Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Davies. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Sarah , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I started taking piano lessons at age 7. Like many people, I really didn’t like it at all. Practicing was a constant fight with my parents. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I really started to see myself as a pianist and I was able to unlock a love and passion for piano. I found a lot of confidence and refuge behind the keys. In high school I was hired as one of the youngest featured pianists at Salt Lake City’s esteemed “Roof Restaurant.” I soon graduated and attended Brigham Young University but was very discouraged to find out that the years I had wasted in and out of lessons created holes in my technical abilities barring me from being able to pursue music as a major. By then I had missed my opportunity window to really fill in the gaps in my technique that I had missed in my younger years.

Thus the mission mission of our company was born. The mission is two fold:
1. Help our students stick with lessons by making it fun and exciting all while pointing out important life lessons along the way. 2. Catering lessons to the goals of our individual students so its not just a one track (Classical) approach.

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

Thank you so much for this opportunity to share our story! So, I grew up in a family that prioritized music lessons. Like many others, I took lessons for a time starting at the age of eight but then I begged my mom to quit around 6th grade. I continued to play on my own, choosing all the songs I liked to play. By early high school, I realized how much I truly loved it and decided to get serious and enroll in lessons with a more serious teacher. My lessons were at 6 am on Saturday mornings, that was the only time I knew wouldn’t have a conflict. I drove 25 minutes to my lessons. During this time I grew a lot.

At age 16, I went to the Roof Restaurant in downtown Salt Lake with a group from my church. If you aren’t familiar, this restaurant is on the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and has beautiful views of the whole downtown area. In the middle of the restaurant is a clear plexiglass grand piano. When I saw it my soul lit on fire and I knew I wanted to play there one day. Well, that day came sooner than I would have ever thought when through some connections I landed an interview. They took a chance on me and to this day I am so grateful. I was hired at age 16 as one of the youngest pianists they’d ever worked with. I played in the restaurant for nearly 5 years every Tuesday and every other weekend. This was a life-changing opportunity for me. I challenged myself and learned so much. I also got to meet some really amazing people.

Around the same time, I started having people around the neighborhood asking me if I would teach their kids piano. I made this my little job during high school and worked really hard. Through college, I kept my same clientele driving up from Provo where I attended college at Brigham Young University each week to continue working with them. In 2013 I got married and moved back to Draper where I kept growing my small at-home studio. By 2015, I had grown my studio to 70 students. I was teaching every waking minute I could schedule. Starting at 5:30 and not ending till after 10:00 at night. We found out that year that I was expecting my first child, and I knew I couldn’t keep that demanding schedule up with a baby.

So not wanting to give the clientele I’d worked so hard to build away, I set out to find another teacher that could help share in the load. I hired a friend I had met through my time at The Roof Restaurant and the two of us split my students in half. I bought another piano and put it in a spare room in my house and the two of us taught. Before long my phone was ringing off the hook with people trying to get in with one of us. We were quickly full and I knew there was an untapped potential and we could continue to grow if we could figure out how to make it happen.

So we did. We rented my parent’s basement. Hired three more teachers, bought more pianos, and continued to grow our studio. During that time, I was driving through our town’s historic district when an old building caught my eye. It was for lease and something in my heart knew that was where we were meant to move our studio. I called my husband and being the realist he is, questioned how we would ever have enough demand to fill those rooms and make the rent payment. Somehow I knew we would.

Within three months of moving into that building, we had outgrown it. And from there we haven’t stopped growing we have one by one, opened five additional studios. Diversified our services by providing voice, guitar, violin, drums, and much more. We’ve written a juniors curriculum for our youngest little musicians and continue to look for ways to grow and expand. With more than 150+ teachers and administrators on staff now and 10 locations we are excited for what the future holds in store for us.

The thing that sets us apart from the typical neighborhood teacher is our amazing facilities. Each of our rooms are themed after music icons featuring fun and colorful decor and inspirational quotes. The Piano Place experience is also different in that we prioritize performing as that is where we really feel our students get their heart in it. With such a wide pool of talented teachers, we strive to place students with the very best fit personality wise with their teachers in an attempt to help each student meet their individual goals. With a company wide slogan of “#MakingMoreThanMusicians, we place a lot of emphasis on helping our students stick with it even when it gets tough by pointing out the life lessons learned along the way. We are proud to diversify what traditionally has been a one track classical approach to music lessons by truly allowing our students goal’s to craft the direction we take each lessons. Finally, we love that we are able to work with a variety of students including those old and young and on every level of learning. We love our students.

We recently started a podcast called @morethanmusicianspodcast where we tell the stories of some of these amazing musicians we get to rub shoulders with. We feel blessed every day for the platform we’ve been blessed with and for the people that have seen something in us and taken a chance on us along the way.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’m sure we are not unique in that Covid brought about a scary time for us in our business. With a moments notice we had to figure out how we were going to continue to keep our 150+ employees making money while we rode the pandemic out. They were very stressful times but with a lot of all hands on deck hard work from our team we were able to quickly pivot and continue to conduct all of our lessons REMOTELY! We bought tripods, filmed trainings for our teachers and students and quickly shifted our in-person learning online. We found the response to be more than we ever could have expected. We received feedback from parents thanking us for continuing to bring music into their homes during such an uncertain time. It was during this trial in our business that we really deepened our commitment to our mission and solidified the importance of of brining music into our homes and communities. We were lucky and honored to be able to report that we didn’t have to let go of a single teacher during this time.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

The Piano Place has always had my full-time attention but for the first five years of its life my husband was just a sideline supporter. He went to school for business and was finding a lot of success in commercial real estate brokerage. Slowly but surely as what was then MY business grew, he became more and more involved. It wasn’t long before he had involved himself, helping us with the finances. His passion for the business grew and grew as he began to see how his unique skill set of real estate and business strategy could help us grow into new markets! Just recently he has made the full time leap into a new role as the CEO of The Piano Place. He has done an excellent job in leading our company into opening several new store locations and streamlining processes. Though it isn’t always easy to work with your spouse, we have finally found a groove that allows both of us to bring our strengths to the table.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thepianoplaceutah.com/?kw&cpn=1741773783&utm_term&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=Piano%20Place%20DSA%20-%20Draper&hsa_cam=1741773783&hsa_grp=72181295430&hsa_mt&hsa_src=g&hsa_ad=490636631256&hsa_acc=1624067200&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_kw&hsa_tgt=aud-1394918005172%3Adsa-402300235144&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-fmZBhDtARIsAH6H8qhHcN49pbsi6La8BRIpWUvH_2GnKUIbU7ktpYeiIM1iUVdJUV2xqDoaAli1EALw_wcB
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepianoplace/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepianoplaceutah
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/79632599/admin/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGiIkFpDqJEQLNdE9lfukrQ
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-piano-place-salt-lake-city?page_src=related_bizes

Image Credits
Rori Glover Studios