About violinsensei

violinsensei · ‎09-10-2018

I just got a private call from someone who was hiding their identity and asking if they could use credit cards in my studio. And then they hung up quickly. Seconds later I get a call from someone who wants to set me up for using credit cards with my private studio. I asked her if she just called me about violin lessons and she immediately hung up on me. How many of you suspect that some of your inquiries are other frustrated salespeople from call factories who are using sites like Thumbtack to find more of their own prospects and leads? How do we spot inquiries like this before they cost us money trying to find out more about us? I have no way to cross check phone numbers, especially when they hide them behind private lines. But I notice that the more leads I get the more of these cold calls I get from these call farms. I do not come here to be the customers. I come here to find customers.

violinsensei · ‎09-10-2018

It is Fall. Students are back. There are more requests to follow. But I have checked all the insights on my quotes for Aug. and Sept. And none of the music teachers I am competing with are getting hired. For this month none of my competitors have even been hired on insites. What does this mean? Are local teachers seeing their own students looking on Thumbtack for other options? Do the local retailers have contact information that private teachers don't get? What happens to these prospects? It is bad enough when new Students sometimes don't even view the quotes. Is Thumbtack attracting authentic inquiries or is somebody out there making them up. I have spent $60.00 and I have nothing to show for it. Not a single phone call or email. They don't need to text me. They need to call me. I feel like I'm still competing with retailers who have staffing and advertising budgets that I don't have. How do I know that they aren't contacting me as fake inquiries to do their marketing research? Or just to take advantage of my limited budget. Some of the names I have been getting are a little bit dubious but I never question a person's identity. Thumbtack should be serving true music studio teachers not giving an unfair advantage to music retailers who are already taking advantage of teachers and using them to sell products.

violinsensei · ‎08-01-2018

Price Quotes for music teachers. Why do you let the student make a request for 30min? 45min? or 60 min? But then you only allow the teacher to quote per hour. I think this is confusing to the student because none of us teach an hour at a time to private students. I don't know how to address the price quote so I use a generic per hour for a beginning student and give them a detailed price sheet with the ages levels and lesson lengths. There is not a see PDF for details link until the bottom of the quote. Most of us really don't teach by the hour. In fact, nobody does. We teach by the month or every 4 lessons or by the semester or every 12 weeks or something like that. There may also be registration fees. Students are expected to pay up front for a reserved time, not after the fact. Additionally, some people need to charge for the travel time in addition to the lesson fee. Even in large cities time and distance matters. You could blow your whole evening off on one lesson time. How about a button that says free introductory lesson if it is offered. I don't even know what to call teaching a one-off or solitary lesson unless you teach a seminar for a day or several hours.

violinsensei · ‎08-01-2018

As long as they are talking about Profile ideas I think we should make some suggestions for organizing the Template system for quotes. For starters: I have a lot of different quote templates which makes them hard to look through. Because I teach many age levels and several types of music for my instrument. Why can't I search through stock templates for keywords? Why can't I tag templates with custom tags? Why can't I drag templates into categories? Why can't I drag templates into a certain order that makes them easier to find? What if we could create drop and drag elements for editing quotes from a sidebar? Then at the end, I refine the final quote.

violinsensei · ‎08-01-2018

As a Suzuki Violin teacher, I want tags in the upper part of my profile as a side column that links students down to subcategories in my profile that they are interested in studying with me. ie an age level or a musical style. Preschooler, Age 5-8, Age 9-12, Jr. High, High School, College, Adult, etc. Suzuki Method, Classical, Fiddling, Jazz, Improv, Chamber Music, Music Theory etc. Or a list of more than one location one is available to teach in.

violinsensei · ‎08-01-2018

Even among teachers of one instrument, we may specialize in Jazz, Classical, fiddling or Preschoolers, Suzuki Method, etc. Or the parent is looking for a teacher who is comfortable with preschoolers vs. high schoolers etc. A system of tags and links in the upper section or column would be one way for customers to see a list of all the things a teacher specializes in on their profile page. Additionally a featured list of teachers who specialize in teaching specific subcategories of music for particular age levels that have those tags on their profiles.

violinsensei · ‎08-01-2018

Even as a violin teacher I have many different ages and levels of students. My profile is very generic toward children ( a very diverse category) Most of my requests seem to be from adults. I also teach other styles of music in addition to classical. I need quick links at the top of my profile that take them to what interests them. Perhaps none of them like reading through aspects of my profile that do not address their needs. I like the idea of giving them links at the top of my profile that bring them down to the question or description they are most interested in. In addition to the generic information that is the same for everyone. I am also available on certain days at other people's studio's in addition to my own main studio with specific hours. How to handle that option. Sometimes I find out a student is commuting from one of those places. What makes this even more complex is that many of prospects are trying to do this search from their phones where it is difficult to see everything.

violinsensei · ‎08-01-2018

How about drop and drag for quotes. Also, search for quotes. Sometimes I need different features from different quotes for a new kind of student request. Being able to sort the drafts of my quotes into meaningful categories or tags and do a word search on them would be helpful in building them faster.

violinsensei · ‎07-27-2018

I am desperately wishing we could put our drafts for quotes in a different order. I would like to group them for different age students and needs. Each category or age level needs different issues addressed. I like to personalize each age group according to their needs and request with a slightly different formula. But I have a terrible time looking through all my drafts to find the right one. I have been resorting to editing them on Grammarly. It would help to at least have a search system for my drafts so I could use keywords to find the right one.

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Clients that are trolling you to sell their own products

No music teachers are getting hired

Re: Quote Templates Software Ideas

Quote Templates Software Ideas

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Re: Let's talk about your profile

Re: Let's talk about your profile

What about the Quotes Software?