Ideas to Optimize My Profile and Website to Attract the Right Clients

Hi Thumbtackers! 😎 In my industry (high level independent music teaching), it is very hard to gain committed students. I'm not just "any old teacher;" I am a creative artist and Nationally Certified Teacher of Music. I compose and perform my own music, enter it into competitions, and I help my students do the same. I also volunteer and serve in multiple professional organizations in my field. I also have to serve as a judge in music competitions. It is hard, dedicated work!

I have reached out to Thumbtack support a few times, and I am told that my profile is very strong. But I wonder if I am missing something because most of the leads that contact me are not a good fit. I get a lot of "how much" questions and end up losing a lot of my funds to these unsuitable leads. Sometimes I wonder if I should pass these leads to other teachers for a fee! 😆 It would be very helpful if Thumbtack had some sort of conversion rate meter that shows the percentage of leads that sign up for my services. I have a feeling that mine is very low.

If I do end up with leads that sign up for my services, a good portion of them are students that do not practice. And it is very hard for me, a competitive teacher and artist, to continue teaching these students who are stuck on the same lesson week after week. I do offer different tiered plans so that I can still serve these students, but some of them end up picking the wrong one despite me recommending a different plan. I also don't really want to have to teach these non-practicing students. I even have a contract that says that they can be removed from lessons if they don't practice for a certain amount of time, but because I am so desperate to keep the income, and I have no new students to replace the existing ones with, so I end up keeping less-than-ideal students.

I am currently low in students and need more students, but I can no longer handle too many. I actually ended up burning out as a result of taking too many students and trying to do the admin/marketing/lead chasing, and I now can no longer afford to operate my business or support my livelihood. A lot of teaching is unpaid work, and I attempt to offset that by charging a professional rate, which also covers all that I do and my credentials and affiliations, but there are Pros that charge much higher than I do, even on Thumbtack.

And one of the most important things for me is to be able to work on my own music. I am currently brainstorming ways to make that a focus, but I have always thought that teaching was "more stable" in terms of generating income than composing or performing. So I let my original music go to the backburner, even though I work on it every day. It's just something I don't want to "waste time" with while my business is struggling, but oddly enough, the harder things get, the more new music I make! 😆 🎶

I think that the inflation this year has made it harder for others in my field to gain new students too.

If anyone has the time, you are welcome to check out my profile and my website. I know that I have a lot of simplifying that I need to do on my website.

Thank you for your time in reading this. It's OK if no one had time to read it because I signed up for a SCORE business mentor that I am working with, but since Thumbtack is where most of my leads come from, and I would like to optimize my profile and website before spending more money on leads, I figured I would post to see if anyone has any ideas.

P.S. If the right fit clients are no longer available these days, I might just have to teach less and find something else musical that I can do (I can only do music-related jobs due to my artist work permit). It's just hard to find demand in the arts these days.