The PracticeSpot Guide to Promoting Your Teaching Studio: How to Make Your Phone Ring, Fill Your Schedule, and Build a Waiting List You Can't Jump Over

This book has a few useful ideas in it but definitely has its issues. First, the good. The book definitely opens your eyes to several advertising directions most people would never have thought of on their own. It does a good job stressing how important promoting/image/having the right attitude is. It is pretty enjoyable to read. It has a great section summarizing the benefits of music.Now, the bad. My biggest gripe with this book is not that it has lots of necessarily bad ideas, just lots of ideas that have very questionable effectiveness. The vast majority of ideas in the book require huge amounts of time and effort with what would almost assuredly be little to no return. Volunteering for local community work, signing up for local community colleges to hone speaking skills, volunteering weekly for after-school music workshops, buying 1000 ball-point pens with your studio name on it, etc. are not ideas that are destined for failure. In fact I commend the creativity. But if you need to work 100 hours per year to gain maybe one or two more students, this is clearly not EFFECTIVE promotion. And again this is the majority of the book. I noticed none of the reviews of this book actually spoke of how implementing the ideas actually turned into more students. I would suggest it's because trying even a few of the "ineffective" ideas in this book would burn a teacher out pretty quick!Also this book definitely needs to be updated. There are several sections dedicated to Yellow Pages and newspaper advertising but hardly a peep about online marketing, other than how to set up a website at the author's website (which is funny because the website now longer exists). I've done my research and contacted many teachers with prominent yellow pages ads (or ads in local newspapers, church bulletins, etc) and the vast majority of them say they get little to no business from these and are not planning on continuing this form of advertising.The impression I got from reading the whole book was that the author had a few good ideas that really could have been summarized into about 20 pages, but being the good businessman the author is, wanted to turn this into 200 pages in order to sell books. By the way I've found many lists online for free that have many of the same ideas as this book. The kicker is that this book costs almost 30 bucks! Regardless of whether it was a good book or not, this is one of the most expensive books on the subject, and although it's not bad I can say it's probably not the best.

As a private piano teacher, I couldn't imagine a more helpful book for promoting my small business! The author clearly explains why it is so vital to promote your teaching studio, and then provides hundreds and hundreds of great ideas that will help you to have a full studio and a full waiting list. His cheerful and enthusiastic style make this a quick and easy read. Mr. Johnstone tells you exactly how, where, and when to advertise, and offers suggestions as to other promotions. Far from expecting you to cold call or knock on doors, his creative ideas allow even shy teachers to help themsevles by helping others, so there is something in this book for every comfort level. My experience was that this book paid for itself in the first week I owned it! If you are a private music teacher (any instrument), you must own this book!

This book seems to cover just about every aspect of the teaching studio. It's a great reference to read before starting your business and encountering and solving dilemmas/problems throughout your teaching journey. He gives lots and lots of helpful answers and solutions to questions you may encounter along the way.

While reading this, I was thinking to myself that much of this I've seen here and there scattered around in books, magazine articles and other sources. But here it is all collected into a new set of pages with some new goodies tossed in. You may not learn anything new, but you will surely get some new ideas from the way everything is presented. A solid addition to your library.

This book is a must read for private studio teachers! It's clearly written and provides a first rate "roadmap" for building and maintaining a private studio. Even those with marketing savvy can benefit from the suggestions here. Highly recommended not only for new teachers, but those with experience. Philip Johnston's books are all exceptional resources!

I did not realize how old this book is - the layout looks like it's from the 90's and designed in Windows 3.1 [The Copyright says 2003]. Once the author started talking about answering machines and advertising in the yellow pages I was out.He does give a few time-tested advertising basics, but they are all obvious and nothing that a quick google can't tell you for free.The worst part of the book was the authors attitude towards students. The first chapter is him telling you that if you have enough students (he constantly gives 60 as a magical number) you can start kicking out students who do not have enough natural talent and are a waste of your time.

A little outdated but still has some helpful ideas.

This book gives lots of ideas for promoting your music business. It's great to re-read and get new ideas over and over. Lots of things I would never have thought of on my own. Well worth the price! Applicable for any instrument or voice.