Transcript: Snapshot 034 – Jess Homewood
Transcript for Snapshot 034 – Jess Homewood
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.
Welcome back. We are doing a special series on the podcast this summer called Studio Snapshots. Rather than the in-depth process oriented interviews, you’re used to hearing these rapid fire interviews, give us a glimpse into a guest’s studio at a moment in time. They’re part reflection, part anticipation of the future, and fully a celebration of where these teachers are today.
Today I’m talking to Jess Homewood. Here’s Jess’s Snapshot. [00:01:00] Hi Jess. Welcome to the podcast. Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your studio?
Jess Homewood: Yes, I’m so excited. My name is Jess Homewood and I am a both private lesson teacher and group piano teacher currently in Youngstown, Ohio for six more weeks, and then I am picking up and moving across the country to Arizona where I will be building my studio from scratch. Yet again.
Andrea: Yet again?
Jess Homewood: Couple times, yes.
Andrea: And people might know you from Instagram, your handle layer is @notyourmotherspianostudio.
Jess Homewood: Yes. Yes. And I know it’s such a mouthful. It actually takes me like several times to say it before I get on an interview like this ’cause I’m like tripping on all of the words. So I don’t wanna change it because it fits my personality so well.
Andrea: It’s memorable. I like it. Well, thanks for being here today. Today’s interview is a kind of a rapid fire, like where is your studio at this moment in time? So we’ll just jump right in.
Jess Homewood: Perfect.
Andrea: What are you celebrating from the last school year?
Jess Homewood: Honestly, I think my answer is gonna be different than most [00:02:00] just because I have had to scale down my studio in my preparations to move. And so my biggest thing that I’m celebrating is that most of my students now, I had a full studio of 60 students about a year ago. Most of those students have now successfully transitioned to another piano teacher.
And I think one of our biggest fears if we do have to kind of close down the studio is that our students will just not continue lessons without us. And so this has been one of the big things that I’m celebrating is like, oh my gosh, they’re gonna be okay. Life is gonna go on without me. And that’s a big one for me right now.
Andrea: How were you challenged last year?
Jess Homewood: Honestly for the same thing. I think I mentally, like I knew, saying goodbye was gonna be hard. And honestly, the amount of students that I’m teaching right now, I could count on one hand. Like it’s very, very small because those are the students that wanted to stick with me virtually.
And while I’m teaching them, I honestly have these like flashback moments of my students that I have taught for the past five years, and it like makes me teary in lessons and I am [00:03:00] really realizing how attached to the lives of my students. So it’s like a good thing because I care deeply, but I’m realizing it’s gonna be hard.
It’s gonna be hard to leave and walk away from everything that we’ve built here as a studio and just the community and the culture that was created. It was something really special.
Andrea: Having done that a couple of times myself, that is hard. Which is also like what makes it such a meaningful job that we do, you know?
Jess Homewood: Yes. It, it means that we’re in the right profession, but also it’s like, ugh, like it, it sucks that we care this much because our hearts just get broken each time we have to do it.
Andrea: Did you take any risks or go outside your comfort zone in the last year?
Jess Homewood: You know, this is a good question and I really thought about this one.
Nothing really came to mind honestly at first, and I’m still trying to grapple with like, there are lots of things that I have done in the online side of my business, but studio side, I think just offloading was the [00:04:00] biggest risk and telling students like not proactively advertising that I was gonna be doing virtual.
Because if I was, to be really honest with myself, I actually don’t like teaching virtual. For me personally. Other people can make it work, but I have a really hard time with that relationships with screen compared to in-person lessons. And so just being like, okay, like I could take my whole studio and go virtual and I’d have that same level of income that I have here just now in a different state without having to market very hard. But knowing myself and being really honest with myself in my studio, just being like, look like I actually want you to have in-person lessons because I’m a better teacher in person and I want you to have the best teacher you can be.
And so now just having to start from scratch is probably the biggest risk that I’ve taken this past year.
Andrea: What have you learned so far from this point, from that experience?
Jess Homewood: I think it’s okay to be honest. Like I think sometimes we try really hard to be exactly what our students need all of the time.
It’s [00:05:00] harder to be self-reflective. And recognize that we’re not good at everything we do. And you know, there’s several things that I know from the past five years that I’m realizing like, I’m not the best teacher at improvising. I’m not the best teacher on rhythm. Like I could really dial that in. And sometimes it feels crappy to be really honest with yourself.
But if you can see that as an opportunity to be like, well, now I can have this chance to be better at that thing. So with the five students that I am taking virtually, although I know I’m not the best and it’s not my favorite platform, but they are insistent on being virtually with me. Like now I can use the opportunity to, okay, how can I love this more so that this is a positive and powerful experience for both me as the teacher and for the student on the other side of the screen.
Andrea: Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. What do summers look like in your studio for your students and also for you, maybe this summer’s a different one.
Jess Homewood: This summer [00:06:00] is so different. Usually I a hundred percent teach through the summer. I do not take a break and to be a hundred percent transparent, that’s because we have needed the income every single year. For me, I can’t just walk away. I think it’s hard to. Get some families to continue through the summer. And so I have tried a lot of different things to try to encourage that retention with summer camps and just securing your enrollment for fall. And this is the first summer where I’m actually like, no, like you need to take a break because I’m leaving.
And so for those students that are sticking with me, I am giving them a month off, which I think will be a good break and a good reset for everybody. I think it’ll be a nice change of pace. But it’s something I’m definitely not used to. Like not being busy and just crammed to the max is something I’m trying to sit with and be okay with and not try to fill it with more stuff.
Andrea: Because moving isn’t a busy thing at all.
Jess Homewood: Well, not at all. No, I’m just twiddling my thumbs right now, actually, so, yeah, exactly.
Andrea: What are you doing [00:07:00] this summer to prep for the next school year?
Jess Homewood: You know, I do not have a clear answer to this, but I think teachers might like that because I’m not sure what this next season’s gonna bring.
I want to continue teaching. It’s a passion of mine. I love it. But I also am trying to balance that now with almost two school age kids. And so their extracurriculars are taking more time. They’re more frequent. I’m having to just be in other places that I haven’t had to be before, and so I’m trying to play with the idea of, okay, does that mean I limit. Really limit my afterschool teaching hours, or should I just kind of pivot to be teaching just adults and homeschooled students during the day? Or do I try to like build a contract with a school so I’m teaching group lessons during school hours. I’m trying to be okay with not having a decision made right now, but the marketer in me is like, let’s put our messaging out there. Let’s figure out what our next step is. Let’s hit the ground running. And I’m [00:08:00] trying to be okay with not having a plan and that is really, really hard for me right now.
Andrea: Yeah, those transition phases and especially when you don’t quite know what life is gonna look like on the other side of a move and with kids and finding schools and what’s the new activity schedule?
Jess Homewood: Yes, exactly. And you would think that it’s pretty consistent across the country, which it is. But like the summer term or summer break for Arizona ends in July, whereas it ends in August in Ohio. So just the difference of like when school starts and ends, we’re trying to like figure out what that looks like.
And I’m trying not to tell my kids that they only get a month for summer, so they don’t legit, but they’re young enough that I don’t think they understand that yet.
Andrea: Yeah. What app or tool has made the biggest impact in your studio or life management this year?
Jess Homewood: Anything that helps me streamline and automate. Especially because now we are juggling with packing and selling the house and finding schools, enrolling in those schools. I needed something that could [00:09:00] work on the studio while I was not actively working on the studio. So I know that there’s so many studio management softwares out there that are really, really good.
The only one that I really dipped my toes in is My Music Staff. Honestly, I chose it because it was the best bang for my buck. But it has been helpful to like craft emails that I know I need to send in advance and just schedule them out and have my invoicing already be going out for me the first of the month so that I’m getting paid by the seventh of the month and just all the things that we need for our studios to operate.
I have tried my best to automate and streamline everything so that I can focus on these things that need to be taken care of right now at this stage in our family’s life.
Andrea: What’s one area of your business where you tend to get carried away or go overboard just because it’s something that you might like to nerd out about?
Jess Homewood: Ooh. Okay. I have two things on this. Specifically teaching wise. This is gonna sound so boring. It’s so lame, but it’s [00:10:00] actually, I have really loved teaching chord progressions. Which is so weird, and I’ll tell you why. It’s because like I, this is the first time I’ve had my students for five years, and so we’ve moved around so much that my students haven’t really gotten past the early intermediate. Well now I have students that are there, and so I’m teaching these concepts that I haven’t been able to teach for such a long time. And I found that I was really bad at teaching chord progressions, and I was like, I’m making this so much more complicated. Like how did I learn this as a kid?
Then one day I was teaching a student, it was in the lesson, and I feel like this is when my best ideas come to me, is I grabbed like three colored markers, threw them on the piano for like a root chord, and then we just like moved the markers around on the piano to create the first and second inversions.
And then we just took the markers off and implemented it with her fingers and it clicked for this kid. And he was young. Okay. And I just got so excited that I [00:11:00] started teaching everybody this thing and I was teaching my adults with the markers and my teenagers and my really, really little ones that aren’t even at that point.
So that’s what I’ve nerded out on recently. But you know, a second part that I feel like I have to dial back that I am trying, but I really like the personal connections that I make with my studio families. And so after the lesson is done, like I wanna walk out and I wanna talk, and because I have the bandwidth to talk more being that I’m not scheduled back to back to back right now. Sometimes I’m talking at their door window for like 20 minutes and my husband’s like, are you coming in? Like, are, are you done? And but it’s one of those things that I really like about myself too, is that I have these relationships that are possible through the business that I’ve created.
And I think that they’re very valuable because it’s made it a lot easier for me to make big studio changes for when I moved to a flat rate or when I eliminated makeup lessons [00:12:00] or when I made the entire switch to group lessons. Like those changes were possible and a lot easier because I had healthy and strong studio relationships.
If I didn’t have those, I would’ve had to have a lot more difficulty having conversations with parents and feeling like I’m pulling teeth to just make even the smallest rate change. But it really has been pretty easy for me on my end because of those relationships.
Andrea: Hmm. That’s a good one. Thank you.
And where can listeners get in touch with you?
Jess Homewood: So right now, because I have two legs of my business, the online side is probably the best side to get in touch with me on. So we mentioned my handle earlier, notyourmotherspianostudio. I’m on Instagram under that handle. I’m also on YouTube under that handle.
I also have my website, notyourmotherspianostudio.com. And right now we are entering a next season of launching my digital group coaching program, The Group Conversion Collective. So any questions related [00:13:00] to simplifying group lessons or just making the transition in general? That’s gonna be a hot topic in my inbox right now for sure.
Andrea: Alright, Jess, thank you so much for being here.
Jess Homewood: Thank you. I really appreciate the time and it was good to see you again.
Andrea: Thank you for taking the time to be with us, Jess. We’ll include a transcript and all the links mentioned in this episode. At musicstudiostartup.com/snapshot034. The Music Studio Startup website is also filled with lots of other resources for music teachers just like you who wanna set up their studios for success this summer, including our very popular self-paced Business Building 101 course, and our hub and mastermind for studio owners who wanna be supported and challenged to grow as entrepreneurs.
If you are ready to dive in the live summer cohort of Business Building 101 is underway. Teachers are actively working on setting up and revamping their studios and it’s not too late. To join in, visit musicstudiostartup.com/businessbuilding101 to enroll. That’s all for today. Thanks for listening.[00:14:00]
I’ll be back next week.