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Success Story: Violin Teacher

Lesson 14 from: How to Make Money

Ramit Sethi

Success Story: Violin Teacher

Lesson 14 from: How to Make Money

Ramit Sethi

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Lesson Info

14. Success Story: Violin Teacher

Lesson Info

Success Story: Violin Teacher

I want to do a quick story about one of my students, she's, one of my favorite students. This student is named her name's jackie. She lives in the midwest. She's a violin teacher. Okay, so a music instructor now, when I launched earned one k, which is my course for how to develop your idea, find a profitable idea, developed perfect clients, raise your rates and perhaps even go full time on this. She was one of my pioneer students, and I spoke to her extensively because of the incredible results she got, and I want to share a little bit of her story. Uh, she lives in the midwest. She was teaching violin. Anybody have an idea of who? Her clients, who her clients were there like their everyone she's teaching kids she was teaching adults, men, women, everybody and, uh, she she wasn't fight like she was kind of like treading water, but it wasn't growing. She was like, I'm really good at what I do. I'm really good at what I do, how come I can't grow my business? And so she came to me and I a...

sked her after she joined in after she found success, I said, tell me about that experience of joining, what were you about to join? Were you nervous? And she said oh by the way I'm gonna put up this girl you can get this entire case study actual video interview with her that I will teach you to be rich dot com slash creative life okay that's free just put your email in there so she goes she goes I was really nervous I wasn't sure you'd be able to help me on she said all this stuff and she said, well finally I just decided take the lead and I said like, I'm going to find out if I could do this or not all right uh old and uh and the reason I asked was that I always like to ask my students who joined my my material I asked him why what convinced them to join and the people who don't join I asked them why they didn't join why do you think I do that to learn the language of what convinced them to learn that the hope fears and dreams they had for example people might say it was too expensive that's almost the last reason when they say too expensive that's like a that's like a throw away you've got to get deeper because for my students yeah, my courses are expensive no doubt but it's usually something much deeper like I didn't trust that this will work I live in an international country and I don't know if this works for slovenia, etcetera, etcetera so so she told me all these things and I asked her to tell me your story she like I said she lived in the midwest she was serving all these random clients and she wasn't able to really make a lot of money so what we did was we showed her how to identify who her riel client wass anybody know who are really client wass who would be the person who jackie a violin instructor is actually serving why moms and kids moms they want their kids to do well and get good it's very good what kind of mumps uh once they want them to go to harvard good to have you seen this case study did she stop talking cut her mike you can't cheat and ruin it for everyone what is wrong with you? Okay let's rewind that and cut that from the entire tape who here knows what kind of clients she served? Okay, go ahead on my son plays violin so that would be me and a lot of the other moms air more affluent mom's in our area we all kind of have high aspirations that our kids are gonna go to good schools that they're going to be successful and violin I don't know why it just kind of fits in that taxi plates corley okay very good so we help her understand this her client people I mean when we first asked people who didn't cheat uh they know they were like oh kids adults and I was like okay, well let's break it down first of all does that kid have any money no they're not your client adults men or women and okay so notice how it's kind of weird oh remi it's going on gender oh is that sexist no genders one of the first things you talk about when when it comes to serving so so it became mothers mothers of ambitious, ambitious mothers of ambitious children who wanted them to get into harvard and by the way if you're doing violent you are by definition affluent okay so you have money you're willing to spend it we're going to go over a little technique for most of you who are working with clients who never want to pay and are nickel and dime ing you over twenty dollars an hour I'm gonna show you howto kick those out and find the real ones so what she didn't we recommend it actually that she look att ethnic mothers in particular chinese mothers it's very culturally relevant okay I said tested and she ended up testing it and she found that that was true and there were a couple of other types of clients as well so guess what she did this is where it becomes remarkable marketing and remarkable business do you think let's see she has a couple of options she could go back to violin school and become whatever two x better it playing some song or whatever or she could start listening to her clients listening to find out what they want. So we have theorized that my ideal client we call my ideal client profile is ah mother a married mother a mother of a child between the ages of x and y they're affluent they want their child to get into an ambitious college and, um they're likely chinese or some kind of ethnicity. So what did you do then? Anyone have an idea? She found some of them she found a bunch of mothers and sat down with them and talk to them and she said tell me about this I noticed that your son used to be in violent but he's not there. Why is that or oh you're thinking about getting your son into violent oh, he plays piano how do you think about that? She was not selling anything. She used our technique called the ask without selling technique she just listened she didn't even talk about how she was a violent instructor so these mothers started telling her all these amazing things like yeah, I really you know he's really shy, but I hope that this can open him up wow, that is a huge red flag I would write that down uh, you know, I hope that this teaches him discipline incredible. So now she's starting to truly understand what her clients want notices has nothing to do with her going back to violin school in improving her craft she's already quite good at violent okay she's a master instructor so what does she do now? She goes even deeper she goes back to her existing clients and she says, would you be willing to write a testimonial? In fact, I'm willing to write it for you if you want to save some time because I know you're busy but if not I'd love to have you right up anything soon enough she has testimonials that say things like little timmy used to be so shy, but after he came to violin class he's really opened up and I can see him being more disciplined or uh uh little janey, um is so much more disciplined that her grades have gotten even higher. I can't wait for college applications to start. What do you think the other mothers when they see these sheets think price is a mere trivial it's a relevant everybody see that just pause for a minute and think about that whether she charges twenty dollars an hour one hundred dollars an hour two hundred dollars an hour in the midwest irrelevant because for all of us there is something we would pay anything for and for a mother affluent who wants their child to get into harvard it's irrelevant it's pause there, let's get reactions. What did we learn from that simple case? Study the power of asking people who specifically, people who did something and don't do it anymore, and people who are thinking of doing something for those specific language, uh, points good, I was just going to say she listened first without trying to just go out there and sell herself and saying, you know, you know, like, a lot of people do, you'll say, well, they'll go out there, and they'll do it kind of the wrong way, and also wasn't work, you know, I tried that didn't work, yeah, exactly what else drew what you hear in that case study? I mean, I think that, you know, selling doesn't have to be what you what, you perceive it, like what you'd normally think it to be, it doesn't have to be the, you know, you get on the phone and you call people or you walk up to them and the business card, and you get in their faces, it khun b, you sit back and you let them talk to you, and then you don't even have to, you know, you don't talk about yourself, you don't even say that you're doing this to help them or something, you just kind of take it and you just get right back to them and before they before they know it they signed up for it very good and remember if somebody had come to her saying hey jackie I um I'm trying to learn violin I'm thirty four and I've just decided to get back into violent what do you think jackie would have said I'm sorry I really understand that I wish I could help I want help unfortunately I'm booked up with my own clients but I'd love to refer you to my friend michelle who's terrific and she's taught many adults would it be okay if I set up an email introduction what am I doing? I'm putting this prospect or this client at the center of my world I'm saying you know what I can't help you but I hear what you want and I know someone who can help you let me send you their client is number one everything we do is about putting them number one thats why when when when jackie or anyone creates sheets that's a little timmy he is so much more discipline and so much more communicative you're actually you're not being sleazy at all does anyone think that that sleazy no you're actually listening deeply to your client and you're actually addressing your prospects on a level that they care about and they understand so different I actually think it's maur unethical to go up to someone say blah, blah blah blah blah you should buy my court you should buy my viol instruction because blah blah blah and I want to talk to you you you you men, women, children, everybody that is a wit you're wasting my time, you're disrespecting me because I don't care about violent I live in I live in manhattan, I go out, I'm not trying to learn violin if someone tried to take it and get out of my way it's disrespectful to me better you find your ideal clients figure out their hopes, fears and dreams maybe even deeper than they know themselves and you speak to them let's, go online andre gonzalez said exactly that she showed underlying value that the parents or potential students and didn't even know they needed she got in their heads. What else fate says it becomes about your client and not yourself and be live says sell to the client's actual needs and fears not your own presumption. I love that you think jackie sat around and said I am a master level instructor and violin and I know this and that and I did I went to this school in that school irrelevant as a client as a mother, by the way I'm glad we got that on camera because I'm about as a mother do you think I care about what school you went to maybe if to check the box but I want to talk about my son I want to talk about my daughter I want to talk about seeing them discipline I also want to talk about keeping up with the joneses right? How come little little annie is doing so well over there and my son is not well better keep up with them, right? What else we got online tags streak in jet is saying you're selling and you're really selling an end goal aspirational needs are being met aspirational or as well as technical to you can't just be like your son's going to get into harvard so I'm gonna teach you how to play in the sand that's irrelevant it's not congruent but aspirational is definitely a big part of it. Okay what else? Ryan mueller you can learn something from everyone customers, competitors and non customers very good how many of us lose deals to people who decide to go off to someone else and we just never contact them again? How many of us? How many of us have a systematic process in place to say listen like I haven't email that goes out to people said, listen, I noticed that you didn't join my dream job course, I'm totally cool with that this isn't a hard sell email in fact, you can't even join the coarse anymore, but I'm just curious what didn't work for you was there anything I could do because I want to try to improve this for you would you be willing just replied to the email or click this link and let me know and I get thousands of responses and I read every single one and I learned people think they're like well maybe if you offered this course online on not in a classroom I could come up and I'm like my first inclination hey idiot it is online but I realize it's my fault I didn't communicate that clearly enough so sometimes you'll find that you're just not communicating your value clearly enough sometimes most people just say it's too expensive my courses are quite expensive and that's fine that actually makes me happy because I'm segmenting out to people that are not right for my courses I don't want someone to join if it's going to present financial hardship to them but I also look at the people who did join why did you join and that helps me do more of that any other things from online we've got again uh interesting people around the world and sharon coppola says I'm now brainstorming what else people might want from our band so that we could invest it and get the proper testimonial can I share a couple of other things about jackie by the way please how did she make eighty thousand dollars in is actually eight weeks um it's net revenue she did it in a couple of ways first a lot of people they worry about how do I do this? I don't have enough time to do all this stuff I have somebody coming out later on I think via skype where they're going to actually talk about how they built a very thriving business with no time to have a family wife, etcetera one thing she did, we taught her a referral strategy so she actually went to a music store a violin store and she said, listen, I'm a violent instructor I've worked out all these students here's the testimonials from them I'd love if anyone came in to buy a violent if you recommend me to them and I don't know if she struck a deal in terms of a revenue share but she had a referral strategy that made her eleven thousand dollars how many of us have gone in part, how many of us have thought about where do my client's hangout and actually gone there and struck a deal that could be a lightweight partnership instead? How many of us sit around complain about oh, I can't find any clients, but we've never actually sat down and thought for ten minutes where to my client's hang out what sites do they read, etcetera? The other thing she uh what else did she do? Oh after a while can anyone guess what her problem became as she started getting more and more more clients what happened too busy so what did she do raise your rates razor rates of course well I'm actually gonna give you the exact script to raise your rates later today the exact words to use we'll talk about that but what else could you do if you were a violent instructor you have let's say thirty clients how else could you ad revenue to the business and add value to the client good you could subcontract very good what else group group classes master classes so what she did she so there are these I don't know what they're called but like tests like violent tests you have to go get certified I don't know what it is she said ok you're your certification is coming up and usually people want to prepare it's almost like taking a kaplan class so she did that before uh before the certification come into this crossing will do like a one day intensive and you could fit fifteen students in there maybe thirty massive value add right because it's hyper focused on what they need and by the way she scale two fifteen or thirty students genius these are all the things we talked about in my urn one k class if you want to find out about that you actually can't buy it right now actually don't allow you to join but if you want to find out a little bit more and I'll open it up later you can go toe I will teach you to be rich dotcom such creative live that's the only way to find out about this class so the point is the beautiful thing and I save this for last is, uh it's not just about the money the reason I highlighted jackie here's she's become a true I will teach you to be rich master student and one of the ways I know that is she had a lot of pathologies, right? Same as we all do she's like I'm really good at what I do I've spent years doing it I just can't make a living like people join my stuff but they're always trying to negotiate my price is down this is before and like I just can't figure how to do it it's very frustrating to be feeling like you're doing your life's work but not be able to be rewarded for it has anyone felt like that? And so so we talked took her through this now all the tactics I just taught you they're great but I found that the most rewarding thing to me and I believed to jackie as well was thie psychological changes one thing she told me which is in the case study on the girl she told me, you know, meat like everything has changed for me I said what do you mean by that that's one of those broad phrases I want to know what she means, she said, you know, I used to feel all this guilt like I should do this I should do that and she said, you know one thing I hate doing his shopping at the grocery store now I have a lot of money and I still felt weird like would it be weird to hire someone to do my grocery shopping? But she finally said she said, and I finally realized it's not that weird I've earned enough to be able to pay for someone to do the things I don't want to do that lets me focus on what I love, which is this how many of us want to get to that place right? She didn't do it she didn't get to that place by going back to graduate school for violin now is she amazing that aircraft yes if you suck at your craft, you could use all the tactics and techniques I give you, but you're going to get discovered pretty quickly she's amazing at aircraft but even being amazing she couldn't make a living until she discovered how to really listen to her client how to understand their hopes, fears and dreams how to actually figure out who her client wass which we're going to pick up after the break because most of us are targeting everybody, how maney creatives do we have here who are targeting pretty much anyone, they can get a lot of knots lot. Every single person is nodding, basically, wow, how would it feel, teo? Instantly turn away seventy percent of those people? How is it feel if I say that you could breathe very good? I like how evocative that it's, what else I feel relief, relief, interesting, what else? Awesome, awesome, very good lot of love, the polarization, good and bad. I love this.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Ramit Sethi Interview
3 Negotiation Scripts
5 Negotiation Case Studies
Freelance Email Proposals
Freelance Income Roadmap
List of Freelancing Ideas
5 Resumes That Win
VIP Email Teardown
Updated Resource Link: I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Ratings and Reviews

AshPhoto
 

This course changed my life. After watching Ramit on Creative Live, I bought his book, then signed up for his newsletter, then bought several of his classes. You could say I am officially drinking the Ramit Kool-aid now, but I'll tell you why... His stuff works. You have to trust the system, but I've been able to create a rich life for myself by my definition of rich and I am so happy. It takes work, but I am so grateful I found Ramit in my 20s so I can truly enjoy my 30s over the next decade. Without this course, I would still be complaining that people don't want to hire me because my prices are too high and whining that I am not valued, when in reality, the problem was me. Thanks Ramit for always speaking the hard truths and giving people wake-up calls to get their act together and live the life they want... It's possible!

Adrian Farr
 

Ramit is a huge inspiration, he is not just a 'been there and made loads of money' kind of guy, he is a 'been there and made loads of money, and here's how I did it' kind of guy! Ramit really gets down to helping you understand not only how to make money but also how to save it too. I am looking forward to reading his book and plan to implement a lot of his systems into my own life.

YKR
 

I have taken a few business classes for creatives online, but this is by far the most comprehensive, most practical course of all. Especially for someone like me who loves Ramit's work but has not made a decision to commit to his full courses, this is a great introduction for what he can offer. He pushes you to think outside the box and see all the possibilities that we can have in a very clear, logical way. If you are unsure which class to take to learn about business, this is all you need.

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