The Tech Of Business Podcast

Consider this podcast a ringing endorsement for Thinkific. It’s 2022 and the platform has grown in functionality and versatility since the last time we discussed Thinkific at length here. Thinkific is the only tool that I recommend for online course delivery. Thinkific is essentially a website that you can use to deliver an online course. There's so much more to it though and now the team over there has made it easier than ever to deliver your online course. This episode is not discussing your course content but rather the mechanism for actually delivering that course content to your students. The course builder. The course builder allows you to build your courses with a variety of different types of lessons: Video lessons Audio lessons Downloads Text Images Quizzes Surveys Multimedia lessons (where you're embedding something from another website.) For the most part video lessons, downloads, text-based lessons and maybe an audio lesson or two are going to help you build out your course content. Insi

What does it mean to scale beyond sessions? It means that you’re doing something in your business that allows you to accomplish the goal of not only making money when you're working one on one privately with your students! I’m throwing the links that I mention in the podcast right here… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/ Book a Call: https://callwithjaime.com Online Music Course Accelerator: https://onlinemusiccourseaccelerator.com Join the Expand Online Email List: https://expandonlinenow.com Here are the three steps that you need in order to scale beyond sessions… Step 1 is to decide! Making the decision to scale beyond sessions is the way that you're going to open the door and figure out how you are going to scale beyond sessions. There is so much power in saying yes! Saying yes to this idea and giving yourself permission to explore what it would look like for yourself in your life and in your business. What is keeping you from scaling beyond sessions? What is holding you back fro

A lot of questions have been coming up recently around video and broadcasting and recording and teaching! While I don’t have all the answers, and there truly is no one right answer, this episode should be used as a launching pad for determining your own video needs! Let’s start with the first tool that comes to mind with online video… Zoom. Zoom is easy. People understand it nowadays, they know that it is there that they just click on a link and that they are able to access a live video conferencing environment. That's what Zoom is; Zoom allows for people to meet and do whatever it is that they want to do. Zoom is not the best at audio quality, but it is far better than not being able to connect and see each other. In addition to that,  Zoom has a recording feature, which makes it really nice to be able to record live meetings and live interactions. In fact, you can also jump into your own zoom meeting and record it and use that video inside your courses. You can record your entire course on zoom and ther

It’s time to talk seriously about what it looks like to UPLEVEL and feel motivated to move beyond what you’ve always done and INTO what you want to be doing! Mindset Our mindset is the way we look at things. We look at our business through a certain lens that defines it's going to bring in this amount of money, it's going to take this amount of work, it's going to bring us this amount of joy, it's going to cost this much energy, it's going to do this or it's going to do this. And by putting all these things together, we create a vision for what our business does. Now, when we want to uplevel we have to push that vision… we have to say “Okay, instead of my business making $100 an hour, my business is going to make $150 an hour!” And then we have to explore how that feels and begin to own it. We want to be able to push all of these little triggers inside our mindset so that we can develop a new vision for our business; one that allows for growth. We push and we prod and we allow oursel

215: Why learning from a course works well for teachers Do you like taking online courses? It’s truly amazing to see and hear the feedback and motivation from music teachers who complete online courses. These courses help with new concepts within their lessons and offerings, navigating online business, becoming a better boss or studio owner and so much more. If you’re looking to expand online, let’s connect – Instagram, Facebook, Email or a Zoom call – they all work… and think about taking a few high quality online courses! Being someone else’s student! Quite simply the biggest benefit to this is that you know what you want to learn and there are teachers who are creating amazing courses focused on exactly that exact topic. So instead of signing up for a larger program that is bloated and might contain a lot of content that you don't actually need, taking a course that is very specific to what it is that you want to learn is going to make the whole process faster and easier and better for you. Flipping th

Let’s nurture your prospective students… These are the people that you've connected with on social media. You've invited them to your email list, you've had conversations with them and they're not quite ready to sign up to learn with or from you. The goal of nurturing is to make sure that you have done the groundwork so that you arethe first teacher that comes to mind for them when they are ready! This goes way beyond sending studio updates via email, because let’s be honest, nobody outside of your studio families really cares about that! What we are looking for is to share value and to help the recipient get something out of your emails. Nurturing is done both in automation and in broadcast messages. Automations The most common automation is an onboarding program welcome sequence. Someone signed up to receive whatever free download you are sharing and you deliver it via email. Then you send another two or three or four emails afterwards and that is the beginning of the nurturing. That is wher

I talk a lot about the zone of genius and about it being a place where your passions and your skill set collide! In this episode we discuss balancing your passion with your skill set so that you can spend more time in your zone of genius being productive. Before we get there, I want to make sure that you know that you are in the right place. This podcast is for private music educators who are looking to expand online. You are looking to create group programming, membership sites, courses, collaborations, workshops, things that are delivered in the online space in a one to many capacity, meaning it's you as the teacher providing your knowledge and your teaching to a larger audience at one time. It can be asynchronous (meaning on their own time) or it can be live on camera in real time. Either way, this podcast is here to help you maximize your teaching potential through online means. Why do I do this? Because I love technology and I love everything that it allows my clients, music teachers just like you, t

In case you’re new here… I am taking a moment at the top of this episode to share a bit about me and what I’m all about! I am a technology strategist who works primarily with music teachers, who are expanding into one-to-many programming. What this means is that you are a teacher who has offered lessons and sessions for years and are ready to take all of the knowledge that you have, all of the practical experience that you have and all of the insight that you have gleaned and convert that into something that you can offer to more students at one time! This could be through courses or a membership site, it could be group programming, it could be workshops, it could be any number of online mechanisms. The key is that you want to do something different. You want to expand in new ways and flex your muscles. I also work with teachers who want to create resources for other teachers. So you don't have to necessarily expand online by doing more of what you've always done. You can take those practical approach

The internet is abuzz with programs and it is abuzz with opportunity. And because of this, it is abundantly clear that your tech does not dictate your success. It's really important for us to remember that the success of our online programs is not hinged entirely on technology. It is not the critical piece that is going to bring everything into focus and into profits. This is a re-release of Episode 171 (because as you hear, I’m a bit stuffy and I couldn’t record a full episode!) I want to see you have online programs that fill your heart that give opportunity to your students, whether they're young or old, new or experienced. I really just know that this online space is a perfect medium for your education products. The technology you use doesn't make a difference! That's not to say that the tech isn't important. What I mean to say is that whatever technology you're using, that is not what's going to be the tipping point for the success or failure of your program. The technology ha

When you are sitting on something good and valuable for other music teachers — what do you do? Turn it into a digital product of course. And that example what Joslin Romphf Dennis has done. If you recognize her name, that’s because she was a guest in episode 184! I’m this episode, we discuss the next level of Joslin’s online expansion and so much more. One theme that runs through this episode is that doneis better than perfect. It’s a hard pill to swallow because if you’re like Joslin then it’s probably not how you usually do stuff. Even with her new  digital download — Joslin’s didn’t think she would be ready until now or even next month  because she felt that there's so much work to do. So instead of doing busy work and waiting until everything was perfect, she took the advice of a trusted advisor to just launch it and then if stuff needs to be fixed then you fix it. So she launched. And it’s was good. It is still good! What Joslin has created is called the singer's oral skills drill book for teache

A few links for you… then we’ll get to the good stuff… Jaime’s Instagram @jaimeslutzky The Expand Online Community Book a free call with Jaime http://callwithjaime.com Eric’s Instagram @getfons Fons on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/getfons/ The Fons Family on Facebook Try Fons Okay, let's do it. Eric is the CEO and founder of Fons.com –  a business software for anybody who does appointments type business, or client type business. He’s a music teacher and a classical guitar player. Where did his inspiration come from to create this software? He attributes it to a lot of the pain points that he was experiencing in his own music studio. Fons is designed to run the business side of any kind of client or appointment-based business types, and was initially built for music teachers and music schools. The hardest part for many music teachers is the business (aka money) side because of all the awkward conversations… Fons takes care of all the stuff that involves asking for money, automating payments, automat

Have you met Dr. Katherine Emeneth online or in person? She is the founder of KE Creative, a digital company that focuses on the business education and empowerment of classical musicians. She and her team coach classical musicians on how they can create a full time living by staying in the craft through understanding finances, learning music entrepreneurship skills, and how to effectively build a network. Katherine teaches privately through her studio, the Georgia Flute Academy, and enjoys performing with various ensembles in the southeast. A few links for you: Book a Call with Jaime http://callwithjaime.com Connect with Jaime on Instagram https://www.Instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/ Connect with Jaime on Facebook https://m.me/jaimeslutzky/ Connect with Katherine on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/katherineemeneth/ Connect with Katherine on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/katherineemeneth Classical Musicaneer FB Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/classicalmusicianeer Katherine’s Website https://www.kathe

Micro-courses are generally courses that take the student between 30 minutes and 2 hours to complete. It’s not a lecture, but rather a series of short and actionable teachings that lead to a specific result. I am so passionate about micro courses is because you can get them done quickly, you can create them quickly and you can spend more time connecting with people who need this micro content! Be sure to head over to https://expandonlinenow.com/micro-course/ and take a look at the resource I have for you there. This episode was inspired by a Facebook live that I did inside the https://expandonlinecommunity.com on January 10th. In fact, the first part of the episode is some of the audio from that event. Again, a micro-course is designed to help the student achieve one specific objective. And the benefits are plenty: they don't take you that long to create there is an immediate ROI for the student They are easy to recommend to others (hello raving fans!) I’m guessing that your network on social media is f

Let’s get right to it… creating anything online is going to take time, but how much time do you want to dedicate to making your new online program a reality? What it looks like is whatever you want it to look like. There are no steadfast rules for how you create and what you create and how long it's going to take to create that new program. Somebody might sit down and create an entire course over a weekend while someone else who is equally talented and passionate might take six or eight months. While there are no rules, there are some guidelines that I do strongly recommend. #1 Create when you are in your Creative Zone Don't try to force your program creation into open time slots where you are not at your most creative self. It’s counter-productive. There are a lot of other things you can do in that time, like balancing the books, but you want to be creating when you're most likely to produce something that feels amazing. If you only have an hour of creative time every day, it may take you longer

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

Ready for another On Air Coaching Call? Great, today I have with me Ms. April, a voice, piano and theory teacher from Ontario Canada. I have a great affinity for Canadians because I am one! Although I’ve been living in the USA for my entire adult life! Anyway, let’s get right into the coaching call highlights. In March 2020 (doesn’t that sound like the start of every conversation lately???) April had to quickly shift from in person teaching to online teaching. And once she did, she realized that theory was something that just didn’t translate as well as the other parts of her lessons… which made her go down the course creation path. April’s initial goal was to have her existing students continue with their theory. That's it. Just some courses that her students could use to learn the theory outside of lessons. Using the theory books that she was already teaching, she received permission from the publisher to record herself teaching the material week by week. This is what she sent to her students. It was a

It’s time for another on air coaching call. My guest for this session is Niccole Modell and she is delving into online group programming! And you probably already know, I love online group programming. A bit about Niccole… Niccole is a full time musician, teacher and performer. She has a teaching studio, and offers mostly one on one lessons. She is looking to expand and go into the world of virtual group classes since her days are currently full with private lessons. (It’s important to add, too, that Niccole doesn’t really have the space or a location for in-person groups right now.) This shift from one-on-one to group feels a little intimidating, and she came on the call with the hope to get some ideas and a little confidence. At the time of this call, she was prepping for her first ever group class where students would be performing for each other in lieu of private lessons, with the hope that if it went well, she would be able to expand on that and maybe offer more of those in the future. To help Niccole b

This is the first of several on-air coaching calls that I am airing this month. Today's episode is circled around adding an email list to your studio, and Joellyn has graciously joined us to ask really pertinent questions. As you listen in to Joellyn’s questions, I want to invite you to think about how YOU are going to grow your studio and what the next online step is going to be. One thing I mention in my conversation with Joellyn is ConvertKit, which I really recommend that you check out. (That’s my affiliate link) And, as always, I love being in conversation with you. So any feedback that you have for me or for Joellyn, please share with me over on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky or feel free to send me a friend request at Jaime Slutzky on Facebook. Now, for this coaching session where we talk about some of the considerations going into adding an email list to your studio. Joellyn had posted in a Facebook group - about the whole idea of having an email list for her studio and after chiming in on the thread,

I am so excited to share Brocha’s story with you all. You’ll hear all about the trajectory of her music teaching and what she did before creating courses. If you’re a music teacher listening and looking for inspiration, this episode is for you! Brocha started her journey as a piano teacher, as she says, “just a regular piano teacher teaching piano....and mostly just teaching my students for exams.” At the time, she was completely content with what she was doing, gave her best to every single lesson. She also acknowledges that doing those things and having had a studio really helped her to transition to her online course. If you have a solid studio and you’re looking to fill in the gaps of your actual studio, creating a course is the next step. But you aren’t just limited to a course - you can make workshops, you can create a membership... they're also closely related. And this is exactly what Brocha did. After having her first child, she was reluctant to go back to work. So, she managed to build her in-pe

I am so excited to be in this space with you right now sharing episode 200! This podcast has been a roller coaster and an adventure for sure! Back in episode 100, I changed the name of this podcast and changed the direction of my entire business. And by doing so it opened up doors and opportunities that I am eternally thankful for. I love working with each and every one of my clients. I love interacting with all of the podcast listeners, my followers on social media, members of the Expand Online Community and my email list. It has been an absolute joy reaching in and becoming part of the online music educator landscape. As you know, I am not a music teacher, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to see this industry succeed online. I think that online is the perfect place to do so much more with music education. Download the Make Money Teaching Music Online guide. This episode is about mindset and online music education. My Mindset Sometimes I feel way out of my league and I have to reel myself back