I’m pleased to announce that it only took 10 minutes to upgrade to the Invoicing System, so we weren’t down for long at all.

As I mentioned in the last post, Music Teacher’s Helper will now let you create invoices that you can go back and review any time on your Invoice History page, accessible by clicking Billing -> Invoicing -> Invoice History. From there, you can print, email, or delete the invoice. There is also a page for Invoices by Student that lets you see a chronological list of all invoices you’ve created for a particular student. When that student (adult student or parent) logs in to their account, they will see their invoices as well and can make payments from that screen.

One big change that this brings deals with when items are charged. For those of you who charge a flat fee, before when you created an invoice, the fee showed up on the invoice, but it didn’t actually charge the student by adding the fee. Music Teacher’s Helper will now automatically create any scheduled fees that fall within the date range of the invoice, and add them to the students account as charges. This makes it easy to see exactly how much the student really owes right now by looking at the transaction history.

If you charge per lesson, then any future scheduled lessons that appear on an invoice will now be treated as charges on the student’s account, whether or not they have been reconciled. And deleting an invoice will remove the charges. Since you are actually billing the student at that time, it makes much more sense to charge the student’s account at that time as well, rather than waiting until the lesson is reconciled. This also means that lessons do not really ever have to be reconciled anymore, although you still may want to so you can send lesson notes to the parent and mark attendance. As before, if a lesson needs to be cancelled or rescheduled, the system will take the amounts into account on the next invoice.

We hope you like these new changes. We’ve had more requests to improve this part of the program than any other, so hopefully this will make a lot of people happy. Please let us know if you have questions or if you find any potential bugs, so we can fix them asap.

There are several other small changes and improvements we made to various parts of the program along with this upgrade, which are too small and numerous to mention here. The next feature we’ll be releasing is a file upload area, allowing you to share documents, music, and other files with your students! So stay tuned for that!

Thanks and have a great day!

Brandon Pearce

Music Teacher’s Helper will be getting some new improvements tomorrow that will require us to take the site down for a couple hours.

We’ll be making long-awaited improvements to the Invoicing system, allowing you to review a history of invoices you’ve sent, as well as resend or reprint them for your students. This change will also clear up a lot of frustrations with the current invoicing system concerning knowing how much students actually owe. Now, for those who pay per lesson, as soon as the lesson is invoiced, it becomes a charge on the student’s account. You’ll be able to easily see which items have been invoiced and which haven’t. We’ve fixed and improved a number of other small things as well, such as always listing students by last name first.

The site will be down on Thursday, May 24, 2007, from about 9:00pm to 11:00pm MDT while we make the change. We’ll try to have it back up within the first hour or sooner. Actually, it could just take 20 minutes but we want to make sure we don’t underestimate. We’ll make it live as soon as the changes are made.

Back in March, I wrote a post about how we handle student payments and policies about attendance (Collecting the Benjamins). Because of the interesting responses from teachers, I thought it would be good to review two aspects of this subject again–payment policies and cancellation policies, and to summarize teacher responses. We would all appreciate it if you would be willing to “add a comment” at the end of this post, reflecting on your own thoughts and experiences. This is one topic we all deal with and are happy to learn more about from other experienced teachers. Below are summaries of responses from teachers writing about the earlier post, as well as ideas from my own experience.

(By the way, thanks to Valerie for her recent comment about the Music Ace free demo; see her comment at the end of the post about Online Music Games.)

1. Payment policies.

Betty: Teaches a year-round schedule and students either pay annually, semi-annually, quarterly, or if monthly, she divides the annual rate into 10 parts and they pay this amount monthly for 10 consecutive months. Students can leave with 30 days notice.

Jan: Charges a flat monthly rate based on the number of lessons in a school year divided by the number of months. It’s basically a tuition payment rather than directly relating the payments to the number of lessons in a given month.

Tina: Students pay for the lessons in each month at the first lesson of each month. She has Music Teachers Helper send invoices the first of each month, which works for most students; some need reminders.

Toby: His students pay monthly tuition.

Joe: Requires signed agreement and payment in advance.

Mine: I teach in two places currently. One place has people sign up for a semester (though some people manage to sign up for less); they pay the office and the office pays me based on lessons taught. Students can withdraw before the 5th lesson; otherwise they are committed for the semester. In the other location, students pay me directly, either 4 lessons at a time, or they pay at the first lesson of the month for the whole month. Student commitment is monthly; unfortunately, someone could drop lessons at the beginning of any month.

2. Cancellation policies.

Betty: With 24 hours notice, she’ll keep the payment but reschedule the lesson. There are 40 lessons in a year, and if they miss some or can’t reschedule, they lose those lessons.Jan: No refunds or rescheduling for missed lessons. She explains that (more…)

I read an interesting post today by a teacher who was so frustrated about her student’s that she was in tears. Many of the subsequent posters were sympathetic and offered sympathies equal to “it isn’t the teacher’s fault if the children don’t practice, the parents are always on the cell phone,” blah, blah, blah!

Not wanting to steal John Stossel’s thunder “Give me a break!” this teacher has thirty seven students that are performing in the recital and she is focused on the few that can’t make it or are not doing well.

Students are like clay - they need to be molded and shaped. It is true the parents can be the biggest influence, but to pass the buck solely to the parents, and have a pity party for one teacher is just not reasonable.

My son’s music teacher is far more inspiring than I have ever been and he garners so much respect from the children he teaches that it is actually the children leading the charge to practice. 

As far as parents at lessons talking on cell phones, this probably has little or nothing to do with the student practicing, and at this point, is just an accelerant to the already present frustration.

Teachers should make it their resolve to bring the lessons to life, be inspiring and most of all be inspired. Remember what made music your first love. I doubt that any of us are playing instruments because our parents nagged us so enthusiastically that we just couldn’t wait to play again. My brother and I are still grounded in two sates as a result of refusing to practice. He plays three instruments and composes music and I play both the radio and the piano.

There is a saying in football “Any given Sunday, any team can win!” This is true on every day for every student. On any given day any student can become inspired.

To all of the frustrated teachers who feel that the parents are not pitching in, the students aren’t practicing and they are just plain discouraged, I say “Carpe Diem!”

Make today the day that you handle your student’s challenges with grace and view them as opportunities not obstacles!

Any expert will tell you that the best source of new clients is current clients. Over the summer is a great time to get new students and to showcase your achievements.

There are several ways to promote your expertise as a teacher and your student’s achievements.

1. Late in summer as school is ready to resume is a fabulous time for a recital

2. Ask parents to sign a waiver allowing you to make a video of your best students in each category from beginner to advanced. You can use this video to show potential students, speak at community groups during the summer or post on your website

3. Offer an incentive plan for referring students. For example, if a student refers a new student and the new student completes a month of paid lessons, the referring student should receive one lesson free or a gift certificate to a music store

4. Offer a family introductory special if one member signs up at full price the second family member will be half price for the first month

The above steps are very proactive ways to reach new students, but the most effective way to increase your teaching base is to ask for referrals.

Many professionals use a note in red ink on invoices or correspondence to thank existing clients for their business and ask for referrals.

Another very handy phrase to use at the end of a lesson is: “Do you know anyone that is interested in taking lessons?”

By asking on a regular -but not annoying- basis, you are certain to spread the word and increase your teaching base. Persistence breaks down resistance, always has always will. So by focusing on increasing your teaching base and using your current resources to expand you will realize your goal.

Teaching is solving puzzles.  Of course, puzzles are meant to be a bit frustrating; otherwise they wouldn’t be as rewarding when we figure them out.  The question is, how do we handle the frustration part?

Thanks to AnaLise for a thought-provoking post last week about this. Her message was essentially that teachers need to be open-minded about learning how to respond constructively to their students, and to avoid resorting to anger, or even (I might add) more covert expressions of frustration.  I have to say I took issue with a few of her turns of phrase, though.  For example, if we were to buy into the notion that “high emotion equals low intelligence,” we’d have to figure that Beethoven was some kind of idiot! …In context, of course, she was trying to say that hot-headedness towards a student is not a smart way to get constructive results.  (As always, you are invited to join the discussion by adding a comment at the end of this or any post. Thanks for new comments from W.A. on Choosing an Instrument and from Joe on collecting student payments.)

Does there exist a teacher who hasn’t been frustrated at some time?  It’s in the nature of teaching, to push people to do things they haven’t done before.  There are always going to be students who don’t quite get it, or who don’t try very hard, or who despair, or backslide after achieving progress.

It’s important to note that teachers can also mix into their teaching frustrations that do not stem from their students. (more…)

If we take those two words, response and ability, and turn them around, we get the “ability to respond”.” Now we can define the word responsibility as the ability to respond to a situation. Every day we are faced with situations, we decide in each and every situation how we are going to respond, often this happens subconsciously in accordance to our ingrained beliefs.

When something happens and we perceive the outcome to be negative, our ability to decide how we want to respond to that outcome is vitally important. A negative reaction will increase the negativity that surrounds us, whereas a positive reaction will increase the positive energy that we seek to create. This is very true in teaching as well. It is not what situations we encounter but the grace we handle the situations with that determines the outcome.

It is sometimes difficult to respond positively to a negative situation, but a simple adjustment in perception and therefore attitude can change the situation from an issue to an opportunity.

For instance, it can be extremely frustrating if a student continually refuses to practice. Based on our new definition of “Responsibility” we have an immediate responsibility and can create a positive outcome or stir up negative energy. Choosing to be angered by the ill prepared student, will only attract more negative energy and to add insult to injury the student will probably not want to practice at all now. In short they have conditioned themselves to the fact that the consequence for not practicing is enduring a brief lecture. (more…)

To fill our lives with joy is one of the best things we can do to improve the quality of our life. It is also rather simple to experience joy. I have found that it is often the small things in life that enable us to experience and connect with the feeling of joy.

Even the small gestures like a student remembering their instrument, receiving flowers, getting through to a student, hearing a student perfect a piece. These little experiences enable us to connect with the feeling of accomplishment.

With most things in life, it is difficult to reach your goal immediately after leaving the starting block. The best and most efficient way of filling your life with what you want, is to start small and do it consistently. Every day build on the day before, gradually increasing until you reach your goal. So, every day, celebrate the little steps that your students are taking to towards a goal that the two of you have set together. Know and experience the joy that you both feel as you move towards your goal.

The more you connect with the joy of progressing towards your goal, the more of your goal you will attract to you. Don’t focus on any set backs or obstacles that seem to hinder the progress towards your goal. Find a solution to your obstacle, and then celebrate your solution. Break the goal into small manageable and accessible steps. Daily steps are the most rewarding, as you can then celebrate every day, although weekly may work better to celebrate with the students.

Make it a weekly habit to celebrate the step forward you have taken towards your goal. It takes twenty one days to create a habit. Challenge yourself to find twenty one things about your students to celebrate for the next twenty one days. Your mind will start to attract success on a daily basis going forward because you have already become attractive to success, and you will see the change in your students as well.