Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Haley Vick. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Haley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?
I think the biggest challenge to profitability in my industry is that the average price of private music lessons hasn’t increased with inflation over the past 50 or so years.
In 1970 when minimum wage in Austin, TX was $1.60 per hour the average price of an hour long private music lesson was about $30 per hour.
Fast forward to 2022 when minimum wage in Austin, TX is $15 per hour and the average price of an hour long private music lesson is $60 per hour.
Minimum wage in Austin, TX went up 837.5% but the average cost of a private music lesson only increased by 100%.
Running a music studio takes lots of time, effort, and money and most studio owners are, unfortunately, unable to pay themselves a live-able wage due to how inflation has affected us.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Haley Vick and I am the owner and founder of Birchwood Music Company.
I got my Bachelor of Music from Roosevelt University Chicago College of Performing Arts in 2015 and have been teaching private voice lessons since 2014.
Ever since I saw a friend from school in a musical when I was 8 years old I knew that I wanted to be on the stage! The following year I got my chance in our town’s high school musical as the kid lead, Amaryllis, in “The Music Man.” I was hooked!
When I got to college I moved from the musical theater world to the opera world and when I graduated I had the amazing opportunity to sing opera in New York City!
I moved from NYC back to Chicago in 2018 and started teaching private lessons for a company where I would drive from house to house teaching my students. I absolutely loved my boss and her company! She always knew that my main goal was to run my own studio, so throughout my time there she gave me more responsibility and duties within her company and showed me a little bit about how the business is run. In the summer of 2020 when the pandemic was crazy my boyfriend and I decided that we were going to move from Illinois to Texas at some point in the near future. My boss and I discussed everything and she told me that we should pick a date and I should start my own business.
October 1st 2020 is when Birchwood Music Company was opened! My boss allowed all of my students to choose whether they would move to my new company or stay with her. About 90% of my students stayed with me and I’m still teaching many of them to this day!
As of today Birchwood Music Company is a hybrid online and in-person music studio teaching voice and piano lessons. We are based in Round Rock, TX and bring our love of music to 70 students each week!
What sets us apart from the crowd is that we are convenient. What I mean by that is that we will purchase your books and get them sent to you so you don’t have to think about it. You can schedule lessons at your convenience online and cancel or reschedule up to 4 hours prior to your lesson. We know things pop up or illness happens last minute and we want to accommodate that.
I am the most proud of our scholarship fund! I firmly believe that everybody who would like to take music lessons should have the opportunity to do so regardless of their financial situation. This is why I started the Myra Oscarson Scholarship Fund. I named it after my Aunt Myra who passed away from breast cancer many years ago. She had a beautiful voice and sang at church. I now consider her my “angel of music” and think of her fondly whenever I perform! Because of generous donations from our students and family members we are able to afford partial scholarships to several students who otherwise would not have been able to afford lessons! I cannot wait to see this scholarship fund continue to grow so we can award more scholarships to even more students in need!
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We use a platform called My Music Staff for scheduling, billing, communication, lesson notes, and a whole pile of other fun things!
With this platform I’m able to create a weekly blog post to keep everyone in the studio updated on invoice deadlines, schedule deadlines, upcoming recitals, upcoming spirit weeks, and even our top 5 practicers of the week.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
We moved from renting one room at a chiropractor’s office to our own brick and mortar space with three studios on August 1st, 2022. This came with a whole slew of expenses that we thought we were prepared for but underestimated a little bit.
Once those first deposits were withdrawn by the landlord I was a little bit terrified because we didn’t quite have enough money to last for the rest of August!
However, I came up with an “audition prep package” and before even marketing it had 3 families text me asking if I offered something like that.
So, we were able to make payroll which was a huge relief! I know that in September we will be completely fine, summers are just very slow for music studios!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://birchwoodmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/birchwoodmusicco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birchwoodmusicco
Image Credits
Curtis Szajkovics