In this episode of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and co-host Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) talk with Danny Thompson, a seasoned music lesson business owner from Music Factory in Orange County, California. Known for his insightful podcast, Music Lesson Business Academy, Danny shares his extensive experience of over 20 years in the music industry.
In this episode:
- Shifting to online lessons during the pandemic
- Danny’s decision to continue with the online private lesson model
- Changing your business model to fit your personal lifestyle
- Music lessons as a commodity.
In Part 2 Danny will reveal how he creates an exceptional online lesson experience and addresses the marketing challenges and strategies of the virtual format.
Join our private Facebook group, “Performance-Based Music Programs and Rock Schools,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
Episode Transcript:
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On this episode of Rock School Proprietor Podcast, we had a conversation with
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Danny Thompson of Music Factory in Orange County, California.
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Danny is a music lesson business veteran. He’s been in the business for, I think, over 20 years.
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You might also know Danny from his coaching group and podcast,
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Music Lesson Business Academy.
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I really wanted to talk to Danny because, one, he’s got tons of experience,
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but two, So during the pandemic,
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he made a conscious decision to move a lot of his private music lessons to online
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and not return back to in-person.
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Danny and I have been friends for a while, so the conversation was lengthy.
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As a result, we’re going to split this one into two parts.
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Part one is going to cover Danny’s motivation to switch those private lessons to the online model.
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And he talks a lot about the personal reasons for him to make that switch.
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To make his business work for him so that his personal lifestyle matches what
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he’s doing in his business lifestyle.
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And then on part two, we’re going to focus a little bit more about how Danny
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delivers an amazing online lesson experience,
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and then some of the marketing challenges and strategies involved with the online
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format compared to in-person.
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Again, Danny’s got tons of experience, so I really hope you get a lot of valuable information.
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Proprietor Podcast. I’m John Kozicki and my co-host, Mandy. How are you, Mandy? Good.
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How’s it going, John?
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We’ve got a guest. Good, good. We’ve got a guest here today. Guest is Dani Thompson.
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Dani from the Music Factory, Orange County.
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I also know Dani from Music Lesson Business Academy.
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And Danny, actually that podcast, your podcast when you did the podcast for
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Music Lesson Business Academy is kind of, you know, a little bit of the inspiration here.
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All right. Well, that’s great to hear. I’ve been trying to spread the podcast love.
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I’ve gone on kind of a podcast journey.
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I actually got a guy started on a speedboat podcast.
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So I’ve really like, I’ve really niched down.
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There’s a there’s a podcast for everything yeah um the so online music lesson
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business academy is your new podcast though correct yeah
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Yeah on the same feed i know it
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got confusing i’ve taken that that podcast feed and
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and ran it uh you know around the the race course a few times but yeah it’s
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on the old the old feed that music lesson business academy was on and yeah just
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we just did our first episode recently and the podcast will just be focused
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on you know the virtual teaching world yeah.
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Yeah well and and i was just like you said it sort of just popped up in my feed
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one morning and i thought oh hey danny’s back on on music lesson business business
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academy podcast but with a twist
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So, and that’s kind of why I thought this would be a cool thing to talk about.
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And I’ve mentioned to you, Danny, that Mandy and I talk a lot about,
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in our studios, we talk a lot about culture.
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And inevitably, I think that, at least for Mandy and I, comes from that in-person
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experience and seeing the students and the families from week to week in our studios.
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And for me running, you know, the rock band programs, that’s a huge, huge thing.
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The kids creating friendships and the families getting to know one another.
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And I know Mandy doing music together with babies and caregivers.
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I know, Mandy, you sort of struggled through COVID a little bit, right?
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Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah.
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Whew.
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Interesting times. Yeah.
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And so what got me thinking about all of this was that,
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at least in my mind, I think the pandemic created clearer lines for families
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in terms of what they want for or from music lessons.
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Some families, obviously, Danny, you’re doing it.
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Some families still want that online experience and they want the convenience
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of just jumping online for their music lessons. and other families have decided,
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nope, we don’t want that.
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And what I thought would be cool about this conversation is,
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Danny, I remember when you, we were still mid-pandemic, I think,
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and you said you’re staying online with your private lessons at Music Factory.
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Yeah, we, you know, it was a conscious decision because we were kind of reopening
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for lessons and I just had a feeling it would go like three weeks and get shut down again, which,
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and, and so we just sort of made that call and I just said, you know,
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if we get shut down again,
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we should just stay this way. But also, you know.
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You know, being forced to do it,
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We just kind of, you know, had these realizations. Now.
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You know, it’s important to, to kind of distinguish some of these things, because I still do some,
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you know, in-person lessons, because, you know, there’s all these different
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types of business models, and all these different types of instruction that
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can happen, you know, in the music world.
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You know, something like Mandy’s doing is, you know, doesn’t lend itself,
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obviously, to a virtual environment, a band class, things like that, younger kids.
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So it’s really kind of, you know, what we consciously decided was to change
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up the business or I would say we’re in the process of changing the business.
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Because I still, you know, I still do 40 kids in Kids Rock.
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I have 60 to 70 in-person drum students, You know,
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and we’re not trying to turn drum lessons into a virtual class,
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but we realize that guitar lessons for students over 12 years old or, you know,
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15 teenagers to older adults, that we could actually offer what we feel is a
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far superior product than what we used to do in person.
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You know and i just think about that you know this seth
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godin you know podcast i was listening to where he was talking about his wife’s
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bakery that she has that was vegan gluten-free you know and one other you know
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some other wellness thing and he’s like that’s that’s not for everybody but
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it doesn’t need to be for everybody.
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Right yeah it’s the long it’s the long tail it’s the long and
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So you know
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and i think it’s easy to kind of you know fall into that trap
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when you when you have a music studio of trying to do everything and being
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everything to all people and so we
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just kind of realized that if we can find right and this is still a work in
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progress because this is a challenge for sure this is is a new thing but you
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know my partner brian who’s you know doing the podcast with me is kind of what
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I would consider like our master guitar teacher.
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He’s teaching 40 students a week. He lives in Nashville now.
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Most of those students are adults, right?
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And we also just realized for us, we just find it to be like a business model
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that suits what we want to do in life better.
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Well, yeah. And yeah,
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You know, I think for, I mean, your, your business being in California,
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I’ve heard you talk about traffic and the commute, right?
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The, the commute to get to a 30 minute private lesson and then the commute back home.
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I can see where that would be more attractive to someone who’s,
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who’s just doing a private lesson.
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Sure. Sure. That could be, you know, one of the factors,
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you know, and there’s a lot of reasons why somebody might want to do,
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you know, virtual guitar lessons or virtual keyboard piano lessons versus,
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you know, an in-person lesson.
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And again, you know, it’s not for everybody, you know, and that’s part of,
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you know, what we have to be, you know, have that responsibility in that integrity
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when we’re talking to some potential customer to say, yeah, that that’s not
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going to be right for you.
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Your kid’s eight years old, you know, go this direction, you know,
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even to the point of, you know, referring students to other other businesses.
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Well, yeah. And, and I’ll say that I do the same thing and we’ve,
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and Mandy and I’ve talked about this.
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I do the same thing because what we do best is put kids in bands.
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What we do best is getting them from, you know, point A to point B and point
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B being a performance at the end of each session.
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If someone is looking for just a traditional private lesson,
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if someone is looking for, I mean, Mandy and I have way different backgrounds.
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If they’re looking for the type of instruction that Mandy received,
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that very classical, like traditional, then I do the same thing.
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I recommend someplace else.
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And I think as like the studio owners, being able to identify that in the front
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end, that’s all part of being helpful to the client and the prospective customer. Yeah.
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They don’t want to get into a relationship that isn’t going to be right,
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but they don’t always know what the right questions are to ask.
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They just think, oh, my kid seems interested in music lessons or music.
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I’m thinking music lessons.
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Let me call and figure out when I can get in for some private lessons because
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they just assume that’s the only thing.
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Right. So I think you’ve hit on something super important that I think all of
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us need to do is really figure out, well, what is it that we’re good at?
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And again another thing that mandy and i talk about is why are you doing what
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you do right what is your why and and lean into that and and like find those people that want that
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Yeah and you know and i i think for me
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you know i was listening to your most recent podcast
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yesterday when i was on a bike ride and then i got a flat tire
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and i didn’t so i didn’t finish the episode but you
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know i’ve had the music school for almost
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20 years 20 years is a
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really long time to kind of do the same thing and yeah
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you know just in all honestly i’m just totally bored with the traditional everything
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that goes into a music school so you know there’s multiple things that have
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that change in your life and your your goals change and your perspectives change I,
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you know, having that really cool location in Costa Mesa spent years with that
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mindset of like, you know, we were part of the community.
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We wanted to be known as this amazingly cool thing in Orange County, you know.
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And all the things that go with like building out, you know, a facility like that.
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Every element of it I thought about to everything from, you know,
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the popcorn machine to having a diffuser that created a scent when you walked
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into the school to the crazy artwork that we did.
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That was so different than anything anyone else did, you know,
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certainly created that vibe.
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That was important to me then.
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Right. Yeah. My life has changed and I’m sure, you know, all the business podcasts
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I listen to and my highway, you know, I do so many podcasts now.
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My Highway 62 podcast that I do out in Joshua Tree, you know,
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is really just talking to artists and business owners and old timers,
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you know, gold miners and anything that, you know, just anything cool in the
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history of that Joshua Tree area.
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You know, people’s lives changed as well as what was important to them.
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Right. so what’s i i don’t have
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like the world domination business mindset that i did previously right yeah
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so those things of like building that amazing culture do everything we did we
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had to do it over the top and better than everyone else when you came for the
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little recital thing we did.
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It over the top
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And i had the cotton candy machine and i just did crazy stuff right you know
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it was the savannah you know the savannah bananas of of a music school and a couple you know like,
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as my life changed you know i needed to.
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You know, change my goals.
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So, you know, I was getting more and more into, I knew I wanted to move at some
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point and I was going to move to kind of a small area.
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You know, I like to get on my motorcycle and disappear, you know, and, and go camping.
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Me and my girlfriend have an RV and that’s like, we’re,
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we are trying to figure out how to basically do nothing, but sit in that RV
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with our dog and i’ve structured my life in a way that i don’t need to make
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a ton of money all the time you know plus i have the band and all these other
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things so my perspective on music lessons.
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Changed a lot mixed with
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also realizations that i came to after
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20 years of doing it is that no matter
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how crazy and cool you do a lot of things there’s this
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huge chunk of customers they just want to
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take a guitar lesson right they just they don’t give
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a shit about anything else they’re never going
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to do a recital they’re never going to take part in some kind of
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recording project they don’t care about all the other stuff
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they just want to like play some guitar for fun right
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yeah and what i realized at least in our
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for our customer base that was a huge
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portion of the customers so even though
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we were doing all these over the top things it was
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only 20 percent of the customers that really cared about any of
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that and the other 80% were just like they
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just wanted a convenient you know reliable music lesson so and and I know this
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is going to come off sort of negative but I look at that guitar lesson right
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now just as a total commodity and nothing else I’m.
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So glad you used that word so glad you used that word because
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I think it should be used more because I think there should be a differentiation
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between what I’ve kind of thought of, especially since the pandemic,
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as commoditization of music lessons versus what I’m trying to do,
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what Mandy’s trying to do.
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And again, not that it’s like it’s going to be right for you, Danny.
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It’s not going to be right for me. Sure. I don’t know if it’s probably not.
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No. Mandy’s in a completely different situation anyway.
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It’s a different world, yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah. But I think you’re so right on when you say, this is a choice that I’m
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making because it fits my lifestyle.
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Right. And I don’t know. I know for myself, and Mandy, I don’t know. I’ll ask you.
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Do you get those? I mean, I get those feelings sometimes where,
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actually, I’ve been thinking about it lately.
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We’re trying to build up our Saturday schedule. I don’t want to be there on Saturday,
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but I know I need someone there to kind of be like that center person that helps
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to create the culture amongst the employees first,
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because when that culture is there amongst the employees,
00:16:33.689 –> 00:16:36.989
then that’s going to spread out to the rest of the families.
00:16:36.989 –> 00:16:40.169
Right so because the
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way that again private lesson rooms and band rehearsals
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when those instructors are separated physically well
00:16:46.909 –> 00:16:51.829
they’re not communicating right but if i’m there or if i’ve got you know like
00:16:51.829 –> 00:16:56.449
my admin there or someone then they’re they’re kind of that center point that’s
00:16:56.449 –> 00:17:00.869
that’s continuing to promote the culture so maybe the question for you mandy
00:17:00.869 –> 00:17:04.489
is when you have some of your instructors teaching.
00:17:05.669 –> 00:17:10.629
How do you make sure that you’re sort of promoting or they’re kind of representing
00:17:10.629 –> 00:17:13.989
that culture that you’ve created personally? Yeah.
00:17:14.489 –> 00:17:18.949
Yeah. That is tough. I think about that a lot. And I, it’s just about,
00:17:19.109 –> 00:17:21.429
you got to put the work in and be hands-on. And I
00:17:21.429 –> 00:17:22.389
Like team meetings.
00:17:22.389 –> 00:17:27.149
And I like touching base with my teachers. And I like, because we’re,
00:17:27.269 –> 00:17:31.769
we’re all group classes, I like to sub in for my teachers and I like my teachers
00:17:31.769 –> 00:17:35.289
to sub in for me so that our families,
00:17:35.749 –> 00:17:39.269
our community is getting all of
00:17:39.269 –> 00:17:43.449
the teachers and they’re seeing that this program isn’t just Miss Mandy.
00:17:43.649 –> 00:17:45.909
It’s not just Miss Danny.
00:17:46.449 –> 00:17:50.269
It’s the community, right? It’s you sitting in this room and making music together,
00:17:50.589 –> 00:17:53.569
not like that we’re putting out a production for you or whatever.
00:17:53.869 –> 00:18:01.449
And across the board, equity in how we deliver the content and the culture.
00:18:02.561 –> 00:18:07.381
I like what you said, Dani, about how your vision, your path,
00:18:07.501 –> 00:18:09.081
your journey can kind of morph.
00:18:09.561 –> 00:18:14.521
I think that’s a really great point. And I think that it’s important to realize
00:18:14.521 –> 00:18:18.741
that maybe just keeping it in the back of your mind and giving your permission,
00:18:19.121 –> 00:18:21.021
giving yourself permission to do that.
00:18:21.261 –> 00:18:25.021
You know, I lost a teacher. She just moved out of state.
00:18:26.381 –> 00:18:29.461
And so she was doing she was working at
00:18:29.461 –> 00:18:32.461
my satellite location the couple
00:18:32.461 –> 00:18:35.841
towns over and then i was like how am
00:18:35.841 –> 00:18:38.661
i gonna fill this like i don’t i don’t really like you john
00:18:38.661 –> 00:18:41.481
you don’t want to be on there on saturdays i don’t want to spend all my time
00:18:41.481 –> 00:18:44.221
out there in this town you know that’s too much
00:18:44.221 –> 00:18:47.701
i’m i’m here and i just dropped it i
00:18:47.701 –> 00:18:50.701
just dropped it and i said maybe another time maybe
00:18:50.701 –> 00:18:54.861
you know that’s not what i need right now and doing
00:18:54.861 –> 00:18:57.621
what i do best i mean we’re filled and i
00:18:57.621 –> 00:19:00.701
sometimes struggle with like the the number
00:19:00.701 –> 00:19:03.561
on my wait list like i should be reaching i should
00:19:03.561 –> 00:19:06.261
be reaching everybody but i can’t so i’m just gonna do
00:19:06.261 –> 00:19:11.361
the best i can with you know our the full schedule you have now and i’ll hire
00:19:11.361 –> 00:19:15.861
again later i’ll maybe i’ll move over to another town but i i really liked your
00:19:15.861 –> 00:19:21.441
point about giving your permission to yeah whatever it is move online expand
00:19:21.441 –> 00:19:25.861
your business to another town or keep it small and and happy
00:19:25.861 –> 00:19:30.221
Yeah i mean it’s just you know everybody’s needs are are different and your
00:19:30.221 –> 00:19:34.581
needs are going to change i mean i’m yeah i’m getting older you know like i
00:19:34.581 –> 00:19:41.101
have i’ve hit that point where it’s like i’m like well what what’s really important to me, you know?
00:19:41.501 –> 00:19:43.981
And so my…
00:19:45.007 –> 00:19:54.347
As I do these things, you know, it’s mostly designed around supporting my lifestyle that I live, you know?
00:19:54.507 –> 00:19:59.747
And so that’s where I think, you know, the virtual teaching model could be something
00:19:59.747 –> 00:20:05.867
for people to, you know, especially a lot of the independent teachers or,
00:20:06.027 –> 00:20:07.307
you know, schools that maybe,
00:20:07.487 –> 00:20:12.347
or maybe you’re an independent teacher and you’re thinking of making that move,
00:20:12.407 –> 00:20:15.587
you know, into like, all right, I’m going to hire teachers and all these things,
00:20:15.947 –> 00:20:20.427
you know, this, this could be another option, you know, as a way to go.
00:20:20.567 –> 00:20:26.087
And again, it just all depends on what you, you want to do and what you enjoy doing.
00:20:26.527 –> 00:20:29.627
I enjoy marketing, right? That’s
00:20:29.627 –> 00:20:33.387
about the only part of the music lesson business I enjoy, to be honest.
00:20:33.827 –> 00:20:36.967
Like that’s the, that’s the thing that fuels me.
00:20:37.167 –> 00:20:41.487
Right. And so the reason I kind of, you know, I’ve been doing marketing for
00:20:41.487 –> 00:20:45.667
other small businesses, and I’m trying to do it outside in a lot,
00:20:45.787 –> 00:20:48.807
you know, I’m doing some music schools, but I’d like to do other businesses.
00:20:49.027 –> 00:20:51.947
And I, you know, I had that realization one day I was like, man,
00:20:52.067 –> 00:20:56.027
it would be really cool to own that boutique motel, you know, in Joshua tree.
00:20:56.507 –> 00:21:00.107
And then I go, what am I thinking? You know, like, I don’t want to be like folding
00:21:00.107 –> 00:21:08.047
towels, but what I was excited about as I go, how would I market that is what I get excited about.
00:21:08.087 –> 00:21:10.847
So that’s why I just decided that’s what i’d like to
00:21:10.847 –> 00:21:14.407
help other small businesses do is the
00:21:14.407 –> 00:21:17.207
marketing side of things so i’ve been like creating reels for
00:21:17.207 –> 00:21:20.087
some businesses in joshua tree and you know
00:21:20.087 –> 00:21:22.807
managing some google ads and and things like
00:21:22.807 –> 00:21:29.027
that for people but you know again 20 years of doing having a music school is
00:21:29.027 –> 00:21:34.347
a really long time you know most people never do any business that long and
00:21:34.347 –> 00:21:40.507
you know it just gets tough to keep stay on that hamster wheel of signing up
00:21:40.507 –> 00:21:42.107
students, students leaving,
00:21:42.427 –> 00:21:46.047
you know, the teacher issue, just, yeah, it’s a constant thing.
00:21:46.187 –> 00:21:47.587
It gives you whiplash sometimes.
00:21:48.027 –> 00:21:55.007
Yeah. And so we just kind of realized, Hey, there might be this other option out there. Right.
00:21:55.427 –> 00:21:57.247
And, you know.
00:21:57.447 –> 00:21:58.207
Like I said,
00:21:58.327 –> 00:22:02.587
Brian does 40 students, you know, online every week.
00:22:02.787 –> 00:22:05.967
Most of them are adults and we
00:22:05.967 –> 00:22:10.387
we just kind of went god these are like the greatest students ever right
00:22:10.387 –> 00:22:13.167
they they just show up and do their guitar lesson they really don’t
00:22:13.167 –> 00:22:16.767
want anything else they’re the one paying the bills like it’s
00:22:16.767 –> 00:22:19.867
so easy to deal with that client
00:22:19.867 –> 00:22:22.507
versus kids and the
00:22:22.507 –> 00:22:25.707
parents of the music the regular
00:22:25.707 –> 00:22:29.807
music lesson when i see the support emails i don’t read any of them but i just
00:22:29.807 –> 00:22:33.667
kind of see them coming through the amount of like reschedule or we got to change
00:22:33.667 –> 00:22:38.067
this or whatever you know when you have you know we have a smaller music school
00:22:38.067 –> 00:22:42.727
than we used to we we used to have about 450 students we do about 200 students now.
00:22:43.693 –> 00:22:47.973
Our, you know, our, our overhead is so much lower that it, that it works.
00:22:48.453 –> 00:22:50.953
And, and, you know, when you have that kind of student base,
00:22:51.093 –> 00:22:56.753
I mean, it’s 20, 30, 40 support emails a day, you know?
00:22:56.913 –> 00:22:59.733
So we just started really looking at like, Hey, what’s important,
00:22:59.733 –> 00:23:05.893
you know, what’s, you know, what is a business model that might make sense moving forward.
00:23:06.193 –> 00:23:10.853
And just from the excitement standpoint for me, creating something new and that
00:23:10.853 –> 00:23:14.873
challenge and something to get excited about versus it’s hard for me to get
00:23:14.873 –> 00:23:19.933
excited about promoting the old lessons that we used to do.
00:23:20.093 –> 00:23:25.013
I did want to clarify one thing when I said this will probably upset some people
00:23:25.013 –> 00:23:26.773
when I just call music lessons a commodity.
00:23:27.573 –> 00:23:34.653
I do want to say 100% that my guitar lesson, I would put against any guitar lesson in the country.
00:23:36.233 –> 00:23:40.413
I’m willing to bet nobody can do it as good as we do it. And I know that from
00:23:40.413 –> 00:23:42.773
my experience that I’ve had, you know,
00:23:43.053 –> 00:23:46.573
running Music Lesson Business Academy and talking to hundreds of music school
00:23:46.573 –> 00:23:50.053
owners, you know, we were one of the first to have employees,
00:23:50.053 –> 00:23:55.753
not contractors, you know, my teachers follow a program, we train them.
00:23:55.753 –> 00:24:00.813
So yes to me it’s a commodity i just want to market it and have a bunch of leads
00:24:00.813 –> 00:24:02.913
coming in you know have the.
00:24:02.913 –> 00:24:04.613
Teachers available to do those lessons
00:24:04.613 –> 00:24:11.373
But the product we are selling them is is quality you know yeah because i i
00:24:11.373 –> 00:24:15.953
know you know it’d be easy for people to look at that as like i don’t care or
00:24:15.953 –> 00:24:24.433
you know i what i don’t care about is i don’t have any desire to try to build a community or to build,
00:24:24.873 –> 00:24:28.973
you know, I don’t want to say not have a culture because every business has a culture.
00:24:29.333 –> 00:24:29.733
Right?
00:24:30.193 –> 00:24:34.853
And that comes from the top, you know? So if our culture, just because we’re
00:24:34.853 –> 00:24:41.153
virtual, you know, our culture can be supreme quality, amazing customer service, you know,
00:24:41.633 –> 00:24:44.713
there’s, there’s, you know, it doesn’t have to necessarily be in person,
00:24:44.713 –> 00:24:47.073
but I’m not trying to change.
00:24:47.253 –> 00:24:53.073
I’m not taking it upon myself to change the lives of a bunch of kids and their
00:24:53.073 –> 00:24:55.653
families, which is what we used to think about.
00:24:56.493 –> 00:25:01.213
And it’s so interesting, you know, when you said you’re most excited about the
00:25:01.213 –> 00:25:05.773
marketing, it’s not where I am at all, you know, and I don’t offer private lessons,
00:25:05.953 –> 00:25:09.733
you know, individual lessons, but that’s, that’s top of mind for me.
00:25:09.893 –> 00:25:14.313
That is my most important is, you know, connecting with the kids and the parents.
00:25:14.693 –> 00:25:18.053
And maybe that’s something that’s unique about me, too. I’m…
00:25:18.640 –> 00:25:19.300
I’m connecting.
00:25:19.700 –> 00:25:22.880
I mean, I have strong relationships with the young children,
00:25:23.180 –> 00:25:28.140
but I’m really connecting with the grownups and trying to connect with them
00:25:28.140 –> 00:25:33.420
to get them making music with their children and connecting with each other.
00:25:33.600 –> 00:25:37.540
And then there is a whole other conversation about this season of life that
00:25:37.540 –> 00:25:38.760
my parents are in, right?
00:25:38.940 –> 00:25:43.500
With tiny kids and they need support of other families. Yeah.
00:25:44.040 –> 00:25:50.460
And I think if that’s something that you find that passion and enjoyment from,
00:25:50.640 –> 00:25:54.960
then that’s 100% perfect for you to focus on that.
00:25:55.160 –> 00:26:02.940
And by all means, I have friends in my life today that started as a parent of
00:26:02.940 –> 00:26:06.080
one of our kids like 15 years ago.
00:26:06.080 –> 00:26:08.860
And I am watching kids like not only
00:26:08.860 –> 00:26:11.680
go to college I talked to a parent recently who’s like
00:26:11.680 –> 00:26:15.100
hey you know AJ is graduating college
00:26:15.100 –> 00:26:17.920
and I’m like oh my god he was like eight years
00:26:17.920 –> 00:26:20.620
old you know when he started with us so you know
00:26:20.620 –> 00:26:27.000
I had that arc and there was many enjoyable moments from that you know it just
00:26:27.000 –> 00:26:33.460
like I said things change and so for me nowadays it is about creating a business
00:26:33.460 –> 00:26:39.000
that requires as a little time from me as humanly possible.
00:26:39.560 –> 00:26:42.680
And a good virtual guitar business is.
00:26:43.775 –> 00:26:44.815
Could be something that,
00:26:44.875 –> 00:26:51.535
You know, we only need a couple hundred students and we’re making plenty of money at that point.
00:26:51.875 –> 00:26:55.895
And I might be able to do that and, you know, work, you know,
00:26:56.015 –> 00:26:58.735
honestly, a couple hours a week is about it.
00:26:58.915 –> 00:27:04.255
So, Dan, you said a couple things that I wanted to touch on.
00:27:04.535 –> 00:27:11.695
One was what you’re just saying right now about a point where you are in life.
00:27:11.855 –> 00:27:17.635
This is what you want to do. And I think what that is, is that’s like growth
00:27:17.635 –> 00:27:21.115
in your business, but framed in a different way.
00:27:21.215 –> 00:27:26.535
Because I think we often focus too much on, like, obviously we want to grow our businesses, right?
00:27:26.695 –> 00:27:29.255
But the focus is usually about that number.
00:27:29.435 –> 00:27:32.995
Like, what is our student count? What is our monthly revenue?
00:27:33.515 –> 00:27:42.295
Those numbers, I think, yes, they represent growth, but you can build in growth,
00:27:42.475 –> 00:27:44.515
a growth metric somewhere else in your business.
00:27:44.675 –> 00:27:46.755
It doesn’t always have to be about that.
00:27:48.275 –> 00:27:53.355
And you’ve kind of figured out like, okay, what does growth look like for me right now?
00:27:53.535 –> 00:27:57.355
Well, it means making this shift, not doing this thing anymore,
00:27:57.395 –> 00:27:59.635
and kind of doing this other thing.
00:28:01.495 –> 00:28:05.335
Coming up on part two of our conversation with danny thompson
00:28:05.335 –> 00:28:08.395
We just invested in the technology
00:28:08.395 –> 00:28:11.515
of like how do you make a great virtual or online lesson
00:28:11.515 –> 00:28:16.935
it’s multiple hd webcams it’s good audio and so when you jump on it’s really
00:28:16.935 –> 00:28:21.595
more like you’re watching a really well-produced youtube video or live stream
00:28:21.595 –> 00:28:30.095
i would say that in most cases it looks better than where you would go to take an in-person lesson.
00:28:32.115 –> 00:28:37.995
If you have questions or topic suggestions, info at rockschoolproprietor.com
00:28:37.995 –> 00:28:40.255
is where you can reach us. We’d love to hear from you.
00:28:40.395 –> 00:28:45.055
And don’t forget about our private Facebook group, Performance-Based Music Programs
00:28:45.055 –> 00:28:46.695
and Rock Schools. Hit us up there.
00:28:47.015 –> 00:28:50.975
Join the group. Great conversations. Show notes and transcripts for this and
00:28:50.975 –> 00:28:53.815
all episodes can be found at rockschoolproprietor.com.
00:28:53.915 –> 00:28:58.475
I’m rock.school.proprietor on Instagram. If you’d like to connect with me there,
00:28:58.615 –> 00:29:00.875
or you can find me on LinkedIn as John Kazicki.
00:29:01.075 –> 00:29:04.115
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00:29:04.115 –> 00:29:05.415
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00:29:05.615 –> 00:29:09.075
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00:29:11.280 –> 00:29:18.477
