Inspiring Ideas For Growing Your Music School (Or Business)
Is Following "Disneyland's Model", The Key To Business Growth?
Before I get started, let me ask you a question.
What do you attribute to your feeling of importance?
Let me rephrase that. What do you do to feel important, or what gives you a sense of purpose?
For me, being on stage performing, speaking at conventions or helping hundreds of people live their dream makes me feel incredibly important!
So let me ask you, are you alone in your feeling of importance? I bet you're not. Could you provide something, an activity, product or service that would give someone else that feeling of importance? You know, fill a need?
If you think about it, that's a model you could use to set yourself apart from your competition or start a business with.
For the last 18 years I ran a very successful music school. In 2004, my wife and I started our school with just 88 students. By 2020 we were at 1200+ weekly, private, half hour students making us the largest music school per capita in Canada. But here's the kicker, we only live in a city of just over 220,000 people. Most music schools our size are in cities with millions.
Now we're starting a new chapter in our lives.
We recently made the decision to sell our business. It was a hard decision, but it was time.
But, I still have SO much to offer and share with other music schools and business owners!
Let's go!
Becoming The #1 Business In Your Local Niche?
Like many businesses, we were up against a lot of serious obstacles. We had a lot of competition. Private teachers, other music schools, the pandemic, YouTube, distractions with technology and more! To top it all off, we were being held back from explosive growth because of internal struggles!
All I can say is, Yikes!
Aside from things we could not control, we still ended up being the largest music school.
Why?
How?
What made us so different?
I can tell you, it was 100% about what you give your customers.
Disneyland Model
Have you ever been to Disneyland? I have. On the surface, it's good clean fun for the entire family. Seeing real life characters from the Disney movies, the detailed buildings and streets, the rides, the visuals, parades, fireworks, customer service and more!
If you've been to Disneyland before, you'll probably understand that the experience starts long before getting there. It starts with the excitement of "We're going to Disneyland!", then watching a few Disney movies, the anticipation of what you'll see and feel. And then, when you get there, you have a larger than life, most expensive-day-ever experience and then go home.
But it doesn't stop there. Then you have the memories, pictures, videos and stories.
I realized through watching and thinking about my experiences at Disneyland that Disney had some very common sense marketing and advertising strategies based on human psychological traits we all have.
If I had to sum up, it's about making people feel good through the customer experience!
Stories Are Your Number One Asset (And Lesson)
It's no accident that Disney does things a specific way. It's all designed to make you feel something. If someone has an experience, that experience will likely create an emotional response. Emotional responses create memories.
A good lesson to be learned right?
Read that again.
If someone has an experience, that experience will likely create an emotional response. Emotional responses create memories.
Now, experiences could be anything, good or bad. You're obviously hoping for good but you can learn from the bad ones too. But understand, it goes a deeper than that.
If you had an emotional response to something and it creates a memory, that memory could very likely become a STORY, something you'll want to tell people about.
Stories are powerful! They have the habit of being repeated.
Repetition Is The Key To Everything
I talk a lot about repetition.
If you want to get good at something, you need to practice. You can't just do it once and become an expert.
Same goes for a name. If you want someone to remember someones name, OR A BUSINESS NAME you have to say it over and over again.
Advertising does that, but it's expensive.
You know what? Stories do the same thing.
Stories generally have a lasting impact because there was an emotional response attached to it. Happiness, fear, pride, shock, sadness, relief all create a memory you can sum up with words and what you felt.
How many of you have said to a friend "Remember that time when...".
When you think about it, that's the basis of what it means to be Top of Mind, isn't it?
Being top of mind is easy to understand. It means the first thing you think of when a topic, product, service or another relatable story comes up. But did you know, businesses that have the most Top of Mind awareness traditionally have the market share?
So what are you doing right now, that creates an emotional response for your clients?
What are you "giving" your customers?
Are you:
- Building anticipation
- Building a culture around a regular activity or event
- Making a dream come true for your clients
- Providing an inclusive experience
- Creating supportive relationships within your community through giving
- Creating reasons for people to tell stories about you or your business
If you want to be Top of Mind, these are things to consider and strategies to map out.
Up Next, What was your why?
Noel Wentworth
Guitar, Bass, Ukulele Instructor
Upbeat Music Academy Kelowna
https://upbeatmusicacademy.ca
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