We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carolyn Iga a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carolyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

When I bought my business, I had no idea how to run a school or do retail. The opportunity to buy the business came as a surprise, and within a month my life completely changed. I believed it was my next step after quitting my line of full-time ministry work in the church and then building my own personal music studio for 2 years.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Neighborhood Music School and Store provides music lessons, rock band summer music camps with recitals and large venue performance opportunities for all ages in the Arcadia CA area. Our mission is to provide excellence in music education in a life-giving way for all students.

With a staff that holds PHD, MA, and BA degrees in education, performance awards, and high rated recordings with rave music reviews. Our caring and passionate instructors provide a wealth of playing experience and excellence in education.

Our store offers instruments, supplies, rent and rent to own instruments. We also offer piano tuning and repairs for woodwinds, brass and stringed instruments.

Neighborhood Music was awarded Best Businesses for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 in Arcadia, and Best Educational Summer Camp AND Best Music Instruction in 2021 and 2022 in iSoCal Magazine. In addition to mandatory English, the language proficiency among teachers includes Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish.

Located in the heart of Downtown Arcadia California, our music school and store are accessible to Monrovia, Duarte, Sierra Madre, Pasadena, Temple City, Rosemead, San Gabriel. Just south of restaurant row, our new music studio facilities provide a comfortable environment in a quaint but trendy neighborhood. Lots of free parking and free Wi-Fi while you wait for your lesson. Multiple family members enjoy the convenience of taking lessons at the same location with different teachers.

Our Rock Band programs for teens and kids take place all year round with special Band Camp programs during the summer. Our top Rock Bands have recorded albums and performed at large venues.

Music theory and Chinese online group lessons are part of our offerings, as well as individual and semi-private lessons for beginner through advanced levels of piano, voice, guitar, drums, violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, tuba, and ukulele.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Having been around for 17 years, I can attribute our existence to 1) building authentic relationships with staff, vendors, and customers, and 2) serving everyone reliably and responsibly.

It took 15 years to see the unthinkable happen, and that was finding that my biggest competitors gradually shut down, sold their business, or pivoted out of the market, and finding we were the longest competitive institution providing life-giving professional music lessons, reliable beginner instruments, flexible rentals and rent to own contracts, quality repairs, and large venue performance opportunities for our ensembles in our area. Expectedly, new and more formidable competitors emerged, but so far they have competed in some but not all services that we have provide to our long time customers.

I have also had to plug away at defining our business values as I grew in my ability to stand on my personal values, learning what I should and should don’t expect of others, and having to make decisions to lose money sometimes and to put my foot down at other times. This resulted in keeping certain customers who offended me and choosing to let go of other customers who were not able to honor our values.

I was blessed to find during this season, that a handful of customers refused to go to certain large chain stores or even smaller competitors who were down the street, but who wanted to buy our brand. I attribute this to steadfast values and long term relationship.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

I have often felt a crunch during payroll but thankfully have always found the funds to sustain our business. I am a faith-driven person who at my very center, trust God to inform me, challenge me, and provide for me in a personal loving way.

During the leanest years that came just after launching the business, I found I had grossly underestimated the cost of getting started. I had to make a choice to either keep investing or shut down. Because I didn’t believe I could ask for a loan that I couldn’t guarantee, and because shutting down was not an option, I made an expensive purchase of two new top brand pianos from the biggest music store in our neighborhood. I held my breath and wondered what would happen when they cashed my check. To my surprise they had not cashed my check for $5,000. I gradually forgot about it and was shocked a few years later to find they closed down their business. Relieved, I thought maybe this was God’s provision and I was off the hook, however my conscience prompted me to seek the person out and re-write the check to them. The person didn’t remember me, and had since started a music school that was now a direct competitor. He didn’t seem overly grateful for my check and I cried out to God out of fear as I left, knowing I didn’t have the extra money to cover my expenses over the next month. Fortunately, I had not deposited our tuition money yet and there happened to be a little over $5000, enough to keep us afloat for the time being. In the ensuing weeks, we seemingly got customers coming to us out of nowhere and we suddenly began to thrive. I am glad for this lesson because it has taught me to have faith to do the right thing for the other person’s sake, and to know that God and others have my back if I do so.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.neighborhoodmusic.net
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/NeighborhoodMusicArcadia
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/NeighborhoodMusicArcadia
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOPlNn0hxl88Sobc-ypah1A
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/neighborhood-music-school-and-store-arcadia