Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Jones.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
As a 5th grade Instructor during the day and a part-time musician at night and on the weekends, I began Lessons With Austin in the summer of 2011. As a means of generating part time income in order to fund the recording of my album, my wife Cindi helped me realize something that should have been obvious:
“You’re a good Instructor, you’re a good musician…. put it together… idiot”
Maybe she didn’t call me an idiot, but I sure felt like one. Why did it not occur to me to combine my passions and gifts? I began to get to work.
I started by putting ads on Craigslist offering my services, it took time. I was approached by a 3rd party company which started me off with my first 3 or 4 guitar, drum, and vocal students. At this time, I begin with my first student, Barry Millet. Barry continued lessons for quite some time, and has come back to study vocals, and still often takes guitar lessons from me.
I learned that the company I began with charged student’s outrageous prices, and paid their Instructors a small fraction, not providing a location to teach, or any resources or training. It was time to cut out the middleman.
The first year was just me teaching what I could to who I could. Working during the day and teaching guitar, drums and vocals in the evening, I easily got to the point where my calendar was full, I had no room to grow. In the spring of 2012 I discovered something that radically changed our business. Another obvious step in the story of Lessons With Austin. I learned about a remarkable concept that grouped students in small guitar classes, and charged a much smaller tuition. In August of 2012, after moving to a home with room to accommodate such an operation, we launched our first 3 groups. My roster tripled in a month. I had more of my time back, and was able to serve more students at a lower fee. (I was even making more money).
The next Spring, I brought on our first employee (My brother Carson Jones), who helped us begin and develop what is now our drum program. We would eventually go on to teaching Vocals, Keyboards, Bass and Ukulele as well!
In the Spring of 2013, I also resigned from my position as a school teacher in order to pursue our music teaching business full-time. At the time, we were still operating out of my home, but by October we were fortunate to begin a relationship with CT Church in Pasadena TX where we operated until October 2016.
In 2016, we moved into our current building in Deer Park on Center Street. We have grown to almost 150 students a week in that time, and in June will be launching our 2nd location in Friendswood TX.
Since my first lesson with Barry, I as well as our fantastic teaching staff have had the fortune to teach hundreds of students over the past 4 years. Currently, we maintain a roster of over 100 students, and counting.
We have a fantastic staff! Although our staff ages average in the mid 20’s, we have an average tenure of 2 years. We are proud of that since we only began hiring in 2012!
We don’t plan on slowing down. We are currently making significant investments in Marketing and Sales, and plan on seeing a roster of 150 by the end of Summer 2017.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely NOT been a smooth road. Interesting journeys usually have rough patches. I’m learning to be a good leader, I’m striving to be great at this. In the early days, I began bringing on team members that were similar to me… that was a mistake, because the last thing I need around here is someone like ME! My wife helped me to understand my personality type, and through personality testing, I realized I was building a team full of mini-me’s. I’m an outgoing, visionary, creative type who likes to improvise and make things up as I go along, however, I tend to come across as chaotic, and unorganized. These are skills I was not naturally good at, but had to get good at in order to grow. After realizing the importance of having diverse personality types on your team, we began using the DISC Personality test during the hiring process. This has brought some much-needed balance to our team, and has helped me understand people much better.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Lessons With Austin – what should we know?
We help musicians reach their goals. We teach Guitar, Drums, Piano, Vocals, and we also provide professional recording studio services in Deer Park TX. I’m proud that we have helped people with a wide variety of stories, overcome some huge obstacles, whether it be anxiety, or any special needs that may keep people from learning to play and perform music. It’s a great feeling to help others do something like that!
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I’ve learned a lot from teaching, my parents were both teachers. This was all my wife’s idea, so she deserves much of the credit. I have 2 daughters that have always encouraged me, and treated me like I was the coolest dad in the world for doing this. Also, our students and their parents. I love it.
Pricing:
- Private Instruction: $210/mo for 1 hour/week
- Group Instruction: $110/mo for 1 hour/week
- Studio Time: $40/hr
Contact Info:
- Address: 4514 Center St.
Deer Park TX 77536 - Website: www.LessonsWithAustin.com www.LWAstudios.com
- Phone: (281)857-4075
- Email: info@lessonswithaustin.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/lessonswithaustin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LessonsWithAustin/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LessonsWAustin
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lessons-with-austin-deer-park
Image Credit:
Copy-write 2017 Lessons With Austin
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