In this episode John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) interviews Eric Branner, founder of FONS studio management software, and host of the 440 Podcast. The two have an introspective conversation about treating teaching as a calling and building a studio grounded in purpose. They discuss Eric’s journey founding FONS, automating scheduling and payments, owning your pricing, perceived value, and how bold decisions create momentum for studios and teachers.
In this episode:
How teaching is a calling and should be embraced as such, and success in teaching often comes from confidence and clarity in purpose.
Why perceived value significantly influences student enrollment, and parents often seek the best for their children, impacting their choices.
How taking a bold approach to pricing can actually attract more students.
How mentorship plays a crucial role in personal and professional growth, and mindset shifts can lead to increased opportunities.
Tune in for practical lessons on elevating your business, cultivating community, and rethinking what music teaching can mean for your life and career.
Eric’s Podcast, The Fourfourty (440) with Eric Branner
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Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.695)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor podcast. My name is John Kozicki and joining me this week is the CEO and founder of Fonz, a platform that automates scheduling and payments for appointment based businesses like music schools. He’s also the host of the 440 podcast where discussions focus on building a meaningful career in music. He’s also the owner of Black Forest Music School in Seattle, where he still somehow finds
time to teach guitar and I’m sure there’s a whole laundry list of other things that we could add here. But Eric Braner, welcome to Rock School Proprietor podcast. How are you today?
Eric Branner (00:43.758)
thanks so much for having me, John. I’m doing great. It’s good to be here.
John Kozicki (00:47.911)
Great, great. So this conversation came about because on a previous podcast, I had mentioned Fonz as an option for studio management software for private instructors, for studios, and I’ve not used Fonz, full disclosure, right? But we’ve had a little interaction back and forth.
via Facebook and I’ve seen your posts on your Fonz family Facebook group. And so I reached out and thought, well, Eric, do you want to come on and talk about Fonz and teaching and just whatever else? So speaking of Fonz, now I think most of us know that it is a platform designed to automate billing and scheduling. What would you say?
Fonz is for and maybe what it’s not for since there are a number of studio management platforms.
Eric Branner (01:53.231)
Oh, sure, yeah, you I think it’s probably, it’s a great question. I think it’s probably a good idea to let me go back a little bit into the founding and the story before that, which was, you know, I’m a third generation music teacher and my grandfather was that local big band teacher and classical guitar or classical pianist. And he taught his whole career. And then my dad was a serial entrepreneur. And then, so I was somewhere in between those two things. And I’m a classical guitar player.
John Kozicki (02:03.248)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (02:06.564)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (02:18.469)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (02:21.646)
love to teach. really, it’s my trip. I’d written some books on it and it’s just the thing I love to do. And I was living in Seattle and working, running my, my studio in my school and really enjoying that. And then I had this opportunity to start this, this platform to basically run the business operational side of what it was I was doing. And this started around 2016. And at that point, a lot of
John Kozicki (02:46.928)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (02:50.36)
we people who were running music schools or studios were piecing together lots of different pieces of tech to be able to, at that time, the big thing was just automating invoicing, right? Which was to be able to create an invoice for the month ahead. And I just had this incredible kind of moment in my teaching career. I’d been doing it full-time for about 15 years. I was loving it, but I was kind of looking into something new in the universe to do, whether I thought maybe I’d go get my MBA or go to law school.
John Kozicki (03:03.152)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (03:19.33)
You know, I had a family and, and anyway, this opportunity came to start looking at the systems that I was doing for my school, which was, it was, really successful. I was doing really well and I was looking just in a new direction to try something. And I had this opportunity to work with a really amazing team to see if it was possible to take what I was doing in my operations for my school that was being run by my wife, Alison, she’s an actor, but she kind of did all the admin and was there some way we could put that into a platform to automate a lot of it.
And I mentioned that back story because at that point that’s what we were doing. You what we were using, you know, some kind of quick books like thing, generating invoices, you know, managing the website, doing all this stuff and you know, communicating through different apps. It was very pieced together because it was really important for me to be for that to be professional, but to be streamlined. But then I found myself in this, in this team of really advanced technologists, UX UI designers, and I’m in this room telling them about
this is how I run my studio. Let’s just make this an automated thing. And they’re like, well, you know, it’s kind of that invoicing thing is pretty fraught with friction, right? You’re waiting for payments. You actually, actually do have a lot of money that’s outstanding that people aren’t paying you. And so it turned into kind of a arm wrestling match. Cause at that time nobody was automating payments, right? No one was doing the paid payment thing. It was kind of new and I was like, Oh no, trust me, we can’t do that. And I ended up losing on pretty much most of how I was operating my business and
John Kozicki (04:28.804)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (04:39.269)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (04:49.326)
That was the beginning of Fonz, which was this mission of how can we make bold statements to streamline, simplify, create a more professional environment to run, whether you’re a private teacher or you’re a studio with 50 teachers, how can we do that in a way that really respects the teacher-student relationship and takes that friction out of that conversation? Because, I mean,
John Kozicki (05:11.269)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (05:15.8)
Frankly, I was teaching a lot of lawyers and doctors, professional athletes, people that didn’t have time to open my invoices, write me a check, bring it to the next lesson. And we had these conversations a million times, but in 2016, that was kind of an interesting idea to start exploring. So we spent a couple of years really ironing that out, but that became the ethos of what the Fonz platform was about. So when you say what is it and what it’s not, a lot of what it’s not,
is things that we mindfully chose not to do to allow a studio to have a really professional presentation. And that’s been the real fun of this jam and the project is we built the idea and then I went out and just started talking. I love to talk to people and I started talking to teachers. And when we first launched Fonz, we were like, well, this is great. But then we noticed academic tutors and
John Kozicki (05:51.92)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (06:09.294)
personal trainers started using it at the same rate that music teachers were. We weren’t marketing to them, they were just finding it. And we thought, wow, maybe we’ll pull back and we’ll be less vertical specific. By that means a vertical is music teachers, a vertical is academic tutors, and maybe it’ll just be more of a business software for any type of appointment-based business because there’s something really special about all these that they have in common, which is relationship. Right? And that’s my trip, is that, I see your kid every week, right? You trust me.
John Kozicki (06:14.938)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (06:21.072)
Yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (06:33.126)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (06:38.398)
deeply, I trust you deeply, you wanna pay me. So we were able to build the software around that relationship, learn from the different disciplines such as what a personal trainer is doing. this swim school in Los Angeles is doing something really neat, let’s build that. But we’re not gonna build a website builder because their website, we wanna be pro, we didn’t have the bandwidth even with a team of like 15 to make a really beautiful website when someone else could do it better.
when you say, are we not? There’s certain areas we said no to. So we really focused on the business side, streamlining that, simplifying it, making bold decisions, saying, well, we’re actually not going to do this because we don’t believe this is the best thing for the industry, for the profession. Cause that’s our goal is to elevate it, right? To where that’s what I’m out talking to teachers about. been like, you’re undercharging. You could charge more. You could run your operations this way. And so now it’s been this great time of.
John Kozicki (07:26.47)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (07:36.546)
I’ve talked to thousands of teachers, talked to many hundreds of music school owners, and that’s what we continue to do, is making these decisions about how can we build this platform with those things in mind. So long answer, but I could drone on forever, but I’ll stop.
John Kozicki (07:53.393)
That’s, like that you, I like a few things that you mentioned, but one that I’m gonna kind of poke on a little bit is you mentioned that your clients don’t have time to pay the invoices in those earlier days. And you also said that you talk to a lot of instructors and you feel like they’re undercharging. I think so frequently music instructors get into that mindset.
of their thinking about their perspective and how they would feel as a client in their own business, given like all their same circumstances, and they forget to see that their clients come from all different walks of life. And ideally what we want is we want to continue to level up those clients so that we’re seeing the best possible clients that respect our time and are willing to pay.
the rates that we want to charge for our lessons. And it’s almost like this weird mindset shift. It’s an interesting conundrum. How did you, I mean, you have a way of sort of looking at this from a different perspective, I think. And do you ever feel like you fell victim to that mindset of like, oh, my clients won’t pay for the rates that I’m charging?
Eric Branner (09:22.51)
If the question about rates, no, because one of my fundamental foundational stories in my teaching career was, it was 2007 and I was starting a family and I had a beautiful retail space downtown and I was teaching and loving it, but that was my other kind of mid-career crisis where I was like, think I’m having a family, I need to go become a lawyer or get an MBA, it’s time.
And one of my students who was a great mentor in my life just said, hey, know, Branner, just stop, just double your rates. No one cares and just keep teaching. Cause that’s what you’re meant to do. And that is my purpose. I am, that is what I love to do most. I love teaching people. I love being with people. And so very reluctantly I did it and what I found in that moment. Now go ahead.
John Kozicki (10:13.702)
Okay, that’s, sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but that point right there, very reluctantly, you did it. So there was self-doubt. Yeah, and so I see that in myself at times, I see that in so many other instructors where there is that self-doubt about rates. And I think you’re about to give me that moment where you realize like, okay, this is the mindset shift.
Eric Branner (10:38.754)
Yeah, it really was. And what happened was it was instantaneous was I did it and nobody cared. not only, but that was the big thing. And there was two side pieces to that that I learned. And one is when I did that and I started making twice as much money is that in the next eight weeks, I had a much bigger waiting list. And the person at that time that I was studying with,
John Kozicki (10:47.258)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (11:06.222)
I was getting more phone calls than that teacher was. I was referring students over because of this concept of perceived value, which is something that’s been a big part of my life, which is understanding that, wow, there’s John and Eric are standing next to each other and being compared for music lessons and John charges $200 per lesson and I charge 100. There are a lot of people that are gonna think, well, John must be much more of an advanced teacher and I’ve got to have the best for my child, my student.
and I’ll try to get into a studio. It works 100 % of the time. Everybody that I’ve ever worked with, it’s been able to adopt this mindset and be bold about how they price themselves within their community. It works. And the second thing that really happens and always happens is that 90 % of the clients that you attract, you say, this is my rate. And they say, okay. And you’re like, I can’t believe I just pulled that off. Like, this is amazing.
And then every once in a while your spidey senses go up because the person that you’re interviewing to become a potential student, you can tell that there are people that might be struggling in some way. And because you’ve put on your oxygen mask and you’re making a great living, you don’t really care. So it actually solves the equity and the ability to deliver lessons to people that need it, that might not be able to afford it and feel good about it because you just think, I don’t care. can pay, pay whatever you can pay and we’re great.
John Kozicki (12:13.882)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (12:33.696)
And so it actually opened up more doors to allow me to teach with people that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Right. Cause I was, I didn’t feel great about that when I was a place where I couldn’t really support myself.
John Kozicki (12:39.867)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (12:44.696)
Okay, now you do speak with a lot of music instructors. Do you think there’s a difference between someone who thinks about teaching music as their job and someone who thinks of teaching music as their purpose? And you had mentioned teaching is your purpose. What do you think that difference is? Or is there a difference?
Eric Branner (13:09.317)
You know, I can speak to that’s a that’s one of the coolest questions that I’ve heard in a long time and I really like and I it makes me think back to when I first got out of music school and I just assumed I mean I love teaching I put myself through through college teaching music school But I always assumed that I was going to be a performer that I’d be you know backing some big touring artist writing music playing on big stages Whatever since that I was 13. That was kind of my vision
John Kozicki (13:15.492)
You
Eric Branner (13:38.506)
I think there was a window of time when I was teaching to get by because it was better than taking that job as a manager at the guitar center, right? Or telemarketing.
John Kozicki (13:45.114)
That’s exactly, that’s how I started teaching in fact.
Eric Branner (13:48.749)
Yep, and so you have that moment and it’s almost you feel like that there’s a moment of disappointment, but then you realize that over time, what for me what it was, was seeing the results of my students becoming friends, becoming successful in life, and then understanding what happiness is, which is community. I could tell a hundred stories about it, but the one that pops into mind was,
That was about 15 years ago, I guess. Now my studio got robbed, got burgled. I was out of town. Every guitar, every piece of gear, my surfboards, our roommate at the time called and was like, oh, Branner, why is your studio open and where are all your guitars? I was in Virginia and it was really, well, it taught me a couple of things. Like, wow, that’s really painful, but it’s not as painful as like losing a person. They are still things. And the second thing was that our community, when we got back into town,
John Kozicki (14:22.181)
No.
Eric Branner (14:44.966)
I was at a friend’s house and 150 people showed up to this house and like presented my wife and I with this like Texas style, like lottery style check that they’d all put. They’re like, hey, we know you got some of your guitars back. A lot of this stuff was found. The person who burgled you was arrested, but we want you to forget about this because we’re your people and we want you to get your dream guitar, which, and by the way, there’s no way you can refuse this because you’ll never know where the money came from. it was, I was truly speechless.
John Kozicki (15:10.278)
Mm.
Eric Branner (15:13.24)
But it was one of those moments on the arc of my life where I was like, wow, everything, this is also meaningful, not because of that, but because of when I was down, all these people that I had contributed to their lives are wanting to give back, are wanting to be a part of the community that I had built around just music. And that’s, one of a hundred stories that I could tell about why this life is so meaningful. And that the more people you meet and the more people you know and see,
John Kozicki (15:30.842)
Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Branner (15:40.175)
their professional careers, whether they’re unhappy or maybe they’re doing something that makes money, but doesn’t create an impact or doesn’t create a lasting ripple in that pond of life where you have your students going out in the world and being awesome and playing music. You start to see the value of it. And that purpose, when you move from getting by to becoming your purpose is you realize what a great career it is and what an impactful career it is. You know, so I’m really grateful for it.
John Kozicki (16:03.28)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (16:08.304)
Do you think it’s as simple as?
this is gonna sound maybe a little woo woo, but do you think it’s as simple as just not having a gratitude practice, not realizing that as teachers, there are so many things that we’re offering our students that we may not even realize in the moment. You know, we see these kids for a half hour every week, they’re in the door, they’re out the door, you know, we show them some chords, we show them some songs.
they’re picking up other things along the way. I’m really big into like leaning into everything else, aside from the teaching music, like the community and putting kids together. And so that, that I see it, I see that that big picture of the community forming and the benefit that everyone’s getting. But do you think when I asked what’s the difference between someone who feels teaching is their job versus their purpose, is it as simple as
they’re just not recognizing the impact that they’re having.
Eric Branner (17:16.942)
Gosh, it’s another really great question. think as you’re saying, and I think it’s something we could riff on this for days, but my mind goes to imagine scrolling through like Piano Teacher Central, like 30,000 teachers on Facebook, right? And then expressing their real frustration with how their students don’t practice or how their parents don’t respect their time. And you see those every day and you want to just say, well, why don’t you be grateful?
John Kozicki (17:18.598)
Hahaha
Eric Branner (17:45.071)
Why can’t you see the great thing that you’re doing? And to your question, I think there’s a couple really important things to think about, which is people are in different seasons. It’s really hard to express gratitude if you’re not paying your mortgage, right? If your students aren’t paying you on time, if your studio is shrinking and not to be woo about it, but you’ve got to be awesome. Like for what works best.
John Kozicki (17:59.911)
Sure, sure.
Eric Branner (18:10.158)
is if as a music teacher or a music school, you are the epicenter of great energy in your community, right? Where people want to be with you and music and sing music, not as open up your method book and play this or your technique looks good. It is a part of a holistic life. You know, many of my best students, when I call it best and by best, I mean people that I see grow up to become well adjusted adults living creative, beautiful lives.
John Kozicki (18:25.242)
Yes.
Eric Branner (18:38.99)
You know, I spent an hour talking to one yesterday who’s about to turn 30, just catching up. She works for a record label in Los Angeles and I’m so proud not because she’s playing a lot of guitar, but because she’s living this really dynamic, beautiful life. And I got to be a little piece of that. It’s actually a big piece of it, of us growing up together. And just as she was growing up, she became my daughter’s babysitter. She taught my daughter as much about guitar as I did, right? Cause that was a safe place to be. And so I think it’s…
John Kozicki (19:04.858)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (19:08.386)
I think it’s easy to just say, my gosh, why can’t you see why great this, but to understand that people are in different phases of life. They’re experiencing different things. The real goal was to, if you’re not feeling great about the work that you’re doing, and if your first inclination is to blame your community or your students or the parents is to ask, am I feeling really awesome? Am I feeling really inspired? Am I feeling when a student walks into my studio, I’m like, I’m here for you. I’m going to show you what presence is.
I’m going to show you what connection I’m going to show you what active listening is, how I respect you in this space. And if you’re not, that’s actually kind of the first place to start even before is the question before you ask the question, how much are you charging? Like you make enough money to buy groceries because if you’re not, that’s probably that’s going to really help if you, if you, if you do, if you put that, that oxygen baston first,
John Kozicki (19:51.174)
Mm-hmm. Right.
John Kozicki (20:00.516)
It makes me think of a little lesson that I teach students all the time in our band programs. And it’s very much about what it means to go on stage and perform. And when you’re on stage and you’re performing, are you up there for yourself? Are you up there for your bandmates? Are you up there for the audience?
And I think all of those can be true, but the different answers can also mean that their purpose is different. And I try and tell the students that it’s a give and take. It’s always a give and take.
Eric Branner (20:50.894)
Hmm.
Eric Branner (21:47.053)
Yeah, it is. And that’s the vehicle for it. And I love the way you said, and I’m gonna borrow that, but I loved how you, what you were describing was you’re teaching your kids how to experience, because you forgot the fourth thing about being on stage, which is because someone made you, and in that moment you’re terrified and you don’t want to be there you’re like, But what you described was how to create a sense of intentionality. I’m gonna choose where I put my focus. I’m gonna master my thinking.
to where I’m gonna say, I’m gonna focus on the audience. I’m gonna focus on the sound of my fingers on the strings. I’m gonna focus on my connection to my bandmates. And eventually I’m gonna focus inwardly on myself, how I’m feeling and just observe those emotions. Cause it can be so intense when you’re performing. That is a lesson because that’s a moment of heightened emotion that applies so well to life. And I would add to when you talked about this moment of magic.
My wife is an actor, I’m a guitar player. Both of our kids are very athletic. This is the way the universe works, right? We’re like, where are the costumes? They’re like, they’re not costumes, they’re uniforms. And I have seen our kids experience, and my best friend was a professional tennis player. Like this has been a recurring theme. One of my former students is a professional soccer player. I see almost, and I’m learning to see,
a very similar magic in sports for people because it’s a different way of expression and it also gives a similar platform. You can take these same lessons that you just described and you can do that in an athletic environment because it can create the same environment in your mind and it’s a physical expression as opposed to like an artistic and a audio based expression. But there’s a real similarity there that I’m seeing as I get older and I’m learning about it and I’m really interested.
because I think that the great coaches and the great athletes, they’re doing something similar to what we’re doing with how they open up their hearts and connect with their teammates and their audiences and their opponents.
Eric Branner (24:29.023)
Eric Branner (25:38.431)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (26:12.736)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (26:25.604)
yeah, it’s so much easier to have them when you’re able to respond in that moment and to be able to, because it’s really, you’re teaching them a bigger thing that is through music, you’re modeling something, a skill that they’ll pick up from you, right? Because in often cases outside of the family, the music teacher, the private teacher is the only safe, trusted adult that they spend regularly recurring time with.
In the digital world that we live in, and if you hear the conversations that parents have about their kids, it’s always like, why is he always on his phone? Why is she locking herself in a room? Why won’t she go out and do stuff with people? she’s doing too much stuff with people. Having a safe guide and the impact that can make that is it’s massive. It is also a value proposition, right? And so as we’re running our schools, we’re running our studios, we’re talking about the work we do.
Nothing annoys me more than scrolling through social media and the post that are like, well, new research shows that studying music will increase your SAT score by 12 points. I’m just like, that’s not what it’s about. we’re creating human beings here. And I know that’s pushing the idea that, you should study music because it’ll help you get into college. It’s like, no, that’s not why you should study music.
You study music to be a more awesome human being so you have a more meaningful and enjoyable and impactful life yourself and all the things that come along with it. And I think that’s the mindset that if you can grab onto, you’ll want to do it forever, right? Cause we haven’t even talked about the fact, and I love that we haven’t, which is that passion, that love that we share, we felt for music when we were growing up. Like it was all I wanted to do. That changes over time, right? Your relationship to how…
Because sometimes music lets you down personally. you’re not my, yesterday my tone was terrible. I didn’t want to practice. I was frustrated. But what doesn’t let you down over time is when you start to have this collection of stories and successes and failures where you actually see you’ve made a great impact on the world through your work. Right? And I’ve gotten to do a lot of really interesting things in my career. But I was talking to this former student yesterday and I was thinking, you know, that of all the things I’ve gotten to do, nothing really fills me up the same way.
Eric Branner (28:48.246)
as the experiences like we had together, like seeing you grow up, seeing you do these great things and all of your friends that you’re still friends with that you met through our band camps, right? And what we were doing together. So that’s the thing that I think keeps recharging us and keeping us going. And that’s what I’m gonna wanna teach until I keel over, right? Cause that’s, it’s just, it’s become the fabric of who I am.
John Kozicki (29:50.699)
So you recently started a podcast called the 440 podcast.
Eric Branner (30:18.407)
sure.
John Kozicki (30:27.395)
looks like a relatively new project. What are your goals with the podcast?
Eric Branner (30:33.39)
Hmm, that’s a great question. So too, when you had introduced me as the CEO and founder of Fonz, I should probably clarify that I’m no longer the CEO of Fonz. About three years ago, we were acquired by a company called Peakswear that is the parent company of Alfred Publishing, which does Suzuki, that all the payments have been around forever, Make Music, which is the app that
John Kozicki (30:45.888)
okay.
John Kozicki (31:00.015)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (31:02.498)
they use in the classrooms. And so we became part of that. And so in my new position, I’m actually the vice president of business development for private markets across all the brands. So I’m still involved with Vons a lot, but I’m also involved with the rest of the company to help elevate and continue to elevate the industry of private teaching and encouraging more pedagogical composition and all the things that come with it, getting more people to take music lessons.
and supporting teachers. So the podcast was kind of a natural evolution to where I love to talk to people and we’re chatting with all these great composers and music school owners and thought leaders about having these conversations. The podcast started, cause I’m about 16 episodes in, I guess that I’ve recorded. was very recent. It began with, didn’t really know what it was gonna be about. We know we wanted to talk to these people. We know we wanted to have these chats, just kind of like what we’re having.
John Kozicki (31:40.441)
Yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (31:57.262)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (32:01.23)
And one of the themes that started coming out really quickly and what’s become so fascinating is I’m talking to all these artists. This week’s podcast was the president of MTNA, Kevin Chance, one of the most awesome piano teachers in the country. But we started to see this connection where the people you’re talking to doing these great things, they usually have like a three-legged chair, three things that they’re not just a piano teacher.
John Kozicki (32:15.128)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (32:30.664)
something else that they’re doing, just like what we’re talking about in the purpose side of things. And none of them are the same. Like now I know that you were working in marketing before you started your teaching business. And then that’s where I could run with that question. so my goal for the podcast is to A, document these stories of these brilliant careers, whether they’re just starting and they’re in their infancy or whether they’re full ongoing. The goal is to encourage people who might just be coming out of school.
John Kozicki (32:42.083)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (33:00.374)
Right. People who were seniors in music programs or people like yourself at that marketing job, be like, can I do a, a career doing this to encourage them to say, yes, there is so much room for music schools and music teachers in the developing economy. There has been, it’s been a great last 10 years. It’s going to be a great next 10 years. The more the world goes the way it’s going, the more our work is going to have a strong value proposition.
The second thing is to encourage people who are maybe mid-career, who are maybe not having that connection to the purpose and the vibe we were talking about earlier, to help them reset, to help them realign and to encourage them to think, wow, I’m doing like 80 % of this stuff. And if I just do this slight switch like Kevin Chance did, maybe that will really help me. And then the third piece is of course, these people share their secrets. Everyone will tell you,
If I told you my exact marketing strategy for how I built my school and built my studio and how perceived value was so important to me and you do the same thing, right? And you’re in Michigan, we are not competing. All we’re doing is you’ve, if you took something away from that conversation that elevated your business, your career, your place in your community and the respect that everybody gives you and your community just goes up just a little bit more because you’re on that a little bit more professional level. Uh, maybe you can give them.
John Kozicki (34:04.546)
Yeah. Right.
Eric Branner (34:23.724)
you can give away more and then we’re all just coming up. that’s the, that’s the true focus of the podcast is to elevate the industry tangentially through collecting these stories and encouraging people and showing them how great of a career it can be.
John Kozicki (34:42.284)
love that. I think it’s a natural progression from from what I’ve seen from you what you’ve said. I had a little note here to to mention that the Fonz family Facebook group I somehow found myself as part of that group somewhere along the way. I’m not sure when. But that is a lot of what I I tend to see you know you still get the typical like hey this parent is
giving me this problem, what should I do about it? You get those requests. But I also see a lot of really intentional posts and conversations about how we really can elevate the industry in spite of like the posts about the, hey, this parent’s giving me problems and they’re not paying. And I think…
Eric Branner (35:30.38)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (35:36.24)
Who should join, I mean, obviously, like you should listen to your podcast, the 440, for more of that stuff. But when it comes to that Facebook group, I mean, I think there’s a little gold nuggets in there. And it’s a shame when it does get lost in the kind of nuts and bolts of the parent problems and the student problems. But who should join the Fonz family Facebook group and get active?
on those bigger picture topics.
Eric Branner (36:07.822)
Well, know, that’s a thank you for mentioning it. That it’s one of the things I’m most proud about. And that group is we’ve curated it because it’s been such a great, it’s been very helpful for us to build a better platform because people are so honest there. But I’m, I’ve curated daily and you know, there’s the, only rules are to be kind and always and to be helpful when able. Right. So I actually appreciate when people come in with those questions as far as our career go, they’re kind of like sophomore.
John Kozicki (36:20.014)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (36:37.346)
music teacher questions, this, this parent didn’t pay me on time. It’s like, well, set up automate because it shows what season they’re in and we can be respectful to it. And we can say, it’d be like, you know what? I was there too. And here’s what I did. And here’s what worked for me. That is part of the journey. And I really try not to get frustrated about that. the, the Fonz family has nothing to do with actually using Fonz, right? We want to welcome anybody in to talk about
John Kozicki (36:46.325)
Mmm, yeah, good point.
Eric Branner (37:07.48)
this idea we just talked about, which is that if both of us do well, me in Seattle, you in Michigan, there is no competition. We’re just helping each other position ourselves better in the community. That concept works great when you bring together, voice teachers are really good actually at running businesses. This is something I’ve learned about and they’re really creative with how they market themselves because they’re comfortable with that. Bring voice teachers in and showing them to a group of piano teachers, which generally aren’t as great at
modernizing how they market and how they push themselves out there coming up. But it’s a generalization, but it’s true. so bring these people together in a group to share the big picture stuff about elevating and sharing their successes. And I actually love that about the group that you’ve got. We have a good collection of the top 1 % of music teachers as far as business owners, people who are really building very successful careers.
freely giving information to the lower 20 % that are just getting, that are on their way up, that are still really nervous about raising their rates or building a studio. And so I encourage everybody to check it out because it’s a really special place. And if you come in as a wallflower and just kind of watch it and scroll through, you know, even, you know, the other day, um, the internet went down cloud flare, which was this
John Kozicki (38:09.613)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (38:32.002)
Yes.
Eric Branner (38:32.402)
I don’t know if you heard about half the internet went down the other day, which included fonts for a couple hours. It was offline. And that’s always hard to wake up at 5 a.m. and get a notification that your tech platform’s down. But so was chat GPT. But what I, in that group, was so beautiful, it’s just another layer of support. By the time our team had seen it, gotten the notifications, which was maybe three minutes after it happened, people were already commenting, like, what’s going on with my thing? can’t, and hey.
John Kozicki (38:43.203)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (39:00.942)
If you Google it, says that cloud flares down and it’s, and it’s going to be back up soon. It’s not related to fonts. And I thought that was so beautiful because it’s just another way of supporting each other in a real authentic way. It’s like, Oh, John stressed cause he can’t cancel his lessons today for a school. I already heard about this and, um, it’s going to be okay. It’s cloud flare. And I thought that was a really sweet, just example of how we can support each other in this group. So.
John Kozicki (39:30.167)
Well, and you mentioned you mentioned competition and specifically, you know, you being in Seattle, me being out here in Michigan and we’re not in competition. I’m to push a little further on that and suggest that and in the sense of community and what you’ve been talking about. I we did an episode not too long ago, episode 64, where I shared a story about an experience I had with competitor and what I found over the year.
Eric Branner (39:57.005)
yeah.
John Kozicki (39:58.136)
What I’ve found over the years is that again, like big picture, sure, we might be existing in the same geographical location offering a similar service, but when we break down that invisible barrier and we just introduce ourselves to those people, like I know most of the instructors in my area at this point. And now that I know them, I don’t think of them as competition. just…
Eric Branner (40:22.604)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (40:27.5)
think of them as contemporaries. Like I do something well. If you want classical piano lessons, you go to Jill Fitzgerald, who was right down the street or Mr. Nick. And my podcast co-host Mandy, her studio is within walking distance of mine. Now we offer different, different types of programs. But again, I think having that, that connection with those people makes our community stronger because we can recommend one another for
Eric Branner (40:36.802)
Yes.
John Kozicki (40:57.536)
their benefits versus viewing us each other as competition.
Eric Branner (40:59.394)
Hmm.
Mmm. You know, that is a really beautiful outlook and a great way to state it. You know, when, when I have a new student, I always meet with them. call to meet and greet, meaning I want you to come into my studio and I want to sit down with you because I understand that your student or you were probably a little nervous about this. Like you’re, I’m actually nervous too. I don’t know why I still get nervous when I meet new students because it’s natural, but I do, I feel it. And I tell them that. But the other thing that I,
John Kozicki (41:12.366)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (41:25.751)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (41:31.719)
I lead off about my meet greets with is I say, I want to get to know you because I might not be the best teacher for you, but if I’m not, know who will be. And there is nothing I think that’s actually better marketing for my own studio than to send a student to the right person. Because then they tell, they’re like, no, I found, I found this guitar teacher, this jazz teacher, which I’m not great at through, through Branner. He introduced us. It comes back to you if you do what’s right.
John Kozicki (41:39.042)
Mm-hmm. Right.
John Kozicki (41:48.832)
Yeah, exactly.
Eric Branner (42:00.952)
for that student, there’s a time and there’s pushback on the concept of the ICP right now, you the ideal client profile, which is when you’re starting a business, it’s a really great idea to essentially create an avatar for who you’d be best suited to work with. I love the exercise because I think it’s really, I’m not saying that I don’t wanna work with people outside of that ICP, but I wanna be honest and be like, there are better people that teach jazz guitar by far than me. If you wanna be in like your high school jazz band, I’m not the guy.
John Kozicki (42:01.346)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (42:27.31)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Branner (42:31.118)
but I know the guy who is. And over the years you realized, wow, that’s actually marketing for myself in some strange way because it comes back because, no, he doesn’t do jazz, but he is the classical, the rock, the blues guy. He can do bluegrass really well too, because we had that conversation and we made a human connection. And so that’s why I’m a big fan of the free meet and greet. No, I want to get to know you. You’re in my neighborhood, you’re in my city. I want to meet your kid. we’re a perfect fit.
John Kozicki (42:31.278)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (42:56.632)
Yeah.
Eric Branner (42:58.638)
I’d love to work with you. We’re awesome connection, but I think you’re going to be happier with this teacher. So to your point, I just think that’s a great attitude to bring to your to your studio.
John Kozicki (43:10.094)
Yeah, I agree. That’s that’s abundance mindset, which is a bit of a buzzword these days. But I I strongly subscribe to it. You know, I think there’s there’s enough students to go around for everyone. And again, if we are to really elevate our industry, then we have to do what’s right and best for our students. We have to do what’s right and best for us. We have to do what’s right and best for the other instructors in our communities. So I’m a big fan.
Eric Branner (43:18.712)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (43:39.95)
Well, Eric Brenner, we talked about your podcast. We talked about teaching. We talked about philosophy. We talked just a little bit about Fonz, which is okay. We talked about the Fonz Fam Facebook page. So maybe share with folks where they can listen to your podcast, because I think at this point, at least based on our conversation,
Eric Branner (43:49.922)
Yeah, that’s great.
John Kozicki (44:08.321)
that’s kind of where people are gonna get the most from you and then they can sort of splinter out on other things that they might want to explore.
Eric Branner (44:16.824)
Sure, yeah, so the 440, if you write out the word 440, or for the numbers, it is streaming on all major podcasts platforms, so you can find that there. It’s a great way to get connected. But also, if you have a curiosity, you can of course join the Facebook group, which is a really great way to just understand the ethos of what we’re trying to build. And again, you can also reach out to me too. Like I love talking about this stuff.
ericatphons.com is my email. Follow me on social. I love talking about these things and hearing new ideas and hearing what’s working or maybe what’s not working. We do weekly master minds in the group where it’s just an open forum where people can come and be like, I’m having a real problem with churn right now. And everyone just kind of gets together and works it out together. So you’re welcome to join those. There’s a lot of entry points. And just like I was talking about with this meet and greet.
We have a really fantastic team. If you have a studio and you’re thinking, Oh, maybe there’s some things I’d want to do to align my business with what, what Fonz doing to sit down and do the meet and greet and say, tell me about your school. Tell me about what you’re doing. Tell me what your goals are. Oh, I think Fonz is a perfect platform for what you’re doing. Or I’d recommend maybe doing this, maybe piecing these things together because just like everything else we’ve talked about today, everybody’s unique. And we have the same kind of ethos around that, which is, you know, you might be better doing this thing if this is what’s really important to you or
we think you’d be a great fit for to be part of this community and part of this platform. So always, always open to a good chat. and I really appreciate the questions. these were really great and it was a wonderful conversation. Yeah.
John Kozicki (45:52.535)
Love it.
John Kozicki (45:56.061)
thank you. Thank you. Well, I’ll certainly I’ll link to the 440 podcast in the show notes. Eric Brenner, this it was an absolute pleasure. This is actually our first time talking. And I really enjoyed it. Hopefully not the last. Thanks for being on the podcast and we’ll see you next time Rockschoolproprietor.com
Eric Branner (46:08.471)
I know, I love it.
Eric Branner (46:18.456)
Thanks so much.
