John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) discuss the fear and insecurity that arise when a new music studio opens nearby, sharing a personal story about feeling threatened and how that led to mistakes. They explore how to shift from reactive competition to a healthier, more constructive mindset.
Practical takeaways from the discussion:
- compete with yourself
- learn from others
- stay true to your core values
- maintain an abundance mindset
- protect your mental health
- consider collaboration to strengthen your local music community.
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Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.912)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is Jon Kozicki.
Mandy York (00:06.934)
and I’m Mandy York.
John Kozicki (00:08.958)
Hey, how are you today, Mandy?
Mandy York (00:12.046)
Very good. It’s Friday, ready for the weekend. How about you?
John Kozicki (00:13.906)
Are you? Yeah, same. Are you ready to talk about competition? Speaking of competition, Friday night and going to a high school football game tonight because my daughter’s on the cheerleading team. So in I guess I just put that two and two together in the spirit of like that healthy competition, right? We’re going to talk about competition.
Mandy York (00:22.018)
Yeah.
Mandy York (00:29.838)
Yeah!
John Kozicki (00:44.29)
where we operate our studios. Well, technically speaking, mean, we there there’s overlap between our programs, you know, your studio and my studio within walking distance of one another, we’re in the same town. There is some overlap with the oldest program, the kids that are in the oldest program that you offer and the kids that are in the youngest program that I offer. So technically, we are in competition.
Mandy York (01:11.424)
Yes. Yep, we are, technically.
John Kozicki (01:14.338)
Yeah. Now, competition, I think is is not always easy. Like, we are demonstrating it in this instance. I think. Have have you ever felt I guess threatened when you’ve heard about a new studio opening up or, you know, a program that might compete with your programs and I don’t know, have you ever felt that?
Mandy York (01:24.718)
Yes.
Mandy York (01:44.227)
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think there are kind of different kinds of competition. We’ve known each other a long time. I met you when I first started out. And I think we have like, we have a healthy respect for each other and what each other we do. And we share some students, right? I mean, I think I currently have at least one student that is also enrolled in your program, right? So.
John Kozicki (01:53.917)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (02:05.68)
We do, yeah.
John Kozicki (02:12.252)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mandy York (02:14.354)
and we’ve talked about this before. not every teacher, not every studio is a one size fit all. Maybe your rock starters program is a better fit for somebody. then my, rhythm kids is a better fit for somebody. But yes, there is other competition that makes me nervous and uncomfortable. A direct competitor, right? I have not, I mean, I can say that I have not, knock on wood, I suppose. I haven’t had this happen yet in our town.
John Kozicki (02:34.437)
Okay. Okay.
Mandy York (02:44.11)
But if there were another licensed or franchised early childhood music program to open up near me, would come running to you probably first. Oh my gosh, they’re moving in. What am I going to do? You just, you tense, you go on high alert and you kind of ready your battle plan. How am I going to make sure that I keep my students?
John Kozicki (02:51.485)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (02:57.597)
Ha ha ha!
John Kozicki (03:03.376)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (03:14.503)
Right?
Mandy York (03:14.93)
how do I make sure I’m better programming, tuition, like all of the things, right? What do you.
John Kozicki (03:21.541)
Yes, yeah, and right, it’s that unknown.
Mandy York (03:26.047)
Yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (03:27.985)
Like you see, hey, this other music studio is moving into town. You don’t know anything about it. You creep on their website and like, what are they offering? What’s, Yeah, trying to gather as much info as possible. And that, like that fear kind of sets in. So I have a story about.
Mandy York (03:39.786)
yeah, their website, their social media, all the things.
Mandy York (03:48.11)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (03:54.888)
when this happened to me, this was very, very early in my career as a studio owner. was actually maybe a year, maybe two into opening my very first school. The school I run now is my second. And I was approached, now it wasn’t a situation where I knew someone was moving in.
like so often or like we just talked about. But this was a situation where I was operating again for a year, year and half, maybe two years. And I got an email from someone totally random, did not know this person. And he and again, this was over a decade ago, said stuff like, you’re what you’re doing is really impressive. I’ve also been thinking about opening up a similar
Mandy York (04:26.531)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (04:52.317)
studio with lessons and band programs, would you be interested in meeting and talking? And I thought, okay, I don’t know who this is, but I’ll reply to the email. And there was a little bit of back and forth. And it was enough that I felt like, yes, I’ll have a meeting with this guy. So I did set up the meeting. He came to to my lesson studio. And
I, in the conversation with him, I learned that he was kind of more of a hoppy musician. He had a day job in, I believe, like software engineering or something. It was a, you know, it was an office corporate type job. And the idea of him opening a performance school seemed like more of a side gig for him. He definitely seemed passionate about music.
But again, I did not get the impression that this was what he wanted to do and transition out of his office career, right? Whereas me, that was what I did, right? I was all in on my studio. And he had even told me that he had looked into the possibility of opening a pretty well-known franchise for…
Mandy York (06:03.042)
T-job. Right.
Mandy York (06:09.742)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (06:21.08)
Mmm.
John Kozicki (06:21.885)
for Rock Band programs. Which to me was interesting to get a little bit of that information from him. We had a couple of conversations and
I felt like he again, he had a lot to learn about running music school, and in particular band programs. But he did understand, I think he, you know, he understood business, and numbers and probably better than I did at that point. I also got the impression from those conversations that if he did move forward with opening a school,
The understanding was it was not going to be in the same town. It was going to be one town over maybe more. I don’t remember the details. Again, this was a long time ago, but I didn’t feel like immediately threatened, right? now he’s going to move in next door and we’re in trouble. So the conversation…
conversations were interesting because at one point he even offered like almost like some sort of partnership, but not so much like, hey, how about I come, you know, run your school. It was more like, hey, if I do this, would you at all be interested in possibly like merging with me and partnering or coming to run my school or something like that? So I think he probably understood where my skill set lied.
I don’t know if I gave him enough credit where his skill set lied. But ultimately I was like, nope, not gonna do it. I just don’t see a reason for me to jump ship on what I’m doing. And then maybe six months after that conversation, I saw he was opening up a half mile down the street from me.
Mandy York (08:27.8)
Yeah. Ugh.
John Kozicki (08:29.336)
Yes. I did not take it well. did not. Not well. I did not take it well. No, no. I felt like, I mean, there were all sorts of emotions, right? Like, I had conversations with this guy. Like, you know, let him into my school and then now he’s, felt betrayed and yeah. And in hindsight, I, you know, I think
Mandy York (08:33.262)
How did that? Not well,
Mandy York (08:44.802)
Yeah.
Mandy York (08:49.196)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (09:00.174)
My confidence with the teaching and music, I felt like almost overly confident about it and maybe under confident about my understanding of how to run a business. Because I was very new to running a business. I think at the time, I think I had two other instructors working for me, know, like maybe three. So very small, very small operation.
I think instead of recognizing and respecting this guy’s strengths and his perspective, in my mind, I immediately went to a place where I was trying to protect my shortcomings, right? Oh, doesn’t know what he’s doing with this. Like, now he wants all my information about this and now he’s gonna open up down the street. that was a bit.
Mandy York (09:46.798)
Hmm.
John Kozicki (09:59.227)
I think that was a mistake on my part. I ultimately even kind of lost focus on
Mandy York (10:00.686)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (10:09.596)
what I felt like I should have been focused on. I was almost hyper fixated on trying to follow him and trying to get all that information like we talked about. You you go on, you’re on the website and try and figure out what they’re gonna be offering and social media and all this other stuff. I even remember at one point, doing these like crazy math calculations based on my rock band program, and the prices and like the amount of time
that students got in my band program and comparing those with his prices and the amount of time that students were getting his band from and like down to the minute, right? Like thinking, okay, well, a kid is in his band program is gonna be paying this much money per minute and the kid who’s in my band program is gonna be paying this much per minute because like they were slightly different. So I had to find an equal way to compare them. Never once even thinking,
Mandy York (10:45.646)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (11:02.797)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (11:07.662)
no parent’s gonna do that. No parent is gonna go on my website and calculate down to the minute and then go on his website, calculate down to the minute and make their decision based on that. So that clearly was me just like losing my mind, right? Yeah. So.
Mandy York (11:09.496)
Yeah, yeah, no.
Mandy York (11:30.25)
Yeah… Yeah, I get it though.
John Kozicki (11:36.91)
What I should have been doing is focusing on my programs, focusing on my clients. And it even got so bad that at one point, this was like shortly after he did finally open, there was a festival in our town and I had students who were performing at it. And we’re out in public at the street festival.
And there he was. And he came up to me and he talked to me. And I wasn’t nice. I know. And I’m like, embarrassed to even say it, but I kind of made a scene. And turns out that one of the students at my school, their family was pretty close friends with him.
Mandy York (12:14.766)
Ouch. Yeah.
John Kozicki (12:35.324)
And then the word got back to them and they left my studio and you know, I was, I was just like shooting myself in the foot over this competitive thing that in hindsight now, I mean, I definitely learned the lesson the hard way, right? So in hindsight, now looking back at it, I see so many places where I made mistakes and you know, obviously sometimes we got to learn those.
lessons the hard way, but I did not handle it well. And in the spirit of what we’re gonna talk about today, I thought like, man, I’m just gonna put it all out there. I’m gonna like air my dirty laundry and explain this situation how badly I screwed up. Yeah.
Mandy York (13:22.51)
Well, you’re right. We do learn the hard way a lot of times in this, in these small businesses and thanks for sharing your story. I get it. I don’t, you know, I think there’s a lot of us that may not have done a lot differently. So we need to talk about what, how to handle these. Yes.
John Kozicki (13:33.059)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:40.016)
So in hearing that.
What to do, yeah, yeah. But I’ve never, I don’t think I’ve ever told you that story.
Mandy York (13:48.362)
No, I haven’t heard that before. That was, I mean, you lived in another state, right? Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:50.306)
In hearing it, I did, yeah, I lived in another state at that point, but in hearing that, I don’t know, what are your, as an outsider, what are your thoughts?
Mandy York (14:00.578)
Well, mean, I understand. I can sympathize with that. I feel like I would, well, and to be honest, I have. I’ve calculated my per, I don’t know if it’s per minute, per 30 minute rate. I don’t have direct competitors here, but I look at other children’s programming as competitive, right?
John Kozicki (14:19.261)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (14:28.718)
kids paying for different early childhood activities, you know, how much are they paying for that? And, and getting kind of obsessed with what’s happening around me and who’s doing what and feeling the need to like, they’re having like princess birthday parties. How, can I incorporate that into, you know, what I’m doing, not focusing on my own business, you know, that I’m doing really well.
John Kozicki (14:41.285)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (14:50.819)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (14:56.763)
See, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better on that one. But I’m gonna say, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with checking competitors’ pricing. I think I took it too far, right, with my weird calculations. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking at competitors and seeing like, what extra fun events are they doing? And then figuring out a way to do something similar.
Mandy York (15:12.664)
Sure.
John Kozicki (15:26.496)
or cooler, that all sounds healthy to me.
Mandy York (15:28.79)
Yes.
Well, and but but you can and I think you you’re going to cover this too, competition can be healthy, you can learn a lot from other people and you should always be learning from others. But don’t lose sight of who you are. You know, don’t compete for the sake of competing. Right? I mean, I think that’s that’s something that I, you know, have
John Kozicki (15:41.448)
Exactly. Exactly.
John Kozicki (15:54.191)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Mandy York (16:00.63)
you know, can lose focus on.
John Kozicki (16:02.925)
I look back on that experience for myself and think that I did not maintain a healthy perspective when it comes to competition. And that’s exactly what I’d rather focus on in this conversation is like, well, how do you keep a healthy perspective in the face of competition? Because
As you know, having gone through that, having learned, I learned the lesson, you know, like I am more than happy to talk to you or anyone else who offers music lessons in our community. I’m happy to talk to anyone the next town over who offers music lessons in our community. I’m even happy to like collaborate and do events because
And I think we’ll kind of get into this because I’ve got some bullet points. I think that is it’s not only healthy, but I think it’s beneficial to the entire community. And yeah, so we’ll get into it. So I’ve got some bullet points.
Mandy York (17:13.228)
Yeah, for sure. Okay. What’s your first? Yeah.
John Kozicki (17:18.965)
Number one, compete with yourself first.
John Kozicki (17:28.19)
Like, really, there’s no keeping score in music lessons, right? So any sort of like scorekeeping that is going on, it’s really just kind of made up in our heads. We really, you know, this is competition 101, right? You go out there and you do your best. This is sportsmanship 101.
Mandy York (17:32.172)
Yeah. Right.
John Kozicki (17:56.793)
Yeah, you want to win as a team, but you also want to support your team members and you want to do your best. So the healthiest competition I think is always that internal competition. Measuring your own progress against past performances, not against other people externally. I’ve got a little note here to ask yourself, are we serving our customers better last
Mandy York (18:19.352)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (18:25.848)
this month than we were last month. Are our systems more efficient than last year? So looking back, am I doing it better now than I was doing it before? Not necessarily like, hey, am I doing it better than this other guy over here who I really have no idea what their circumstances are. But yeah, I think when you compete with yourself, it creates a mindset.
where you’re continually looking to improve yourself for, go ahead.
Mandy York (19:01.07)
Yeah, I’m really into tracking. Yeah, I’m really into tracking my metrics too. I, I like doing that and competing with myself, um, heading into the fall semester, spring semester. Okay. What were our numbers last year? How many, okay. So how many teachers do I have? What kind of classes do we want to offer? And then kind of project based on, based on that, you know, see, okay, I could bump it up by X number of students and then.
John Kozicki (19:16.602)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (19:31.321)
compete with myself, push myself to reach that new number, right? I’m really into that. Now that’s quantitative. That’s not a qualitative metric, right? But I think what you’re saying, it’s important to look at those things too. How are our students engaged differently or analyze those things to make sure that you’re also keeping true to your mission and you’re pleased with the product that you’re putting out.
John Kozicki (19:42.67)
Mm-hmm. Right.
John Kozicki (20:01.582)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Whatever those metrics are, whatever like that that goal is, I do I just truly think it should be in the spirit of like looking at what you’re doing in your business and your studio and saying, OK, where can I improve? You know, because that then you’re maintaining. Yeah, you’re maintaining that focus on what you do, regardless of who comes into town, you know, like
Mandy York (20:22.274)
Yeah, where’s there room for growth?
John Kozicki (20:31.31)
whether there’s competition or not focusing on what you do, constant self-improvement, that’s always gonna be beneficial. All right, number two, next point I have, view competition as an opportunity to learn. And then in quotes, I said, they’re not your enemy. And that’s kind of what you said about like, they’re doing this cool event with like princesses or whatever, how can I do that?
Mandy York (20:54.403)
deal.
Mandy York (20:59.724)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (21:00.91)
you know, that’s an opportunity to learn. That’s something that maybe you hadn’t thought of and that could spark an idea. It’s not like you want to roll in there and like, I’m going to be the only princess person here now.
Mandy York (21:14.926)
Yeah, yeah. And I think you learn like, you can get ideas about, sure, classes, different ways, you know, instruction, but also like logistical or how are they organizing this? How do they charge, you know, what is their website easier to use? Things like that. Yes.
John Kozicki (21:40.442)
I’m going to stick on.
Mandy York (21:41.408)
If we’re gonna spend time stalking these people, let’s learn something about it, right? Yes. Okay, go for it.
John Kozicki (21:47.803)
Yes, and I’m gonna stick with the prince, the princess event theme because I just, I love it. So you also don’t know. So in that scenario, right? The competitors offering like princess parties, you don’t know if there’s princess parties are even successful. You just see that they’re doing it, right? Or offering it. So, you know, is, it make sense to try it out? Sure, maybe, but.
they may be in that exact same space, right? And you can use that as feedback on what your market wants. Does your market even want princess parties? And then like,
Mandy York (22:32.044)
Yes. Right. And that’s kind of what I touched on too is like you think about this is is princess parties what is going to be good for your business. Right. Because I’ve done that. I’ve gotten caught up in something and then I thought no that’s not that’s not who I am. That’s not what I want to do. And what I am doing I’m doing it well. Yeah.
John Kozicki (22:51.578)
Yeah, and if no one else in the community, and if no one else in the community wants princess parties, well then all of a sudden there’s two places in town that are offering princess parties that no one wants, yeah. So yeah, you have to, gauging what your community wants, what are your customers responding to? Refine your offerings, you know, don’t just.
all of a sudden offer princess parties because they’re offering princess parties. But yeah, you’re right on. But this also can spark your own creativity. You may see, oh, they’re offering princess parties. Princess parties aren’t really my thing. Could we do a play on it?
Mandy York (23:38.222)
But I have so many train songs and my kids love trains and we’re gonna do a train themed music event. Yeah.
John Kozicki (23:43.62)
There you go.
John Kozicki (23:48.45)
Yeah, and you’re gonna, and I happen to know we have train tracks that run right through our town and we’re gonna plan it right on in the park where the train tracks go by and then it’ll be the big finale. exactly. Yes.
Mandy York (23:53.313)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (23:59.533)
Yes, that’s when the good stuff happens. When you see someone else doing something and it sparks your own creativity. Totally. Yeah.
John Kozicki (24:06.265)
Right, All right, moving on to my number three point. And these all kind of overlap, but stay focused on what you do best. Like you said, princess parties. You don’t even want to do princess parties, maybe. Yeah. Right, and this is really about also knowing what your core values are for your studio.
Mandy York (24:23.758)
Maybe, mm-hmm, yeah, maybe it’s not my thing.
John Kozicki (24:36.013)
What do you do best, right? I mean, I definitely hear it lot from other studio owners because of what I do with rock bands. I’ll hear from studio owners who don’t offer rock band programs in their studio. And then all of a sudden that well-known franchise is gonna move in and they sort of tense up. no, they’re gonna move in. I need to offer rock band programs too.
Mandy York (25:05.624)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (25:05.825)
I mean, I can say this about rock band programs. If if you’re not passionate about it, if it’s not something that you feel like you want to offer or you have someone in your studio who can do it well, it might not go so good for you. And that goes a little bit back to my story in a more gentle way. Right. When I was in that situation, I felt like I do this really well. I’m good at it.
you know, a little bit overconfident. This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing with this. He’s going to fail. That was kind of my my mindset. But I kind of got off track here. But being reactive to this kind of stuff means that you’re you’re focusing your resources and your energy where they might not need to be. You know, if you’re if you’re a more traditional studio,
Mandy York (26:01.73)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (26:04.147)
and you feel threatened by that rock band program moving in, well, might not make sense, but what can you do to like double down on what you are good at? So yeah, staying focused on core values.
Mandy York (26:19.958)
Yeah. Yeah. We can’t be everything to everybody. I feel like we’ve talked about that before, right? So you do what you do best and let someone else do what they do best.
John Kozicki (26:25.089)
No. Mm-hmm, of course.
John Kozicki (26:31.831)
Yeah. All right. Number four. I think we’ll talk a little bit more about this one. Maintain an abundance mindset. A bit of a buzzword, right? The abundance mindset versus the scarcity mindset. What do you think of when I say maintain an abundance mindset?
Mandy York (26:53.702)
well, I mean, a little bit like we just said, no, I mean that there is, there’s room for everyone. It’s a more positive outlook, right? When you’ve got that. and that.
John Kozicki (26:56.441)
I just put you on the spot.
John Kozicki (27:04.131)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (27:11.86)
Not viewing competition as a negative when I think of abundance mindset, right? Yeah.
John Kozicki (27:18.285)
Yeah, think about this. In our town, you and I, for the most part, we’ve got a pretty good idea of who offers music programs, right?
And there’s kind of a lot, to be honest. There’s like a lot of people who offer just private lessons. There’s your program, there’s my program, there’s a couple of other lesson studios within probably five miles of us. We also don’t know how many private instructors are out there offering lessons in their home, right? Or offering programs in churches.
Mandy York (27:33.538)
Yeah.
Mandy York (27:56.942)
Right.
John Kozicki (27:59.502)
that we don’t know about. Point being is that there’s probably a lot of competition out there that we don’t even know about and there’s we’re still doing fine. So in any service industry, I think there’s there’s an abundance of clients and. You know, I don’t think it’s one of these like really scarce resources, so I think maintaining that abundance mindset.
Mandy York (28:10.86)
Yeah. Yep.
Mandy York (28:25.678)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (28:29.369)
When you take that approach, that can also lead to the idea of collaboration and how collaboration can raise the bar for everyone in your community, right? Like we collaborate all the time. We recommend one another all the time. I think that’s mutually beneficial. Yes, sometimes, right, sometimes.
Mandy York (28:47.15)
Yeah.
Mandy York (28:53.678)
Yeah, we know there’s enough to go around.
John Kozicki (28:58.007)
Families choose your program. Sometimes families choose my program, as you mentioned. Sometimes families choose both. Yeah. But that collaboration can be a benefit. I’ve done performances. Now this isn’t direct competition, but I’ve done performances with other other rock schools in like our Metro Detroit area.
Mandy York (29:05.546)
but yeah yeah
John Kozicki (29:28.161)
And I absolutely loved it. I would consider that those people who run that school my friends. Competition can also raise the standards again for the entire community. You know, maybe not get too much into the pricing thing, but that scarcity mindset and kind of that mindset that I got into.
Mandy York (29:42.634)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (29:55.968)
I immediately went to, have to be the lower, my prices have to be lower because I think that’s what everyone’s going to be focused on, which is not true. But if there are two people in a community offering similar programs, right? And like I bumped my prices up a little bit, that allows them to bump their prices up a little bit, right? So, you know, not extremes, but I think that’s collectively going to raise
Mandy York (30:06.231)
Right. Yeah.
John Kozicki (30:25.623)
the bar and the standards for everyone in that, in the lesson space, if we’re talking about lessons or whatever that service is.
Mandy York (30:32.398)
Absolutely. I agree with that.
John Kozicki (30:36.633)
Okay, I got one more point. And that point is about protecting your own mental health.
Mandy York (30:46.09)
Important. Yes. No. Be kind to yourself. Don’t do to yourself what John did. No.
John Kozicki (30:47.405)
I don’t think I did that in my situation.
John Kozicki (30:55.123)
No, no. I even have on here unhealthy obsession with competition can breed anxiety and burnout. Guilty. It’s I lived that for sure. Healthy, healthy approach competition. I think will keep you motivated and wanting to do more rather than.
Mandy York (31:09.25)
bit.
John Kozicki (31:23.917)
those negative things.
Mandy York (31:25.368)
Yes. Yep. Yeah. Avoid the comparisons. For sure. Focus on what you do best. Yeah.
John Kozicki (31:31.981)
Yeah, celebrate wins. Celebrate wins big and small. Because they’re important and I think when we celebrate those wins, what that does is it’s like our own mini gratitude practice, right? And then like when you you’ve got that that. Gratitude practice in place. Again, I think that then leads into the abundance mindset.
gotta stay away from those negative thoughts.
Mandy York (32:03.704)
Yes. Yep. I love it. And I feel like, I mean, clearly as you know, more than 10 years later, you’re much better at this. I feel like I am too, you know, you’re more focused on what you’re doing well and celebrating your successes and not, you know, beating yourself up over a slow semester or, you know, some new program that’s moved into town that you’re super worried about.
John Kozicki (32:34.604)
Yeah, I think one of the biggest takeaways for me from living through that experience is I was very quick to write off any strengths that this competitor had. And I really think for me that came from me feeling threatened and maybe insecure about
Mandy York (32:34.936)
Kind of.
Mandy York (32:51.47)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (33:01.357)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (33:04.248)
my business experience compared to my teaching experience. Again, because I felt really confident with the teaching and the programs I was offering, but again, really new to running a business, really new to having a team of employees. I felt insecure about that. So again, I think my biggest learning point from that experience was I should have looked at
Mandy York (33:06.83)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (33:33.369)
this guy’s experience as, again, something to learn from and a way to examine myself and say, okay, these are the things, these are the areas where I feel like I am probably at a disadvantage or I am not as capable as this guy. And instead of addressing those things and saying, well, I’m going to go and I’m going to learn how to do these things better, I just sort of ignored it.
You know, so.
Mandy York (34:03.468)
Yeah. Yep. I get that. Yeah. On the, on the flip side too, don’t get caught up if anyone else’s feel is treating you as competition. If you’re on the other side of that kind of negativity, right?
John Kozicki (34:26.2)
Good point. That’s something I hadn’t even thought about, but we’ve all been the new players in places at one point. We have all been the new guys moving into town, and someone else was probably looking at us in that same way.
Mandy York (34:28.15)
I don’t.
Mandy York (34:35.106)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (34:44.034)
Yes. So, you know, maybe be, be gracious, be understanding, but I think this is probably part of the mental wellness thing. Don’t, don’t get caught up on that side of it either. You know, focus on your business. Yeah, I am sorry. I’m going to tell a quick story. I know we’re wrapping up. I know, but this happened to me not too long ago, in a town,
John Kozicki (34:57.452)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (35:03.02)
Yes. No.
Mandy York (35:12.18)
you know, 20, 30 minutes from here, I have a handful of students that attend from this town, because there aren’t early childhood music programs in that area. So I do have clients that come from there. I had a music school reach out to me. I used to private lessons, but they wanted to break into the early childhood thing and, you know, wanted to ask me about the program I use and get some advice. I, because I’m
I would say so I had an abundance mentality about the whole thing and they’re not moving in 30 minutes or half a mile from me, right? And they already have a studio location. So I went in and had a couple of conversations, wanted to educate them on how the program works. Now this was like the business partner for this school, not the the musically minded.
John Kozicki (35:51.35)
Yeah. huh.
Mandy York (36:11.054)
like teacher, okay? And there was kind of a disconnect in that way. And he wondered if I would come on and teach as they were getting started and wondered about sharing teachers, which for the record, I’m all about. You and I have shared teacher before too. Like I think that’s great. But, you know, as meeting upon meeting, know, trying to
John Kozicki (36:11.18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (36:29.324)
Mm-hmm. We have, yeah, we have.
Mandy York (36:41.56)
think about this and talk about how I might be compensated for my input. It just became more and more clear that like they kind of wanted me to set this up for them. And they also thought that like, we’ll offer eight classes this first time, this first semester. And I’m like, it’s hard to get classes up and running in a brand new, you know, didn’t think they had, they understood how it was all going to work. But that was a, that was a moment.
John Kozicki (37:02.028)
Right.
Mandy York (37:10.932)
wasn’t negative, but that was a time when I just removed myself and I was like, I don’t think I have the time to put into this. I had expected them to bring more to the table, thought maybe they would have an early childhood teacher ready to go. And so I backed off and they never opened a program. you know.
John Kozicki (37:22.071)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (37:31.436)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (37:36.172)
Yeah.
Mandy York (37:39.704)
Collaboration is great, know your boundaries, take care of yourself. But yeah, almost a similar situation with this guy wanting you to become a partner in things. You know, you gotta…
John Kozicki (37:48.3)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Mandy York (37:54.094)
take care of you and your studio, collaborate when you can. It wasn’t a matter of competition. was…
It would have been a little bit of competition, but like I said, they’re far out there and it was just, I think that you’re asking more of me than what I can give. So that too, that’s the thing.
John Kozicki (38:11.82)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. so you came at that, you came at that from the perspective of like staying focused on what you do best, right? And yeah, there were some other things involved, but yeah, good job. You did it. All right, well, yes. All right, well, we will wrap this one up. We’ll talk to you next time, Mandy. All right, bye.
Mandy York (38:25.858)
Yeah. Yeah. I said no. Saying no is hard.
Mandy York (38:35.767)
Yeah, thanks, John. See you later.
