do to make it happen ’cause the questioning works against you.
Mimi Zhang: Yeah. I, I totally agree. Maybe back then, I maybe would not have agreed. But now I totally like, I, I, I agree. Yes. And, you know, just some other things, you know, because of the course and all of our coachings and everything, and I’m still working on all of this, but I’m slowly trying to tighten up my makeup policy a little bit.
So last year I had a, you know, 24 hour notice equals one makeup, and that’s all I would offer. And most people did take advantage of that. And I think starting this fall, I’m changing it too 48 hours notice and equals one makeup. But I’m going to decide how it’s done. So it’s probably gonna be online or done in a format of, you know, submit a recording or some theory homework I sent to you.
So a little bit more flexibility for my time in, in terms of makeup. And hopefully we’re gonna move to a point [00:21:00] where there’s less and less 30 minute lessons unless you’re under nine years old.
Andrea: You’ve also been involved in the Mastermind. Now we’re just starting our second quarter. I often have a hard time describing what the Mastermind is, because it can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
So can you describe what the Mastermind has been for you in your first quarter?
Mimi Zhang: Absolutely. I think it’s more of like a, to me, it’s like a 12 week course that you and other people like your, your cohort help set the goals and the homework assignments too. Over the course of 12 weeks, we meet every week and we discuss what our goals for that week are, what we’re celebrating and what our tactics are.
So it’s really sped up the growth of my studio and the speed at which I get things done because, you know, I think sometimes I’ll think about, oh, I need to do this. And months will go by and I will finally get to it. But this has kind of helped keep me accountable ’cause [00:22:00] we do meet every week and I do have to get something done every week.
Andrea: Positive peer pressure.
Mimi Zhang: Yeah. So yeah, it, it’s definitely positive. But yeah, it, it’s definitely sped up the growth of enrollment, all the tactics, all the advertising, all of these little things that go into building, you know, your business. It sped everything up so much so. I’m very, I’m very thankful for it.
Andrea: Yeah. And, and you actually described some of the practical elements of it too. So for anyone listening, the, the Mastermind is a, a 12 week quarter, there’s intentional goal setting for the quarter with weekly plans made. And then each week there’s a check-in session for that, and then discussion opportunity with the rest of the people in the group.
A lot of teachers say they get out, is just like, I know I’m gonna get the thing done in one week instead of weeks disappear and we’re all prone to that. So it’s accountability there.
Mimi Zhang: Yeah. And the community that it offers is also really great because it’s not a time for you to get your goals and your strategies [00:23:00] done. It’s also a time for you to discuss them with other teachers. And I think that’s just priceless and so valuable to get the advice of, you know, other teachers as well.
Andrea: Yeah. I can spin on an idea in my head and feel like I’m working on it because I’m thinking about it a lot, but I’m not actually moving it along and when I have other people who know what I’m working on see inside my head and say, Hmm, it seems like you’re spinning then. I can get unstuck.
Mimi Zhang: For sure. That’s happened so many times.
Andrea: Yeah. Alright. There were several other parts included in the prize package. Do you wanna talk about how you made use of those?
Mimi Zhang: Yeah, absolutely. So obviously the Business Building 101 and Mastermind were a part of the, the prize package and that has definitely, I think it’s obvious that has impacted my business very positively. There were gift cards, you know, to Alfred and Alamo music and everything.
So that, that really has helped me in the beginning stages because I wanted to build a group [00:24:00] piano lab, but that’s so many pianos. Right. So, and has helped me, you know, purchase a few pianos the pedals for the pianos and the headphones for the pianos. Lots of books and benches. So it was very great. It basically really helped finish out the, the piano lab, which I have four pianos in the piano lab.
And that there was also tax prep included into the prize package. And Charles did my taxes this year. It was so great. I think he, he really helped strategically get me the, the best scenario for my taxes this year, and I will definitely be using him again next year. It saved me a lot of headache. It was awesome.
He did literally everything. It was great.
Andrea: And Charles was not a, an original sponsor because our arrangement wasn’t settled before we did the grant competition. So I was so grateful for him for offering that after the [00:25:00] competition had already run. So, and I’m glad you got to work with him. He’s awesome.
Mimi Zhang: He is. Thank you, Charles. It’s, it’s definitely saved me a lot of headache. I had finished a degree. There’s tuition, there’s fees, you know, all of that. It was just very overwhelming. But he, he took care of everything. It was great. There was also you know, the, the monetary prize, you know, that came with the prize package and that allowed me to provide some merit based scholarships through an audition for some students in my studio. So that was really, really wonderful to be able to provide.
Andrea: All right, so you had a great first year. What goals do you have for your studio in the coming year?
Mimi Zhang: Yeah, thank you so much. So I want to move to around 25% enrollment of the studio to be group classes. And the other 75 can be private lessons.
I would like to start a summer camp next year in 2026. And hopefully next year i’d also like to start some [00:26:00] regular studio classes and occasional workshops on technique, theory, musicology, you know, ensemble, music playing. Oh, those are just some of the things. For, for next year.
Andrea: Now how, I think it’s so helpful to have a very specific goal, like getting 25% of enrollment in group. How did you settle on that number?
Mimi Zhang: Yeah, so there was a kind of a income projections calculator for the Business Building 101 course, and I plugged in, you know, you can plug in how many private students for how long each week, how many group students for how long do you teach, and then it’ll pop out some kind of monthly and yearly income number.
And just mixing that with the demands of this community and how many emails I’m getting for private and group. It turned out that about 25% was a good, you know, meeting point where it satisfied what I wanted as an income goal, but also kind of matched the demands of the community already.
Andrea: Great. Having a really specific goal like that is I think a great first [00:27:00] step to accomplishing a goal. All right, Mimi, thank you so much for giving us this glimpse into your studio. Where can listeners connect with you and follow along with what you’re up to?
Mimi Zhang: Thank you so much, Andrea. Absolutely. So our website’s name is staugustinepianoacademy.com and our Instagram is @stAugustinePianoAcademy and our Facebook is the same @StAugustinePianoAcademy.
Andrea: Alright, Mimi, thank you so much.
Mimi Zhang: Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day.
Andrea: Mimi’s story shows what can happen when a teacher approaches their studio with intention and takes action early, even when things feel uncertain.
Mimi didn’t wait until everything was perfect. She didn’t wait until she had all the answers and she didn’t sit back hoping people would slowly find her studio. Instead, Mimi took a proactive role in building her business from day one. She reached out to local music educators, experimented with rates, refined her policies, and had the courage to initiate some uncomfortable but necessary conversations.
She made thoughtful [00:28:00] decisions, asked for help when she needed it. And kept moving forward. In less than a year, she turned a brand new teaching setup into a thriving values-driven studio with nearly 40 students, multiple group classes, and a strong business model to support it all. It’s always fun to see how our studio launch grant winners put their prize packages to work.
Our goal with this competition is to help launch sustainable studios and careers, so I especially loved how Mimi used her winnings to build out a group piano lab, an investment that will continue to serve her studio for years to come. Mimi also leaned heavily on the Business Building 101 course to guide her early decisions.
She joined our mastermind program and worked with Charles Harris, our resident CPA and Tax Pro, to set up her studio’s financial systems right from the start. It’s been such a joy to watch her studio grow over the last year. Congratulations, Mimi. You’ve done excellent work. If you are looking to start or strengthen your own studio this year, the Business Building 101 course that Mimi mentioned is enrolling a new cohort starting now.
It’s the same course that helped Mimi lay the [00:29:00] foundation for her business, and it’s designed to walk you through every step from setting up policies and pricing to planning for growth with confidence. You can learn more and sign up at musicstudiostartup.com/businessbuilding101. And as always, you’ll find links to everything mentioned in today’s episode musicstudiostartup.com/episode167.
That’s all for today. Thanks for listening. I’ll be back next week.