TeacherZone vs MindBody

We get asked quite frequently how TeacherZone compares to Mindbody. 

TeacherZone is the first all-in-one Learning Management and Student Transformation platform and Mindbody is a Student Manager and Marketing System.

While no review is complete, we’ll attempt to outline some of the key differences here.

Who do they both serve?

• TeacherZone = Teaching/Instructional/Learning-Based Businesses
• Mindbody = Health and Wellness Businesses

TeacherZone was created for teaching businesses to manage and transform their students. 

If you host any type of private lessons or group classes then TeacherZone has student and class management tools to meet your needs.

This includes most after-school instruction and training programs such as:

• Music Schools
• Dance
• Martial Arts
• Tutoring
• Language
• Yoga Studios
• General Athletic Coaching and Training
• Gymnastics
• Swim Schools
• Cheerleading Programs
• Golf Training and more.

TeacherZone as the name alludes to is meant to help transform the student experience that includes learning management with badges and points, assignments, courses, and lessons. 

Mindbody, as the name references, was designed especially for health and wellness businesses.

Their tools are used by other types of businesses but if you aren’t a medical practice, massage, retreat center, yoga facility, spa or gym, you might be missing some key communication and instruction tools as listed above.

They have a great search directory to allow potential customers to search for a wellness facility or class globally on their homepage.

They also have nice newsletter and marketing tools but don’t focus on student experience and retention in the same way a learning management system does.

TeacherZone vs Mindbody Onboarding: Dedicated Staff Help + Upload Data (vs) Non-Dedicated Help

• TeacherZone = Uploading of All Data and Personal Concierge Approach
• Mindbody = Tutorials and Non-Dedicated Staff

We all know that changing systems isn’t easy.  The more help you have the quicker you can be trained and get up to speed faster and with less friction resulting in a better experience for your Staff and Student Families. 

TeacherZone Onboarding

TeacherZone has a proven 1, 2, 3 training process that helps your Staff get the training they need and start utilizing the system quickly.

TeacherZone starts with a specialized “Strategy Call” to get your preferences set up and to better understand how TeacherZone can help your team reduce friction in your processes. Transferring data is made super simple with their CSV templates.

TeacherZone’s staff will upload all of your Teachers, Students, Parents, Billing Information, Future Scheduling, and Auto Billing Information.  You can also add all data and notes upon upload to ensure nothing is lost. 

TeacherZone’s onboarding process also includes concierge LIVE scheduling and billing training and LIVE training workshops for your Teachers.

They utilize a project management approach with an easy 1,2,3 step checklist that includes tutorials, articles, system walkthroughs, and personal attention to get you up to speed as soon as possible.

Mindbody Onboarding

Mindbody offers data conversion with certain packages but does not include future schedules or billing plan uploading. 

They have access to their customer service during regular business hours and have similar FAQs and tutorials to better help you get going.

TeacherZone vs Mindbody Billing: Membership (vs) Transactional

• TeacherZone = Membership Approach
• Mindbody = Transactional Approach

In business, there are two things we can sell, products or services.  We typically think of goods like clothing, equipment, books etc. as our products.

But we believe that you can treat your service like a product if you focus too much on selling one-off experiences. Truly “serving” your students means caring about their transformation which typically equates to a more stable relationship personally and professionally.

TeacherZone Billing

TeacherZone is all about building a lasting community.  It offers a store for products, but when it comes to relationships it is designed for a more membership-based approach.  This promotes community as it creates a sense of belonging. 

With a membership approach, we’ve seen customers create a more stable business with stronger revenue which equates to a happier staff (and less stress more freedom for owners).

You have every type of recurring tuition plan that allows for all automated billing types such as weekly/monthly recurring, variable 4th and 5th-week auto-draft, and attendance-based recurring packages.

Mindbody Billing

Mindbody has really strong tools for transactional selling.  Most of these act as promotions to try and bring a customer back to your facility.  It does give more freedom to the students and can be helpful as a marketing approach.

The pitfall is that you sacrifice overall business health at the expense of your marketing.  When you let the customers make up the rules of when they attend, and what they spend, the community and culture suffer (and your stress as an owner goes up).

They encourage selling one-off packages that do not automatically recur so the users essentially have to be “resold” more lessons.  In a membership economy, this approach isn’t ideal.

TeacherZone vs Mindbody Scheduling: Recurring (vs) One-Off

• TeacherZone = Goal of Recurring 
• Mindbody = Promotes One-Off Sale

Do you want your students to come to you on a consistent basis?  We believe true learning needs consistency and allowing too much freedom hinders this process.

TeacherZone Scheduling

TeacherZone supports single lessons and classes (and drop-ins) but once you’ve won the student, we really encourage a more consistent membership-based scheduling.

This means you can schedule your private or group lessons to take place weekly (bi-weekly or monthly), promoting customers to come to you more often.

Our research shows that students who attend lessons and classes 70% or more of the time, quit less often. 

Mindbody Scheduling

Mindbody promotes the gym approach of showing up when you want.  While this sounds nice from a marketing perspective it can wreak havoc on your retention and bottom line.

We all know what it’s like to want to come but since it isn’t on the schedule, you just don’t make it. 

By promoting the pre-buying of lessons that aren’t scheduled, you are encouraging students to not show up until they feel like it which way too often ends up being, never.

TeacherZone vs Mindbody Communication Tools: Retention (vs) Marketing

• TeacherZone = Focused on Keeping Students Longer
• Mindbody = Focused on Marketing for New Customers

Building a culture for your community means creating a feeling of connection between your staff and families. 

Communication in apps, SMS, and email is an important part of modern-day interaction and one you shouldn’t overlook.  As owners, we have the difficult task of both attracting new customers and working hard to retain the ones we have.  

Are you focused more on Retention or Marketing?

This is a fundamental difference in philosophy where MindBody perceives students more like one-off products and TeacherZone focuses on serving the customers as recurring services. 

TeacherZone Communication Tools

TeacherZone is designed with student retention in mind as we believe marketing tools should be separate from student management and transformation.  

Mindbody Communication Tools

Mindbody is designed more with marketing for new students in mind.  This can be super helpful in attracting new students, but it can be at the expense of the current student body.

They have email campaigns and robust CRM tools to help sell to new users.  If you are looking for marketing all-in-one, you may find this very helpful.

TeacherZone vs Mindbody Learning Management: Full LMS (vs) None

• TeacherZone = Teacher Apps, Courses, Assignments, Gamification
• MindBody = None

The question that we often ask is, “Do you know what your students are doing the other days when they aren’t in your classroom or lesson?”

TeacherZone’s Learning Management System

TeacherZone has a full learning management system built in that includes:

• Virtual Lessons (we support all types: Zoom, Integrated Google Meet, and more)
• Multi-Media Library
• Courses and Lesson Assigners.
• With our automated and custom Leaderboards that include badges and points you can see what your students are doing and how often:
• Attend lessons and classes
• Login to the apps
• Watch videos and access assignments
• Communicate safely with their instructors and much more.

PLUS Teacherzone offers:

• A dedicated Student/Parent App
• A dedicated Teacher App
• And dedicated Admin Apps

All three apps are included in every membership and can be branded to match your business, no matter the tier.

Mindbody’s Fit App

Mindbody offers a “Fit App” to track progress, and a video library to share videos and virtual lessons as an add-on to your current package.

Branded apps are available depending on the plan tier and as an add-on.

Summary of TeacherZone vs Mindbody

Both TeacherZone and MindBody are fine solutions for scheduling and billing along with robust communication tools.

TeacherZone’s focus is on the health of the Student and building a strong culture and community of learning in your business. 

Mindbody focuses on marketing tools while TeacherZone focuses on learning and the whole student management process. 

Since there are so many different amazing CRM and email solutions out there, TeacherZone believes that onboarding, managing, and focusing on retention are key. 

If you want to:

• Simplify your auto-billing
• Upgrade your overall student/family experience
• Give your staff easy-to-use iOS and Android apps
• And implement gamification with online learning…

TeacherZone is the hands-down winner.

If you feel like you’re winging it and “making things up” every day…

• You wind up exhausted.
• And y​our students wind up confused. 

BUT – that doesn’t mean that your business should become routine.

There’s plenty of room to stir things up within the normal day-to-day grind.

​​And when you do, it keeps things fun, fresh, and more enjoyable for your staff AND your students.

So what can you do to stir things up in your business?

That’s exactly what we talk about in this episode of the TeacherZone podcast.

Give it a listen, then get to work stirring things up! ​

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:09.8 Tyler Marolf: Welcome to the next episode of the Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. I’m Tyler Marolf, I’m here with my co-host, Chris Bates. And today, we are going over the “stir it up” quadrant. “Stir it up”. What does that mean? Well, making things fresh in your lesson business without reinventing all of your systems. Right, Chris? 

0:00:37.1 Chris Bates: Totally, yeah. Tyler you and I have done so many talks on systems, and formula and system is so important to success of your business, you have got to formalize things, you’ve got to get systems. Why? Well, number one, because you deserve it. Your stress level. [chuckle] Your staff deserve it. Your wife and family deserves it. Or spouse.

0:01:00.0 TM: Great.

0:01:03.1 CB: The other reason is because humans actually really love formulas, we love the comfort of knowing what’s happening. And the problem about Tyler and I talking about systems all the time is that it doesn’t talk about some of the other aspects that is gonna give you a really successful business, and this would be one of them. Right, Tyler? It’s not all just systems, it’s also throwing some spice in the stew. You know? 

0:01:32.9 TM: Right. But they’re like you say, whether you’re writing a song or giving a speech, there’s patterns and equations that work really, really well, that make the listeners or the customer, or the student or the families feel comfortable. They feel comfortable when they recognize that there’s a pattern. And you’ve got a great analogy, what happens when the patterns just vanilla forever. Tell them that analogy quick, like when it’s the same all the time with that lab experiment.

0:02:11.0 CB: So a good analogy is Marvel. So by the way, what made Tyler and I think about this is that we were discussing a book that, there’s a new book that we’re into called Decoding Greatness, and it’s by Ron Friedman. Decoding Greatness, by Ron Friedman. I went to an event where he spoke and I called Tyler immediately, and I’m like, “Dude, this guy just so hit hit it on the head.”

0:02:38.4 CB: What he’s basically saying is that everything is formula. That you don’t copy, but you learn. And so in learning from all the best of the best of the best, you then are able to create your own. So a good example with Marvel. The anecdote is Stan Lee was really bored of just making stupid run of the mill formulaic hero comics. They’re pretty much like the Greek a little bit, where basically you have a hero that’s perfect.

0:03:09.8 CB: And so with the hero being perfect, Stanley just thought it was boring, so he chose to go ahead and mix it up and he took a chance, and he could have got fired from Marvel, but he took a chance and wrote one where the heroes actually had little human traits and personalities and flaws.

0:03:30.4 CB: Yeah, because really a superhero tale, as we’ve talked about in the Hero’s Journey, is really talking about your internal struggle between your own challenges. It’s not about you being perfect as a hero, it’s about you overcoming your challenges, and day after day, re-affirming what it is you’re trying to seek towards. That’s the hero’s journey.

0:03:50.0 CB: So the analogy is that if we all think about those movies, think about all the blockbuster movies, and think about the ones that hit time after time, like Star Wars and Marvel and ones like that. Why do they hit time after time? Because if they keep doing the same formula it would get boring, and humans can see through that and we wouldn’t keep going.

0:04:14.9 CB: But if you noticed, Marvel and now Star Wars are doing something really interesting, and Disney’s so good at this. They have different directors. So they’ll have a project that’s like a five… I don’t know if it’s three to five picture project, and that project will have a certain viewpoint from a certain team, but then they’ll change the team on the next one. So the…

0:04:40.4 TM: Or one character comes in and helps one of the teams we love, and all of a sudden there’s one person different in the new movie, and it’s like, “Oh, I gotta know what… What are they gonna do? This is crazy.”

0:04:52.2 CB: Totally, totally.

0:04:55.6 TM: They can mix it up, they’re stirring it up.

0:04:56.8 CB: They’re stirring it up. So the whole thing that we wanna talk about today is that creativity, for those of you that have smaller businesses, ’cause if you have a bigger business, you’re already doing some of these things. If you have a smaller business, the challenge with smaller businesses, we all do it, we think we need to reinvent everything. So what we end up doing is thinking, “I’m gonna be so creative. And everyone’s gonna love it. It’s gonna be really different.” And you think that’s your differentiator.

0:05:19.5 CB: What you don’t realize is that your customers actually crave consistency, and in The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber, he talks about this greatly. He says, “All small solopreneurs are really flaky.” Some days you show up and things are really cool, like think hairdresser, some days you show up and you get a cup of coffee and the hairdresser’s really amazing. The other days, the hairdresser’s really not into it, and you show up and they’re grumpy and it’s not the same experience. ‘Cause they don’t have a formula necessarily.

0:05:45.6 CB: And so what he’s talking about is that the better companies have formulas and then mix it with stirring it up creatively. So you take the formula and then you stir the top level, but you keep the base of your business solid. So that’s what we’re talking about today, is what are the ways that we can stir it up amongst all the amazing systems Tyler and I are always talking about? 

0:06:07.1 CB: Let’s face it, you gotta have systems. What is our… For the transformation formula, Tyler. We talk about attract, convert, deliver, transform. So we already have those four things that you should have solid in your business. You should have a solid attraction team, conversion, deliver, transform.

0:06:28.0 CB: But to keep it fresh every year, to keep your customers excited, why do you think Apple changes stuff all the time, but keeps a lot of it the same? They stir it up a little bit.

0:06:43.2 TM: Good point, bringing up the building blocks of success, which is that transformation formula. The deliver and the transform, the deliver part is what we’re gonna dive into. So this quadrant, the “stir it up” quadrant lives in there. So we’re gonna go… There’s four things we’re gonna go over today. It’s the quadrant, right? The “stir it up” quadrant, we’re gonna go over some social aspects of your program. Then we’re gonna…

0:07:09.4 CB: Yeah, so number one, social. And social can include your brand.

0:07:13.5 TM: Right. Then number two is the spirit of rotation. You’ve got some pretty talented staff on your rosters, and I wonder if there was a way, and I know there is, to have those teachers meet different students that they’re not used to being with, and vice versa. So if we can mix that up, interesting things can happen. So that’s number two. Number three…

0:07:38.2 CB: Or even mixing up the roster.

0:07:40.3 TM: Right. So number three is pride in progress. So some measurements, some exciting things we can put into place, we’ll get into that, of having the students take pride in the fact they’re moving the needle, they are succeeding, and there’s different ways to go about that. And then lastly, once-in-a-lifetime moments.

0:08:03.4 TM: Every lesson business has the ability to create once-in-a-lifetime moments at least a couple of times a year per student, otherwise, we wouldn’t be sharing these amazing things we wanted to teach with our businesses. They’re there, and if they’re not happening, we just need to help you unlock it today. That’s it. Right, Chris? 

0:08:24.3 CB: 100%. So stir it up. Here we go, baby. So let’s get into number one. Number one is social. So the first way you can stir up your business is to really work on the community part. So Tyler could be as simple as a pizza party. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Social could be things like merch. Do you have fun merch and swag? 

0:08:50.4 CB: Nowadays, you could find drop shippers, so don’t have to spend a lot of money on it, you can actually do orders, drop shipping just per the order. But the bottom line is that, are you creating sort of this element where you’re stirring it up and letting your customers meet one another and creating a community. So Tyler, talk about social, some of the things we’ve done.

0:09:14.5 TM: Social, for instance, at our Performance Academy in our lesson business, we have social things in place. It’s a system, the system we already talked about. But the stir it up part, we still have to get creative with. Even though we’ve got social running through, there’s kids that are very social with the same group of 12 kids, and there’s four groups of 12 of one level and four more of another level four groups of 12, and especially through a pandemic, they were just with their pods.

0:09:43.5 TM: But we have all these amazing people that aren’t meeting each other, so what can we do? Is there some magic out there waiting to happen? Which by the way, news flash, equals and creates retention. So that’s a no-brainer, this is all retention stuff. So what could we do? Well, in the past, we grabbed the teens and took ’em to Knott’s Scary Farm on Halloween.

0:10:04.8 TM: A, it’s a team-building adventure because people are literally acting like they’re gonna kill you the whole time you’re at an amusement park, and so you’ve got a bond together and run and scream and tell the person who’s super scared to not worry, protect them from the next thing.

0:10:22.1 CB: So for those of you who don’t know Tyler, just to say Tyler has the ability to make himself eight years old again when he’s with these kids and have so much fun, it’s absolutely… He attracts all the students to wanna go do these fun elements. So do you have someone in your business…

0:10:41.2 TM: It’s an empathy pool that never stopped filling up and there was never a leak. I can remember back all the way to preschool, Mt. Olive Preschool in Los Angeles when I was four. I have memories of day-to-day things. So the memory thing that I got from my dad, my brother has it too, it allowed me to access that as a superpower. I can remember the troubles and tragedies of 13 years old. I can remember 7th grade and 3rd grade. And so if you can access that, or you’ve got someone on your team…

0:11:15.5 CB: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say, ’cause if you can’t, no big deal. Get a camp counselor like Tyler That is the fun… Who’s the most fun on your team? They should be the ones hosting the event.

0:11:28.7 TM: They should be in the [0:11:28.8] ____ to go. Two tickets for two directors to go and then everybody else pays for their own. Make sure everybody’s got rides, etcetera, etcetera, and those kids become best friends and you win. So that’s one example.

0:11:42.9 CB: There is a magic to that, that is so cool, Tyler. So the social is a big one. The other thing that we’ve done socially, I know a lot of you do a lot of these things, we’re just trying to remind you to stir it up, especially coming out of this pandemic. So the other thing is doing things like movie nights, like parents night out, like barbecues.

0:12:02.1 TM: Open house jams. If you’re a music school, it’s really easy to do. If you’re more like a jujitsu or karate school, everybody likes to come in and roll around and then eat food and practice stuff. It’s kind of like an open gym, it’s the same thing. They might see people that don’t go to the class, the two nights you go to, and so on and so forth.

0:12:23.5 TM: It’s not hard. Just get ’em there, have the parking lot, a couple of tents in the parking lot with your new merch that you… This is another point. That the kids voted on. So you had four designs, everybody voted, put their ballot in the hat, and you came up and at the event, guess what’s there? The one shirt that won it all, and you didn’t even tell anybody who won, they have to show up to see, and then they get a shirt.

0:12:49.0 TM: It’s not hard, you just sew it together, a lot of it overlaps, and you can create… I mean, shoot, just the social part can create once-in-a-lifetime moments, which are actually separate from this.

0:13:00.5 CB: Totally. With the social part, yeah, we’ll move on to the next one, but for social, the last thing I wanna say is that all of you right now, as you’re writing this down, I want you to go ahead and get with your teams and start planning your next social and start planning whatever it is from a branding standpoint, because that also includes in the social of stirring it up, what’s something really fun that you could offer everybody? 

0:13:25.8 CB: Whether it’s a hat, whether it’s… Whatever fits your brand, have some fun with it. So write that down and get with your team. Tyler, what’s the next one? 

0:13:37.3 TM: Spirit of rotation. You could just call it “rotation”. There are people on your team that have different superpowers, just like the camp counselor, youth pastor power versus the… I’ll just use our school for, for example, someone that can make music theory fun, like we have a person that does that. That’s weird, but they can do it.

[chuckle]

0:13:58.8 TM: So you find out, then you rotate the teachers. If a guitarist or whoever is studying with a certain person and somehow either at a workshop or a master class, they’re working with the other person? Man, it gets the juices flowing. There’s a freshness, it’s invigorating, it’s like, “Wow, he has a completely different dimension and portal to the same thing I’m studying than my person does.”

0:14:28.8 CB: So Tyler’s saying there’s two ways that you can stir it up with regard to the spirit of rotation. One, is you can literally have them change instructors. What we’re saying is, don’t wait until the student’s actually having issues to change the instructors. That’s not the ideal situation. The ideal situation is to have your ear to the grindstone all the time and have your staff always communicating to where they just know, “You know what? Johnny, I think would be so perfect with you, a different instructor,” whether it’s a group or a private lesson.

0:15:00.0 CB: Secondly, what Tyler saying is have them visit other group classes or other opportunities that allow them to have something that really promotes their superpower. One of the things we do is we have a recording class, and so in the recording class, we attract both people that want a record, and we also attract engineer minds that want to learn that side of things. So really transfer that to…

0:15:25.1 TM: I’ve got another one, Chris.

0:15:27.2 CB: What’s that? 

0:15:28.0 TM: Dynamic duos. So you’ve go these two famous teachers at your school that stand out maybe above everyone else, they’re the innovators, they’re the personalities. Put ’em together and have them do a workshop.

0:15:44.0 CB: Totally.

0:15:45.7 TM: All of a sudden it’s like, boom, and they’re like, “Wow.” It’s just like the characters in the Marvel movie. It’s the same thing. And it’s a team building experience for the team members as well. They get to know each other, and if everybody’s in a sound mind and attitude, it should work out amazing. If it’s not, then you get to re-think that team member and get them out of your school, if they’re not at playing with others. So anyway, all sorts of litmus tests there to play around with.

0:16:14.7 CB: Tyler, something that came to my mind on this, you guys, is your business should be so fricking stable with regard to your operational systems, that this stuff is like, this is the candy, this is the fun stuff. Stirring it up is actually should be enjoyable with you and your staff to come up with all the fun ways that you can literally really mix it up.

0:16:37.6 CB: And some of you, by the way, that are listening, I know you’re really good at this. Tyler and I aren’t trying to speak down to you, we’re just trying to keep it top of mind.

0:16:45.7 TM: Yeah, but it doesn’t matter if they’re really good at it. All of our listeners need to renew their minds with this concept. Us doing this podcast is renewing our minds, and the…

[overlapping conversation]

0:16:55.5 CB: Totally. [chuckle]

0:16:57.4 TM: Just started recording, we have three new ideas we’re gonna do. There’s a drum clinic on the horizon that we’re gonna do on a day off or there’s no rehearsals. So point is, I don’t care how good you are, how long you’ve been around, you need stimulation, of thought, creativity and ideas. Even the best people, Chris, they know how to implement the ideas.

0:17:18.9 CB: Right.

0:17:19.5 TM: The chaos folks or in between, that’s where teacherzone.com can help take 60, 70% of the friction away, so you can have some freedom. That’s a different concept. But these ideas are for everyone in there. Hopefully people in chaos hear these ideas and go, “Oh my God, I’m so inspired, get me out of chaos now so I can do these.” The people that aren’t, congratulations, go do these. You’re ready to go. So it’s for all of you.

0:17:47.2 CB: Totally. And Marvel example of stirring it up is there’s the new Batman out right now and… Or that’s actually, it’s Batman, DC.

0:18:00.1 TM: That’s DC.

0:18:00.1 CB: They’re following the same formula. They get a different director every so…

0:18:01.6 TM: You can never talk about comic books again.

0:18:03.8 CB: I know, I didn’t collect ’em.

0:18:08.7 TM: But for those of you who are huge fans, I got you.

[chuckle]

0:18:10.7 CB: Actually though, I was thinking about the other day, I’m like, “I’m getting to where I actually think I’d be fun.” So what I was saying is that, Tyler, what has there been like 700,000 Batmans? There’s been umpteen versions, umpteen Batmans. It should be the most boring movie at this point that none of us really wanna go see. Why was I so excited to see it? 

0:18:34.1 CB: ‘Cause I know they’re stirring it up with a totally new… There’s a new character, there’s a new director, and I’m not gonna spoil it for you guys, but it’s fresh. It’s a fresh take. Now I’m excited to watch the next three or four in the project. So they did it again, they took the same formula, they took the same character, they took the same…

0:18:52.9 CB: Just like you in your business, yet they stirred it up with a new director and a new cast, and it’s amazing. So there you go. Humans like what’s comfortable, with a little bit of creativity. We don’t wanna have too much creativity. And unfortunately, that’s just true. For those of you that are artists, you know this. The more avant guard, the more no one will actually appreciate it, ’til you’re dead. [chuckle] And I know for all of us, we’re trying to feed our families and have these lesson businesses that make an impact. So Tyler, number three.

0:19:23.3 TM: Number three is pride in progress. Lesson businesses all have students trying to take your vision and mission and love of whatever it is you teach and your staff teaches, and they’re trying to enjoy it, get better at it, maybe become the best at it ever. Whatever their goal is, for fun or for pro, to be a professional, pride in progress are things you can sprinkle along the way so that the work they’re doing between private teacher and student, or group and teacher, there’s the literal increments of time that can have their progress stand out and be appreciated and be rewarding and celebrated.

0:20:10.7 CB: Some people have really distinct curriculums, which is awesome, and you’ll have actual levels and all that stuff with reward systems and all. I know with dance studios, you’ve got a lot of that and you’ve got the belt system in karate, and I know with… There’s things like Royal Conservatory of Music and things like that. You’ve got all sorts of systems.

0:20:35.5 CB: That’s part of what we mean. But we also mean that there’s, every student is very unique, so what are the other ways that you can help them sort of celebrate or cement their progress? Really sort of be like… Right? And the funny thing is you can literally come up with whatever you want.

0:20:57.1 CB: We came up with one recently called the Ambassador Badge, ’cause Teacher Zone have gamification and badges and all that. And so now, students that are showing above and beyond, they can actually get an Ambassador Badge.

0:21:12.6 TM: Right. And those badges stack too, so you can take pride in the fact that, “Wow.” And you’re not asking for the badge, it’s being noticed. So if the badge starts to stack, you wear that with pride. Not the bad pride, the good pride.

[chuckle]

0:21:29.8 TM: The internal, “I am doing something that’s making a difference, I’m getting better at things.” Whatever you think would be really cool to have around your school, to have either the group or the individual be celebrated. And remember, when groups see others being celebrated, it inspires them. So if you can get…

0:21:53.5 CB: And that segues to contests. Contests are a great way to inspire people.

0:22:00.6 TM: Right, right. Teacher Zone made it really easy because contests usually have something to do with measurements, right? So when you’ve got a lesson business and you’re herding 200 cats, 200 to 400, sometimes 1000 cats a week, okay, perfect. What are you gonna do? Regardless of the prizes, what and how are you gonna measure? 

0:22:26.3 TM: Well, we used to have to think of things, ticket sales for concerts and things like that, and we would… The numbers would be there, but prior to Teacher Zone we didn’t really have attendance reports, we didn’t have… At our school, we had nothing. Teacher Zone really opened the metrics so we can measure certain attributes that the kids portray on a weekly basis, or daily basis with the practice timer, and that’s one of the ways that we have a pride and progress meter in place.

0:22:55.1 TM: We’ll do a 60-day contest with, last time it was two different electric guitars and a recording interface and microphone, were the three prizes, and it was based on the practice timer badges and point systems that you can sort in Teacher Zone. So all we did when it was over, and the kids can do it too, they can sort of watch where they are.

0:23:18.3 CB: We just ran a day range, yeah.

0:23:20.6 TM: Yeah. So we just put the range in, there’s a winner, first prize gets to pick whatever item they want, second gets to pick what’s left, and third gets the last item. It was awesome. So now we have really neat ways, technology helps us have an instant thermometer. The only reason we wouldn’t do it is ’cause we’re lazy and didn’t think of it, or we’re too busy. Or all of the justifications and excuses are the only reason now with technology to not have a pride and progress meter at your school.

0:23:47.0 CB: You can’t grow what you don’t measure. I don’t know who first said that, but it’s true. The more you measure, the more fun you can have with it, but celebrate the growth. So pride of progress. And the last one? 

0:24:02.6 TM: The last one is OIL moments, once-in-a-lifetime moments.

0:24:08.3 CB: OIL moments.

0:24:09.8 TM: My daughter just had one. My 7-year-old daughter who is new at sports, she’s been riding horses for a long time, so she’s got this interesting grit about her. Very interesting girl, Zella May. And she decides, she tells us, she’s been wrestling for three months and go to practice isn’t stuff, and she got whooped up on even though she fought hard at this developmental tournament. She’s seven, okay? 

0:24:33.0 TM: And after that, she’s like, “Yup, I wanna go to Iowa Pee Wee State Tournament.” She said that. And we’re like, okay first of all we’re thinking, “Okay, that’s about $600 with hotel. It’s two hours away. We gotta get somebody to watch the horses.” So that’s like what Mom and Dad thinks, but then we look back at her and go, “Really?” “Yup.”

0:24:57.0 TM: So we go, she’s still putting the moves together and she, in one of her matches, out of there were 36 kids at the 55 pound weight in her bracket, 36 55 pounders, and one of her matches, she was down five points to four in the first period, and we’re on the mat, coach is on the mat, and there’s thousands and thousands of people in this…

0:25:28.9 TM: It’s an ice hockey rink that convert into the tournament, and there’s eight mats all together and there’s wrestling going on all at once. It’s insane, wrestlers everywhere. And she gets, starts off the second period, shoots, grabs her leg, puts her down and ends up pinning her. She’s seven, she’s never pinned a person in her life. Not even in practice, kind of. Just has it, and she’s…

0:25:52.4 CB: And it wasn’t a quick pin, by the way. I saw the video. She worked her booty off and she stuck with it and she got it. She earned it.

0:26:02.5 TM: Hey, it’s only 37 seconds. I should send it to you, you can edit it to the… As a B-roll in the back of this video.

[laughter]

0:26:11.1 CB: Yeah, totally. So fun.

0:26:12.8 TM: But the point is open, she lost two other matches and was out. She ended up getting… She won two, lost two, and didn’t place, but maybe in the top 15, which is still amazing. But she lost a lot. She got beat up pretty good. She didn’t care. I’ve never seen her in a better mood. Even when she rides horses, which is her favorite. Something was different after that. And will be forever. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

0:26:44.0 CB: Yeah, for those of you that don’t… There’s lots of good books out there on this and lots of… Tyler and I have talked about it before, but the concept of OIL moments is that human brains, we prune everything, that’s why our memories are so unreliable. Because most of our past we prune. So the brain only does two things, right? Memory and imagination. Otherwise, it’s present.

0:27:07.8 CB: And so when it’s in memory, it’s only gonna remember things that really are impactful, so that’s where OIL moments come in. OIL moments are things like your wedding. They can be bad moments too, we all have those. But OIL moments are things that you are… “Peak moments”, is another way you can say it.

0:27:24.3 CB: So with peak moments, how can we create those and less of business like Tyler just explained? And what’s so funny, Tyler, is actually that meet that Zella went to, it mirrors the other thing we talked about, the prior progress. So it was both a once-in-a-lifetime moment and it measured her progress at the same time, so you actually killed two birds. And then if you had everyone buy shirts beforehand, now you did our social and branding one. Right? 

0:27:48.9 TM: Yeah. And that’s school pride, right? Pep rally, school pride, letter jackets. It’s not new, and you guys know this, but it’s how you disseminate the ideas. Do you just go, “Hey, shirts are out. It’s fall. Here’s the link.”? Is that what you do? No. There’s a way to release on top of two other things.

0:28:16.5 CB: Why do you think I had a Star Wars sleeping bag? [chuckle] I mean, what? 

0:28:24.0 TM: I still have my 2nd grade GI Joe Lunchbox, and I found another one in mint condition in a collector store 35 years later, and I bought that.

0:28:34.1 CB: That’s so cool. Well, I still have that sleeping bag and some of my other Star Wars stuff, and I’m thinking, “Oh, you know, since it was 150 years ago, it’s gonna be more so much.” The sleeping bag is worth like 8 bucks.

[laughter]

0:28:50.1 CB: I looked it up, I was like, “Aw man. I thought it might be vintage. Maybe people would want it.”

0:28:55.6 TM: That’s hilarious.

0:28:56.5 CB: Cool. So that’s the four, you guys. Stir it up. Hopefully this inspired you to maybe make a little change and just kind of stir it up. We don’t wanna change your systems, we actually wanna keep dumbing those down to formulaic. We want you only having a couple offerings at your program so you’re not like…

0:29:12.9 TM: Think of it as a module that attaches to either the calendar rotation of your year, what you already have in place, and just think of it as it just attaches to it. It’s an idea that attaches to what you… Your flow. You don’t have to interrupt or halt things. It just attaches.

0:29:35.4 CB: Well, in many ways, the stir it ups are kind of rewards in a way. It’s almost like you’re basically giving people something to constantly keep them from becoming static, from thinking your program’s just, “I’m just not into it anymore.” You know how every student’s gonna go through that. It’s inevitable, right? 

0:29:58.3 CB: But the more we can keep them involved, the longer they’ll stay, the bigger impact you’ll have. We know that everyone listening, you’re changing lives, and we love that. All of us are changing lives and bravo for that. But how can we do it a little bit better? Tyler and I are saying, go ahead and stir it up.

0:30:17.6 TM: Yup, stir it up. And guys, thank you for tuning in and if this sounds like something one of your friends or colleagues needs, please just forward it on over to them and have them subscribe, ’cause we’re gonna keep doing these modules and these quadrants, and we were coming up with formulas.

0:30:30.9 TM: Chris and I have really come into just our own understanding of how to convey this easier, and so send this out to people, we’re here to help you all, and we want you all to succeed. And again, this podcast is also brought to you with love and also by the company, teacherzone.com. That is who we are as well as a business and it funds this podcast.

0:30:55.5 TM: So anybody that needs help in redefining their systems in their school so they can get to the point to have fun, send this, teacherzone.com. There’s unbelievable little tools, a webinar they can click on, this podcast, it’s all right on the website. So give them the gift of getting out of chaos, and we’re here for them as well. But thank you all for tuning in and we’ll see you on the flip side. Thanks a lot, Chris.

0:31:21.2 CB: Thanks Tyler.

1. Victim
2. Villain
3. Hero
4. Guide

We discuss the power of using storytelling to set expectations for new student families.

You’re going to love this episode about how to role-play to make sure you are most appealing in your messaging for treating students like the Heroes that they are.

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:06.3 Tyler: Welcome to the next episode of the Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. We are here not only with Chris Bates, our co-host, but John Kozicki, who is the owner and founder of Michigan Rock School, not School of Rock. I apologize in person for defaming your school last episode, it is Michigan Rock School, there is your apology ’cause I love you, John. And today we’re gonna be talking and expanding, Chris, on the workshops we’ve been doing about storytelling, story branding in our clear messages and being that hero, that guide, and not the villain and not the victim. Right. So Chris, tell us a little bit more about John, quick before we let him go.

0:00:49.7 Chris Bates: Yeah, John, so excited to have you, man. So John’s a great guy. So for those of you fellow lesson business owners out there, John is a family man, he’s a community leader, he does other really neat stuff. He’s doing work right now, I don’t know if it’s okay to say I’ll let you plug yourself, but he’s doing some marketing work right now for some national brands. He’s also been a writer before. After college, John actually did some writing for a PR firm and was one of the head writers there. He was telling us how he even recently did a Seth… For those of you that don’t follow Seth Godin, by the way, go to sethgodin.com, follow Seth, he’s amazing.

0:01:32.7 CB: He did an Akimbo writing workshop, was that… And all of this, really… John, reached out to us after our hero and our characterization podcasts where we were talking the last several, if you haven’t, go listen to those. And we’re talking about how we create characters in our life and how we can utilize those characters, what Tyler just said the victim villain, hero and guide better to have better, more strong messaging in our business and also to help guide our teachers to be better guides to the students and so on and so forth. So John, welcome in. It’s great to have you and…

0:02:14.2 John Kozicki: Thank you Chris.

0:02:15.4 CB: Let’s just jump right in. Tell us what sort of sparked you wanting to jump on with this ’cause we’ve been friends for a long time, but you reached out saying, “Hey guys, this is my superpower. I’d love to come on.” So talk to us about your thought process with regard to story and how it all fits into our business.

0:02:31.7 JK: Yeah, sure. So I think it was a couple of episodes you were talking about, you introduced the new Donald Miller book, and you were talking about the hero, the guide, the victim, and the villain, and I immediately thought, this is all great stuff, but it’s all very nebulous, and I thought maybe what I could contribute to the conversation is how to focus it a little bit more for studio owners, because I know with fellow studio owners, we wear a lot of hats, we’ve got a lot to do, and these more nebulous concepts are great as long as you have time to start to dig in, and I thought, Well, maybe I could kinda help that process along a little bit and kind of offer some insight about my areas of expertise which as you mentioned is kinda writing, I’ve worked in PR a little bit, I’ve worked in marketing a little bit, and most recently dug into using stories to connect with our clients, our staff, our students, and so that’s where I kinda want to dig in and hopefully give studio owners some tools that they can use right away.

0:03:51.9 CB: Yeah, man. Tyler and I are big action takers, and while we love spit-balling about stuff like we’ve done in those other episodes, we’re so grateful to you, so if you guys are listening likewise, it’s so need for all of us to constantly learn from one another, but thank you for helping us hone this in to actionable steps because story… Well, you just told us something pretty cool that the oxytocin thing. Would you talk about that for a minute? 

0:04:22.5 JK: Yeah. So the reason why using stories can be really effective in marketing is because when we hear a good story, what it does is it stimulates the creation of oxytocin in our brain. Oxytocin, and I’m not a scientist. This is all the stuff that I’ve just learned from…

0:04:48.2 CB: Oh, he’s also a neurosurgeon and brain scientist.

[laughter]

0:04:52.7 JK: So, oxytocin is kind of nicknamed the love drug, right. And why that is important for us as studio owners, I think, is because oxytocin enhances when… Your brain simulates the creation of oxytocin, it can enhance feelings of trust and feelings of empathy, and so with what we do, we need to get our clients and our parents and our students and our staff, we have to get them all on board with what our vision is. And that comes from trust, right? So once they trust us they’re gonna be more receptive to what we ask them to do rather than saying, “Hey, you over there do this.” If you can kinda gain that trust then they’ve bought in, right? Because going back to that concept of who are you? Are you the guide? Are you the hero? Are you the victim? Are you the villain? As studio owners… Well, okay, so we all want to be the hero, right? 

0:06:04.2 CB: Yeah. Right, yeah.

[laughter]

0:06:05.7 JK: We all want to be the hero, but we also know that our job as studio owners isn’t to be the hero. Our job as studio owners is to make our students the hero. Make the parents feel like they are the hero. If we make our staff feel like they are the hero, then they’re gonna be on board with what we want them to do, so our job is to always be the guide.

0:06:31.0 CB: I love it, and it goes in alignment, by the way, with the podcast we just did with Brad, that will air right before this one. And he was talking about verbiage we use, right? And saying that it’s very common that we’ll use, “We”, and he would like us to switch more to thinking of you, in other words, whether it’s the teacher, like you said, or whether it’s the students because at the end of the day, everybody wants to be the hero. Exactly what you just said. And so by speaking to them in the terms that they see themselves as, it actually builds trust faster, so it’s right in alignment. Tyler, you know we’ve talked about oxytocin before and how… ’cause I’m such a busy bee. I’m always doing stuff, and before I go in our school, I’ll often have to in the car, I’ll sit there for a second and I’ll have to get in gratitude and bathe myself in oxytocin because I know if I walk in… ’cause I’ve got business on the mind that I’m gonna turn people, the students off and the teachers off. So I tend to… I’m glad you mentioned that. I have to use it all the time, because if I don’t, I know that I can come across as very cold, if I’m not in that place, not in that oxytocin bath.

0:07:53.0 JK: And so here’s what I kind of always try and remind myself is, I know with teachers zone you work with music studios and other studios to speak to musicians. We are kind of egotists like we like the spotlight, right? That makes us…

0:08:13.6 CB: 100%. We talk to a lot of you. Who are us? 

0:08:17.9 JK: [chuckle] Right, so what I try and remind myself is that if you position the hero as someone who meets their goals, like that is how you attain hero status by meeting your goals, then you want your students to meet their goals. That becomes their hero. Then your job as the guide is to make heroes. So if your goal is to create heroes, then when you do that as the guide, you’re both the guide and the hero, right? That makes sense. Your students become the hero.

0:08:56.2 CB: I love that, yes.

0:08:57.3 JK: You become the guide, you are the guide, and you become the hero when they’re successful in their goals.

0:09:03.6 CB: Right. And everybody, it doesn’t matter what kind of class business you have, you’re trying to take your students from one place and have a transformation of some sort, and that’s that goals you’re talking about? 

0:09:14.9 JK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:09:16.8 Tyler: And so an identity understanding at some point for some teachers, some teachers may understand the concept. They just don’t know what to call it, being the guide and the hero back and forth or whatever, but if a staff is new to this… Let’s say you’re implementing all of this, and this is all new to you guys as studio owners, and you’ve got 10 staff members, and let’s say eight of them don’t get it, there’s probably an identity crisis going on at some point if they don’t know who they are in your business, and so it’s up to us as guides to let them know like, You absolutely are a hero, but guess what, so are they and guess what you are to them. So there’s that different… And I think that’s what you’re gonna kinda get into today by identifying stories and other people’s stories as well. So now we’re bringing in a teacher’s story or bringing in a parent story, and then the parent, sometimes their stories are way bigger and colorful and the kids is more basic and not totally related to the parents story. It kinda is… And then there lies, three stories, us as guides, minimum, that’s not even counting operations that we have to play into and decipher.

0:10:36.0 JK: Right, and what title… What you’re talking about is you’re talking about audience. You’re talking about who is your audience at any given point as the studio owner, and how you’re going to most effectively present your message or affect some sort of change in them, right? . So I think of it as three different categories, you’ve got your parents and your prospective customers, then the second category is gonna be your students, and then the third category is gonna be your staff and your employees, right? So oftentimes that second category with students, if you are a studio owner, and you’re not teaching anymore, that’s gonna be on your staff and your instructors to address them, but as your studio owner, you may be first speaking with the parents and your prospective clients, and you’re definitely going to speak to your third category, which is your staff, and so getting buy-in, getting them to trust you to be their guide by having some stories and having a good way to kinda stimulate that oxytocin again is gonna get them to trust you and then you see what happens from there.

0:12:00.3 CB: Totally. If you don’t believe in the power of story, if you’re listening to this, I want you to analyze yourself and your family and those around you in the last week, and just see how much time was spent if not watching actual shows or movies. For the young ones, it’s watching TikTok. It’s watching social media scroll. We love story. Humans love story. John, do you think it’s related to that trust aspect? 

0:12:32.4 JK: I think it’s absolutely related to the trust aspect. I think it’s related to the trust aspect, and I think there’s… Being entertained is more engaging. So here’s what we do, oftentimes I see this with studio owners and musicians is when they’re presenting their messages, they may say, “We run a music studio and we have been in business for this long, and we offer guitar and drums and piano lessons, and we have lessons on this day and that day,” and these are all factual things which are important, but nobody cares, that’s not going to generate any interest in the front-end, right? 

0:13:24.7 CB: It’s very cold. Yeah, it’s very what. This is what…

0:13:27.0 JK: Very much. Very much, so how about this? 

0:13:31.1 JK: Let’s address maybe what we would say to a prospective parent.

0:13:40.0 CB: Okay, so we’ll start… So we have three avatars everybody. So if you’ve been listening, John is talking about the three avatars that we as leaders, owners in our studios… We were actually joking about this earlier. Some of you call yourself an academy, some of you are schools, whatever it is you call your lesson class business, [chuckle] we’re speaking to you, and ultimately you are appealing to different avatars in your business. And so the first we’ll call it is the actual parents ’cause most of us… The most lucrative customer for most of us is the actual under 18 student, so there’s gonna be a guardian involved. So that will be the first avatar we speak to. So take it away, John.

0:14:22.8 JK: Right, so what I’ll often say… Well, I’ll often say to prospective parents is I’ll say something like, “Did you have piano lessons as a kid?” Right, and sometimes…

0:14:39.4 CB: Almost everybody says, Yes. [laughter]

0:14:41.2 JK: We do… I know you guys are into the role play thing. Should we do the role play thing? 

0:14:45.5 Tyler: Sure, whatever you want, John.

0:14:48.6 CB: Alright. Ask Tyler, he’s fun. He loves role playing.

0:14:49.8 JK: Alright, Tyler, so did you have piano lessons as a kid, what was that like? 

0:14:56.5 Tyler: Yep. So a girl went to a talent show in second grade, and she beat even people dancing to Chaka Khan and all these break dancers in the 80s, and she came up, played a classical piece on the upright piano. And I was like, “I wanna do that.” So I played piano from second grade until sixth grade, That’s it.

0:15:16.4 JK: Oh wow, wow. And what were your lessons like? 

0:15:20.9 Tyler: Thirty minutes a week and they were fun. Supposedly, I was good at it and I learned quicker than most, and so I really liked it for a while, and then towards the end, I always wish that somebody had turned me on to Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles, ’cause I’d probably still be a piano player today.

0:15:42.5 JK: That’s… I had a very similar experience, but I didn’t last as long as you did. So when I was about 9 years old, my parents signed me up for piano lessons and the piano lessons I had… My older brother had piano lessons before me, so I went to the same instructor, her name was Mrs. Conley, and she lived in our neighborhood, and every week I would ride my bike over to Mrs. Conley’s house for my 30-minute piano lesson. And so when I walked in Mrs Conley’s house, she was about… I would say… I don’t know exactly how old she was. I think she was in her 60s, but I walked in Mrs. Conley’s house and she had plastic on all of her furniture, and I wasn’t allowed to touch the furniture. She even had these… I guess they were drop cloths or something that went from the front door and then there was kind of a path that led to the left side, which is where the piano was, and then to the right side, which was another room, which was kind of like the waiting area. And again, I wasn’t allowed to walk off of those drop cloths.

0:16:57.9 JK: I think Mrs. Conley was a good piano instructor because she seemed to know what she was talking about, but I never got a say in what I was allowed to play. She told me, “Hey, this is what… This is the book you’re using, and this is what we’re gonna learn.” And I loved music, Tyler, much like you. I wanted to be able to play things like Journey and Billy Joel and the things that I heard on the radio, but week after week, it never sounded like that. And I couldn’t understand, “Why am I learning piano?” But it sounds nothing like the music that I like to listen to, and so I never practiced, I begged my parents to quit, and then they finally gave in. They finally said, “Okay, you can quit.” And it wasn’t until a few years later when I started guitar lessons, I convinced my parents to let me get a guitar and they said, “Okay, but you’re gonna start guitar lessons.”

0:17:56.3 JK: I was nervous ’cause of my previous experience, but one of the first things my guitar teacher said to me was, “John, what kind of music do you like?” And that changed everything for me, because I wasn’t allowed to have a choice with Mrs. Conley. Guitar lessons were completely different because I was in charge of what we were in.

0:18:18.1 Tyler: Yep, good story.

0:18:23.6 JK: So that’s usually… That’s one of the stories I’ll use with parents. Now, I kinda went a little bit long on that one, but that’s one of the stories I’ll usually use with parents, if they have a preconceived notion about what piano lessons or music lessons are supposed to be like, and so I can convince them, well, we do things a little bit differently. And it’s okay.

0:18:50.0 CB: So are you looking for friction in their story, and then bouncing off that with yours? 

0:18:58.4 JK: What I’m looking for is, I’m looking for commonalities, and because once you make that connection, then they can kinda start to put themselves in that story.

0:19:13.6 Tyler: Right. So for instance, Chris, if they didn’t take piano lessons, we might talk about something else, a different part of the story, but if they did, which a lot of people have, like you said, Chris, then it’s a really easy break of the ice with the parent, just like John broke the ice with his guitar teacher when the guitar teacher said, “What music do you like?” And it changed the world. So the parents can kind of connect and go, “Yep, I remember that. I know my kid, I know my kid would not like Ms. Conley from when I was little. So therefore, boom, I just connected with John ’cause he described the contrast, and it’s almost like we’re in at that point, or at least we have trust.

0:19:55.8 CB: I love that.

0:19:57.2 JK: Right. And the idea, the idea… And this takes practice. And if you’re doing it in a written form, obviously, you’re gonna craft it and you’re gonna hope that it connects with people and you’re gonna put on your website and you don’t think about it again. But if this is in conversation, then it’s gonna take practice and what you’re trying to do is just kinda three steps. And I’m calling them… Step one is your hook, right? 

0:20:27.6 CB: Your hook.

0:20:28.2 JK: And your hook is like in music, you wanna draw them in, and the way to draw them in is to kinda capture some sort of emotion in them, right? Or some sort of commonality.

0:20:40.0 CB: So if I have a Karate dojo technically, any lessons can give me a hook, right? Because I’m basically trying to get them to have some sort of relation to what… That way you can bounce off that, is that right? 

0:20:57.0 JK: Okay. Good question. So if you own a karate studio, I don’t own a Karate studio, but if you talk with a parent, what you’re gonna try and look for is you’re gonna try and look for what would be I would consider kinda the second step, is the obstacle in your story. What is the thing that you’re trying to overcome? And if they already know, if they already know what the obstacle is, like, “Ah, my kid is… I don’t know, he plays video games all the time, and he seems to get bullied a little bit.” Then as the owner of the karate dojo, you may have a story from your own past about how you started in Karate or like maybe you were getting bullied, right? And so, then you’ve identified what that obstacle is, you backtrack and you start your story.

0:21:47.4 JK: Now the goal, when you’re telling the story is to try and continually hit those points that are gonna generate the oxytocin, right? So the more emotion you’re able to kinda put into it, then that’s gonna keep them more and more engaged throughout the story. And the longer your story goes, the more of that you need, because if you are too long and then you start to go into facts, like we were talking about the later, “well, so yeah, and then I went through book one of piano, and then I went through book two of piano, and then by book three, I was really tired doing piano”, then it becomes factual and just not interesting.

0:22:26.9 Tyler: Right.

0:22:28.1 JK: So…

0:22:28.7 Tyler: John, can you also jump into after you connect deep personally with them like that on a story obstacle situation, to them directly or even to them, to their kid, whatever it is, to the student? What we’ve done too, and tell me what you think of this, is then we kind of go into that little verbal testimonial for a second and use a kid, but not his last name and say, “Wow, this reminds me of so and so last year who had the same situation, and now look at him, he’s doing this.”

0:23:06.2 JK: Sure.

0:23:06.3 Tyler: And so, I find that you can kind of leap frog to those, but then at some point, then you gotta give them the bag of nuts and bolts, bam! But that’s at the end. I’m sure you’re getting to that.

0:23:15.8 CB: So just to reiterate, you start with a hook, getting their attention. Then you’re looking for what was their challenge? What was their obstacle, you called it, right? 

0:23:25.7 JK: Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:27.9 CB: And then what’s the last part? 

0:23:29.7 JK: The Last is the outcome, right? So, in my story, well, what was the outcome? Well, if I had ended with I quit the music lessons.

0:23:43.6 Tyler: Forever.

0:23:43.9 JK: I quit my piano lessons, that’s the outcome, right? 

[chuckle]

0:23:49.1 JK: But luckily, luckily, I started guitar lessons and my guitar instructor, Mike, one of the first things he said was, “What kinda music do you like?”

0:23:56.6 Tyler: Right.

0:23:58.4 JK: And that changed everything for me.

0:24:01.3 Tyler: Yup.

0:24:01.4 JK: And then obviously, they know that, well, I went on to be a musician and I own a music school, so I don’t have to tell them the rest of the story, you know? They know what the outcome was.

0:24:07.0 CB: Right. They don’t need those facts. They get it. Yeah.

0:24:10.1 JK: Yeah.

0:24:11.6 CB: You’re obviously accomplished at this point, or they wouldn’t be standing in your school. Yeah.

0:24:17.3 JK: Exactly, and to Tyler’s point, your stories don’t have to be personal. Your stories can be about your other students that you see sharing similar challenges or similar qualities, right? So, we all have these stories in our studios or in our businesses. So…

0:24:35.1 Tyler: Right. Right. One of the big stories too is to the core of, especially an adolescent, the core of their being is to be part of something in general that’s great and safe anyway.

0:24:53.1 CB: A tribe. Yeah.

0:24:53.9 Tyler: Yup. So even though Ms. Conley’s house was probably safer germs-wise, than your guitar teacher’s house.

[laughter]

0:25:00.7 Tyler: It wasn’t very cozy for you.

0:25:03.6 CB: It was safer than the hospital, it sounds like.

[laughter]

0:25:06.5 JK: Yeah. Yeah. Well, exactly, and my point being is that we all have these stories in our studio, right? So if you can kinda create this little story quiver and “Oh, okay, I’ve got this kid who have this challenge, so when I have another parent who mentions,” Hey, this is the problem I’m having, this is my kid and man, they just… We’ve tried basketball. We’ve tried soccer, it’s just not their thing.” And you say, “Oh, you know what, this sounds a lot like this other kid, and then you go into that story. Then again, it’s gonna build trust, “Oh, you’ve already encountered someone like my kid. I trust you to help guide because this other kid that you encountered that sounded a lot like my kid is now playing shows and now like, doing crazy solos or whatever it is.

0:26:14.0 CB: So you’re building trust, you’re getting oxytocin, but you, John, you made me think of something else too, is, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, I think so, but I have a degree in literature and story in general is a very human trait that go all the way back in time, there was the great oral traditions. And so, the other thing you’re doing is you’re proving yourself to be the guide or the tribal leader, because you are giving that advice, but in a form that builds trust.

0:26:43.8 JK: Right. Which, Chris, also has to be authentic. For instance, there might be people listening right now that orating in general is something you had to get good at or work at, and it’s like maybe scary or used to be or whatever, and then others more extroverted like myself with jazz hands coming in hot can orate so well that sometimes I need… I orate too much. So you can have both worlds, but the authenticity has to be key, because otherwise a real story and conversation can’t happen and they can smell that a mile away. So, a robotic sense… Or for instance, what if I told them really quick and didn’t tell them a story about the related kiddo that had the same thing happened to them, and I said, “Oh my gosh, that’s a third of our 190 students are just like that,” and then I move on, that’s just data. That’s just a stat. I told no story, even though I said that he is the same kid, I go right over it.

0:27:48.7 CB: Right. Oh, oh, you know what, I’m tracking on the oxytocin now, because what you’re saying is that the oxytocin release is almost a… It’s like proof that you’ve gotten through.

0:28:04.4 Tyler: Yes, it’s like…

0:28:05.8 JK: That’s gonna be the buy-in. That’s gonna be what earns the trust, right? So, at that point, before then, to Tyler’s point, if you just said, Oh, he’s like 90% of all these students that they just have to take your word on that, right? But then if you go into the story and you give that example, then it starts to break down that barrier that we have with prospective clients, where you first have to earn their trust, and once you earn their trust, then they’re gonna allow you to be the guide.

0:28:42.8 Tyler: And that’s the difference, Chris, between authenticity and commission breath.

0:28:50.1 CB: Right, we hear that a lot. Our coach talks about that with regard to the old school way of selling versus the new way of helping customers basically just achieve what they want, which is what you were talking about with outcome, helping them get the results that they want. And so, if you’re really trying to help them get the results they want, you’re not selling anything, you’re just saying, “Oh, you want this result, we provide it.”

0:29:15.2 JK: Right.

0:29:16.3 Tyler: And trust me, people still come in and say, Tyler, ’cause I’ll talk to them still, and they’ll be like, “Listen, I just wanna know this, I don’t need to be sold. We already know you’re good.” And I will back them up and say, not selling, this is something you need to hear to make sure we are the right fit, because if we’re not… We’re not the right fit for everyone. Would you like to hear the other two points that you’re gonna need to know before you come in and tour? Because they’re already coming in with the mindset of un-trust, like, “Don’t sell me.” Like, people are coming in and I do it all the time. I like to look at shoes, I will tell the person I need to look at some shoes when I’m ready, don’t talk to me, and I’ve gotten better, I’m older now, so it doesn’t bother me, but I used to be like, stop attacking me at Nordstrom, because I’m looking for some shoes because you want your commission. I want you to have your commission to, but stop with the commission breath.

0:30:14.5 JK: Well, let’s take it out of the territory of sales, and now let’s apply it to another one of your… Or our audiences, which is our staff.

0:30:28.2 Tyler: Perfect.

0:30:31.5 JK: And again, for us, we run music schools, so a common problem might be, “Hey, this kid just isn’t practicing, and they come in for their lesson and I don’t know what to do with them, because they don’t practice, they don’t wanna do what I’m asking them to do in lessons and I’m frustrated. I kinda wanna drop them,” you know? Like, I’ve heard that from my instructors, so, as the boss, as the studio owner, what do we do there? What is the advice? Now, we hope that our staff already trusts us, but we can build that trust by sharing stories. We’ve experienced all this. If most studio owners are like us, they follow the similar trajectory, which is, I started teaching and then ultimately I owned a music school, so we have this… We have years and years of experiences that we can draw from, so instead of just telling them what to do, you can say, I’ll tell you one of mine, right? 

0:31:50.1 JK: So this situation reminds me of the student I had named Boris, and Boris was a guitar student. He started with me in probably like, 2010.

0:32:04.5 Tyler: I’m already getting oxytocin because it’s story time, Chris, did you feel that? 

[laughter]

0:32:09.0 CB: Mm-hmm.

0:32:10.4 Tyler: I settled in, I got criss-cross applesauced in my chair, and I’m like, Let’s go, tell me about Boris.

0:32:14.6 JK: Boris and his mom, Natalia, thick Russian accent, okay? Boris was about… I think Boris was about nine years old when he started guitar with me, pretty young, and he was kind of on the fence about guitar. I could tell that Natalia wanted him to play guitar, but Boris was kinda like, “Eh, there’s some things I like about music, but let me tell you about video games. I love video games. So Boris would come in for lessons with me and it felt really forced trying to teach him guitar, and it was kind of this push and pull, right? He’d talk about video games and I wanted to… I felt compelled to teach him guitar, because, well, that’s what he’s here for. And this went on for, I don’t know, probably six months. And I just kinda felt like Boris is not getting anything out of these lessons, it might be time for me to talk to his mom and say, “Hey, does he… Is this really what he wants to do?” And so, I had the conversation and she said… She resisted, I can’t do a Russian accent. I wish I could. “Oh, no, I think he should still do.”

[laughter]

0:33:38.1 Tyler: That was good.

0:33:39.4 JK: So I thought, Okay, alright. And I realized though, that if we were gonna still do these lessons, I needed a different strategy. Because what I was doing in terms of trying to teach him guitar wasn’t working. So I decided, alright, I’m gonna let Boris talk about video games for the first 10 minutes of this 30-minute lesson. And so, first 10 minutes just video games and then guitar. And then that evolved into 15 minutes of video games, 15 minutes of guitar. And then that led to Boris talking about videogames for 20 minutes, and then the last 10 minutes was guitar. And this went on for two and a half years. And he never quit. His mom was okay. I kinda fell into this grove where I was like, Alright, this is what we do, right? And I realized Boris is in this for something different than I thought he was in it for. Boris is… Natalia is in this for Boris for something different than I thought, he was in it for, right? 

0:34:51.9 Tyler: Right. Mm-hmm. Right.

0:34:55.1 JK: So, ultimately what happened, the only reason I stopped doing lessons with Boris is because I sold the music school to one of my instructors and I moved, and I talked to him, I talked to the instructor like a couple of years ago. So, maybe 2018, 2019, and he mentioned Boris. So, this was eight years later, Boris still in lessons, but a really good player.

0:35:21.0 Tyler: Wow.

0:35:25.8 CB: Wow.

0:35:26.3 CB: A very smart musician.

0:35:27.5 CB: Because time is more important. Yeah.

0:35:30.2 JK: Because he was in it for something different and ultimately like that…

0:35:35.4 Tyler: How old was he when he started, by the way? No, just curious.

0:35:37.9 JK: Like, nine years old.

0:35:39.6 Tyler: Yup, so same time you started with Ms. Connelly, nine years old.

0:35:46.1 JK: There you go.

0:35:46.9 Tyler: And then eventually, all kids develop at different rates. You’ll see a six-year-old act like a four-year-old, you’ll see a six-year-old act like a nine-year-old, like it’s crazy, it’s all custom. So whatever it did, it bought him some time, we had students like this too, and then something clicked where he took over at some point, maybe after you left, and he started probably grinding on his own, like we all did, because he cracked it.

0:36:13.5 JK: Right. So you guys get this, right? But our instructors don’t always get it. So, then I…

0:36:19.1 CB: Right. And sometimes it’s more about like, in this case, it sounds to me like he wanted to be heard, he wanted a connection.

0:36:30.7 JK: Oh, sure. And regardless, when I share this with my staff, then what it does is they can think like, Oh, maybe everyone is in this for something different, you know? Maybe I have to find a different way to connect with the student who I’m having a similar problem with, or maybe I just have to let my own guard down and not be so concerned with seeing progress or whatever the problem is. Point is, is by telling that story, that allows my instructors to feel like, “Oh, hey, okay, there’s something to be learned from this”. And I don’t have to just accept what my boss is telling me, right? But he’s experienced this before, he’s experienced something similar. So it allows them that comfort level to then come to me with these problems.

0:37:29.0 CB: I learned to use the…

0:37:30.1 Tyler: I learned that… By case. Sorry Chris. That’s a case-by-case situation, to tell a story, to solve an obstacle with your staff. One thing that we’ve done, Chris, is we’ll do a little exercises every quarter, especially ’cause we have new staff on in a staff meeting, and we will have everyone go back in time to when their first spark hit them as musicians that said… Told them that they’re never gonna stop doing this ever. And how old were you? What was the instance? There is usually a time and a place, it’s not like, something hits you like a truck when you never wanna stop, regardless if you wanna be pro or not, it doesn’t matter. And so, that allows our teachers with Master’s Degrees, academia plus their session players just out of Berkeley, blah, blah, blah, to like, “Whoa, you guys”, that’s all very important, but you should probably have a hybrid based on who you were when you were nine, when you’re talking to these kids.

0:38:32.7 JK: Exactly. Exactly, and so that would be… Okay, so now we’ll apply it to the third category of our audience, which is the students, right? So now, for me, I don’t really teach anymore, so this is kind of more on the instructor, but still understanding what is the obstacle they’re facing with the student right now, whether it’s not being able to do sweep arpeggios or coordinate double base or whatever it is. That’s the obstacle. So when your instructors can identify that obstacle, then they can kinda go back in their memory and say like, “alright, well, when was a time where I faced either this obstacle or a similar obstacle, and let me share my story with them”, so then they can present the hook and present the obstacle and then how they overcame it.

0:39:33.5 CB: Well, and put into context to our heroine guide scenario, a hero is trying to transform and go through certain challenges, and so the obstacle is the current challenge that they’re trying to be the hero of. And then the guide’s job is to let them know that it’s possible and to help show them the path, and what you’re saying is by building trust by telling a story, then it makes it easier for the hero to now see themselves in that context.

0:40:04.4 Tyler: Right, Especially when… Well, like Brad said yesterday, Chris, when Mr. Miyagi… A hero already did it, whether that hero wants to be a guide or not, a hero kicks him in the face, looks over and Mr. Miyagi goes.

0:40:16.8 CB: You got it right.

[laughter]

0:40:18.0 Tyler: That’s that and guide a situation, whether that hero is gonna be a guide or not, I loved that yesterday, I never saw it through to the end of what it was to be a guide until Brad gave us that analogy.

0:40:35.3 JK: Yeah. And for our staff, for our instructors, they may just think like, “Okay, well, we just have to keep drilling this.” And then the student may just think, “Well, I just have to keep drilling it until I get it, even though I’m getting frustrated.” But if they take that step back, and the instructors act as guides and say, “Okay. Here’s how I’m gonna present this, I’m gonna tell you about my own experience.”

0:40:58.1 Tyler: Right.

0:41:00.2 JK: Student’s engaged, it’s stimulating that oxytocin, they’re thinking about it, they can start to see themselves in this position… Yeah.

0:41:09.9 Tyler: Total attitude change.

0:41:12.2 JK: Yeah.

0:41:13.1 CB: Right. And now it’s not… Tyler, we talked about transactional leadership versus transformational, where you’re just telling your staff to do something, “Do this.” and then they wait for the next order. I think a lot of teachers teach that way, “Just do this.” And it’s like, “Well, they’re not really getting the why of it.” And when you’re putting the story in context, and you’re giving them how you overcame the obstacle, and how you got the results, and that result could be failure too. You could say, “Listen, at first… It wasn’t good for me. But let me tell you about when I finally pulled it off, and here’s what I had to figure out.” I love that.

0:41:50.0 Tyler: I can’t wait til Boris tells his story when he’s older to a nine-year-old, that’s what it means to give room to the hero.

0:42:00.1 CB: Yeah.

0:42:00.2 JK: Look at this one, I failed so bad at learning sweep arpeggios because I wanted to be a guitar shredder, I was so bad at it that when I finally said, “I’m not doing this, I’m not gonna do this anymore because I’m horrible at it.” What I realized like, “Oh, I’m actually really good at song writing.” And so my perspective shifted from being a shredder guitar god to like, “Oh, I’m a really good song writer.” And I went the complete opposite direction, and it took that failing to realize what my true path was.

0:42:35.6 CB: Well, I often say that students… The goal for us as mentors, it doesn’t matter what you’re mentoring, the goal is for tad make a student your peer. And that is helping them find their way. And it’s funny… I was watching Cobra Kai last night with Tyler, we finally got through season four.

0:42:54.9 Tyler: Nice.

0:42:55.0 CB: Do you watch it John? 

0:42:57.1 JK: I haven’t seen the new season, I haven’t.

0:43:00.8 Tyler: Hooking you up, it’s so good.

0:43:00.9 CB: We were talking about it last night, or yesterday at podcast, and in our last podcast. Anyways, point is, is that scene Tyler, where he… His daughter says, “What should I do?” And he says, “You should do what you feel you should do.” It’s basically… That was the moment of, “Oh wait a second, we’re now a crutch.” I don’t wanna be a crutch.

0:43:24.9 Tyler: Right, right. We can’t control them anymore, we gave them everything we can already. And now they have to make the next decision at the fork in the road. We can’t do it for them.

0:43:38.5 CB: Which is what you did with songwriting, because you finally realized that, by finally owning your journey, you were able to actually now start writing your story and not just… It’s almost like the guide’s story helps you along your own path to then start writing your own.

0:43:57.7 JK: Yeah. And to bring it full circle, again, as studio owners, we have all these experiences, and if we just kind of utilize those experiences to share and find commonality with our prospective clients, with our staff, with our students, then that’s gonna be way more effective because that’s us being the guide. And if we present it in terms of a story, here’s the hook, here’s how I’m gonna get their attention first, here’s the obstacle that they are facing that I’ve faced in the past, and here’s what happened with the outcome. If we can kind of think about, “Okay, who is our audience?” Here’s my story that I have that, a similar obstacle, and then present it in that way, and that’s us acting as a guide. And then when our students succeed, we succeed as guides. Everyone wins.

0:44:58.4 Tyler: I love it.

0:45:00.1 CB: I love it. In EO and YPO, they do a thing called Gestalt, you’re not allowed to give each other advice. You have to only speak in terms of your experience. And if you don’t have an experience, you shut up… And what it does is, it’s really powerful because someone will say, “I’m really going through this obstacle.” to use your verbiage on that, “And does anybody else have experience with this obstacle?” And out of a group of people, only one will be like “I do.” And then just like you did to us in telling us your story, we all get that rush listening to their story. And we learn way more than a bunch of people trying to give advice.

0:45:43.7 Tyler: Right. Trying to mentally solve it without any real data in their own backpack.

0:45:50.0 CB: I wonder how many times as teachers, that we mess up that way and we’re trying to be too advice givers and not relatable.

0:46:00.0 Tyler: Yep.

0:46:00.1 JK: Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:00.3 Tyler: Because there’s a lot of teachers that come on staff, especially some of the younger ones, that we hire them knowing how talented they are, and how great their personalities are, but they’re green to life in general. And so all of a sudden, 20 kids, little souls are in their roster, and there’s a 25-year-old teaching ’em all. Not that they can’t pull it off, but it’d be nice to have a guide if you’re just jumping in with both feet as a new teacher.

0:46:30.1 JK: Yeah.

0:46:30.2 CB: Yeah so then here’s something that… Tyler and I been reading coaching books, and trying to learn more about all this stuff, and… There’s the powerful coaching question of “What is the biggest challenge for you here?” “What is the biggest challenge for you here?” And so when someone brings you that obstacle, and you ask that question for the student, “Okay, so arpeggio sweeps, what is the biggest challenge for you here?”, “Yeah, I don’t know. My fingers da-da-da-da “

0:47:00.1 CB: And you can even keep probing and what else, and what else, and you can really get them to sort of go deep with you and get so emotional on it, and now you’ve got all the data you need to now then share your story and say, you know what, I get it. When I was 11, let me tell you a story.

0:47:18.7 JK: Exactly, Chris, what you’re talking about is you’re talking about first identifying what that obstacle is…

0:47:24.3 CB: Oh, that’s your hook, right? 

0:47:25.4 JK: Well, you identify what the obstacle is and then, that’s how… Then you kind of backtrack, right. And then you start your story and then you put the hook in there, and then you add have the obstacle…

0:47:36.1 Tyler: So, one, two, three is kinda two one three.

0:47:40.4 JK: Exactly. Well, you have to identify it. Yeah, exactly. You kinda have to…

0:47:42.6 Tyler: And for the listeners number one’s hooked, number two obstacle, number three outcome, but obstacle is always… I mean, we’re guides. What are guides doing? Nothing? No, we’re helping people solve things out of the kindness of our hearts, usually guides aren’t getting paid to help sometimes, mentors especially, they want you to be as successful as they were because their life became better for understanding it all. So if you start with the obstacle, then you just backtrack, so it’s two, number one, and then number three.

0:48:14.1 JK: Exactly.

0:48:18.3 Tyler: Hmm. I love it.

0:48:18.3 CB: Sweet, I love that.

0:48:20.5 Tyler: John, you have been an amazing guest, sir.

0:48:22.4 JK: Thank you.

0:48:23.2 Tyler: It’s only been a few years, and we finally had you in a recorded conversation with us, so you’re trapped into the tomes of time with us now, so thank you for coming in today.

0:48:34.0 JK: Oh. Thank you guys. I had a blast. It was great.

0:48:38.6 Tyler: So, guys, Chris, as we always say at the end, there’s a lot of podcasts prior to John coming on, and if you haven’t heard them, go to teacherzone.com and find our podcast, there’s also a free e-book and an amazing webinar on the transformation formula. Which you guys can see for free as well, send it to friends. All we’re trying to do here is identify obstacles, get you guys hooked on a story about how we were able to experience it in the past and solve things, and then show you amazing outcomes, and that’s what our podcasts are about as well. So share them with friends and Chris, you were great today man, good idea getting John on here, and John, thanks for throwing the big flag up and getting our attention so Chris got you on.

0:49:26.2 JK: Oh, for sure, for sure. And I’m happy to, I don’t know how much I can do, but I’m happy to help If anyone has questions, John@MichiganRockSchool.com, if people wanna shoot me an email.

0:49:37.4 CB: Awesome.

0:49:38.7 JK: I’ll do what I can do to help.

0:49:40.1 Tyler: Yeah, and by the way, go check his website out, MichiganRockSchool.com, right? Is that the website? 

0:49:47.5 JK: That’s it.

0:49:49.3 Tyler: That’s it. All right everybody. Go ahead.

0:49:50.5 CB: I was just going to say one last plug for John for those of you that are new to the lesson class business, John’s done it multiple times so he skinned his knees enough to have great stories.

0:50:03.9 Tyler: You guys… Love your stories thanks John. Alright Teachers Zone listeners thank you so much for tuning in we love you and we will see you on the next episode of the Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler take care everybody.

The reality is, the more you highlight the transformation of your students, and the problems they can overcome, the more you’ll actually create interest…AND see more students start to sign up.

Why? Because when it comes to your business, your student is the hero, not your business.

So we brought in StoryBrand Certified Guide, Brad Alexander, to give us some tips and tricks in how to make your student the hero.

This applies to your marketing AND how you operate your business.

Brad helps us do this with our own business. We hope this episode helps you do it with yours as well.

Enjoy!

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:05.4 Tyler Marolf: Welcome to the next episode of The Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. Today, I’m here with, obviously, co-host Chris Bates, but we have a special guest today and his name is Brad Alexander. He’s dear to our hearts. And he owns Clarity Creative, and just creative, clarityalwayswins.com is his website. Chris, tell us who’s here with us.

0:00:29.2 Chris Bates: So we have the Jedi, Brad. Welcome! It’s so exciting.

[laughter]

0:00:32.1 TM: Welcome, Brad.

0:00:32.2 Brad Alexander: What’s up, guys? [chuckle] I’ll put my hood on there. That’ll work fine right now.

[laughter]

0:00:38.8 CB: So for those of you that have been listening the last couple of episodes, Tyler and I have been sort of spit-balling about this whole idea of the characters we play in our story, in our life story and with our business. And we decided to bring on our guide, ’cause we’ve been playing with these characters, right? We got Tyler. We’ve been talking about victim. We’ve been talking about villain. We’ve been talking about hero and guide. Right? And so we’ve been trying to be a guide to you guys, but in truth, our guide is Brad. And Brad helps us get more clear on our story and our messaging and how we speak to our customers. And so we decided why re-invent the wheel? Let’s have our own Yoda on and have Brad help us better understand how we could have clarity. And so Brad’s company, if you check out his website, you’ll see that, basically, he uses story-based marketing to really help you tell that story to your heroes and to help your heroes thrive. So Brad, I’m not gonna butcher all the amazing stuff you do, I’m gonna let you take it from here. Welcome to the show. Glad to have you on, brother.

0:01:49.8 TM: Teach us. Teach us.

0:01:49.9 BA: Yeah man. It’s… I’ll do my best. Yeah. You guys are gonna be a tough crowd, but we’ll do our best. Yeah. [chuckle] Alright, no, thanks for real. This is great to come on and I know we talk so much offline in other ways, but at least just to kinda do this and really for the folks that listen to what you guys bring every week. And you guys offer so much just help and advice and value, and anybody trying to learn anything about the lessons business. And so that I get to come in and help with that too is awesome. And I’m fired up to be here. And so… Yeah, I know that you guys for the last couple of weeks have been talking through, based out of Donald Miller’s book, and some of the collateral and information that’s come from there, these four roles that people play. And if I’m right, the last couple of weeks, it’s been very much about the victim and the villain, and then this idea about heroes and guides and figuring out which one you are in there. Is that right? 

0:02:46.8 CB: Yeah. You know it’s…

0:02:46.9 TM: Yes. And when can we play that role? When do we have permission to… Do we even know that we can have permission to be one or the other? A lot of this is new to people like it was to us a few years ago, Chris.

0:03:00.9 BA: Yeah.

0:03:01.0 TM: We never looked at a customer as Luke Skywalker. We looked at us as like, “Here, let us build this thing so you could be amazing with our thing.” And so we really had a paradigm shift in the last five years. And then we met you and now it’s just even better.

0:03:18.0 CB: Well yeah, isn’t that the way we’ve all been taught to do business. Right? It’s like, “We’re your hero.” It doesn’t matter if you’re selling tacos. Right? It’s like, “We’re your hero. We’re the best taco you’ve ever had.” You know? 

0:03:30.8 TM: Sure, right.

0:03:31.8 BA: Yeah.

0:03:31.9 CB: And you really helped us understand that that is not the best way to appeal to someone.

[chuckle]

0:03:39.2 BA: Right, you’re right.

0:03:39.6 CB: It’s all how great you are.

0:03:41.8 BA: Yeah, that’s right. Well, and so it’s tricky. And so I know the kind of thing that I know that we talked about talking about today, and then I’ll try to help unpack a little bit, I guess, is this idea of when you are a business owner or you’re running your own thing or you’re selling your own products, and you know it’s valuable and you believe in it, you know how much good you can do for somebody, you know how much better of a product or service that you have, it’s really hard to watch other people in the same space win or do better than you when you know, you have this gut feeling like, “Man, we do so much better than they do.” And so out of that gut response, you wanna come out and you wanna say, “We’re so much better than they are.” Right? That’s like the default, ’cause you just want everybody to know it. Right? You gotta be a…

0:04:34.9 CB: You wanna be a villain.

[laughter]

0:04:36.6 BA: Right, right, right. Well, and it’s natural ’cause you either feel like I’m a victim. Man, I can’t… Nobody’s gonna listen to me. I’m always behind. I’m always the forgotten one. Or, yeah, the temptation is to vilify the competition.

0:04:53.0 TM: Right.

0:04:54.2 BA: Or, and then by default, you end up becoming a villain of the marketplace, which isn’t… You’ll attract some people, but it’s not gonna be the kind of people you wanna have as long-term customers, for sure.

0:05:04.6 CB: I have a super important point, man, that is huge. Something that I always, well, that I shouldn’t say always. Something that I now believe is that when you come from abundance and you do your best, and it takes a lot of work but you do your best to get rid of fear, abundance creates so much more success. That mentality.

0:05:29.4 BA: Yeah, no, absolutely. But it just… I guess what I’m trying to lay out there is, it’s completely normal for us to… That everybody does this. It’s not like you’re some weird person who’s doing that. It’s like everybody starts there or it gets into that, and then you’re trying to ramp up what you’re doing. Tyler, do you got something? 

0:05:50.7 TM: I think part of that, the by-product of that natural reaction to compete, well, as an entrepreneur, if you’re building something outta nothing and it didn’t exist before and all of a sudden you have this fire like, “Why does everywhere else do it this way? That makes no sense.” Okay, well, now you’ve created and invented a solution. Right, Chris? And this thing is here to help others. So to go into villain mode right after that, you have a fork in the road. You can set your destiny at that point. How you respond with the messaging, whether you’re kinda that evil competitor or you’re that like, “Hey, we’ve got nothing to lose, we’re just here to help.” And people, that authenticity draws who your people will be from the beginning.

0:06:38.1 BA: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so there’s this whole… The space I live most of the time in is very specifically with marketing. How does this apply to somebody’s website, how does this apply to your brochures, how does this apply to the packaging and the products that you’re trying to put out there for people? And it definitely is a part of it. Your marketing will be more effective, and we’re gonna get into that, if you can make this mental switch to instead of talking about yourself and how good you are, and how great you are, and how many awards you’ve won, or how many clients you have, or all of your stuff. Just me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, I, we’re awesome, we’re awesome, we’re awesome, to making the switch and pivot to say, “Hey, client, customer, student, whatever. We are just here to help you win. And that’s our purpose is you as the customer, you as the client, you as the student,” whatever it is. When you can make that switch and make what you are talking about on anything people see, that’s truly saying, “We want to help you be awesome. We wanna help you win,” then that’s gonna differentiate and attract people to you because you don’t look like you’re insecure, you don’t look like you’re just trying to brag, it’s like, “Man, these people actually feel like they can help me solve a problem here.”

0:08:05.9 TM: Right. Right. Brad, I’ve got a question. When you’ve helped people and their messaging, just like us, you helped us. How often is their general mission tagline of their, “Hey, come use us,” how often is it me versus you on the very first time you meet a customer of yours? 

0:08:27.2 BA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually when people come to me, there’s something broken. Like, “Our marketing’s not effective, and we’re trying to figure that out.” And so then I’ll look at their stuff, and I joke when I say it’s like, “Yes, it’s very obvious why that’s the problem.” Because, yeah, you’re positioning yourself, and again, this guide-hero concept is that you’re making yourself the hero of the story. You’re saying like, “I’m here. I’m awesome. I’m gonna solve your problems. I’m the savior.” As opposed to making them the hero, and so people just quickly, they respect it, but they bounce off of it pretty quickly. Yeah, what you got, Chris? 

0:09:06.2 CB: You made me remind, I don’t know where I heard this, but someone said you transition from, “Hey, look at me,” to, “Hey, there you are.” You’re acknowledging versus, “Hey, pay attention to me,” it’s, “Hey, I see you.” Is that accurate? 

0:09:28.1 BA: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And you think about it like anything, any brand, anything, I mean literally anything that you love, that you buy from, that you currently right now that you’re drinking out of, that you’re consuming, that you just, if it’s something like, “Man, I love this brand of,” whatever it is, there’s something about that brand that makes you feel like they’re making you a better person, or they’re part of something that you value. That they are helping you do something that you really wanna do with your life, whatever that is. And so even though they may not be saying, you, you, you explicitly, there is that element of, “Hey, I see you. We want you, we wanna invite you to be a part of this.” And that’s really the biggest shift when it comes to, yes, you’re marketing, but just even how you operate your business, if you can view yourself as, somebody’s living out their journey, they’re on their path towards some things in life, and at some point you as a company or as a business get to be part of that person’s story and you get to guide them to this next step and help them do something, accomplish something and believe in something that they are not sure they are capable of but you know they are. And that is the shift.

0:10:42.6 CB: I love that. I’ve never heard that, Brad, I don’t know why, but I’ve never heard, “You get to be a part of their story.” I love that.

0:10:50.5 BA: Yeah, and that’s it. We talk about in the marketing world, you’re inviting them into a story, but really what you’re doing is you’re positioning yourself into their story for something that they’re already trying to go for. And so there’s just, again, these two characters, the hero and the guide. And so if you’re thinking about typical story structure, Karate Kid is one of my all time favorite franchises. Tyler and I have riffed on about Cobra Kai, I could sit here and nerd out about it. I’m unashamedly a big fan. And…

0:11:22.7 CB: Me too. Just started season four.

[chuckle]

0:11:26.4 BA: Yeah. That’s right, well I’m on round two already. [chuckle] So you’re looking at this quintessential moment in Karate Kid where this kid Daniel is getting beat up. He’s moving in the city, he’s trying to figure out his life, and all of a sudden meets this guy, Mr. Miyagi. And Daniel wants to learn karate ’cause he wants to learn self-defence, he wants to stick up for himself, he wants to fight the bullies. Well, Mr. Miyagi reluctantly agrees to teach him, but he’s not teaching him just how to beat up the bullies, he’s teaching him so much more. He’s taken Daniel on this journey of, “Hey, man. You got what it takes. You don’t have to be like everybody else. There’s more inside of you than you think, that you probably don’t think you could pull it off.”

0:12:07.1 BA: There’s all these moments in the story of the hero where he is just fumbling and bumbling and getting mad and fighting obstacles and not sure he could pull it off. And Mr. Miyagi, every step is like, “No. Do this, do this, keep at it,” and he just stays consistent. And so these two people in this story… The reason we love these stories is because we can see ourselves in the hero. Like, “Yes, we know what that’s like. To want something, to feel like we’re not gonna get it, and we can’t pull it off,” and that’s why any story is relevant to anyone, ’cause you can see yourself through their experiences of things you’ve experienced. And so effectively, when you position yourself as the hero in your marketing and the way you do the business, when it’s all about you and your convenience and you making money and how great you are, you’re actually confusing the people who are trying to buy from you. Because they’re looking for help to solve a problem, not somebody else’s story to watch.

0:13:07.7 TM: Right.

0:13:08.3 CB: Ahhhh…

0:13:08.7 BA: You get…

0:13:11.5 CB: Wait. Say that again. Say that one more time.

0:13:13.2 BA: You are confusing your customer because they’re looking for someone to help them solve a problem, not another story to watch. And they might be like, “Man, that’s great for you, that you’ve won those many awards,” and they’re just gonna check out and be like, “Well, but I’m looking for somebody to help me with this problem.” And…

0:13:33.7 CB: Man, that’s big. ‘Cause we all want people to watch our story, especially something that we’re proud that we built, but it’s like, that’s not how they’re shopping. [laughter] They’re not looking for your story.

0:13:44.2 BA: Yeah, save that for your family dinners and your internal company celebrations and when you retire, right? But don’t tell me that when I’m check, kicking the tires and whether or not I should come take dance lessons from you. And so anyway…

0:14:01.7 CB: That’s good.

0:14:02.3 BA: So you kinda have these two characters, you have the hero and the guide. And the truth is that the hero is quite honestly the most, the weakest character in the story. They’re constantly self-doubting, they’re constantly insecure, they’re constantly…

0:14:17.4 TM: Identity crisis.

0:14:17.5 BA: Yeah. All the time.

0:14:18.6 TM: Identity crisis 101. And sometimes they don’t figure their identity out for five times in a row.

0:14:24.6 BA: Right.

0:14:27.3 TM: I mean Daniel’s just like, “Man and I just like this girl, leave me alone.”

0:14:27.6 BA: Right.

[laughter]

0:14:32.2 TM: And then he’s like [0:14:32.3] ____ karate.

0:14:36.8 CB: The warning is, story is without those challenges.

0:14:38.0 TM: Right.

0:14:38.4 BA: Right. Yeah, absolutely. But then you think of whoever the guide is, if it’s Mr. Miyagi, if it’s Mick from Rocky or if it’s Gandalf from Lord of the Rings…

0:14:49.2 TM: Ironman.

0:14:49.3 BA: If it’s, yeah, whoever it is, the person is stepping into like, “Hey, you got this,” they’ll have their own little character journeys, but really they’re the strongest character in story. They’re not trying to prove that they’re good to the person that needs to learn, they’re just saying, “Hey, you need to do this.” And so when we think of our business the same way, if I’m putting myself out there, as a hero, then really, what it actually comes out as is insecurity. And it accidentally communicates, “We’re not really sure about what we’re offering, so we’re gonna talk it up so much to try to convince you because we don’t want you to find out that we don’t know what we’re doing.” And that’s not what you wanna communicate to anybody that’s gonna buy from you.

0:15:38.3 TM: No.

0:15:38.4 CB: I love it when we’re so attracted to decisiveness. So attracted to someone that feels strong to us it’s like, “oh.”

0:15:51.5 BA: Yeah.

0:15:52.8 CB: Because like you said, in trying to be a hero, it’s really scary. You feel really vulnerable, you feel, especially in the learning business, any kind of lessons you’re taking or whatever? I mean, gosh, it doesn’t matter what you’re learning, discomfort is the seed to learning, so it sucks. It’s scary.

0:16:10.1 BA: Yeah. Yeah, and so what’s beautiful about the types of people who, I’m sure listening to this podcast, and people who are teachers own clients, is that, just by default, you are 100% in the business of transformation. Like you just are. You are helping people literally move from something they don’t know how to do, to doing it. And that’s just, that is that, I mean, for a lot of businesses and companies, they have to really think about, how am I actually helping people grow? How am I actually solving a problem in somebody’s life? 

0:16:45.4 TM: Right where the core of a lesson business is already that.

0:16:48.9 BA: That is literally what you’re doing. Like there’s no way around it. And so that is a big deal.

0:16:55.3 CB: How can I help them through those challenges? A lot of times…

0:17:00.6 TM: Go ahead, Chris. I’m so sorry.

0:17:00.6 CB: I was going to say, a lot of times when you’re teaching something, you immediately assume that someone will jump to the other side. And the reality that we all know is that there’s a lot of pitfalls before the other side’s reach.

0:17:15.4 BA: Yeah.

0:17:15.5 TM: Right. And I used to tell parents or other business owners or people wanting to start businesses or whatever, when Chris and I created Los Rios Rock School, I told people, I go, it’s kind of easy, I kinda… I would be the only one to mess it up because we have kids, we have music, the most powerful language on Earth and then we get the kids to play with each other and they make friends. Like you gotta have systems to make it run. But, like, how are you gonna lose? And here’s the deal, “Oh no, well, what if I run out of customers?” I don’t know, they’re being born right now. There’s customers being born as we speak. So there’s never gonna be a drought of customers because of the learning and the music aspect. So I always thought like, anybody could do this, you have the input, now go start a Subway sandwich franchise. I don’t know, that seems harder to me. You know what I mean? Like that it just seems like cooking with gas for a lesson business.

0:18:20.0 CB: Actually, you know, it’s funny to hear Tyler talk because actually, Tyler is talking like the hero that all of you out there listening know yourselves to be, in the sense that, you’ve mastered something that’s made you wanna have a lesson business. So Tyler’s confidence in our lesson business is because he and I know that side of skill and mastery as do you all, right? I mean, it doesn’t matter what, whether you’re martial arts, doesn’t matter what your studio is, you have a certain level of mastery that you wanna convey to someone. And that might even be harder maybe, Brad, in our business, to not wanna brag if… I know you don’t wanna call it bragging but it kind of is when you’re like, “Hey, guys. I’ve only been working 25 years at this. I think I could help you.”

0:19:05.6 BA: Right, right.

[chuckle]

0:19:06.4 CB: Right? There’s almost more excuse in our business to present yourself that way.

0:19:15.2 BA: Right and that’s the flip that you have to make, I think, in this business is like we just assume… And not that I teach anything like this, but if I’m in that seat, if I’m running a martial arts academy, if I’m running the dance school, if I’m running a marksmanship place, or a language class, or English learning platform, or Spanish learning platform, or music lessons, or rock band-type… Whatever it is where there are skills that have to be developed and I’ve been doing this for years. It’s just an assumption I obviously know what I’m doing, so just pay me money and I’ll help you do that. That’s how we think, as if my expertise is going to do enough to convince you to pay me money where that is not going to attract customers. And that’s not gonna help you really get the results that you want.

0:20:05.9 BA: When you begin to think like a guide and you begin to apply that to your… As opposed to a hero, what a guide does is there’s the two key points that a guide’s gonna express is they’re gonna express empathy and they’re gonna… And then they are gonna express authority but it’s always gonna start with empathy in that they… The reason a guide is a guide is because they’ve been through the transformation that the hero is trying to accomplish. They know what it’s like to have there to practice my scales over and over and over again. They know what it’s like to try to work that jump and just not get it 20 times in a row.

0:20:43.0 BA: They know what it’s like to try to get the technique and the footwork together and to stumble over and fall down and stay up late hours to try to get it right before the recital in two weeks. And so they’re on the back side of that and they’re still doing it when they perform themselves. They understand that and they communicate that they get… That they get the drudge and the grind and the work that comes from it but what they’re offering is, “Hey, I know what it’s like to be there and you can trust me to help you get through it.” And so then that’s what they’re communicating. It’s not, “I’m awesome. Look how many awards I’ve won.” It’s like, “Man, I totally understand what it’s like to be a first-time student and to sit down and hold those drumsticks and feel really awkward in the hands and just to feel like if I get into something way over my head.” And if you say that…

0:21:35.7 CB: It’s sounds to me like… Yeah, you’re showing your awards, your vulnerability.

0:21:40.7 BA: 100% and you’re saying that as a business, “Hey, we get that you really wanna see this, you wanna have the picture on the wall, or the medal around your neck, and you feel like that’s impossible, and you feel like you’re way over here or that you wanna get all the confidence to sell discipline… Whatever comes out of this, but that’s something you want that you’re after but you’re just not sure that it’s possible. Maybe for other people.” And even if you say it that way, where it’s, “We get… I understand that you are experiencing, that you’re thinking this.” It sounds like you’re kind of manipulating people, you’re not. You’re just saying, “Hey, I know what you’re thinking ’cause I’ve been there,” and all that does is instead of making you seem weak, it makes you seem trustworthy because we’re thinking, “Man, this guy knows what I’m going through, and so I think I can actually trust him to help.

0:22:30.0 TM: It also makes you… It makes you think that that person has a map like they actually have a charted course that is tangible. They didn’t before, someone might have given them a map. Maybe they created the map. I think that is a different discussion. Did the guy create the map from scratch and he’s the first guy to ever, on planet earth, for this bank? 

0:22:51.7 BA: Right, right.

0:22:52.6 TM: Or did he get mentored and handed it down? But either way, the customer, the heroes out there waiting to be heroes, know that that guy has access.

0:23:02.0 BA: Yes.

0:23:02.4 CB: So how would a modern… You made me think, Tyler… You guys both made me just think about, I don’t know why, but a train. And so if a train company in today’s day and age weere to tell their story, they might speak… How would they do that? ‘Cause they might speak of the trouble they had to go through to get that line to be safe, to get that line from A to B.

0:23:25.3 TM: Correct.

0:23:26.6 CB: Letting you know that, “Yes, we know that’s a terrible track.” And so how would be… How would you frame that to the customer? 

0:23:42.4 BA: Right. Well… And that’s the part of it is everybody asks at some point so when does my story become part of this and the journey that I had become a part of this? And what I tell people is that your story only makes sense as long as it’s also your customer’s story. And so it… Or it’s your potential client’s story in that it’s totally appropriate to share parts of your story if it’s going to show empathy and show authority to get through the problems. You don’t just go off on this to make the case, “My grandpa started the company in 1975 and for the last 20 years, we’ve been experts at making tractors and building railroads and whatever else.” I don’t care, man. Do you got something… I need to bail hay tomorrow and I can’t afford a brand new tractor. I don’t have time to start on your website by reading Grandpa Joe’s story. Maybe that’s good to get there eventually after I’ve done business for you for a while and I’m curious to know more and I’m trying to build a deeper relationship with you. But right off the bat, people aren’t coming in, being like, “Man, I wonder how this company started?” Nobody cares, they just don’t and we…

0:24:52.3 CB: Yeah, that’s like page six. That’s… I’m not there, yet.

0:24:55.5 BA: Right, right. Right. And it’s… They care once they’ve been around like… Again, in a lessons business. If they’ve been your student for six months and the family’s been around and they’ve got a taste for the personalities in it, then at some point, whenever… And I don’t know when that comes up. I don’t know they’re gonna be on your website, but if you guys are having some sort of just client night or student night and then you kind of fold into the larger mythology of this place, and that they get to be a part of, then all that does is, again, it makes them realize that they’re part of a bigger story nd they get to participate in it. But they don’t care about… That doesn’t mean anything to them unless they’ve already been in the mix of it for a while.

0:25:35.8 TM: Right.

0:25:37.8 BA: And so…

0:25:37.9 CB: Trust has to be built.

0:25:39.0 BA: Anyway… Yeah, that’s right.

0:25:41.2 TM: Don’t put the cart ahead of the horse, in regards to that relationship-building and that trust-building.

0:25:46.1 BA: Right and so just this idea of in your front-facing marketing, if you… Maybe a quick check that you can do right now, whoever you are listening to this. Go to your website, go to your homepage, and ask, “Do these people… Is this… How many times does it refer to ‘us’ and ‘we?’ And how many times does it refer to ‘you’ and ‘you,’ like the person reading it?” Like literally using the words ‘you’ or the words ‘we.’ Those are just two pronouns that you can do a scan check and be like, “We do this and we offer this, and we have this, and we’ve been doing this.” Even just the way you say it, it’s like, “Us, us, us, us, us.” And if you just switch and be like, “I don’t read the words ‘you’ like you’re talking to me as the reader on here at all.” That’s a good indicator that you’re probably acting more like the hero instead of the guide.

0:26:39.7 TM: Oh.

0:26:40.9 CB: That’s… You guys hear that? 

0:26:42.0 TM: There’s your test.

0:26:43.9 CB: So if you’ve got ‘we’ and ‘us’ on your website and you’re not saying ‘you’ to the reader, then you’re doing it backwards.

0:26:55.5 BA: Right. And there’s gonna be some place where you have to say like, “We have classes,” right? I understand that, but if it’s…

0:27:00.1 CB: Right.

0:27:00.3 TM: “We have a staff.”

0:27:02.7 BA: Right, right. But the proportion of it, usually it’s kind of a 95%…

0:27:05.3 CB: Would it be, “We have classes designed for you.”? 

0:27:09.3 BA: Right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, “We offer classes that help you be an incredible dancer.” Right? Like that’s a different way than, “We have dance classes. They’re the best.”

0:27:19.3 TM: Or, “We have the best dance academy in west of the Mississippi,” whatever that is. There’s the re-statement. That’s the blanket.

0:27:29.2 BA: Right.

0:27:29.9 TM: And those are those excited business owners going, “But we are… “

0:27:33.3 BA: Right.

0:27:33.4 TM: And maybe it’s true. Just cause it doesn’t matter.

0:27:34.3 CB: So you know, Brad… Yeah, I know. You’re right, Tyler. And I’m wondering, philosophically, if this shift has come about more in the last 40 years as we shifted… You know we used to be a supply economy, and so basically whoever controlled supply controlled everything. So if you’re… I mean, I’m making it up, but if you’re a karate studio and you controlled the geez, like you’re the only one that could get them in town, you might be the only karate studio around. But supply and demand was a bigger factor. Then as things have changed, pretty much anybody can do anything nowadays, so it’s more of a demand-gen economy. It’s more, “We have to do what the customers want.” Do you think that that philosophically has changed how we tell the story to them? 

0:28:20.9 BA: Yeah, I think it has. And I think it’s also just a born out of… If we’re gonna get the business philosophical, in like the 40s and 50s and 60s, I’m even thinking about my parents like, “Well, so-and so said it on TV, so I just trust them.” Like the trust was originally… Well, they seem more…

0:28:37.9 CB: Oh.

0:28:38.5 TM: Yeah, we don’t do that anymore. That ship set sail.

0:28:40.1 BA: No, absolutely. They seem like they know what they’re talking about and so I guess they’re right. Versus now, that’s automatically like, “What’s the angle? What’s the sch… What’s the catch? I’m skeptical about this.”

0:28:50.2 S?: Not on that gift…

0:28:51.8 BA: Right? If somebody claims to know it all and tell you all some guru, and they talk that way, then now for the younger, you know anybody that’s not a boomer, kinda below that, there’s a lot of like, “Hmm, this seems shady,” and it incites skepticism. Even if it’s legit, like we just don’t trust it.

0:29:12.0 TM: That’s… Yeah, that’s big.

0:29:13.3 CB: It’s like with the Russians in the 80s, trust, but verify.

0:29:16.6 BA: Right.

0:29:17.0 CB: Well, you made me think about in public speaking that you talk about the hero’s journey a lot or a lot of speakers. Where… For those of you, if you haven’t done public speaking, you don’t notice… Think about everybody from like Tony Robbins to anybody that you’ve seen speak. They always do that hero’s journey. Rags to riches, right? It’s like, “Oh, I was in the dumps. Everything was terrible. I couldn’t see my way out of it. Then… ” And then there’s the turn around. Right? 

0:29:46.8 BA: Right.

0:29:47.4 CB: Is that sort of a similar way we’re doing this and looking at it? 

0:29:52.3 BA: Yeah, absolutely. As long as it’s valid and it’s real, then what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to help people see that’s possible for them. And the promises that you’re trying to assure them of are realistic. Not stupid outlandish stuff. Right? It’s like… And so I think that’s even a good exercise. If you’re trying to think through transformation. What does transformation look like if somebody that goes from a before and after in this business? So I’m gonna ask you, let’s think through some of these lessons businesses. So as a music… As a kid coming in to learn music for the first time to five years later they’ve been in your program, what are some things they’re gonna grow and change in that you are confident that’s gonna happen? What would you say? 

0:30:36.4 TM: That’s a good way to look at it. Well, there could be… And depending on your lesson business, if it’s really linear, it could be Suzuki method piano, you finish level 10, congratulations, good job. That’s it. Or…

0:30:51.1 CB: Well, but there’s a lot of skill and then you’d probably be better at math and there’s probably you… Clarity could be…

0:30:58.3 TM: Oh, no, there’s benefits, but the point is there one result. There is one result that you would promise them. Somewhere between this and the end, you would have these results. Where other schools are based more on project-based or live performance or theater, or all of a sudden… And now you’re putting yourself out there and confidence, you’re not in front of just your teacher. And so then the outcome is more confidence. Or the outcome is, “Yes, you shred guitar and maybe you will get a record deal. We won’t promise that, but maybe that’s a route you could take.” So, is that kind of what you’re looking at? Like what is the expectation? 

0:31:35.6 CB: No, I… Well, I… To interrupt, I think he’s talking about more specific. Right? 

0:31:39.1 BA: Well, it’s a blend of both.

0:31:42.0 TM: Okay.

0:31:42.1 BA: It is like, “Yes, you’re gonna master the Suzuki method and you’re also going… ” And what I’m saying is, you just know by default that like a kid who goes through this, or an adult who starts and five years later, there’s things about them that just change. That they come in less sheepish, less insecure. Maybe come out of their shell. There are some ways that just by interacting with them that you know, that transfer outside of the lesson room into their life that you have seen play out. And so…

0:32:18.8 TM: That’s all confidence [0:32:20.1] ____, right? 

0:32:20.1 BA: You’re gonna learn a skill, and here’s also outside peripheral benefit that we know you’re gonna experience. [0:32:26.2] ____.

0:32:26.2 CB: So confidence…

0:32:26.5 TM: So those two things are not outlandish expectations of goals.

0:32:32.3 BA: Right.

0:32:32.4 TM: Those are like, “These things happen all the time, we know how to make them happen.” And so on…

0:32:37.7 CB: Well, we’re seeing a lot of the marketing and I think a lot of the people are really starting to wake up to this fact that as parents, what do we want for our kids? And so if you’re in the lesson business and kids are a big part of the lesson business.

0:32:51.6 TM: They are.

0:32:52.4 CB: Because it creates more consistent revenue because you get a longer cycle with a kid typically.

0:32:58.4 BA: Sure.

0:32:58.6 CB: Adults are so busy. You only get a year or two. With a lot of kids, you can get six, seven, eight, nine years. And I think connection, right? We all want kids to be more social and have a greater connection. We all want kids to be more self-confident. Just learning a skill teaches you that you can overcome challenges to get better at something, so I don’t know how you quantify that, but that’s a thing, that you can overcome difficulty in life.

0:33:29.2 BA: Yeah.

0:33:29.6 CB: Tenacity, I guess.

0:33:32.5 BA: And so then kind of extract that a little bit and what’s fun about this is then now let’s think about the martial arts studio or a dance academy or a language school. What things would be almost the same? 

0:33:51.5 TM: Right.

0:33:51.6 CB: Yeah.

0:33:51.9 BA: Like a lot of it would be…

0:33:52.9 TM: Almost all those elements…

0:33:55.8 BA: It’s the same thing, right? ‘Cause learning…

0:33:58.0 TM: Everybody wants to get it.

0:34:00.1 BA: And pressing through a skill, there’s just natural growth and maturity that comes out of that.

0:34:02.9 TM: Chris, I like what you said earlier about the gray one.

0:34:07.3 CB: Oh, maturity is a great one, growth.

0:34:07.4 TM: The parents story that just… So now with a lesson business with adolescents involved, you technically have two stories coming to the table. Mom and dad’s story of trying to do the best they can ever do for their beloved Johnny. And then Johnny’s little story like. “Red guitar,” or whatever. And so, you’ve gotta translate. So you have two stories approaching. So mom and dad are trying to make him the hero, but might not know it. We’re trying to make him the hero. And we want mom and dad to feel like a hero, too, for choosing correctly.

0:34:45.7 BA: Right.

0:34:45.8 TM: So that’s one thing we’ve noticed over the years that we try to be sensitive to. Is that, “Hey, we are also very aware of his story. What’s his?” On an initial phone call or something. And they’ll just go…

0:34:58.2 BA: Right.

0:34:58.2 TM: “Oh well, well, oh, he’s this,” and then they’ll just go and they’ll tap into his story and get out of theirs of marming the check boxes of if your school is safe and right and whatever. And it takes them a completely different direction to their kiddos story, ’cause they have comfort.

0:35:15.1 BA: Right.

0:35:15.2 CB: Oh, you’re making me feel really uncomfortable right now, and I think… And I’m saying that because learning only takes place in discomfort. You’re making me really start to think about all this and it’s like… I’m wondering, are you saying that bigger truths, in other words, as far as an outcome, more like universal truths are what appeal to people? You know like confidence, like connection…

0:35:44.6 BA: Right.

0:35:47.5 CB: Like smarter, better in school, achieving all the things that they wanna aspire towards, now they’ll have a road map of knowing how to achieve? 

0:36:00.2 BA: Yes, I think it’s not an either or. It’s a, “How do you weave in… ” And this is where the artistry of messaging and marketing comes together is… Like I know Polymer Music is one of my clients who… Kinda how you guys found me, right? ‘Cause you’re their teacher’s own users, right? 

0:36:17.0 TM: Right.

0:36:17.1 BA: And one of the things that we had dialed in, specially for their kids lesson was this idea of pride in their eyes, smiles on their faces, and finally being excited about something other than video games.

[laughter]

0:36:29.0 BA: Like those were the things that he felt like our…

0:36:32.2 TM: Brilliant.

0:36:33.7 BA: Parents are coming in and they’re just asking for, trying to figure it out. This is the outcome we wanna see in these kids lives. Right? And so…

0:36:40.8 TM: That is… 70% of his area is market share.

0:36:47.7 CB: I love it.

0:36:48.0 TM: But everybody’s area’s market share. That’s either…

0:36:48.1 BA: Right, right.

0:36:48.2 CB: Say that again, because we all learn from that. That is… You guys have just told that beautifully.

0:36:56.2 BA: Yeah, so this idea of like you wanna see the pride their eyes, and the smiles on their faces, and then finally being excited about something other than video games. And so those are very much like big, dreamy…

0:37:08.6 CB: Every parent out there right now.

0:37:10.7 BA: Right. Their big dreamy aspiration, “Man, I want this for my kid and I also really want this for my kid.” And they’re kind of short-term, long-term, mixed. Right? And so it’s kind of figuring out what are you hearing people talk about? What do you have when every time you do a… Somebody comes in to see your martial arts studio, or they come in asking about dance or cheer classes or whatever. They’re gonna all have questions and things they’re worried about, stuff they’re trying to figure out. And those are the things you’re trying to figure out, “Okay, we feel like we can… We’re helping people with that stuff.” ‘Cause every parent that comes in, any of those, or even an adult comes in like…

0:37:46.4 BA: I mean, I’m even like… I’ve emailed a guy about joining a CrossFit gym, ’cause I’m like, “Man, I’ve been to sedentary for two years, and I need… I think I wanna jump into this.” And I’m already talking, even before I’ve talked to the guy, I’ve given him plenty to be like, “Okay, the guy is 40. He’s feeling out of shape. He wants to get back to confidence in this and feel more like himself.” Like I basically laid that out for them and they’re gonna help with it. It’s not like it’s a false sale, but you’re trying to use the things that people are already asking for help in, and what you’re teaching them is just a mechanism and an outlet for that transformation to happen. And they don’t realize that. It’s more of like, “I’m interested in a guy that’s gonna do martial arts versus a guy or a girl who’s gonna do clog dancing or something. I don’t know. They’re both ways of owning a skill, of mastering something and growing. They’re just vehicles to the same thing. And so if you’re talking to your customers, listening to these things they’re already telling you, you know they’re experiencing… And I’m gonna guess that if you’re still in business, you’re doing a great job at dealing with people. You’re just not doing a good job of telling them that on the front end before they show up.

0:39:04.4 CB: So are you… To put it back on the hero thing, are you basically almost like a superhero, in a sense of you’re letting them know what will happen after they defeat the villain, if you will.

0:39:19.6 BA: Like their customers, yeah, you’re gonna become this and transform into this, and…

0:39:24.6 CB: Yeah, once you defeat your nemesis, which might be distraction, this will happen.

0:39:28.3 BA: Right, right, right.

0:39:29.9 CB: Once you defeat this. Okay.

0:39:32.4 BA: Yeah. You’re trying to name that and call it out and just… And then speak to it. And speak to it. And I think the other thing that I will wanna… Especially in the line of business that most of the people listening to this are gonna be in, I think another real simple thing that I think you could think through that allows you to, again, you’re still being the guide but you’re, in a sense, it’s making the customer the hero, is how complicated is it to do business with you and get communication from you and talk to you. If it feels like a maze of what email address can I do, there’s 17 steps before I sign up, and three forms to fill out, and five places to put my address, and then once I do it, I don’t get any confirmation, I don’t ever get any emails, I’m always having to ask you if we have class today, I’m not being told, there’s this stuff and we still then make the customers continue to do all of the stinking work.

0:40:29.3 TM: Right, that’s in the delivery Chris. That’s the delivery.

0:40:33.4 CB: We call that… Yeah, you and I… Tyler and I call that proof. The deliver part is proving to them that you’re actually doing what you promised on the front.

0:40:42.8 BA: Yeah, yeah. And so we’ve all had those experiences where like you’re fired up and you sign up for something, and then it feels like all of a sudden you realize on the back side that, “Man, they promise some good stuff, and maybe they’re good teachers or maybe they’re good whatever, but on the back end, their communication is just terrible,” [chuckle] and that… All that does is, you may love the teacher, but it makes you distrust the company because it seems like they don’t have their crap together. And so… And again, it’s like you never saw Gandalf looking for his staff, right? “Where’s my staff?” He always had it. It wasn’t like he was… Right? Or Mr. Miyagi, it wasn’t like he…

0:41:22.6 CB: Everybody listening right now, by the way, all the listeners, regardless of where your company was at, has had this happened on the back end. Period. You’ve been in this spot.

0:41:31.4 BA: Yeah. No, absolutely, I mean, and some of it you just… You may realize you’re kinda making up as you go, but you need to realize, “Okay, we need to get this figured out, because the less consistent and professional your stuff is on the back side of it, it’s just consistent communication, whatever that is, or easy steps to sign up.” It’s so ridiculously easy, you need to do, whoever you are, you need to do all of the work to make that, and it’s gonna be hard for you so that it’s easy for your customers. And I feel like sometimes we’re like, we push back against that, like, “Well, this is just how it has to happen, ’cause I don’t have time to think about that.” Well, guess what, somebody has to, and it’s either gonna be the people paying you money and you’re making them pay for it, and they’re paying you money and having to figure it out or, you know what? What if you gotta figure it out because they’re paying you money, so that makes it really easy to keep paying you money.

0:42:29.8 CB: Right? 

0:42:30.9 BA: And the love that they’re with…

0:42:32.3 CB: Right, that’s the biggest thing is, taking away all the friction, because the biggest challenge in today’s day and age is when someone faces a challenge. Let’s say their laptop breaks or they lose their phone or something, there needs to be an easy way for people to always feel like they’re getting what they need from you. And so, if you’re sitting in archaic mechanisms like humans, like pen and paper, it’s not that those technologies can’t work, it’s that they don’t work when challenges arise in today’s day and age. People need access always. We learned that with COVID, didn’t we? 

0:43:07.6 BA: Yeah.

0:43:09.1 TM: Yep.

0:43:09.3 BA: Yeah. And I mean, there’s always sometimes we… Everybody has those clients and customers or whatever, their students that are just like, they’re just that guy or that girl or that family who’s just overwhelmingly annoying and in your face and hard to work with. Like, those people are just out there and that’s just ’cause we’re all humans, and we’re all broken messes [chuckle] interacting with each other. So that’s just true. But even from my own business, I’ve learned this, if I get an email from somebody that’s a client of mine, and they’re like, “Hey, where’s this or what’s the update on this or how come we don’t have that… ” Even if it’s not frustrated, they just don’t know, then immediately I’m like, “I didn’t do… ” I wanna anticipate that stuff, so they don’t… I don’t want anybody to ever be wondering from me, “Hey, when are we doing this?” Or, “When is this coming up?” I would rather over-communicate that. And every time that happens, it’s like another way to remind me that I haven’t done that scenario yet.

0:44:01.8 CB: We just had that even happen with our own school with regard to rehearsals. We have reminders, we have all these things, but we didn’t… There was a break a weekend before there was a break, we now know we have to remind the break.

0:44:16.9 TM: Right. [0:44:18.1] ____ Reminder, there is no rehearsal today. [laughter]

0:44:24.3 BA: And everybody’s showing up and then the place is closed, right? Yeah.

0:44:27.9 TM: About five families out of 120 did show up. That’s five. That’s a low percentage, but it’s not good. They drove all the way down, and they got frustrated. Right.

0:44:35.5 CB: You can always learn… You’re always learning how you could communicate better, you’re always learning how you can make the friction a little easier. We’ve obviously been blessed to be able to work with a lot of programs and teachers around the world that try and do that, but, you know, the journey never ends, I should say.

0:44:56.0 BA: Yeah, and so that’s… And to me, that’s still trying to think of like, “Okay, how can I make the customers the hero and how can I be the guide? Is that they never need to be questioning where are we going? What’s the plan? How is it supposed to be working out? What am I supposed to do next?” Or if they do, the answer’s readily available. And again, you’re never gonna get it perfect, there’s always gonna be room for improvement, but just having that mindset shift as opposed to, “Well, you should already know,” versus like, “Okay, how can we make sure they know before we do?”

0:45:27.0 CB: Tyler, that’s your extreme ownership, baby.

0:45:29.3 TM: It is, and we just… We put Phil Allen into a new overall school director and principal position and we came up and I’m like something… There has to be some thread sown from week to week besides newsletters. It’s gotta be. So we got him Loom. Brad, you turned us on to Loom.

0:45:47.5 CB: Sweet. Yeah.

0:45:48.5 TM: So Phil now creates a Loom with some sort of background and gives a two-minute weekly update, and we just did the first one this week, so that even… ‘Cause there’s new parents that are like, “Wait, is this thing… Do we come?” And it’s like, “Wow, we gave you a welcome packet that said no, but clearly you need to know again.” So now that will help from week to week and they can look forward to seeing his handsome face. And maybe there doesn’t need to be anything to go through that week.

0:46:18.2 CB: It’s just a little two-minute… It’s a two-minute update. And by the way, Tyler, I watched my wife Marcy, who… ‘Cause our son’s still in the school, I watched her watch it this morning.

0:46:28.2 TM: Okay, okay. How did it go? 

0:46:29.8 CB: She didn’t know. And she goes, “What’s this?” And then I watch our press play and then she’s like. And then when it was over, she looks at me and she goes, “That was cool.” [laughter] I was like, “Oh, alright.” So it was like watching a bomb. I was like, “Okay, cool.”

0:46:44.2 TM: Here’s the funny part, Chris, we’re probably gonna need 14 Looms a week soon because the parents still don’t get it. No, I’m just kidding.

0:46:52.1 CB: But that’s a good example of how we literally were thrown a new one, Brad, last week, and so we were like, “Listen, we’re all trying to figure out how to be better to our heroes to support them better.”

0:47:08.4 TM: But I love what Brad just said, he came in and gave us another nugget on the delivery systems of what you’re promising to help them in the relative expectations of their journey you wanna help them with, and say, “Cool. So wow, they liked it. Now, how is it easy for them to do it and keep doing it?” If you can put those two variables together…

0:47:30.1 CB: And how many times have you in your business had someone quit that said they quit, “Because… ” And you’re like, “But we do that”, right? Well, that’s not their fault, like you said, Brad. It’s your fault for not having systems in place to let him know you do that.

0:47:47.0 BA: Yeah, can you imagine if Tyler was like, “Well, we’re just looking for somebody that can give us… I mean, we’re glad we can do private lessons but we thought they could be like… If they have like an on-stage performance, that’d be great,” and you guys are like, “That’s the other half of what we do.” You’ve obviously made that clear. Yeah, absolutely. There’s just plenty of opportunity, we just… We make assumptions ’cause we’re so close to the details of what we do every day that we assume the 150 conversations we have every day, that person walking in the door has been a part of and they haven’t it. You have to re-train your brain to, like, every new person knows nothing about anything we do and it’s okay. They shouldn’t.

0:48:29.0 CB: Well that’s awesome. We talk about the leader’s role in a business, and leader’s role basically is reiterating that, reiterating the vision and mission, people and resources. And so the reiteration of that over and over and over in multiple ways always is your job that you’re never done, because people are forgetful and people are busy. And again, they’re in their own story. They’re not in your story. You gotta remind them in their terms.

0:48:57.5 TM: Brad, don’t you also help companies come up with their playbooks per se that help the clear messaging of what we just talked about, the two steps we just talked about today. They’re the hero, use “you” statements not “we” statements, get the message clear then back it up, get them in, keep them coming. But now you’ve got, like us, 13 teachers in a cup for ops people that now need to have that idea from the founders clear to them so that they can express it to the masses, ’cause the founders aren’t even the first people to see them anymore after a while.

0:49:34.3 BA: Right, yeah. Yeah. And it’s basically, from the marketing and what we do aspect of it, whoever you are as a business, yeah, the first step I’d take with anybody is we’re gonna figure out, “Okay, how do you talk about what you do? ‘Cause whether or not you want to or not, you have to use words to communicate about your business,” and the number one question that is always gonna come up in anything that has to do with marketing, “Yeah, well, how is it gonna look? What tool should we use?” But at some point, you’re gonna have to say, “What is this gonna say?” Like you have to feel that you have to answer that question. And so my job for businesses is to help them have answers to that question, “What’s this gonna say?”

0:50:16.2 BA: And then whatever we’re trying to say is gonna inform the tool, the tactic, the design, whatever. And then that’s gonna apply to, “Alright, let’s get that on your website, to your sales pages. I don’t know, let’s get that into some email sequences where your people can start to learn about the problem that you can help them solve and the things that you’re gonna help them do.” And then beyond that, there are so many businesses that literally are not emailing people on a regular basis that I’ve been convinced that if you are doing basically one email every couple of months, if you were able to start emailing your list with relative information once a week, you would double your revenue. I just don’t… Unless you have a terrible product and you’re a bunch of jerks, there’s nothing but upside. The return on email marketing is like 900%. It’s ridiculous.

0:51:18.1 CB: And so if they wanted help in getting clarity in their messaging, getting more emails and all that cued up and ready to go and all that, they can learn about your team at clarityalwayswins.com? 

0:51:30.6 BA: Yeah, you guys can go there and check it out and kick around and fish around and see what we do. And then there’s buttons to schedule calls and it’s gonna be you and I, whoever you are, talking on the phone and figuring out what you need if we could help.

0:51:43.4 TM: And if you want to see a direct example, go to teacherzone.com. And if you haven’t had a chance to read through it, scroll down once and see Brad’s work in action. And so our website was something we worked together, put our heads together, and Chris in my mission moving forward, Brad helped put it into a clear message the way we were just blown away by. So you can see that on the website as well. Since this podcast is brought to you by teacherzone.com, and… So we’ll plug that as well. Brad, you have been amazing. I’ve seen Chris’s head explode twice today and that is a big deal, so. It takes a lot for Chris to do that on a podcast.

0:52:25.5 BA: Mission accomplished.

0:52:25.6 TM: You’ve been an amazing, amazing guest. Mission accomplished.

0:52:30.3 CB: Yeah man, thank you.

0:52:30.5 TM: Man, we gotta have you again. So let this experience percolate and maybe we’ll have you on again for some other workshop because that was fantastic. What do you think, Chris? 

0:52:41.2 CB: I think that the hardest part in business is kind of knowing where to start and so, Brad, thanks for really helping us be a little bit more grounded on how we see ourselves in context.

0:52:52.7 BA: Absolutely, man. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Thanks for having me on.

0:52:54.5 TM: And thank you for your time today. We know you’re busy. We know that your Calendly is very strict, so thank you for allowing us to be on your schedule and being part of this with us. And again, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in and we’re so grateful Brad came in. We have another workshop coming up on the same topic with John from… Chris, tell them about John real quick.

0:53:19.6 CB: John Kozicki with Michigan Rock School. He is going to have some insight in a workshop for us to help work through some of the story stuff that Brad was just talking about. He used to be a writer, so he’s gonna help people understand how to write stories and so then now they can take what you’ve taught us, Brad, and then write the stories within that framework.

0:53:42.2 TM: Right.

0:53:42.5 BA: Perfect.

0:53:43.4 TM: And that goes for not just customer heroes, but your employees. Your employees are guides, they’re heroes. So we’re gonna touch on that next week and, again, thank you all for tuning in. Go to teacherzone.com to see the updated webinars and ebooks that are free for you. You can find those there. And again, Brad, thank you for coming in and thank you all for tuning in and we’ll see you on the next episode of the Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. See you guys.

Today, we’re focusing on the personal transition from Hero to Guide.

And also how you can help your teachers, coaches, instructors…all of them see all of that they’ve conquered and achieved so that they can help your students do the same.

Let’s go!

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:05.7 Tyler: Welcome to the next episode of The Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. As you can see, we are in the same room. This is not CGI.

[chuckle]

0:00:18.4 Tyler: What’s up, dude? So I’m in town, so I’m right in Chris’s office right now. So we’re gonna just do this podcast. Episode two of the hero’s journey, right, Chris? How are you today, buddy? 

0:00:30.1 Chris: I’m awesome. Tyler and I…

0:00:32.1 Tyler: I can tell you’re right here, right here. I don’t even have to ask him.

0:00:37.1 Chris: Well, Tyler and I’ve had a bunch of meetings today. And it’s really funny ’cause we’ve been trying to incorporate a little bit of what we’re discussing. So over the last number of weeks, if you haven’t listened to the other podcast, please go back to The Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. We’ve got episodes on transforming your business. We’ve got episodes on… Including our transformation formula. Also, transactional versus transformational leadership, right? 

0:01:01.0 Tyler: It’s all connected, that’s correct.

0:01:03.3 Chris: And what are the elements of a good leader? For all of you that are listening, you’re leaders in your business. What are the elements of a leader essentially? 

0:01:13.2 Tyler: Well, especially as founders, we have to create our standards and create this business. We gotta stand for something. So standards and our mission have to be… We have to be decisive about… And have clarity about that, right? So there’s that mission, there’s the… We’re in charge of the mission, the resources/money, finances, and the people.

0:01:36.5 Chris: The people.

0:01:36.6 Tyler: And we’re talking about the people today, and what they have access to or what they don’t have access to.

0:01:42.3 Chris: Well, mission is the story that you have created, that you’re conveying to everybody but there’s vision. You always hear people talking about mission statements that you hear mission, vision, values. It’s not imperative that you create all that by the way, totally up to you. We’re all making this up anyways. You can create whatever it is that inspires you and your team, to get up every day and do what you do. So you can call it your vision statement, your mission statement.

0:02:04.9 Tyler: We call it our why, like Simon Sinek’s TED talk that you all should watch, that is a really basic… ‘Cause we all understand why, and then everybody’s concentrating on how and what? How and what? How and what? How and what? And then the why is like, “Oh, I get it.” So you can call it your why if you want.

0:02:21.7 Chris: Well, let’s real quick tell the difference. All of you listening have different teaching businesses. We happen to teach kids music. What would be two different ways to describe one, just describing our what to a family and when describing it in a why methodology. Our what would be more cold, the why would be more heartfelt.

0:02:42.5 Tyler: Right. And the what…

0:02:44.9 Chris: So explain a piano lesson in a what and explain it in a why.

0:02:46.0 Tyler: A what. You’re gonna learn basic rhythm theory. You’re going to learn dexterity and posture. You’re gonna learn some basic theory music theory as well, so you know where the notes are, why they are. You’re gonna learn to read the notes, and then at some point you’ll glue it together and you will play a song.

0:03:05.0 Chris: Okay, so that’s a what. Pretty cerebral.

0:03:09.2 Tyler: Kind of a how too. It’s kind of a what and a how.

0:03:12.0 Chris: Yeah, what and a how. So then and explain it. I’m a mom and I’m like, “So what do you do there for piano lessons?” Now do it in a why format.

0:03:18.9 Tyler: Okay. Los Rios Rock School, when piano happens, not only do they… We concentrate on that linear academic form of learning and grinding through what makes a piano work, but after we’re done solving the puzzles in the same lesson, we also speak the language of music with another teacher on a different instrument. So they’re trying out what they just learned and connecting with another human being and creating music together. And then it goes on from their groups of kids connecting and speaking music together, and then shows, where they’re executing shows of their choice, songs of their choice through teamwork and communication. And then they speak that to the world.

0:04:04.9 Chris: So you see the difference with what he just did there. The first one was a lot more like…

0:04:09.0 Tyler: It was still kind of a what though, a little bit. The why is we’re literally adding confidence to your kid’s life to make them better people in the future.

0:04:19.5 Chris: And giving them greater connection. ‘Cause you said connection over and over. And that’s the big one, so we’re giving you confidence and connection, those are…

0:04:26.1 Tyler: So be careful, don’t just gussy up your how and what like I did. You gotta be careful. Like sure, I can make it sound great. It’s what I do.

0:04:32.5 Chris: But no, no, if you said your why, and simplified it to that, to empowerment, self-esteem and connection, as a mom, I’d be like, “I’m sold. I don’t even care about the piano anymore.” Really, you’re gonna…

0:04:46.9 Tyler: What were we talking about? 

0:04:48.6 Chris: You’re gonna give my kid more connection with other humans, which in today’s day and age, we know is really difficult. And you’re going to give them more self-esteem? I’m in.

0:04:58.3 Tyler: Yep.

0:04:58.7 Chris: I don’t even care what you teach. So anyways, something to think about guys. Bottom line is that lately we’ve been really trying to explore that to be a big, great business, you have to really know who you are, and then you have to trust those around you to be the heroes. So we’re talking about this book, so for those of you who don’t know, it’s a great book you can get. It’s a brand new one called Hero on a Mission by Donald Miller he is the story brand guy. We’ll follow up at the end, but just so you know, we’re gonna actually have some workshops coming up on right at your store.

0:05:31.1 Tyler: Two work shops. So there’ll be two episodes after this, with two special guests and a workshop where we’re gonna workshop with our guests together. And then you can workshop with the same questions at home while you’re listening. By the way, if you’re listening to this now and you didn’t miss the previous episode of The Hero’s Journey, go back and check it out, ’cause you had some homework. If you remember, it was find… We separated the types of characters, the avatars that are in a story. So just slight review: Victim, villain, hero or guide. And then we asked you guys to go find out, take an inventory of your week and say which one of those were you and when? 

0:06:13.5 Tyler: Just with yourselves, find three to five incidents or interactions where you were those things and label them and see how you did. Then the next thing was, we wanted to ask you guys if you even had a guide. And so that’s very important, we’re about to get into what guides do and how they give access to their people so that they can be empowered. But you don’t have a guide yet. So we need to touch on it quick. Chris, can you go back in time? We’re gonna get in the time machine. We’re actually already in it. It’s this office, is a time machine. That’s why we couldn’t do this episode unless I came out here. So we’re gonna go on the time machine. Chris is gonna take us back to 1988. Sunset Strip, Hollywood. And tell us how your analogy of having a guide versus not having a guide may have affected some things in life.

0:07:13.7 Chris: Well, I was… You guys I was thinking about it. So I’ve owned seven businesses, a lot of you own a lot of businesses, or this is your first. And as business owners, we’re always learning. And you talk about a why. One of the big things that… As Tyler and I’s why and why we have this podcast and teachers on and all that is ’cause we believe you guys are heroes. And we believe that to be an entrepreneur takes so much guts, it takes so much stamina, it takes so much waking up and doing a lot of what you didn’t wanna do just to make what you do happen. So we believe in that. But I was analyzing it in the context of the Hero’s Journey that we’re talking about. And I was thinking, “Gosh, what are my failures?” And one of my failures was a band I was in, we moved to Hollywood. We were a pretty good band, we worked our butts off, but we didn’t make it as back in the day, they called it making it.

0:08:01.4 Chris: And really, what making it meant is similar to just having a business. It meant being able to eat off your music. And we never really got to that level, and I was trying to analyze why. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, “Oh my gosh! We didn’t have a guide.” We were four heroes that were literally trying to make it up and we never asked for help.

0:08:23.2 Tyler: And people were talking at you.

0:08:24.6 Chris: Yeah.

0:08:25.7 Tyler: About it.

0:08:28.3 Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:08:28.4 Tyler: They were talking at these kids. You were 18 or 19.

0:08:30.4 Chris: We were 18, yeah, yeah.

0:08:31.3 Tyler: So these kids… We’re like 230 years old right now. That’s why we’re your guides. You got to be 200 years old or more to be a guide. I’m just kidding. But people will talk at you, even maybe unsolicited advice that you’re categorizing into, maybe trying to do, and it isn’t the right advice because they aren’t a guide.

0:08:53.6 Chris: Yeah, so a guide… The precursor for a guide is they have to have done it. We actually had something in EO. I was on Entrepreneurs Organization for almost 10 years. And we have a thing in EO where you’re not allowed to give each other advice because it’s considered condescending and this is for all leaders. And you guys are leaders too, we’re all leaders. It’s silly for Tyler and I to be here and be like, “You should do this.” Please, I hope you don’t think we’re ever saying that. We try not to use you statements like that at all in our lives.

0:09:27.4 Tyler: No one wants to hear you need to do this.

0:09:28.5 Chris: So a healthy technique that we try and utilize as much as we can, and they use it in EO. They call it gestalt but it basically means that you’re only telling… If you’re ever gonna tell somebody something, you’re only telling it with basically your experience and that’s it. So if you don’t have experience with that, then you’re helping them find someone that does. That’s the bottom line. So the context here for the hero’s journey today, as we talked about, you guys are heroes and that you all need guides too. So please keep looking for other guides in your life.

0:10:00.7 Tyler: There’s another thing about guides that I learned from Todd Duncan and Dan Martel. They have to intrinsically and authentically want you to succeed because they already have and they know what it feels like. They know the joys, the hardships, the freedom, the time bought with money, maybe money buys time, right? Well, it depends on what your currency is. And they are like, you know what… And a couple of things need to happen. They need to care about what you’re doing. They need to like you. And so if you can check those two off and they’re already successful, you’re almost there. They think what you’re doing’s cool and they like you and they have a couple of mil in the bank or something like that. That might be a good sign to start.

0:10:48.1 Chris: Well, and Tyler and I, we do attempt to be good mentors and guides on this podcast, for instance, but again, we’re learning too. We’re all learning. And every guide’s transitioning between the four roles like we talked about. There’s days when we’re having a bad day, as I’m sure that you did on your own homework. Where you’re feeling like a victim or you’re feeling like a villain because you’re grumpy, or is it you being the hero that day, that’s okay. But also remember if you’re owning a business, you have to be a guide as well. And a guide can only guide on things that they’ve already been through. So that means… Let’s just take it in context. Had, back in the day… Tyler brought up my youth. Back in the day, had my first band business, had we actually had people that have been through it before give us advice, I’ll bet you we would have had a lot greater success than we did.

0:11:41.3 Chris: And so I think the same thing goes for you guys. So one of the things that I would recommend is, if you don’t have a mentor, find someone in your town and you can do that what, through the chamber of commerce, there’s a lot of ways you can meet people. And find someone that’s near and dear. It could be a family member, just someone that’s been through it and has built a business. And as you’ve known, you probably already know someone in your mind, maybe you’re close to them already, maybe not. Those types of people have been through it. And if they’re a giving soul, they won’t just be like, “Hey, I don’t have time for that.” And if they do, they were honest. That’s cool too.

0:12:20.5 Tyler: Well, yeah, and so, here’s what’s so cool. So I used to have a group of software… Fellow software owners, there was nine of us that would travel around the world, and somewhere in the world, we would call ahead and we would… We were in South East Asia, Australia, all throughout the US, Canada, and wherever we were, we would call ahead, and we would call the business leaders that are in software, and we would ask for a meeting and we’d say, “Hey, there’s nine young budding entrepreneur software owners coming into your town. Can we get 10 minutes?” We couldn’t believe how many awesome people said yes. And so one of the guys you just brought that memory back, his name’s Aaron Levie and he has a company called Box.com, and right now they were just awarded last year, I think, if not the best place to work in America.

0:13:09.9 Tyler: But what’s funny, we go into his new skyscraper ’cause they went public and have a huge skyscraper now and stuff. But he’s still a relatively young entrepreneur. And he walks in the room and shuts the door and he goes, “This is so effin awesome. This is so effin awesome.” And we go, “Hi, nice to meet you.” And he’s like, “I just think that you guys coming in to me is the coolest thing ever. And we’re like, “Really?”

0:13:32.2 Chris: Is that what you expected to happen? 

0:13:35.2 Tyler: Never. I expected this prima donna, my company went public, I’ve got a skyscraper, guy to walk in. And he was this humble, awesome guy that was like… He goes, “I am such an idiot. I can’t believe I didn’t have the guts to do what you guys are doing right now. Because this is so cool. Because what do you wanna know?” And maybe just hung with us for three hours.

0:13:54.0 Chris: And then they proceeded to go back in time. I’ve heard this story and say, What would you have done different? What was your biggest takeaway? And oh my gosh, and he just said things that they also didn’t expect to hear to be honest. We’re not gonna get into those details, but the humility, how they approached him. Now they had a little bit of strength in numbers, they had nine software owners, and that automatically makes an entrepreneur go, “Well, that’s interesting.” And entrepreneurs like interesting things. Does your phone ever ring and you’re like, “Not interesting.”

0:14:28.3 Tyler: But you just reminded me, I had a mastermind group in Denver years ago, and you’ve done them too. You can create a mastermind group in your town of other business owners. And you all meet once a month or once every three months, whenever you want. And you guys can be your own collective Mastermind group.

0:14:47.1 Chris: It’s like, it’s AA for entrepreneurs in your area, because guess what? We need each other as much as alcoholics need each other to stay sober.

0:14:56.3 Tyler: 100%.

0:14:57.4 Chris: Because it’s intense. Life is intense. And life is based off of fear, like the victim and villain, that is fear-based. It’s only fear. You cannot tell me it’s related to anything else, like sadness or anything like that. It’s fear.

0:15:14.4 Tyler: I woke up this morning, as an example, I have to do this every day, ’cause I’m a really optimistic person. But I do… Tyler and I take on a lot in our lives and then we have families. So I do wake up with a second in the morning. Not every day, but some days I’m like, “Oh,” and I woke up this morning and I went like, “Oh, it’s Monday.” And then I went, “It’s Monday,” and I immediately changed my posture, I changed my energy and I’m like, “I’m gonna make this the best day I’ve had in a while.” And then I immediately got into hero mode. I didn’t let myself go there. So just if you see yourself feeling that way, just know that you have the power to change it back into hero mode and/or guide depending on who you are.

0:15:52.1 Chris: You can’t be a guide and be in fear. You can be a guide and talk about fear and how you overcame fear, because guess what? That meant you were a hero at one time.

0:16:03.1 Tyler: You can’t be a guide without having been… Gone through the Valley of Death. No, without having gone through a hard moment, because that’s what makes Yoda Yoda, right? That’s what makes the…

0:16:10.9 Chris: Yoda had been fighting the good fight for 900 and like 23 years.

0:16:17.5 Tyler: Right. He’s like, “Young Luke, I’m done. You do it.” Well, or if you take Karate Kid, another great… You’ve got lots of… We were watching Cobra Kai the other day, the new season and all the victim…

0:16:28.6 Chris: We finished it. It was amazing.

0:16:30.3 Tyler: Oh good. They go victim, villain, victim villain, hero, victim, villain, hero, guide, guide. They go back and forth if you watch that, and the original movie did a lot as well. And Mr. Miyagi obviously is the guide, and obviously Daniel was the victim. The villains were coming after him. He emerged into a hero that overcame challenges and Mr. Miyagi helped guide him through those challenges.

0:16:56.1 Chris: Right, okay.

0:16:56.4 Tyler: And then they keep repeating that in different ways. And the new one…

0:17:00.3 Chris: The new one now, Johnny is a victim, villain, guide. And he wants to do this thing, and so it goes back and forth. And then everybody, all of a sudden they start to work together and grow and they’re… Everyone’s becoming heroes. And when you are humble enough to see things that you didn’t see before that you need to fix or work on, and you humble yourself and become a human, not better or worse, then you’re a hero in a different way. And that’s when you have enlightening thoughts and experiences that you can relate in layman’s terms to people. Because it just makes sense to. You’re flying 10,000 feet up now. They’re trying to fly a 1000 and it’s harder to see.

0:17:48.1 Tyler: So Tyler and I since we’re here together, we can literally talk for the next three hours. So over the next 10 minutes or so, let’s talk about what we talked about with regard to their staff, and then the students.

0:18:02.4 Chris: Yes.

0:18:04.5 Tyler: And then also, let’s impart that one last element that gestalt I talked about. I like everyone that’s listening to try this. When you’re with your… If you have kids, when you’re with your kids or your students or whoever you’re with, try to not… Or your staff, try to not give advice. Try to only speak in context of your experience. If someone’s having a challenge, you can ask a lot of really great questions about what is the biggest part of…

0:18:31.3 Chris: Right, so the challenge is your kid isn’t practicing or showing up enough? When I was teaching, I had this kid named Jeremy who wasn’t showing up, and I couldn’t figure out why yet. And so at this point we had to handle it ourselves, but right now you have a team to back you up. So you can get advice…

0:18:50.5 Tyler: Do you see how much more we all learn from story? It’s innate in humans, we learn from story. Well, that’s why we wanna workshop this the next two. We learn from story, we don’t learn from being told what to do, so we’re not asking you as a guide to go…

0:19:05.8 Chris: That’s transactional.

0:19:06.5 Tyler: Yeah, and we’re not saying go tell your teachers what to do. What we’re saying is to be a true guide to your teachers, tell them from your experience and help them find their own guides, which may or may not be you, by the way. You need to give them permission.

0:19:19.3 Chris: Right.

0:19:19.6 Tyler: Permission’s a big one, isn’t it? 

0:19:21.0 Chris: Right, and so when we are in charge of the people as founders, the money and finances, resources and the mission, we have to let them know that we’ll take care of that stuff. So if you need something, you have permission to be the hero now. And do whatever it is you need to be, and think up. And then the transactional leadership, go back and listen to that one. We don’t want that, because now if we go that route they’re not the hero, they’re just waiting for me to say the next thing.

0:19:52.3 Tyler: Yeah, we all wanna get out of that habit in transformational leadership episode, we explore the concept of transformational leadership means you are not giving orders, you’re letting your team… Teachers are leaders, they’re their own heroes, and they’re their own guides to the student who are heroes. And so they need to feel empowered to be able to get the tools they need, maybe they need an extra class for something, maybe there’s gear or equipment they need, maybe they just need advice from someone that’s not you.

0:20:25.6 Chris: Maybe they’re Castling and failing and not… And afraid and reluctant now to not ask questions. So there’s a lot of stuff there that they need permission to do, and it can be based on your standards. You created the standards, so it’s not like you’re just giving them the ability to lead how they want, but you’re trusting them to be exemplary teachers, so they need to be them.

0:20:49.6 Tyler: So there’s several things we’ve done over the years, and we don’t do enough of it, to be honest, but that we try and make our teachers feel like heroes, so they could be better guides. So how can you in your business do that? Some of the things we’ve done, we put the teacher bios outside of their offices, so when you walk by, you can actually see all the cool things they’ve done in life. Another thing that we did is we did… And we need to get back to that, teacher’s showcase, teacher’s spotlight. Where we would talk about what gigs they had coming up or whatever they’re working on or something special about them. Helping teachers to embrace their Hero’s Journey, allows them to be better guides.

0:21:26.9 Chris: They don’t have permission to do that themselves, they think… They assume that, “Oh, I can’t… What can I say? Am I sounding too pretentious if I say the things that I’m proud of?” See what I mean? So we enable them to know, “No, it’s okay. Write it down, we’re gonna frame it.” So we enable them to be this hero, and now they’re like, “Okay, that’s neat.” And now the whole alumni knows not just their teachers’ accolades, that these teachers are working over there with unbelievable people.

0:22:00.1 Tyler: When you talk about storytelling, our school director, Phil, he’s hilarious. He did his, in the Fresh Prince… He actually did his bio… He did the intro to the Fresh Prince as his bio. It’s so great. And so all the kids and everyone have gotten a great laugh at him as he’s trying to sing his bio.

0:22:21.5 Chris: I have it right here. I’ll do a little piece of it. “In Southern California, born and raised in the studio was where I spent most of my days, rocking out, practicing, tracking, all cool. And shredding some guitar when I wasn’t in school, when a couple of friends who were all really good, started making music in my neighborhood, joined a couple of big… Couple of little bands. And my parents told me, “You’re moving to LA and study music at USC.” I studied recording, I got my degree, I got a job at a studio that was called Harmony, worked on a bunch of big records, and won some awards, but I thought this was a fun job, but now I’m really bored.” [laughter] I rode my motorcycle for a month across the US, and I thought about my life and what I wanted to do next, I realize I wanna teach and move back to my home, so now I’m at Los Rios yelling at kids about Metronomes. [laughter]

0:23:19.4 Tyler: He wanted to tell his Hero’s Journey. And it what’s so great guys is he works with teens.

0:23:24.8 Chris: Guys, it’s written on a whiteboard outside of his office.

0:23:28.1 Tyler: Yeah, it’s hilarious.

0:23:29.7 Chris: And so just know that when you empower your teachers to embrace their inner hero, and you let them know that they are both a hero… And because they’ve been a hero, they’re also a really amazing mentor and guide, then it really… I think… I think it just gives them permission. It gives them permission to also seek other guides that they need and not feel stuck. So I think that that’s the main thing we want to impart today, is that you gotta give your teacher’s permission to celebrate their hero-ness and understand that that automatically makes them a fully bonafide guide to their students, and sometimes the parents. The parents are waiting for that expertise, whether it’s Jiu-Jitsu yoga or whatever, like, “Hey, my back hurts, and am I doing the stretch right?” People are waiting to be told the right information so that their life is better, and our heroes are the ones doing it.

0:24:22.8 Tyler: Well, and the thing about it too, guys, is that if you don’t articulate it and you don’t let the teachers to feel celebrated, they’re gonna unknowingly… I don’t know if you guys have seen this, but for some teachers, especially if they’re really young, they might not know how to celebrate their students as heroes. They’re kind of like, “Do you know who I am?” And that’s a wrong attitude, that’s a victim, they’re coming from victim or villain to their students. So it’s very important that you guys help them to understand, listen, “You are a hero as an example to the student, but your role with them is guide.

0:24:58.6 Chris: And they are the heroes.

0:25:00.1 Tyler: The student’s the hero.

0:25:01.9 Chris: It trickles down. So we started with founders, we gave permission, they are now heroes because we went through it and we’re giving them, we have the power, and they need to be knighted, whatever process you need to make it real. And then in turn, that trust starts to build with their students who might not think they’re heroes yet.

0:25:23.6 Tyler: Yeah, it’s their job to let him ’em know, you’re a hero. And then one of the things we do at our school, that I know a lot of you might do too, is that once you’ve leveled up and you’ve actually become from a student to almost a peer, so this is some of our older teens, we then have them be a guide to our youth. And we let them know you’re becoming such a hero, we’ve had some kids who have some pretty insane accolades for kids, and rather than let their ego get out of control, we immediately get into “Awesome job here, a Time to Be a guide.” [laughter] Because nothing will humble you more than having to then suddenly work with a seven-year-old that doesn’t care.

0:26:00.9 Chris: And not just humble you, if you’re ever feeling like a victim and a villain, this is just basic life 101… Go help someone.

0:26:11.0 Tyler: Yeah, so let’s…

0:26:13.5 Chris: You can’t be a victim while you’re helping someone, it doesn’t go together.

0:26:19.6 Tyler: And by the way, I’m gonna just say it, if you’ve got staff members and you work with them lovingly and they cannot get out of victim mode, or they can not get out of villain mode, fire them.

0:26:26.9 Chris: Yep. One foot in, one foot out, just flighty. They don’t believe what you believe, the standards…

0:26:33.1 Tyler: We’ve done it, we’ve done it and we regret every minute of it, we no longer… Ty and I have made admission to one another, to no longer allow cancerous individuals that are victims and villains to be a part of our organization. Period.

0:26:46.7 Chris: And it doesn’t mean that their… Their avatar means they’re a villain in life in general…

0:26:53.2 Tyler: They might be a good person…

0:26:54.2 Chris: Maybe they don’t fit…

0:26:55.9 Tyler: But they’re bringing that to the your organization. They’re bringing poor me, or they’re not taking enough action… Everything someone else’s fault, or…

0:27:04.2 Chris: The bottom line, they’re throwing a wrench in the gears and slowing the whole machine down and it’s overheating… That’s what’s happening, right? It’s an ecosystem that has ick in it, like when you put that…

0:27:14.7 Tyler: So, the definition again that he put in the book, is a victim is someone that’s stuck, that’s someone that just doesn’t look for a way out, they just feel stuck. A villain is someone that pushes other people down to get what they want. A hero, on the other hand, is someone that’s willing to do whatever it takes, in other words, overcome whatever challenges, to achieve whatever goal or mission that they’re on. So remember the hero story, that’s why we wanna workshop this… Keeps getting re-written. You need to keep every year with your staff all the time. Just keep reminding them of your vision. Keep helping everybody understand what y’all are standing for at your organization. And then helping them, if they’re feeling a little bit stuck, helping them get in back into hero mode. Let’s re-write that story, let’s be willing to overcome challenges, so you can be a wonderful guide to the heroes that we truly serve, which is your customers, your students.

0:28:12.3 Chris: Yep. So next week, get ready for workshop time. You’re gonna get two perspectives. Next week will be first, I believe if we don’t know the order, we’ll see how… We might do two next week, and we don’t know who’s gonna be first. But you guys are gonna meeting some… Be meeting some amazing people. Brad Alexander from Clarity messaging, he’s our story brand guy, that helps us with everything we do to get our messaging across and be clear. And then also John from Michigan School of Rock. He used to be in journalism, and had workshops about pods and leadership that kind of applied to what we’re talking about…

0:28:53.9 Tyler: Yeah, John is a great guy and just a great entrepreneur and business leader and musician. He also used to be a writer, and so John has some really great insight to help us write our story that have an intro, a middle and an end. And so we’re gonna have him on to help us all just make sure that we’re really… Guys we’re writing it every day… You’re making it up anyway… Right? Like, you may not think you are, but you are. So you might as well take hold of your story, help your staff take hold of theirs and really make sure that you’re empowering the heroes that are your students…

0:29:30.2 Chris: Yep, the fabric of reality is easier to manipulate than you think… Don’t assume. So we’re gonna workshop some stuff next week, so you can kinda see what that is. Maybe you’ll break free some stuff, maybe you’ll take away a couple of nuggets, but I’m looking forward to… I need a workshop. We got a big workshop coming up in February with our coaches too, so we need a big ‘ole one, and then we have these two with you guys…

0:29:53.9 Tyler: A three-day coaching workshop we’re going to…

0:29:54.9 Chris: Yep. So…

0:29:56.1 Tyler: Well, we can have five, ’cause we’re in person.

[laughter]
0:30:00.2 Chris: Yes. Remember, if you’re not growing, you’re dying you guys, and remember this podcast is brought you by teacherzone.com. You can find our webinar on there, our e-book, and also, if you are getting anything good out of these talks, send them to a friend. Send them now. And it helps everyone, so we appreciate your viewership and listenership. And we’ll see you on the flip side. Take care, everybody.

1. Victim
2. Villian
3. Hero
4. Guide

In this episode of the TeacherZone podcast, we discuss these roles and how they apply to the way we run our teaching businesses. If you like stories, movie references, and ideas that make you love your work even more…then this one’s for you!

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:05.5 Tyler Marolf: Welcome to the next episode of The Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. I’m Tyler Marolf, I’m here with Chris Bates, and we have another exciting podcast, it’s probably gonna be a two-parter for you today, and we kinda wanna call it… Chris wanted to call it “Life Is Beautiful,” [chuckle] because it is… And there’s a lot to do with that.

So cool, maybe we’ll call it that, we’ll figure that out once we post it, but we have been diving into a new book, and Chris is gonna get into it, called Hero On A Mission by Donald Miller, the same guy who wrote The StoryBrand book.

So there it is, if you’re watching live or on YouTube, and so Chris is gonna go over the main characters that are pretty much in every story in life. Not just the stories we love to read, the movies we love to watch, because those are all just personifications of experiences right Chris? So do you wanna get into how excited we are about, and what those four character breakdowns are? 

0:01:06.1 Chris Bates: Yes, so I hope a lot of you, if you haven’t heard of Donald Miller and StoryBrand, Tyler and I just love his methodology, it’s really great marketing. Really, it’s a modern approach to marketing where you take and you really create a story out of your brand that then talks to a hero, which is your customer.

So in our case, in the lesson business and class business, it’s students. So the students are the hero, bottom line. So it’s not, “We are your hero, we teach you this and that,” it’s… The student’s the hero, so you’re basically saying that you are there to serve the hero, kind of like a Yoda, Luke Skywalker. Yoda is the guide, Luke is the hero. So too many businesses back in the old marketing days would say “We’re your hero” and Donald’s saying “No, no, no, no, the customer wants to be the hero, you’re there to help the hero.”

0:02:03.4 TM: Chris, a lot of the old marketing was based on product, get this, buy it, and you’re out. You know, it was very much, can you get someone excited about something once and then maybe could keep going, and now people want more, they want to be part of things, they wanna be part of destinations, they wanna be…

0:02:25.0 CB: Community, relationship, tribe…

0:02:28.4 TM: They wanna experience memories, so it’s not just “Sweet, here’s your guitar lesson kid,” or “here’s your jiu-jitsu lesson kid. Stick with me for a while, you might learn something.” Those days… That ship has set sail.

0:02:44.5 CB: Yeah, they call that, the old mindset with that sort of sage on the stage. “You listen to me, I am the only one that will impart this data.” The new way is if you think about Yoda with Luke as an example, half the time Yoda’s very quiet, he says very, like two word sentences.

0:03:02.7 TM: I remember thinking Yoda, when I was little, was a joke Muppet, when I first saw the movie, like, there was no way this guy was gonna be anything. And remember they made you think he wasn’t even the Yoda yet, like the one he was looking for! For about five minutes, he was just messing with him and poking Luke, and it was so funny in the whole time…

0:03:24.4 CB: Well he’s like a foot tall! 

0:03:25.5 TM: Yeah and he was just being a dork and he was funny, and there’s no way this is the guy I flew across the galaxy to save the universe with.

[laughter]

0:03:36.3 CB: Right, and what’s so cool is that he’s not saying, “Look at me, look at me,” Yoda’s always saying, “Look at you, young Luke,” you know? 

0:03:44.6 TM: Yes.

0:03:45.0 CB: And so that’s a big part of being a hero. So what we wanna explore today is you, the person listening to this. So whether you’re a director, you’re an owner, you’re someone in some leadership position for your class and lesson business, and we wanna look at you as the hero and the guide, and then in the next episode we’ll actually look at your teachers and your students and their roles in that too. So in looking at us, it’s important that we all have strength that we can have a good business. So let’s look at the four… In the introduction, the four characters of the story that we’re all writing, ’cause Tyler, let’s face it, we’re all making this stuff up anyways, it’s a story. And I’ve seen some of your businesses, you guys are definitely making it up. [laughter]

0:04:30.7 TM: Yeah, we’re making it up as we go anyway! And that’s what it… We’ve always said if you’re making it up, make it up awesome.

0:04:37.6 CB: Yeah, ’cause some of you, some of you have made up some of the neatest stuff and some of you made some stuff up that might not be so great, we all do it, we all come up with ideas that we think…

0:04:48.9 TM: We’ve done it! We’ve done it, we… As you guys know or maybe not, what… Chris and I own teacherzone.com, and I’m not gonna tell you what, but in the very beginning, we coded $100,000 worth of stuff we deleted.

0:05:01.5 CB: Oops! 

0:05:04.5 TM: We found out that was not the way it needed to be.

0:05:08.3 CB: That’s an important part of the journey. So let’s talk about the four characters… So in the story that we’re writing in life, there’s always four characters, and you can think of Marvel movies, you can think of Star Wars, you can think of anything like that where there’s a true hero, any sort of adventure. Alright, so here’s the four roles: There’s the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide.

0:05:30.4 TM: Okay.

0:05:30.7 CB: So the victim, the victim is the character that feels they have no way out. They’re stuck.

0:05:36.7 TM: Trapped, they’re trapped.

0:05:37.9 CB: They’re trapped. So that’s the easy way to think about a victim. They’re in a basement, locked up, they’re a victim. The villain is the one who makes other people feel small, so they get what they want by somehow pushing someone else down or making them feel small. The hero, on the other hand, is the character that faces up to challenges and transforms. And that’s what we want all of us to be, because we can’t be great guides and leaders if we’re not willing to also be the hero.

0:06:11.9 TM: Right.

0:06:12.4 CB: Which means facing up to those challenges even when we don’t want to. And lastly, the guide is the highest character in every story. And that’s the one who helps the hero become the hero.

0:06:25.3 TM: Right.

0:06:25.9 CB: So in other words, helps the hero through their challenges, because let’s face it as heroes, we all need help. We can’t do it alone…

0:06:32.7 TM: And you can’t be a guide if you haven’t experienced a transformation of some sort that you attacked as a hero. What would you have to offer, how can you present and be a guide if you have zero experience in it? 

0:06:50.4 CB: You know, it’s really funny if you take… Tyler and I… Something just came to mind, Tyler. So Tyler and I happen to own Performance Academy for Music. And so if you take whatever it is you teach and you think about someone who’s super, super, super talented at whatever it is you teach… And so in our case, we actually had one of our instructors that was super, super, super talented, but that person hadn’t faced enough challenges and overcome enough challenges to become a true hero even though they ha

d talent. Then you take someone that doesn’t know how, and like in our case, to play music, let’s just say… Well, let’s take someone that’s actually been through a lot of life struggle. We could probably bring that person in and they would be a better mentor to a beginning music student than an advanced player that had no life experience, because being a hero is about overcoming challenges and while you have to overcome challenges to learn a skill. For sure, to be a good mentor, it’s also about overcoming life challenges ’cause you gotta be able to tell them… When a student is struggling with something, you have to be able to shine light on… “How do I get through this struggle?” And so if you haven’t been there…

0:08:06.6 TM: Right, light and solution. If it’s not light and solution-based and… No, that’s a great point, Chris.

0:08:13.0 CB: So Tyler, something came to my mind with this whole idea of we’re writing our story. So what I want everyone to do, the ideal is, is that Tyler and I and you guys listening, let’s all just realize that we are the authors of this story. And so we get to write the most exciting adventure ever known to man.

0:08:34.7 TM: By the way, you guys, there is nothing that is not doable or that you shouldn’t add to your story. If you think it should be there, we’re giving you permission to put it there. Don’t assume people will think it’s wrong. Don’t assume this business or industry wouldn’t allow that. Don’t assume… We don’t do make up lessons at our school. 90% of the industry thinks that’s insane and our business runs fantastic. Don’t think when you’re making this awesome story in your mind, whether it’s in color, black and white, video, 4K, picture it, Visualize it. You’re allowed to put any pieces you want in there. Don’t leave them out ’cause you’re scared of it.

0:09:22.1 CB: You could literally have a business doing what nobody else thinks is a business, if you do it better than everyone else and people give it value.

0:09:30.2 TM: And it solves something and it helps somebody.

0:09:33.0 CB: Yeah, if you help people solve something. Something as simple as… I’m making it up, but a button on a shirt. If you are the best button person in town, eventually everyone will know every time they lose a button, “Oh, I gotta go to Tyler. He’s a button guy.” You can literally be the button guy or…

[laughter]

0:09:58.8 CB: So Tyler, with that, I think it’s important to say this. There’s a great book out there called “Story.” If you haven’t read it, it’s… If you’re a writer or like to write, it’s a great book. I read it years ago and it’s a screenwriter, one of the most famous professors of screenwriting and screenwriters. And what’s great about this book “Story” is he literally outlines every possible way you can tell a story from every genre and all that. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing 300-page book that literally outlines in humanity every possible way to tell a story. The reason I bring it up is ’cause he points out in the beginning of the book that every story quite simply has to have light to dark, dark to light, light to dark, dark to light always. That’s the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is, everything’s going great and then all of a sudden a wrench gets thrown in it. Now, I got a challenge I gotta fix.

0:10:55.7 TM: Sound familiar? 

[chuckle]

0:11:00.2 CB: So for those of you that are feeling overwhelmed, maybe you got a bunch of challenges coming at you today or last week, just know that that’s ’cause you’re on the hero’s journey. It’s awesome. And that transformation, that coming through that challenge is what makes it an adventure. In that book, he talks about… He’s very clear, and I want you guys, you’re never gonna watch a TV or a movie the same way. Every scene… And for those of you that are in theater, I’m probably butchering this, but every scene has to have some sort of transformative effect. So you’ll notice that the old sitcoms would go to commercial as soon as something either got light or as soon as something typically got dark. So it’s like… Let me give you an example. If we were to write a really boring story, we would say, “Chris walked up to Tyler and said, ‘Hey, man, how you doing?’ ‘I’m doing great.’ ‘Me too.’ ‘Awesome.’ They high five. They both did great. They hung out. Everything was great. The end.”

0:12:05.2 CB: Chris said, ‘Hey, Tyler'” Now, another story, “Chris said, ‘Hey, Tyler, how you doing?’ ‘Hey, I’m doing great.’ ‘Awesome, me too.’ ‘Let’s take a walk.’ ‘Sure.’ They’re taking a walk. Tyler trips, breaks his leg. Chris looks around and goes, ‘Oh-oh, I don’t know how to get him help. There’s no one around and I don’t have my phone with me.’ There’s a helicopter. Chris flags it down…

[laughter]

0:12:24.9 CB: They come over the loudspeaker, ‘Tyler, did you break your leg?’ He says, ‘Yes, I did. Can you please send help?’ A guy parachutes out of the helicopter…

[laughter]

0:12:33.9 CB: “‘Cause he realizes Tyler’s break is so bad that he’s not gonna live in the next 10 minutes if he doesn’t get him help. The helicopter pulls him up. They rush him to… ” So you get the point. Every story has to have a challenge to overcome or it’s boring.

0:12:49.7 TM: Right.

0:12:49.8 CB: So please understand that the hero’s job is that constant overcoming of challenges and that transformative effect, and that’s who we all have to be day in and day out if we’re gonna lift up our staff, if we’re gonna keep growing our business, if we’re gonna craft the life that we wanna craft.

0:13:06.9 TM: Right, ’cause remember what kind of hero you are. If you are a true hero, when you’re handling things with grace as they come one at a time and you’re… The gracefulness is shining through. The teams see that, everyone. It’s attractive. People see how you handle challenges and they will, in turn, react to things in similar ways. Otherwise, they will act just like you, even if they’re not like you. They think it’s the right way to say something, because you did it one time. One time. It’s like kids. One time you respond to a customer this way and say, maybe even as a founder, “Listen, we do this this way. Sorry, we’re not changing.” Well, imagine if one of your people who wasn’t the founder said the same thing. [laughter] There’s just graceful ways to overcome challenges and still live by your standards. And so that is a neat part of the journey I see too.

0:14:09.5 CB: Well, let’s take your analogy, and by the way, we won’t go into it, but Tyler actually just had a call with a customer and that’s what’s on his mind about that. Because let’s face it, we’re getting push back all the time as business owners for all sorts of things and all of us are the challenge… We’re basically the trash collectors. We’re the ones having to deal with a lot of the problems and what Tyler is saying is how you choose to deal with them. So let’s put it in context of the characters. If I choose to deal with it as a victim, I’m gonna have one type of reaction. And we all play these roles by the way, it’s not Tyler play them, you guys play them. What’s that? 

0:14:47.5 TM: The victim, it’s just no fun, especially if you put yourself there.

0:14:51.1 CB: Yeah, but we all do it. We’re all being like, “Oh, I know that you think that, Mr. Or Mrs. Customer, but I’ll tell you what, I had a really rough month. My whole family had the flu, my dad was in the hospital.” We’re playing the victim.

0:15:05.7 TM: Or education is expensive, there’s, we have to do it this way, and you’re like on your heels, and it’s that weak victim feeling that we put ourselves in. That character.

0:15:18.7 CB: Or we play the villain in that role, make them feel small. “Easy for you to say, why don’t you open your own business and then you’ll see.”

0:15:27.6 TM: Right. Or something, it doesn’t even have to be that extreme and it can still make a customer feel small.

0:15:34.9 CB: Yep, so if we’re gonna come from it as the hero, then it has to be more transformative. And so we have to basically learn to… Just always be willing to grow, I think right? I think that that’s the bottom line is that…

0:15:49.7 TM: Willing to listen, and then solve and grow, but then the founders creates the standards for a reason. The customers and the staff don’t make the standards of a company. The culture and standards start from the ground zero. So as long as they match the standards, and you don’t have to get in a pissing match with someone or something like that, then you’re golden. Then it might equal, “Well, maybe we aren’t the right fit for you after all, but maybe we will be someday.”

0:16:23.5 CB: And that can be a hero stance, because what you’re not doing is you’re not reacting. So the victim always wants to be rescued. And so what’s funny is actually in this book, Tyler, he kind of walks through those scenarios of how he goes from being, “Oh, we did it in a… ” I know what it was, he was speaking at an event. And the guy came to him and he said, “Where’s all my PA and all this?” And the guy was like, “Well, we haven’t set it up yet.” So he goes, “So I immediately go to the victim, ‘Ah, this always happens to me, every event. Oh my gosh.'” And then that guy then immediately goes to the villain of like, “You always demand too much with us. We’re doing the best we can.” What’s funny is they go back and forth between villain/victim, villain/victim, villain/victim. Nothing’s getting solved. You’re playing out a life drama. So if we’re…

0:17:18.7 TM: You’ve all been there, where you’re just like, “Where did this just come from? How did we circle down the toilet this far with eight sentences?”

0:17:29.4 CB: Yeah. Oh, I know, I’m not remembering all the elements of it, but that actually, in psychology is I think called the drama circle. You’re creating sort of this drama circle where… So the bottom line, guys, is that we’re writing the story. So each day what we really want to try and convey in this one, and then we’ll really go deep into all of our businesses in the next podcast. This one, we really wanted to convey that you guys are heroes. Small business owners, I’m sorry, you’re a hero. It’s hard. You’ve chosen to do what most people either can’t or are too afraid to do.

0:18:10.2 TM: And this all might sound like, “Oh, that’s common sense. That makes sense.” And I know you open-minded, avid listeners, you’re tracking with us exactly right now. But some of you, maybe newer listeners might be like, “Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, cool.” Well, the bottom line is, is if you’re truly open-minded, sometimes human beings that are fallible need to have it broken down in the four characters, because we might not have even identified that we were being a villain for the last two years. How can you work on something within yourself or your staff if nobody knows it even exists and they don’t know it’s happening.”

0:18:52.7 CB: Love it. That’s exactly right.

0:18:54.7 TM: So when Chris explains victim and villain and then hero and guide, obviously you know where we’re going with this. Let it sink in. Review your lives. That’s what we do. Where, on my side of the street, does this, call it curriculum, where does this guide, ’cause Chris is being a guide when he’s telling you this, where does this fit in? If I take a quick inventory of the last week… Have I been a villain? 

0:19:23.4 TM: Maybe at home. Why leave it at the business, at home, what happens at home affects your business if you care about your home… You know what I mean? So, when this place is down…

0:19:35.1 CB: How many times you know to change roles, Tyler that, is it, man, you’re right, you gotta… All of us have to define what role we’re in throughout the day each day, and define it and realize that we’re switching based on who we’re around, and so…

0:19:55.7 TM: Or how hungry you are. What if you’re hungry? I’m a villain when I’m hungry, I might go into victim mode at some point if I’m that hungry and my blood sugar is just gone, but mostly a villain, see what I mean? There’s a lot of environmental things that you can put yourself into to make you feel certain ways, sleep, Chris, remember when you were getting three hours of sleep a night for like two months…

0:20:18.1 CB: Yeah. I switched from victim and villain, I go from victim of poor me, poor me to… And it’s not good. Family get-togethers. If you watch yourself walk around a family get-together, like Thanksgiving or something, I mean, we all probably jump from all four roles depending on who the person is.

0:20:42.5 TM: Oh my gosh, because everybody… [chuckle] First of all, mom and dad…

0:20:47.4 CB: That was dynamics.

0:20:48.5 TM: Mom and dad push our buttons because they installed the buttons, first of all, they’re the ones who actually put the buttons in us, and then we got sisters and the brothers to deal with, and it’s like… You know what, let’s not even talk about that, ’cause that’s like, whatever is above guide, we need that guy to help us with family situations. No I’m just kidding. [chuckle]

0:21:10.2 CB: But I think what you were saying is right, that’s the best we can take away from this right now in this talk is, we want you guys to take away the awareness that we are writing the story, whether you like it or not. So we like for all of us to just take some ownership of the fact that we’re our own stories author, and how lucky are we to be able to live in a country where… Regardless of where you are in the world. If you’re listening to this, you’re probably in a place where you have the freedom, you’re not a true victim, even though you may have had a hard life, true victims are really stuck. I mean, really stuck. Could never have their own business because there’s just not that opportunity that will ever arise for them, so let’s put it into real perspective, let’s realize what rules we’re jumping into throughout the day, and then honestly since we’re writing at each day, can we make ourselves a better hero tomorrow? And can we be a better guide to the heroes in our life? 

0:22:12.0 TM: So, your homework.

0:22:13.4 TM: Ready, take a quick inventory of victim/villain hero guide and put yourself and take let’s say five to 10 bigger interactions that happened throughout the last week or two weeks, jot them down, that are memorable, maybe three, I don’t know, write them down and identify if you were the guide, the hero, the victim or the villain in those, okay. Because we’re talking about founders, directors, leaders right now in our industries. Okay, because part two, we’re gonna look at how we’re also heroes, but then guides to our staff, and then how our staff or instructors are, like Chris said earlier heroes, but then guides to the heroes who are the students… ‘Cause the students are the heroes. Why wouldn’t we have them be the heroes? And if we already think they’re like kind of like that anyways, but we’ve never really put the stamp on it, it’s time to put the stamp on that because those little heroes are coming in with their own little pictures in their minds for jiu-jitsu championships or protecting themselves from a bully or learning guitar and not being scared to talk to people or whatever it is, so those are our heroes.

0:23:35.7 CB: Take it, learning is about being a hero…

0:23:39.8 TM: Yep.

0:23:39.8 CB: Because it’s about transformation. I’m gonna read that definition before we end, one more time…

0:23:44.8 TM: Sure.

0:23:46.1 CB: Just the hero one, just the hero definition is, the hero is a character who faces their challenges and transforms. Isn’t that what we’re trying to do with our students? And we have our webinar, the transformation formula. Shameless plug, if you haven’t listened to it or watched it, please do so it’s on our website, teacherzone.com.

0:24:04.4 TM: It’s not a shameless plug, this podcast is literally brought to you by teacherzone.com, [chuckle] so it’s not a plug, but guys if you don’t know who we are yet, go to teacherzone.com, get our e-book, check out the transformation formula webinar that Chris and I did, you’ll love it. And it really… It all comes together with this journey here as well, and then Chris, we’re gonna go over how to break down maybe some more real-world staff interactions and customer interactions on next episode, is that something…

0:24:38.7 CB: Tyler, you’re a hero. You’re my hero. I can’t wait to write another chapter in our awesome adventure tomorrow with you.

0:24:47.2 TM: Love it. You’re my hero.

0:24:48.8 CB: Yeah, and that’s the fun of it, guys, is that we’re…

[overlapping conversation]

0:24:53.4 TM: One of my three guides, when I started Lois Rocco, before Chris and I, we’ve been friends forever, but we were just friend friends in an old industry, we tried to work together a little bit, but nothing there. Then all of a sudden, we build a music school and here comes, Chris, because he’s a couple two to three years ahead of me, four years, well way more than that, but his business was starting… His previous software company was just starting to grow and he was just in these amazing groups of business owners and absorbing his tribe and giving me information along with Bob, the super-rich dentist who retired on the cliff data point. He was one of my mentors as well. You met Bob, Chris remember Bob…

0:25:41.9 CB: Yeah. So, every hero, every time we play the hero role, we need a guide, bottom line, all of us, over and over and over and over, every time you face a challenge.

0:25:52.5 TM: So five things, five interactions in the last week where you’re victim, villain, hero or guide and do you have a guide that’s your other part of your homework, that’s part two of your homework, who’s your guide or guides? Have you talked to him in a while? Are you allowed to? Because a guide will let you. So maybe they’re not your guide. Who’s your guide? Okay, so until next time, Chris, I’ll see you next episode. How about that? [chuckle]

[foreign language]
0:26:22.1 TM: Alright, by everybody. [chuckle]

By this point you have had numerous conversations, answered all of their questions, and helped them overcome their hesitations.

But now they are ready to be transformed. And it’s your job to make good on your promise to make that happen.

That’s what this podcast episode is all about.

The three elements of transformation in the lives of your students.

What are the three 3 elements?

1. Learning & assignments
2. Community engagement & tracking progress
3. Establishing reward systems.

When you focus on these three elements, you’ll see the transformation happen, and your students will be fired up about their progress!

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:05.6 Tyler Maroff: Welcome to the next episode of The Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. I’m Tyler Maroff, and today, Chris and I, are gonna go over part four in the transformation quadrants. And Chris, what’s part four on? 

0:00:21.4 Chris: Well, part four is transform. So the transformation quadrant culminates in this item. So for those of you that have been seeing the webinar, if you haven’t, go to our website, teacherzone.com, you can watch the transformation formula webinar that we have and do. That really is a comprehensive guide to everything… For anybody that teaches, you know, whether you’re doing private or groups, Tyler and I, we basically talked to some of the biggest lesson business owners globally over the last five, six years, and we created this formula off of all of our learning from all y’all. And so basically what it is, is the four steps are: Attract, convert, deliver, and transform.

0:01:09.3 Chris: And so the other podcast in this series, this is part four of four, they went through the other three, so today, we’re all about transform. And, you know, Tyler, for a second here as we get into this, why don’t you talk for a second about transform. I’m so proud of what you and I do, and what all of you listening do, because we’re changing lives.

0:01:32.5 TM: Right. So transform is absolutely directly related to our why, which you guys have heard us talk about before. Sometimes during the attract, convert and deliver operations, we forget about that for a while, and that’s why we’re here. A lot of you are still in the wilderness, and you don’t have to be anymore, I don’t care if your business is 50 years old or 50 days old, okay? That’s why we’re doing this. So our why and our transformation for the teacher zone, even, is a big deal. Like we’re trying to transform our community, but at the same time at our local brick and mortar lesson academy, transformation has been a big part of our why too, because we wanna give what we got.

0:02:24.8 TM: Some time in our past, Chris and I had a musical experience, ’cause ours is a music performance academy, that changed our lives forever. Whether it was listening to a tape or CD, whether it was a first jam, like I had with the Cardoso Brothers when I was 12, blew my mind and I knew I would never, ever stop. I didn’t know what it meant, I just knew I was not gonna stop. Well, fast forward, Chris, now we have 14 other people that had the same experiences working with us, for us, at this same performance academy, that all had similar instances happen and want to make that impact as well.

0:03:04.1 TM: So that to me is the transform. Now we get into the detail, obviously, and that I brought up the team, right? I just mentioned the people that make the world go around at Los Rios Rock School, our performance academy, that team is what we’re talking about on this series. So the attract, the transformation, whole quadrant, is based on how do these teams work and how can they work and can you and us apply them? So that’s what we’re doing.

0:03:36.0 Chris: As a reminder, for those of you listening, if you’re in leadership, then essentially leadership, especially if you’re the director or owner of the operation, your role is basically three things, it’s: Where are we headed? So that’s the vision, right? Do we have the right people in the boat? So that’s the people, right? And then your job is to make sure you don’t run out of money. So don’t run out of money, make sure you have a map and make sure you got the right talent. And with that, you can create an extraordinary… Maybe most of you already have, but we wanna continue to create an extraordinary impression and transformation in our students.

0:04:19.0 TM: Chris, lets face it, we made an extraordinary, one of the best performance academies in the country, and we feel like we’re just getting, after 12 years, to chapter two. We believe it’s not anywhere where it actually can be, it’s close, but we don’t… It’s not there.

0:04:37.2 Chris: Most of you listening, you’re in the lesson or class business, because you’re really, really good at something, or you’re really smart at something. So if you have a language school, you’re really good at languages, if you have a martial arts or dance or music, you’re really good at that, right? And so, you basically took that talent and then typically that’s how most entrepreneurs start, you’re like better than a lot of folks, and you have some ambition, you decide that you wanna make an impact and start to do your thing.

0:05:11.0 TM: Right. And then you also, you’ve figured out a little twist to what the status quo is, and you’re like, “I don’t like the status quo,” that’s what happen… That’s what I did.

0:05:18.0 Chris: Right, you fixed a problem.

0:05:21.4 TM: I think all of that… And entrepreneurs can be very passionate. I was so passionate and younger that I was like… And I’m friends with a lot of these people now, by the way, but I was like, “This Studio X School A, whatever, they suck, if that’s all they’re bringing to the table.” Now, that’s not very compassionate of me, but it was a fire nonetheless, and I said, “Okay, how can I solve it differently?” And that’s that entrepreneur journey.

0:05:51.8 Chris: That’s what a business does, a business solves a challenge, right? And so you have to solve a challenge that people actually want solved, and typically you only know what people want solved if you’re talented or been around it enough. The whole reason Tyler and I… We were friends for a very long time, but we were attracted to one another also because we had similar background, similar talents, similar things, we tend to attract those that think and are a lot like us.

0:06:21.7 TM: And that was even way before you even had that moustache, which is so attractive. [laughter]

0:06:28.1 Chris: Well, I’m follically challenged… It’s the best I can do, but you know.

[laughter]

0:06:31.1 TM: It’s great. It’s great. Especially when you’re drinking espresso, it’s amazing. Even from 2200 miles away. So anyway, sorry, I digress. I don’t wanna throw a Chris off his track. Where were you going with that? 

0:06:42.8 Chris: Well, where I’m headed with it is this is that, you said we’re just getting started. And for a lot of you that have been around a long time, you’re always kind of just getting started, and if you’re talented in anything, which almost all of you listening are, you know how that works. The more talented… Like, I started playing drums at five years old, I was in my first band at 12 years old… I thought I was really, really good at like 15. Now, many, many years later, I actually consider myself a beginner. Because the better you get, the more you know what you don’t know. The more you start to see the big picture of things. So, this transformation process, what I’m trying to get at, is never done… This is something that it’s like, it’s the whole fun of the game.

0:07:32.4 TM: And today we’re gonna break down on how that transformation philosophy trickles into different facets of a business. So, the teams that run a couple of… We’re gonna go over three different topics today to cover the transformation part of the quadrant, but what Chris just described from his five-year-old self to his 15-year-old, I’ve arrived Jedi drummer self, then enlightened later like, wow, there’s always more. That is also the same philosophy you can sprinkle into your students, families, parents, staff, leaders, directors, operations, any body, your neighbors that are near your facility… Like this is what people are missing sometimes, because they’re wrapped up in the stress and the burdens of not having systems.

0:08:27.6 Chris: Well, it’s… You’re right, the lack of systems, and it’s also telling… I’m sorry to cut you off, but it’s a lottery mindset. A lot of us are taught for some reason that if we hit this certain finish line, we’ll be done. That’s why I thought I was a really good player when I was my teenager, because I thought, “Oh, I hit the milestone, I’m done.” And then you realize, “Oh, there’s no finish line.” Well, that suddenly makes it infinite, so where you and I are at our school right now compared to some operations, we’re having some great success. Compared to our own ambitions, we’re literally in kindergarten, just getting started, because we know that we can make a bigger impact and a bigger difference.

0:09:06.7 Chris: So hopefully you’re excited about making a difference, let’s talk about transformations. So Tyler, the first thing we talk about is with the three elements, we’ll just say that and then let’s get into each one… Learning in assignments, community engagement and progress tracking and reward system. Those are the three ways to transform in the class and less on business, learning and assignments, community engagement, progress tracking and reward system. Let’s first start with learning, learning and assignments, it’s a big part of transforming the students that you have in your classes and lessons each week. So, let’s talk about the team for learning and assignments Tyler, go ahead.

0:09:41.8 TM: Well, really, depending on your school and what type of lesson business you have, if you don’t have something with some continuity, which all of this is linked together, that leads to, can we measure what’s happening? Are there reasons and goals to want to get further and not quit? Like all this… You’re gonna notice this could be one topic, but we split it into three. So, right now assignments, like weekly assignments, is there a consistent flow of information case by case? We understand all students are different, we don’t at Los Rios Rock School and Teacher Zone in general, we don’t truly believe that linear academia is the only way to go.

0:10:29.3 Chris: Right.

0:10:30.9 TM: Everything’s changing… There’s full high schools that are dedicated to project-based learning now, compared to the Bolshevik style linear stuff we’ve all been used to… So, therefore, if the weekly assignments, what they need to be is consistent…

0:10:46.0 Chris: Right. And to get… That’s such a great point, because this idea that everybody should learn the same thing, we all know that, that is not the most… Especially in the private lesson and class business. We understand that you know what, you can take someone that’s excelling and keep pushing them so much farther, right? Everybody’s at a different level, if you will, especially with private…

0:11:07.0 TM: There’s another way to look at it too. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, when you show up to jiu-jitsu, you’re over a four-day period in a week, no matter what level you’re at, you’re learning a sequence of different moves and you might suck at two of them, like it’s just not making sense, but you submit a guy with the third and the fourth one, like it’s your thing. So, even in that atmosphere, it’s really accustomed to each person and the professors at those studios, and if you’re listening, “Hello.” They watch, but everybody, then you go back and you refine the weaknesses. There’s always a way to do it. So, the bottom line is this, your assignments, your weekly assignments, something should be dispensed consistently so that the people involved that are learning know what to expect, build a habit, and your school has a reputation of being productive.

0:12:05.5 Chris: And so, since we’re talking about leadership and leadership’s about having teams, you build people and people build your business. What are the teams involved with learning and assignments? We’ve got…

0:12:14.3 TM: Well, at our school… Yeah, well, we used to have a director of curriculum, he moved to Switzerland. And we had big plans for him, and after five years, he moved with his wife, who is Swiss… Dr. Haycraft… And so, we have a little space to fill, and an oversee position for curriculum enrichment and follow-through. But right now, Chris, we currently have 126 lessons in Teacher Zone, for the mandatory minimums, for auditioning and moving into different parts of the program that all the teachers use in unison.

0:13:00.6 Chris: But the team members, just to keep on the team topic, basically, you should have your administrators, directors, leadership team on the same page, which Tyler was just talking about with the 126, those are our levels, our audition requirements, our ability to be able to gauge where you’re at.

0:13:16.8 TM: And assignments, they become assignments as well.

0:13:19.9 Chris: We’re gonna get into that. But what I wanted to reiterate here is that, under your learning and assignments, it’s imperative that your staff, which is your… Obviously, your teachers, have great direction from leadership, so they know what’s expected of them. Which means… ‘Cause I know we know, we see you guys every day and there’s just like… Some teachers are really good about it, some teachers are lazy, some teachers just don’t… And so it’s very important that you have a standard with your lesson class program, where you tell your teachers what is your mandatory minimum that you’re gonna require for learning and assignments each week, and then with that…

0:13:57.9 TM: And does your operations have a way to monitor those standards as well? Because do we have checks and balances? We already have employee agreements that state, “Hey, this is what’s expected of you, this is how consistent we like to be at Los Rios.” But is it all in unison together and is it being monitored, is it happening? So those are really key too.

0:14:20.2 Chris: Yeah, because having KPI’s, Key Performance Indicators, having things that you’re measuring, it helps you grow as we know, you can’t grow what you don’t measure, but a lot of us, we give a lot of orders, we talk about transformational versus transactional leadership, we tend to give a lot of orders and then not have systems in place to follow up. So, getting ways to measure and so… Lastly, on the learning and assignments, one of the things that we also do, with regard to measurement, is the quarterly… Is the review, where we’ve got students getting reviewed all the time.

0:14:58.1 Chris: We also do, what Tyler said, where you can have evergreen courses and assignments that teachers can just keep assigning from your curriculum, but bottom line with this is, make sure your team, you even have the parents involved. So the team in this one is your leadership team, which would be directors and the like, teachers are the most important aspect of the learning assignments, ’cause they’re the ones day-to-day adhering to the expectations of your program. And then lastly, parents, if you’ve got under-age students, you need help to make sure those assignments and things are actually getting viewed and looked at, so make sure you have a way to engage the families.

0:15:36.7 Chris: One of the ways we do that is we teach, upon the first lesson, we actually teach the students how to use the apps, how to view the assignments, that kind of things, and we make sure that the family’s also… We have videos and things, we send the families, letting them know how to do that. So it’s really important to do so. Tyler…

0:15:56.1 TM: Yup, and it’s easy. Anyway, you can reduce friction on those assignments, quarterly goal updates, and using some sort of evergreen multimedia, something that there’s continuity to, if you have a way to get that to everybody, and there’s less friction, the more you do it and the better you get at it, everyone, the parents and families are transforming, not only the teachers and the students. So that team framework is very important, and you’re right, Chris, that does lead us to more engagement and the community aspects, why don’t you touch on that? 

0:16:29.8 Chris: So if you start with learning and assignments, in the transform, we did three parts that we did: Learning assignments, then we did community engagement, and then we did the progress tracking and reward system. Bottom line is that this piece, the community and engagement aspect, is big in transformation, you guys, it has been proven. And in the webinar, we talk about that… What is it? Change or Die book? It’s actually been proven over and over again that humans do not change without peer pressure, they just don’t. Humans need peer pressure. So it’s important that you create a community in your lesson program for several reasons: One, we tend to stay longer when we feel like we belong, so by creating a community, you’re actually increasing your retention dramatically. We also give more referrals to places we feel like we belong, right? 

0:17:25.7 TM: Right.

0:17:27.0 Chris: And then lastly, we actually learn more and change their behavior more when we feel like we’re doing it for people that think how we think, or at least believe… They say, “If you wanna change your habits or change your behaviors or learn a new skill, the first thing you should do is go hang out with people that already do that.”

0:17:46.7 TM: ‘Cause you are who you hang out with, as many of our grandparents told us, and that is absolutely true. So the way we break this down, our team, for the community and engagement part of this little talk of this part of the quadrant. So we’ve got our directors that are working with group projects and overseeing multiple students as a whole in groups, but then we also have our admins, or administrators and operations team that makes sure all the parents on the financial side and the expectations in the event side that are coming up, are all in the know, and so there’s a very important…

0:18:28.1 Chris: And that would include communications, right? 

0:18:29.7 TM: Our communications director, he has to sit back, Chris and I can’t do this, he has to be able to sit back and look at what would he want to know is coming if he was a parent that cared a lot about that kid growing up, and guess what, Spencer has no kids. He is a kid, he’s 24 still, but he still needs to learn empathetically, how to think like them, and as the standard creators, us, the founders, without Chris and I doing it for him. So that communications person, whether it’s group events coming up.

0:19:02.0 TM: Whether it’s, “Oh, ask your ambassadors if your kid isn’t feeling connected,” we’ll get to that in a second, have them connect with the person with the ambassador badge, they will help them. Someone on this engagement team has to oversee the whole thermometer and know how to sprinkle the systems down.

0:19:19.0 Chris: And we kind of… Tyler and I, when we talked about the engagement part with the community engagement, we realize that pretty much your entire operation is involved in this aspect. Because this is the part… When you’re trying to build a community, it takes a tribe and it takes everybody to be on the same page. Again, I’m gonna reiterate, our job as leaders is to simply impart the vision over and over and over. If you notice the Steve Jobs and the Elon Musks of the world, that’s really all they do is impart the vision right? 

0:19:51.4 TM: My job, Chris and my job is to not make sure our parents remember, there is a big get-together or giant meeting or something that’s exciting. Even though it’s really cool, and we used to do that, that’s not… It’s not scalable. In order for us to make this vision come true, we can’t do that.

0:20:12.2 Chris: Right. We simply provide the vision and then help the team. Every person has a certain aspect. So our communications director is important part of this, but a big part of community engagement is your teachers. So it’s important that you train your staff, including us. Tyler and I were just talking about, “We need to do better.” Even though our performance program is kind of like… What Tyler alluded to is that if you go back 12 years ago, when Tyler first started out of his house, and then he and I started dreaming about what it could be, and then you take where we’re at today, we kind of feel like we just got started. So now the fun really… Now that we have a nice program that has a lot of the attributes we wanted and we’ve re-invested back in the business a lot, what’s neat for a lot of us out there and a lot of you listening, isn’t it kinda cool where a lot of us are at that place right now where it’s like, “Okay, now we’ve got this great base that we can just continue to grow from.” And so a big part of that is getting your teachers to all be on the same page about creating that tribe. And one of the ways we do that is through social.

0:21:18.2 Chris: We don’t use social media ’cause that’s too dangerous with kids, but like in Teacher Zone only we actually have a social chat. So we actually let our teachers… Tyler actually loves creating sub-groups and different chats for like a guitar shredder group or different things…

0:21:36.7 TM: Or a teacher’s roster. My big thing is that if 20 students all think that this teacher is one of the most amazing people they’ve ever met, and those 20 students don’t know who each other are, that’s sacrilege. So therefore, one of the ways we do things is we have a roster chat for each teacher, and once a week or whatever, they… The first chat says, “Hey guys, this is a place where all of my students are, not the other 160. This is where my students are where we can talk music, share links, have fun, have fun talking, whether the teacher’s talking or not.” And only [0:22:15.5] ____.

0:22:18.3 Chris: And that’s the thing that you actually turn me on, Tyler. Years and years ago, watching you with your first students, you really turn me onto this fact that sometimes just sitting around watching a video together is just as good as learning that skill that you’re there to teach them. Because that bonding, that connection, that feeling of being connected is actually where learning happens.

0:22:47.3 TM: Well, that’s the power of also a one-hour lesson, which is a side note here. But a one-hour lesson technically, as part of all this, is times any engagement you’ve ever done with a 30-minute lesson times by two.

0:23:02.1 Chris: Well ’cause you’re able to actually become friends and not just have it be just rote, “Here, let’s work on these scales,” or whatever you’re working on, [0:23:06.8] ____ the skills.

0:23:07.9 TM: Right, and do research like, “Hey, have you seen this? What have you been listening to?” and connect. And then it causes new projects to form. Like music is very iterative. If you’re in a music lesson business, you know this. The wind can blow with Spotify today, I think it’s something, I looked it up, I think 60,000 or more songs are put into Spotify a day.

0:23:32.3 Chris: Yeah.

0:23:33.0 TM: So therefore… I talk about being… Chris loves the word iterative, ’cause things are constantly moving, growing, changing, so is their taste and what they wanna do with their picture they have in their mind with music or whatever they’re learning. And the teacher, if he can get a hold of that as that leader on that team, he can harness that inspiration and turn it into something that didn’t even exist the day before.

0:23:58.4 Chris: So having constant conversations about all that, I mean it’s the same thing whether you’re teaching athletics or the arts, it doesn’t matter what you’re teaching, or language or… Because whatever it is you’re teaching, there’s so much that you could chat about. There’s so much you can actually connect. So social chat, group events, and then we need to move on. The group events are things we’ve done everything from movie nights to parent’s night out. Even we’ve had… It’s important to get your families involved. We’ve had a lot of families host all of us at their home, that’s fun too. And then lastly, ambassadors. Let’s just talk one minute on that and then move on or two minutes. The ambassador idea that Tyler and I have is we’re really trying to start to implement the fact that our team members and our students need to be ambassadors for the whole program.

0:24:47.5 TM: To each other.

0:24:48.8 Chris: To each other.

0:24:48.9 TM: So there’s two aspects we were looking at, right, Chris? Number one is, yes, we need no kids left behind, nobody falling through the cracks. That’s how Chris and I can sleep at night when we know that we have 180 and we’re shooting for 220 to 230, one-hour students a week that are happy. Okay, so they need ambassadors. There’s introverts, extroverts, jazz, hands, shy kids that will never think that… They’ll tell us they’ll never sing in front of anyone, and then we always prove them wrong. But how do we make them all feel welcome one on one, and in the social environments that are big part of our school, the jam clubs, the concert programs, the audiences and all of that, so that they’re equally considered an important part of the program, even though they’re brand new? Well, that’s messaging. We have to get the messaging back to the teenagers, remind them, “Do you remember when it was new?” “Oh, yeah.” If they don’t know, they don’t know to help. So the messaging to the troops of kids, veterans versus new kids, that’s an ambassador part right? And Chris had a great idea.

0:25:58.9 TM: Then number two is staff ambassadors. We have new staff, we have five new staff members. Are they in sync with our standards besides talking to Chris and I and their intake and training and whatever? Cool. Now we set them in the wild, are they connected as good as they should be with the other team members? We have a staff meeting every month. Is that good enough? We’re finding, no, we need ambassadors there as well.

0:26:27.9 Chris: So just because we can have… We need to do a whole topic just on ambassadors.

0:26:31.8 TM: Yep.

0:26:31.8 Chris: I’m gonna say two things to end the ambassador thing. Thank you, Ty. Number one, the definition of ambassador is a person who acts as a representative or promoter of a specific activity. Stop being the only ambassador in your lesson or class program. That’s the bottomline.

0:26:46.6 TM: Preach.

0:26:46.6 Chris: A lot of you are the only ambassador of the program. You need to recruit your staff and your students to help, and your families. Everyone’s an ambassador. Do you know that we’ve been paying staff members to handle the front door at our shows, and it dawned on us that the parents wanna help and do you know how much better it is to have parents upfront helping? They’re our ambassadors too.

0:27:14.2 TM: Our shows are four and a half to five hours long, and the parents love doing 45-minute shifts. They love it. They get to meet and they get to meet other parents on the way in. And with such a big program with big events, you can shoot right by ambassador principles. You can… It just flies right by like you’re in a helicopter. No, they’re over there, they seem happy ’cause the music’s good. And there’s a lot that we can do better in-between, and that’s what we’re working on, right, Chris? 

0:27:46.2 Chris: Totally. So ambassadorships are a big part of it. So learning assignments, community engagement. Lastly, let’s talk about the team for tracking and reward system. So again, we’re gonna go with the same team, Tyler, basically, the entire staff on all these transform ideas. I guess transform really is like, it’s a whole program, like your entire school needs to be involved in transform, is basically what we’re saying. And then the other aspects, you’ll have it, you’ll have a marketing team, you’ll have other team members that are focused. When it comes to transform, it’s all hands-on-deck. And so with that said, do you have a way to track progress? So if you’re martial arts, think belt system, but is there a more subtle way to do that? Do you have a points…

0:28:35.0 TM: Attendance as well. Attendance and consistency and retention is absolutely based on if a person has a habit building, and if they’re listening to the instructions, the prescribed success rate or success strategy of succeeding at said dojo, said music school or whatever. All you need is some sort of metric that you can look at and go, “Woah, our prescribed is, they need to show up.” And with dojos, sometimes you can go three nights a week, and if guys are coming once a week but it’s every week, that’s actually not bad. It’s consistent. Three times a week, all the time, you don’t get better, and you get better, and they’re hooked, retention, friends and everything. But if you see someone coming once a week every two weeks and then every three weeks, and then they’re gonna be not a customer again soon and they’re not connected. And that’s okay. Maybe it’s not the right time, but you should find out.

0:29:34.6 Chris: So one of the reasons we think attendance is important for progress tracking is a lot of you don’t do it, surprisingly. And attendance is an important part of making sure that you’re transforming, and also making sure that you’re healthy. Because if people aren’t showing up, I’m sorry, but there’s something wrong, something going on. Because if you’re really creating an environment that people are excited to be a part of, they’re gonna show up. And if you’re creating the ground rules… So attendance is a big one. We’ve actually found that for students that attend 70% of the time or less, that it’s actually a red flag that they’re probably gonna leave you. So we highly recommend that you track that. We also highly recommend that you track no shows. For someone that says they were gonna be there and then doesn’t show up, it just shows that you care, number one, but it also creates respect. It’s very disrespectful that someone would think they could just not show up.

0:30:38.3 Chris: And some people, again, if somebody doesn’t know they have a problem, then they don’t know that they need to work on it. So somewhere along the line, someone snuck into the school where we have standards are set and we’re like, “What in the heck? Did they just not get anything of what they were toured about and the contract they signed?”

0:30:57.2 TM: So we have to… Yeah, we have to call and remind them. Yeah, so therefore the attendance part, like Chris said, it can be disrespectful because the teachers giving 120%, but it also makes the front and attract and convert sales side look like, who did we qualify for this? And the poor teacher that got that student… So if you’re not tracking attendance, and if you don’t have a way to look at the ratios in your attendance tracking… So maybe you do have a spreadsheet of who was where, that sounds, A, daunting to me, but we use Teacher Zone obviously because there’s retention reports built in. So not only do the teachers take attendance real-time and all sorts of things are attached to that. But Chris and our operations team and I can, with a flick of a wrist and a filter, look at a whole teacher’s roster and see who’s under 70% or not, look at a single student, and it’s all right there. There’s a lot of data to measure what’s going on.

0:32:00.0 Chris: You can only grow what you measure. And so we’ve measured that if students are attending like half their lessons, what we’ve found is a funny thing, it’s usually ’cause they have a flaky teacher. So if your teacher’s flaking, they’re teaching their students to flake. So…

0:32:14.8 TM: Absolutely. We’ve already proven it. So if you don’t believe us, we probably can… We can pull the report from that period of time, and there was two teachers, they were friends, they were in the same band, and we pulled them and it was less than 45 or less percent attendance rate, if you count the students [0:32:33.7] ____ and teacher [0:32:34.9] ____.

[overlapping conversation]

0:32:35.4 Chris: Yeah, the students matched perfectly. It was crazy.

0:32:38.3 TM: Yeah, so the students match those too. Birds of a feather, you guys. We had a tool to help with our transformation. When you have a couple of people on a team that are causing that to happen, they don’t fit the founder standards of transformation. We make the founders, you make the standards. The teams can help with vision, but the standards are in place already.

0:33:06.5 Chris: Right, you have to hold your team accountable. You’re letting your students down if you don’t.

0:33:10.0 TM: But, hey Chris, tell them the good news. Tell them the good news. What happened when we posted that in base camp and showed everyone at once in a friendly positive way of what happens? And hey, this is where we’re at, let’s make sure we’re here.

0:33:26.4 Chris: Change. And then the students started attending more too. So that… The great news is is that you can change it by tracking it. So the other things we have to get… Lastly, because we’re going long, and so I just don’t want us to go too long today, points and badges…

0:33:42.9 TM: Hey, it’s part four, man. It’s the end. It’s gonna be okay. It’s the end. They got 20, 20, 20, now they’re getting 40, man.

0:33:49.2 Chris: I know I’m like, “Come on Tyler, yeah let’s do this.” ‘Cause Tyler and I love these topics, we could sit here for like… You know, I listened to Jocko podcast yesterday that was four hours long almost? I was like, “Oh my gosh, he got us beat.” [laughter]

0:34:04.7 TM: By the way, Chris Bates must have really good systems in place to listen to a four-hour podcast.

0:34:10.5 Chris: Yes, I was actually doing other things at the time, but you’re right. Still, points and badges is one of the most important and neat ways that we actually just created. So in the last year, in our system, we created a whole way to gamify you’re learning, so you can actually create all sorts of really cool point systems and badges. We just had our first contest too, didn’t we Ty? 

0:34:33.1 TM: Stop for a second. We have to give Chris credit where it’s due. So, because Chris is such a metrics hound and a stats monger, I made those sound negative, but they’re good things I promise, usually. He, with Teacher Zone’s designed from day one, with our practice timer which was very rudimentary, but it let the kids see and the teachers see if they were above or below what was required that week. That was the basics plus the attendance, plus the payroll reports, payment reports, everything, everything in Teacher Zone as we coded it was constantly putting metric pools together whether we were using them in reports or not.

0:35:14.4 TM: So now, fast-forward to we finally get to create something from all of the data that Chris was hounding and collecting and creating as we went, that led to points and badges. System automated points, that teachers don’t even have to do anything but take attendance, the kids are practicing at home and they get badges and points based on how you set it up, but also manual badges, special stuff. Whether the school itself creates the ultimate, ultimate badge where the kid just did, whatever you want, and you can even design the badge, and teachers can assign those right in the attendance screen and add more points and bring the leader boards that are viewed by all and adjust them. All because Chris was collecting metrics the whole time we’ve been coding. So good job, buddy.

0:36:07.7 Chris: Well, thank you. But the big part about it for all of us is, how can we make learning more fun? And when we get rewards, when we measure ourself against someone else, it lets us know where we stand, it’s human nature, it’s actually… You guys, if you’re not giving your students the gift of having fun with letting them know where they stand, it’s not static, so we’re not suggesting that you create some hierarchy in your program where the students feel like they’re stuck, ’cause that’s not learning. Learning is feeling like, “Oh wow, this month I’m doing really good.”

0:36:46.0 Chris: So you can… What’s really fun about the badges and points is that, they’re a constant dynamic growing process that you can run snippets in time. So you can run reports just on last month, you can have your students get excited about the fact that they got, let’s say you have an ambassador badge, we’re talking about ambassadorship, how exciting… And then when other students see what badges their friends have, they go, “Oh wow, how do I get that one? I want that ambassador badge.” So it’s just a way to increase engagement, reward students for great behavior, make it more fun. And then we have all sorts of systems stuff built in with that metrics, like Tyler was talking about, to be able to just take behaviors like watching multimedia actually can… A certain amount of points are gathered and you can dictate how many, and then a certain amount of badges are given based on how many points before you…

0:37:37.6 TM: Or, let’s dumb it down even further. Let’s say you’ve got a new user of your multimedia system, your app, or whatever, that’s engaging the kids at home the other six days a week and they’re new to it. They get points for logging in.

0:37:54.6 Chris: Yeah, just something dumb like that. Because you’re rewarding behavior, you’re saying, “Hey, just the fact that you logged in at all tells me that you’re attempting to make an effort in your learning experience.”

0:38:02.6 TM: So, Chris was about to say, we gave away a guitar, another guitar, and a recording Scarlett interface for recording with a microphone, as the three prizes for the September 20th to November 1st, first ever contest probably on planet Earth, because we coded it, released it, and then Los Rios did a contest with the new feature, and it was awesome. So we had about a 20% with… And we only announced it three days prior. So 20% of our students were active, and that’s good for a three-day blast and start now, but everybody saw on social media who won what, did some fun videos with Space Odyssey 2001 and Michael getting his recording software handed to him. So now everybody knows the thing that were on the walls and posted on social media is real, so I’m guessing it’s gonna… The engagement is gonna be double at least for next semester’s contest. And then pretty soon, guys, you just never stop, you never ever stop, it will become part of your culture and every… It’s just a given. Of course, I’m gonna try.

0:39:16.2 Chris: So, you know what they did? When Tyler said 20%, what he means is the kid… There was about… It might have even been a little higher on that, but there’s about one out of four or something that was super excited. They were really trying to win this thing. And so it wasn’t like everybody was trying to win, that’s what he means. But what was really interesting too, is that some of the teachers took more pride in it than others. And so then that starts to infect everyone, too. So, it… Basically, you lay a brick and soon you have a wall with our… We’ve done other contests in the past, but we never had this visual representation. We never had this point system. We never had an easy way like this to be able to prove it. And so, this is the first time it was like, boom, here you go. Everybody daily can check up on where they’re at. And we had mom and dads reaching out and saying all sorts of cool stuff, and we had kids…

0:40:04.8 TM: Oh my God, the funniest one was, “Hey, is my daughter allowed to use the practice timer,” which gives you points, in Saturday rehearsals? Because other kids are doing it. And I’m like, well, is rehearsal practice? I think it’s a great idea. You know what I mean? It was just really funny to see…

0:40:24.5 Chris: People trying to game it.

0:40:26.6 TM: The masses, the parts of the masses, the people that you can’t tune in with all their minds at once ’cause you have so many customers, all of a sudden it came alive as an entity, little bits of it, and it’s only gonna grow the more we do it. And so I can’t wait to announce the next one. Now, advancement, that has a little advancement. So goals, graduating to higher levels, all of that, you could see how the leader board can come into play and help that and enhance that as well. But at Los Rios, we have program directors that are watching who is involved with one of our three levels of audition-based concert program. Well, those projects produce more practicing at home, because they don’t wanna be the kid that shows it…

0:41:14.8 Chris: It’s basically quality control, right? It’s like you’re controlling the quality of… You’re getting everybody. So basically, by measuring it, students wanna level up, because they know they’re being seen. And so, we actually have someone on staff that’s job is to sort of measure QC and auditions, and make sure that students are leveling up. So how are you doing that in your business? Are you measuring to make sure that students are leveling up? Do you have a quality control person that’s making sure that people are actually getting better? And then how are you rewarding them for getting better? Do you have a rewards system? Do you have a reward for doing that? 

0:42:00.9 TM: Or are your teachers… Which… Your intake, your bottom boots on the ground person, is that teacher trained and is… To be an ambassador to let a brand new student that might not be good enough yet for something? Are they reluctant and they just don’t talk about it to that student for four months? Because that’s bad. Now, the student who’s struggling to get better at something doesn’t even know it exists. So there’s another aspect to it, too. That measurement is… Those liaison, those ambassadors should be sprinkling hope and light on what is on the horizon if you never give up. And so those achievements and advancement points that you create in your school, if you don’t have any, make the first one besides doing well in their lessons. Make the first one, and then make a second one. And then pretty soon at Los Rios, we had basically a 101/102. Now we have 101/102 Advanced. But in the very beginning, it was a very mishmash of intermediate to barely advanced players and now, we have 12-year-olds that are advanced because of the QC Chris was talking about.

0:43:12.2 Chris: And to be fair, Tyler, a lot of you in the learning business have curriculum you purchased and you have curriculum you bought, you have ways of advancing your learning. It’s just, how are you measuring it? Is everybody on the same page? So what we’re suggesting here is that to have true transformation, you have to have it systemized. And so that’s the bottomline. And your team has to be on the same page. So, there it is, transform. We got learning assignments, community engagement, and progress tracking, and reward system.

0:43:42.9 TM: And you guys got double for your money on this episodes. We did three quickies and then a nice long coup de grâce for the last part of the quadrant. And Chris, thank you so much for developing this and helping… You and I developing this, and getting it to people. And I’m telling you guys, if you can get this either podcast or our webinar to others you care about that are struggling, get it to them, or have the… Maybe you learned enough from just talking to us. Go have the talk with them. Spread the wealth. This will help others, not just you. But again, thank you all for tuning in. And Chris, thank you. The Transformation Quadrant is on teacherzone.com, along with our e-book. And this whole podcast is sponsored by teacherzone.com, so if you don’t know who we are, go there, you’ll get a quick look at what we’re doing besides talking with you guys, which is what we love to do most. So Chris, until next episode. Nice job, buddy.

0:44:44.3 Chris: Thank you, Tyler. Sayonara. [chuckle]

0:44:45.3 TM: Bye everybody.

And now…it’s time to deliver.

“Deliver” is you and your team making good on the promise of what you told your customers you could do.

And now it’s time to do it.

Deliver the education, the lessons, the learning, the teaching, the program…whatever it is that you teach…it’s time to deliver.

But there’s an organization and operations component to pulling that off. And that’s what this podcast episode is all about.

And if you’re ready for more, head to teacherzone.com/webinar to take a deeper dive into Transformation Formula.

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:05.6 Tyler Marolf: Welcome to the next episode of the Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler, brought to you by TeacherZone.com. And I’m here with Chris Bates, I am Tyler Marolf, and today’s episode is part three of our transformation framework applied to our teams. Now Chris, first of all, how are you doing today? And give us those three things that as founders we’re in charge of again. Let’s start with that. How are you, man?

0:00:32.8 Chris Bates: I’m good, man, I’m fabulous. If you’re starting with this, then just know this is part of a series, it’s a four-part. We also have a webinar called the Transformation Formula. Get that on TeacherZone.com. Also, we have another podcast where we talked about leadership, and that’s what Tyler is alluded to right now. That podcast with transformational leadership, so a lot to do with transforming. So Tyler, what makes a leader?

0:00:58.1 CB: It’s three things. It’s vision, it’s people, it’s finances. Those are the three things that we as leadership focus on. Stop being everything in your business, you’ll reduce your stress. And surprisingly, you’re gonna have happier staff who’s more aligned with your vision, you’re gonna grow more because people are gonna now have… You’ll have the time to actually work with your teams on marketing and attracting more and converting and all the things we’re talking about. So those three things; vision, people, finances.

0:01:28.3 TM: That’s it. Those are the three. So today, folks, when we go over the transformation formula and that webinar, it’s a super fun webinar, you should find it on the website and take the webinar, it’s a teaching class on the framework itself that we extracted from extremely successful lesson businesses in the industry to create that framework for you.

0:01:48.8 TM: But this series is fun because we’re gonna apply how do Chris and I not work in the business so we can keep the mission and vision alive and healthy and work on it. So those are the… That’s the difference today. So we’re gonna be talking about this episode, which is the “deliver” part of the framework. So we did attract. Right, Chris?

0:02:13.2 CB: Mm-hmm.

0:02:13.6 TM: We did convert, and now episode three is the delivery, how the company gives the customer what they came and showed up for.

0:02:27.9 CB: It’s your proof. It’s like what you said you would do. The deliver is now, “Okay, show me, do it.” So we attract, that’s taking people out in the community and saying, “Hey, do you want what we have?” Covert is saying, “Oh, you do. Let’s get you going. Let’s not waste time.” And then deliver is you now, it’s now about you actually walking the walk. Proof.

0:02:58.5 TM: It is absolute proof. Your customers were so impressed with your clear messaging that they wanted to sign up, and now they’re hoping and they’re trusting that your delivery is gonna be similar to the vision in the first two pillars that we went over in the last two episodes. By the way, go listen to those two. If you’re catching this on right now, go back two episodes and listen to Attract, then Convert, and then come back here.

0:03:26.6 CB: And just to be clear, guys, the next two, deliver and transform. That’s your business, right? Convert, deliver, transform is your business. And deliver, transform is the day-to-day. Deliver can be seen more as the ops, like operations, if you will, and transform is the why, it’s the emotional part of your business. It’s basically why you got into the learning business to begin with. So we’ll cover that team of ours next.

0:03:54.9 CB: We’re actually talking about our own team, we happen to own a performance academy that teaches music, and our kids do great performances and stuff. The reason we’re talking about our own is just to give an example of how you can align your teams. This is not like the end all. Tyler and I are a work in progress too. This is just giving you an example of how we do it, so that way you can kind of wrap your head around, “Okay, how can I do it?” So I don’t take it as like, “You must do it like us.” No, no, no. This is just, we’re…

0:04:23.5 TM: And these principles are applied to, I mean, technically any business and leadership model every anywhere, but right now, our focus, if you’re tuning in for the first time, is towards any lesson in teaching business. So it doesn’t matter what you’re teaching, you wanted to get there and start teaching it, that’s what this framework is for. And let’s go ahead and go for it, Chris. Do you wanna list… Do you wanna list the first three or just start with the first one, how do you wanna do it today?

0:04:57.2 CB: A quick outline for “deliver”, guys. So if you, hopefully you watch the webinar, but in the webinar, we talk about the quadrant, which is the “attract convert, deliver, transform”. In “deliver” we, there’s a billion things we can go over, but we chunked it down to three to keep it simple for all of us. We even have a worksheet, by the way, in the webinar, so you can go get the worksheet, watch the webinar from our website.

0:05:17.7 CB: But bottom line is scheduling location, that’s the first part of delivering a lesson business, ’cause we’re selling time. So by selling time and we have to determine in a scheduling location. Another part of deliver is actually attendance and then make ups, ’cause you’re keeping track of like whatever it is you owe them. And then payroll so you can sort of keep, align all that.

0:05:42.6 CB: The reason we promote that we’ll talk about in a minute, but if you’re not taking attendance, it’s time to start. Super important part of proving that you’re giving what you said. And then lastly is communication. I know for so many of you that come to us for our help with Teacher Zone and we have friends all over, communication’s a big one for all of us because gosh, it’s hard to be consistent, isn’t it? So we’ll talk about that.

0:06:07.3 TM: Cool, so let’s start with scheduling the location. Ask yourselves, how do you keep track? Do you keep track? There’s people listening right now that they might have a pencil and paper ledger and no real record of the historical data of who came through and who is coming through their institution. So that is huge.

0:06:34.0 TM: So that, like Chris said, not only is the teacher and the employee or the independent contractor, however you run it, volunteering their time, the owners and the workers say, “I agree.” Okay, did it happen? Do you have record? Or worst comes to worst, what if law enforcement gets involved or a divorce attorney or something, and they wanna know if someone was in your premises or not that day, and they subpoena something. Do you even have any proof? Are you gonna go like, “I think so”?

0:07:07.3 TM: So, anyways, we’re trying not to make a mountain out of a molehill here, but this is basic Business 101, keeping track. So then there’s the location, Chris, right? Where are we? Where are they? Were they at home? I mean, we all got trained overnight, Chris, on how to do virtual online learning through a pandemic. So now schools are maybe parents being careful, not sending the kids in, but quickly jump in on a virtual lesson. Do you know where they were then as well? So Chris, do you wanna elaborate on this a little.

0:07:37.8 CB: Yeah, pre-pandemic, we had three models that we saw in the industry with regard to location. We had in-person, we had virtual. And that in-person could either be in your home or in a fixed location or whatever. We had virtual, which is still live but virtually, and then we had video learning. So those were very clear cut and defined.

0:08:05.9 CB: What’s so cool about the pandemic, if there was one thing that came out of it that was good, it’s that the whole world got trained on tech. So now all those lines are kind of blurred, aren’t they? So we’re seeing a lot of us go a little bit more hybrid on the three, because they’re just different ways of delivering value for learning.

0:08:22.4 CB: So, let’s talk about our team, Ty. So, as far as our delivery team for scheduling and location, Melissa Marolf, who just happens to be Tyler’s beloved bride. [chuckle] Melissa is amazing, and she’s dealing with all the cat herding. I know all of you, either you’re dealing with it or someone on your staff, Melissa happens to be the person for us that’s leading that charge. We also have a lot of it to do with the teachers. They’re on that team too. So if we look at the team members of the scheduling part, it would be Melissa and the teachers.

0:08:56.4 CB: It’s important to define the team. One of the reasons that we’re breaking these down into the teams, guys, is because if we’re gonna make all of us better leaders, part of being better leaders is the three things we talked about. We’re supposed to make sure that we’re imparting our vision, we’re giving the people what they need, that’s our team or the teams. And then lastly, we’re in charge of the finances or the resources of the business.

0:09:21.6 CB: So, have good teams, and if you don’t have them, start defining them so you can start building them, and that’s what we’re trying to inspire you to do. So this team is Melissa and the teachers. Tyler, the first thing that we schedule, obviously, is what we all do, which is private in groups, right?

0:09:37.7 TM: Right. Yup, so that goes onto the schedule, and you’ve got the outline in front of you, Chris, so go ahead and tee off and I’ll start off the the next one.

0:09:48.0 CB: Basically, the private and group lessons, for most of you, it’s a fixed time. Some of you offer drop-ins or you’ll have a different like, “Oh, we’re gonna do this workshop Wednesday night,” stuff like that. But there’s always a schedule, isn’t there? It’s not typically totally free form.

0:10:03.6 CB: Even if you allow people to drop in, you’re saying, “Between these hours.” So when you’re selling lessons in a lesson business, you’re typically selling time of some sort, and so that learning takes place within a time parameter. So that’s why scheduling location can be so important, and by keeping track of that… And a lot of you, if you’re still on Google Docs, you’re still on spreadsheets, at least you have a system.

0:10:27.4 CB: We had one customer that converted, they were still on wall calendars, like pen and paper. It’s still a system, just not transparent. A cloud-based system allows families to be able to check in the apps, so we have apps to be able to check on the desktop schedules, to be able to basically do whatever they want. In other words, however they’re comfortable receiving that information.

0:10:51.4 TM: Right, and that’s why this pillar is so fun, Chris, ’cause this first item of the three, which is scheduling location, ties into the third one, which we’ll get to in a second, which is communication. So at Los Rios, those are in tandem, automated as well. So, even though we’ve got a team making sure the schedule is right, once that person is on the schedule, once Melissa activates that person, she’s done with them. That’s it, and we’ll move on. So that takes us to attendance, make-ups, and payroll is our item number two.

0:11:26.1 CB: And before we jump into that, I just wanted to say one thing, Ty. I don’t know about you guys, but one thing I’ve noticed Melissa’s been able to do lately is people can go in and cancel in the apps and all, but if she knows ahead of time or if they reach out like last minute, especially for the last minute ones, “Oh my gosh, Johnny just came down with a fever.” Melissa’s been able to actually say, “Well, how’s he feeling? Does he wanna jump on a virtual rather than just miss the lesson?”

0:11:54.3 TM: Right. It has been a godsend. So Chris was like, well, the pandemic forced us into a really quick solution for this to streamline something we were already doing, but only 0.8% of our customers were using prior to the pandemic. And then all of a sudden, it jumped 40% and everybody needed to be online. So we did some amazing APIs with Google Meet or any meeting software in existence codes right into our software.

0:12:28.5 TM: So Los Rios, all those kids have to do is press the little green camera in their app, no meeting link required, and they drop in and they see their teacher. So that is a big, big win that we’ve had and all of our customers have that use Teacher Zone as well, but that’s a Los Rios custom improvement that the families have been utilising.

0:12:50.8 CB: Yeah, because the cool part is that it’s frictionless. It’s not, “Oh oh, we just burned 15 minutes looking for the link.”

0:12:56.0 TM: Right.

0:13:00.3 CB: It is time is of the essence. So, okay, sorry, now let’s get into attendance, make-ups and payroll.

0:13:06.2 TM: Alright, so the team leads on attendance, this is a big one. So our teachers are the managers of their schedule, they real-time take attendance, whether they’re attended, or a student cancels, or maybe a teacher canceled ’cause they’re sick. And then the big one, there’s one called “no-show”.

0:13:28.3 TM: So those are the four choices, the teachers pull it up on their dashboard, right in front of them, select one, hit “save” and start teaching, and it’s done. And the whole system is notified that that’s there, forever. The reporting will have it forever. But here’s the neat one, Chris. If there is a no-show, does the teacher have to pull up his cell phone, start texting Melissa and operations or us, and start to find out what’s going on? Does he need to direct message the 14-year-old girl on Instagram to say, “Hey, where are you?”

0:14:03.4 TM: No, never again. The system sends out a beautiful customised per Los Rios what we require, note that has a little call to action to let us know if they’re okay. The teacher doesn’t have to do anything but hit “save”. Everyone’s notified.

0:14:21.6 CB: It’s kind of a no-show Amber Alert, and so if you activate that in Teacher Zone, what’s great is that it’ll actually, like Tyler said, text your custom message. So Tyler made a really fun one in ours that actually says, “Is everything okay?” So what’s so cool is that mums or dads or grandparents, people will respond back almost instantly to Melissa and say, “I’m so sorry.”

0:14:46.8 TM: Right, but most importantly, operations gets the notifications as well. So text message and email goes to the families on the account, then operations email that goes to all ops sees it as well, real-time. And do you act that second? Maybe not, but here’s what we also found out, schools around the world that are using Teacher Zone are hitting “no-show” within the first few minutes of the lesson, and it causes the parents to remember they had a lesson today.

0:15:18.6 TM: Especially when things are virtual, they’re forgetting that it’s time to log on to the computer and have a virtual lesson. So the Amber Alert has been a tool, besides the chat that’s built in, by the way, they could have used. They use it as a tool to get mum’s attention because no one wants to see, “Chris Bates, your child was a no-show at a Los Rios today,” is like the subject line. And they’re like, “No you didn’t,” and it causes people to jump on, click the green camera, get into their lesson a couple of minutes late. So that’s just a funny side story, but people…

0:15:54.9 CB: By the way, Tyler, I think this is something important. You have always… The one thing you’ve done really good… Not the one thing, but one of the great things that you do well is that you really, as a leader, you help our customers really understand the rules. And our customers, we’ve iterated for 12, almost 12 years now, like how important it is to show up. And so people feel guilty.

0:16:20.8 TM: Yes, yup. They feel guilty at our school if they gotta take a vacation, and they’ll tell us, “I’m so sorry, but we have to take two weeks and not one this time, but we just haven’t done it in so long. We haven’t seen grandma in Australia in so long. And we’re like, “It’s okay.”

[laughter]

0:16:39.5 CB: You know, Tyler, for fun on the attendance side, I just pulled my own son Hudson, so Hudson’s a sophomore, he’s been at Los Rios for a number of years. I just pulled up, he’s had 568 lessons. He’s had 415.25 hours of group and private lessons at our school.

0:17:02.8 TM: That’s amazing, and that’s only since… He’s been at our school well before we had Teacher Zone installed. So imagine what that would look like if we started in 2012 when he was like 2.5 feet tall?

[chuckle]

0:17:18.1 CB: Right. What’s so great about that as a parent, I gotta tell you, is there’s just a satisfaction with online learning of being able to get some data and be able to know what… Like we talked about, proving, the “deliver” is really all about the proof is in the pudding. The attendance is a great way of you proving what you’re getting, and then lastly, what comes with the attendance, Tyler, is payroll. And so how does that work?

0:17:41.9 TM: Well, the payroll is really easy. If the teacher takes attendance and we set our preferences how… Every school in TeacherZone.com can set their preferences custom to exactly how they work their payroll culture, how hours are paid, etcetera. So ours, we just hit a button and our main team member is Gandrud Financial. Mary Ann at Gandrud Financial is our payroll department.

0:18:06.7 TM: Every two weeks, she gets the payroll report directly from Teacher Zone and direct deposits go out and we don’t do anything, because the teachers took attendance real time, and it’s all integrated.

0:18:19.7 CB: So the team leads, by the way, guys, so we already said scheduling locations, Melissa and the teachers. The team leads on attendance, make-ups and payroll is basically the teachers and our bookkeeper, Gandrud Financial.

0:18:32.4 TM: Right. Oh, we forgot one important team lead. You’re not gonna…

0:18:37.0 CB: Well, that’s the next one.

0:18:37.6 TM: Who’s in charge of make-ups?

0:18:41.8 CB: Oh, students.

0:18:43.9 TM: Yes, the parents and the students are actually the team lead, and if something’s a little weird, like on a special occasion, Melissa may have to help for some reason, but otherwise they open their app as a parent or a student, either one, they go to “schedule”, they select “banked”. Those are those lessons that are approved to be restored, those are re-schedules. Choose which one, and where it goes based on open times, and then once it saves, it immediately notifies the teacher and the administration.

0:19:18.9 CB: So if you guys are listening to what Tyler just said, I hear so many of you tell me that your bane of your existence is how much time is spent on re-scheduling, and the back and forths. Tyler just told you that your team lead on that one is your students and parents.

0:19:33.5 TM: Yeah, you know the parents that actually bug you about them? Just give the job to them and be done with it.

0:19:42.3 CB: It’s their job. It’s not yours any more.

0:19:42.8 TM: I’m not sorry. By the way, they expire at Los Rios Rock School in 60 days. You guys don’t have to have an expiration date if you do use Teacher Zone. We do. We don’t wanna deal with those stupid things, and we found out the parents don’t either. No one has time for those stupid things. That’s a whole nother podcast, by the way. Go to Make Up Lessons Solved, is about 15 episodes ago, and listen to that one. Right, Chris?

0:20:11.7 CB: Yeah. What’s so great is that if we’re able to free up our time to be able to be better leaders in our business, and I hope you don’t have a problem with that term “leader”, because it’s important, it’s actually… We’re so grateful that we’re given the opportunity to try and help people be better, help our customers have a better experience.

0:20:33.0 TM: It’s an honour, Chris. To be able to be the third party mentor that the children or students will remember until they’re 80. That is an impact. If you’re making an impact like that, then you’re a leader, and it’s okay to say that.

0:20:51.0 CB: 100%, it’s okay. So the last part to this is communication, so with the communication on deliver, remember, this is “deliver” the proof’s in the pudding, who are your teams on deliver? So for communication, we have a team member that has saved our time immensely, like you call it buying back your time. Who’s the team member? [chuckle]

0:21:10.8 TM: Oh, well, we haven’t programmed a more inflection in his voice, but let me… Hold on one second. Hey, Mr. Teacher Zone, you here? Yes, I am here. Thank you so much for your help and being the team lead on over 50% of the communications at Los Rios. You are welcome. See? That’s him, everybody. Mr. Teacher Zone has literally singlehandedly taken over more than half of our communications. Tell them how, Chris.

0:21:45.6 CB: What’s great about communications, guys, is we have other people that are on the team. Mr. Teacher Zone is leading it, but then we have humans involved too. We have Spencer Hayden, who’s our social media and dealing with email newsletters, stuff like that. Spencer Askin is dealing with our performance emails, stuff like that. And then of course, we do have the admins and teachers chatting with students and parents and all that kind of stuff inside the system.

0:22:12.3 TM: Right, groups chats and one-on-one chats, parent to teacher, student to teacher, and then the student to group. Or teacher to groups. Groups cannot exist without a teacher or a higher security level involved. And guess what? The big caveat, we were like, “How are we gonna do this? Little kids chatting?”

0:22:33.8 TM: We figured it out and it’s about as basic as it can get, and it was right in front of everyone’s faces and we should patent it, no “delete” button in the chat. Everyone’s integrity is on the table. And you know what, there has been one instance out of 180,000 students in the last four years that’s happened, that we’ve had to deal with. One. And it’s been years. So that communication is super powerful. So the team leads, who are the team leads on those communications, on the chats, Chris?

0:23:05.4 CB: Well, the chats basically, again, it’s not us, and that’s what’s so great. Admins can do it, but ultimately you’re putting that on your teachers and the families. Because like in our chats, we have created communication that where students really feel a deeper connection, because that community, the other six days when they’re not with you, is super important. So that’s where the leads are them. And then if we just get into the list of what that team, the communication team, Mr. Teacher Zone and…

0:23:39.3 TM: Let’s do Mr. Teacher Zone first. 70 plus custom notifications that we as Los Rios go into Teacher Zone and we change every one of them to say, “Los Rios Rock School” instead of “Teacher Zone”, totally customisable, and even can change the body of each text or email that goes out for all the different instances.

0:24:04.5 CB: You know what my favourite is?

0:24:08.3 TM: Which one?

0:24:09.5 CB: The one you made that says, for assignments.

0:24:13.0 TM: Oh, “jackpot”?

0:24:13.0 CB: Yeah.

0:24:14.6 TM: “Your practice is inside. I wonder what’s inside?” That one?

0:24:17.1 CB: Yeah, yeah.

[laughter]

0:24:21.3 CB: It feels like I got a present or like I won.

0:24:23.9 TM: And you know it’s funny, it’s probably a good idea to change that every now and then. It’s been like that for four and a half years, we have not changed it once. Seems to be working just fine. So every time a teacher goes in, and this is part of the transformation formula, I’m not gonna give you too many hints ’cause we’ll do that next episode.

0:24:38.4 TM: But every time a teacher goes in and assigns an amazing assignment or a lesson plan, not only do the parents know it was assigned as soon as he hits “save”, “Your practice has arrived,” or, “Jackpot, your practice from Los Rios has arrived.”That is completely up to us how we want that to be said, and the teacher does not have to send a thing. They create what they would have already created anyways and hit “done”. And everyone is notified.

0:25:06.3 TM: That’s one of… Well, technically two, if you count the text and the email version, that’s two of the 70 notifications that brings the system to life. So Mr. Teacher Zone is an AI based on the coding to make sure that the delivery of everything we give them, everyone knows where they’re supposed to be, what they’re getting, when it’s due, and when they’re coming back.

0:25:32.1 CB: Yup, and one last thing, guys. We also have Mr. Teacher Zone integrated into other integrations, like Zapier which is thousands, so you can actually, when you get a new registration, it’ll zap that info. So that’s sort of a communicative, it takes stuff off your plate.

0:25:51.5 CB: We also have it communicating with Tri-Tech, if you have a POS system and you use AMZ. We also have it communicating with Google, so your students and parents and teachers, they can actually do our Google call sync so that it’s syncing into their iPhones and Androids and everything as well. So not only do we have the 70, not only do we have the chest, not only do we have that, but Mr. Teacher Zone is also integrating that communication to other like your CRM, your email platform and the like.

0:26:24.9 TM: Exactly. So that’s huge. So you heard about the group and solo chats, you heard about the auto reminder. So notifications that bring the system alive to make teachers lives easier, parents and students more in the know. Operations, happier, sleeping at night. That is the idea of this communication part of this particular quadrant piece of the framework, which is “deliver”. The how. So Chris, who and what are we discussing next week? Give them a little teaser without giving it away. So the pillars transformation, what do they have to look forward to?

0:27:03.2 CB: Well, the deal is that like Simon Sinek said, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

0:27:10.8 TM: Yup.

0:27:12.5 CB: And who you are as a business is if you’re in the learning business, you’re in the transformation business.

0:27:16.9 TM: Yup. I’m guessing you got involved because something sparked in your life and you never wanted to stop doing that thing, Jiu Jitsu, music, golf, Chris loves golf, and whatever. And therefore you wanted to spread the wealth, share the gospel of golf, whatever that is, and give that away. Why? Why did you want to give that to them? And that’s what we’re gonna get into next week…

0:27:46.3 CB: As we know, yup…

0:27:47.3 TM: And how the transformation is applied to teams?

0:27:51.8 CB: ‘Cause learning, as we know, transforms lives.

0:27:52.5 TM: That’s it.

0:27:52.7 CB: So we’ll get into that next week. Thank you, Mr. Tyler. Thanks for the proof is in the pudding on the deliver side. [chuckle]

0:28:02.3 TM: You’re welcome Mr. Chris.

[chuckle]

0:28:07.2 CB: Now we’re gonna have to make a cartoon avatar, I love it.

0:28:14.5 TM: Basically, Mr. Teacher Zone was born today, guys, but we had to give him props where it was due. So next week, next episode is the “transformation” part of the quadrant. Until then, guys, thank you so much for tuning in. And again, this podcast is sponsored by TeacherZone.com. Go there, find out more about us. And we’ll see you on the flip side. Take care. Bye Chris.

0:28:36.8 CB: Bye Ty.

0:28:41.1 TM: Mr. Teacher Zone out.

[chuckle]

0:28:45.8 TM: That was a fun one.

That’s a process that needs some love and attention. If it’s hard, confusing, and messy to become your customer, then that starts EVERYTHING off on the wrong foot.

So that’s what we discuss in today’s episode…Converting Customers.

Watch it Here

Or Scan the Show Notes Below

0:00:05.0 Tyler Marolf: Welcome to the next episode of The Teacher Zone with Chris and Tyler. I’m Tyler Marolf. I’m here with Chris Bates, and today is part two of the transformation framework and formula that we’ve been going over. So Chris, how are you today? And tell them really quick how they need to listen to the last episode and what it was on before we get into this one.

0:00:28.0 Chris Bates: I am awesome, and I’m so glad that you’re listening today. We’re gonna talk about the convert part of the formula. So for those of you that have listened to the last episodes, we talked about our transformation formula. We also talked about the first aspect, which was attract. Before that though, we did talk a little bit about our leadership, and that’s why this is a hybrid. So it’s basically how do you take your leadership style and how do you take the transformation formula that’s in our webinar, that’s in the podcast that we’re talking about, and how do you actually implement that with your teams? 

0:01:04.0 CB: So the first, go back and listen if you need to to attract. That talks about Tyler and I’s team there, and just to try and give you guys some inspiration, and then today convert is gonna be about how we convert customers from, we talked about how we get them from a lead to wanting to sign up, and today is the sign-up. So today’s convert, they’re becoming a student. They’re joining your program. They’re taking classes or lessons with you. So how does that work? So in the bottom line Ty is that you and I need to get out of the way for if you’re listening to this as a director or owner, just know that your team is there to help make what we do enjoyable. If you’re feeling stressed out, it’s ’cause you’re wearing too many hats.

0:01:53.5 TM: Right. So a quick review about last week, what are the three things we’re in charge of as founders and owners? And I know we wear 12 hats at once when we start our businesses and entrepreneurs, but the goal is to run an amazing and healthy and fun business to where we’re not working 80 hours a week. What are the three things we’re in charge of Chris? 

0:02:20.0 CB: Very, but most important is vision. Second is people, and third is finances. Vision, people, finances, those are the three most important things guys, and vision, vision, vision, vision, vision. Our real job is to remind our customers and our staff and the community at large over and over and over what it is we do, our vision.

0:02:43.3 TM: Right, and so the four parts of the framework are all vision-related, attract, convert, deliver. How, how do we do everything here and then transform that culture, tribal, amazing community impact, okay? So today’s pillar, correct me if I’m wrong Chris, is very people-based, like the people we found so that Chris and I can concentrate on growing the business, not working in it, but working on it is this convert is that people side. And do we have systems in place that makes it easy for the people, so the people that are already there, do they feel empowered and is it turnkey? Or is it just a mess? Is it taking too long? Are we it losing out? 

0:03:35.0 CB: Yeah, the messier your process to get someone from when they raised their hand to getting into your program, it sort starts off on the wrong foot, if you will. So it’s really important that the convert part is super clean, and Tyler and I are still defining, to be honest with you, we know with our team, all of us, what we’re trying to accomplish, but we’re trying to define the words around it, the words that he and I use a lot on the vision of our business, and so I impart you to before we get into this convert, just sort of think about that. How do you wanna impart your vision to your team in the world? One of the things that we say Tyler, [0:04:09.5] ____ on a vision. As we say, good values, make friends, play for life. Right? 

0:04:17.6 CB: That’s like our basic vision. Right? It’s not music lessons. It’s not Performance Academy. We happen to have our Performance Academy, but that’s not the vision we’re trying to impart.

0:04:28.0 TM: We also have a little side note that we’ll say on occasion to parents that get it. Most of ours do we’ll say, “Hey, you know what? Music is important at our school, but first and foremost is character and relationship building.” With those two things, you can do anything extraordinary in any avenue, and we just happen to do music and whatever your school does, that’s your thing. So I know you guys are relating to what we’re talking about here, so we’re gonna get into the three aspects of convert and how the teams handle that, and this is probably gonna be a short podcast because if it was long, we’re doing it wrong.

0:05:09.0 CB: Good point. If you haven’t heard the Transformation Formula Webinar, go check it out. It’s on our website, and transformation formula is a framework where we basically, from working with all of you around the world, we’ve come up with basically the four most important aspects of running our business. So number two is convert, let’s get into it. So the first thing to put Tyler to converting someone is your offer, which is pricing simplicity, basically just a simple offer so people know what service am I buying? 

0:05:40.0 TM: Right. Tell them who’s on our team for that, Chris.

0:05:43.4 CB: So for that, it starts with Tyler and I. I mean, he and I are basically the crux. If you look at the entire business, this is, he and I are the lead on this one.

0:05:53.0 TM: Well and I’m also known in many forums around the galaxy as the pricing gladiator. [laughter] So I have literally no fear of pricing us into the right amount of value, price ratio. I don’t have a fear, so I kind of just have this big shield that says pricing by Tyler, and I just put my shoulder into it and we go, we’re smart about it, and never once have we had anything adverse hit the company, not once. And so there’s some pricing episodes you can go back in time to listen to, but if it isn’t simple, which is the point of today, then it’s just gonna be convoluted to the customer and the convert won’t be easy. Right, Chris? 

0:06:41.3 CB: Yeah, so how we talk about our pricing, we happen to have a really simple membership model. So, in the pricing aspect of convert, it’s important that you, number one, have a clean, clear messaging website. So, our team on the pricing and convert side is Tyler and I, Brad our messaging person and then Drew, our website guy. So, the four of us try and make sure that it’s clear, but we do not have pricing on our website, you get that in a phone call with Tyler that… You might remember, we talked about Alexa and Taylor on the last episode. When they call to qualify the prospects, they then schedule a phone appointment with Tyler, and we’re not doing group appointments.

0:07:22.7 TM: Now that will be a group appointment through Calendly. So, we have streamlined two aspects of the attract, which there’s a little tour thing that Chris does. Instead of doing 12 different 30-minute individual private tours a week, we do them on a single 30-minute period now. And it’s this big group of…

0:07:43.7 CB: They’re way more fun, they’re way more effective and people love being together.

0:07:49.3 TM: And so we thought… And then Chris was like, Tyler, and I’m making a video, I’m doing all this stuff to optimize this phone call part, this intimate boutique. We wanna know about you.

0:08:00.4 CB: These guys some days, Alexa and Taylor are so effective, you should see Tyler’s schedule, some days he was having five calls a day with new prospects, and that just drains a day.

0:08:09.7 TM: Now, it is not necessary, you pop them on a virtual meeting, we all got trained overnight how to get into Zoom. Well, my Calendly link has my go-to meeting in it. And so they all pop in, we wait till they’re all there, and I guide everyone through the pitch all at once. Imagine what is… Our customer is about 4500 to 5000 a year customer, right overall. Imagine five to eight of those at once, and they scheduled it, it’s powerful and it’s quick.

0:08:43.7 CB: And there’s something about converting people in groups, by the way, guys, is they end up selling each other, so last week I had eight families tour. And what was so neat, there was two different 30-minute tours, that’s it. So we sold eight families of 5000 a year membership in only an hour combined, right, and it was super enjoyable, everyone sold each other ’cause they’re laughing and you can be more entertaining and all this. So, our process on the price simplicity is come up with something that’s very coherent, so what happens is, is that Tyler on this call, he tells them our price, which is we’re a one price.

0:09:22.8 TM: And they also hear the three things that everyone gets with their membership and that’s it. And I tell them that, “Hey everybody, this call is to the point, you need your nuts and bolts to take back to your families to find out if we are even the right fit for you. So, I’m gonna give you the three things that every student gets with the membership and then the price. And if you like that, you guys hop on a tour and all your dreams will come true.” It’s so basic.

0:09:49.4 CB: And then our tour, we try and make that all about the why. So, we make that about the actual students themselves, we really get them excited.

0:09:55.1 TM: And we tell that on the phone call, we say, “Hey guys, your kids are already here, we’re not interested in how excited you are about the program.” I call it, I kind of coined it recently, Chris, I don’t know if you even know this, this is hot off the press. It’s the 51% buy-in shareholder rule. The kids need to be that 51% majority holder of their journey at the school, and their parents don’t have voting rights.

0:10:27.1 CB: I love it.

0:10:29.9 TM: I don’t say it in that detail, but they get it, and we’ve always said it kind of that way, but I gave it a name. And the parents were like, “No way. That makes sense.” Unless they’re a parent that’s like at the very end, “Can you just come to the house and teach piano?” That’s the beauty of all this. It’s so simple, it’s like, “No, but we’ll refer to Danman’s down the road.” And so on, so it really helps not only pre-qualify but zip the people in to convert, like that.

0:11:01.5 CB: So, the first part of our convert is conveying our value and our price simply and over and over and over, so they know what they’re getting, and we try and drown them in value, so they feel like, “Oh wow, for that price, I feel like I’m actually… It’s inexpensive.” So, we don’t wanna talk pricing because…

0:11:23.2 TM: We have an episode on that, Chris, that episode is timeless, that thing is still good, go back and listen to it.

0:11:29.3 CB: Most of you were so far under price because you’re just… You’re so worried about competition versus value, it’s only about value okay? So…

0:11:37.5 TM: By the way Chris, real quick bullet point on this, if I may. If, in fact, they don’t tour or they do tour at this point, this is just a quick one, it goes right back to attract, and if they don’t do any of those things immediately, it turns right into attract, into the system. Except they got to see who we were. And so the girls… Our teams follow up, and then boom, we had someone show up the other day and they’re like, “Man, those Alexa and Taylor,” Wyatt, remember? They just stayed on me and I got excited, you know what I mean? And so that part of the system is never ending, okay, that attract meets convert.

0:12:20.6 CB: Well, if you think about it as far as a funnel, like people always talk about a marketing funnel, the attract part is the top of the funnel where leads are coming in and they’re talking to Alexa and Taylor, and they’re scheduling the call, the group call with Tyler. Then, Tyler’s group call is the middle of the funnel. He’s now saying, “Who’s going to get to this bottom part of the funnel?” Then he schedules group tours with me, which are the bottom of the funnel, right? From that group tour, we’re literally seeing sign-ups happen that next day. So from the group towards the close. And so we’re then getting into enrollment, which is the next step, in convert so…

0:12:57.9 TM: This is the part that’s quick. This is the short, to the point part everybody. So stay tuned, right now. Go ahead, Chris.

0:13:04.5 CB: Well, now that we’ve gone through that whole process of attracting a lead, getting them to the top of the funnel, Alexa and Taylor following up… Up to 13 times if they have to. Them getting other emails from Spencer, social media, and all this other stuff. They’ve now gone to the middle of funnel. They’ve talked to Tyler, and got excited with some other folks. Then they’ve gone to the bottom of the funnel, and they’ve actually come to see our facilities. And that’s where the rubber meets the road. Because when they decide to actually pull the trigger, then what we tell them is, we say, “Listen, you can’t decide today, but tomorrow when someone reaches out, if your… If you student… ” We actually talk to the students. We say, “If you, student are excited, then we’d love to have you, and mom and dad can figure out how to make it work.”

0:13:40.8 TM: That’s the only requirement for membership, kiddo. You have to wanna be here, and you need to go home and decide. And you know what? It’s powerful, and at that point, that’s when it gets easy because if they don’t enroll… By the way, buyer beware. I tell all the parents, I go… “If you go on the tour, 90% sign up.”

0:14:01.8 CB: Right. And that’s pretty true, because what happens is, by the time we’ve got them through that funnel, the tour is the bottom of the funnel. They’re ready to sign up. So then what we see the next day is Spencer Hayden, who’s on the enrollment team. So it goes from pricing, simplicity, or the offer to enrollment. He’s on the enrollment team. So Spencer and Melissa. Melissa is the lead, Spencer Hayden is right behind her, and then underneath that’s our Director, asking and other teachers that might help out. Why? Here’s what happens. Spencer, next day, sends everybody a quick email, “Hey, I know you had a tour yesterday. What questions do you have?” That’s it, so people come back. Oh, you know what? I’m sorry. He gauges their interest and questions.

0:14:39.4 TM: And usually it’s like, “Hey, he really loved the tour. What do we do next?” That’s the most common answer. And so why don’t we just skip to that one? 

[overlapping conversation]

0:14:55.8 CB: So when people say, “I’m in,” then Melissa takes it from there. So bottom line is that Melissa gets them over the finish line. So Taylor, she takes our automated, online, Cloud-based registration, and sometimes it’s on our website, sometimes it’s a registration link, and she just gets them to that registration, “Oh, you wanna enroll? Great, before we pick your time and your teacher, I need you to go do this.” So the very first step is collecting their data and their credit card, right. We’ve not charged them yet.

0:15:24.6 TM: And they not only do they customize their answers, based on questions we created, so we know exactly what the… ‘Cause at our school, our teachers are all multi-instrumentalists. All schools are different, so we custom boutique, pick who their journey is gonna be with based on their first, second and third, most important instrument goals. Maybe it’s just one instrument, but if there’s vocals, piano recording, that could be any of four of our 13 teachers. So therefore, our school, we don’t really have the widget set up where they can go and… They can read the bios all they want, but we place them by a vote. So that’s our little niche.

0:16:09.0 CB: By the way, Tyler, I have to bring this up. So we work with so many of you, and so many, whether it’s athletics, or we work with you with in language schools, or in the performing arts. It really doesn’t matter. If you’re teaching lessons or classes, privates or classes, then we all have that camaraderie, that synergy as far as how the offering works. So basically, what we’re doing is we’re distilling them into our privates. So the enrollment form, the registration form, gets sent, and they fill that out. As soon as they fill that out, now the next level happens. Now Melissa actually has data to go off of.

0:16:48.2 TM: And they’ve agreed to our agreement for parents/students. So…

0:16:54.4 CB: At that time, guys, we’ve already had them agree to our policies and procedures. So now they know the rules, now they know the requirements, they’ve answered the questions. We’re pretty much taken care of all the administrative stuff off-site, they’re doing it in their house.

0:17:11.7 TM: Yep. And our operations doesn’t have to… Melissa does not have to do it. And so here’s the great part, it looks so pro that today’s day and age is so cloud-based, that these families that know we have something special, this is just backing up the spine of our vision. That’s all that’s doing. It’s enhancing the mission and vision. Because let’s just say this, eight years ago, the mission and vision was there, but a lot of the bones weren’t. It was chaos. And so we’ve come a long way to get here guys. So you’re hearing a journey and where we’ve gotten to, to make this…

0:17:48.5 CB: Well, I believe automated… We have happened to use teachers on it… I think a lot of you listening are teachers and users too. But bottom line is that how you bring them in, it’s that first impression with regard to our professionalism. And so the fact that we do it very professionally, they get a great welcome email, they’re in, fabulous. Then the last stage is the automated payments. That payment trigger, guys, they’re not allowed to get on our schedule because basically, what they’re doing in the lesson and class business is reserving your staff’s time. They can’t reserve time without paying. So then, that’s where she gets… Why don’t you talk about that last stage, the automated payment stage? So we’ve got…

0:18:32.0 TM: Well, the automated payment stage is so easy because they’ve already put in either their ACH or credit card info. And oh my gosh, 80% of our customers… And we have a… We have a MRR of what, 80K a month. 80% of them love credit card miles, so they’re paying it off the next month, but they want the miles for the tuition, so I just thought that was a side note, that was a fun fact about people… For lessons.

0:19:07.7 CB: Yeah. I hear people tell me My customers don’t wanna pay by check, I’m like, No, they don’t… Yeah, nobody, nobody does the…

[overlapping conversation]

0:19:13.9 TM: Do you know how much gas it burns to use the energy to write with a pencil? 

0:19:19.4 CB: So the automated payments kinda make everything work, and Melissa gets that set up and the schedule set up, which again, they get auto notifications for that, and then lastly, Melissa is able to send the last… Hopefully, you got all that. Here’s directions to the school, here’s the room you’re in, here’s a teacher bio of the teacher we’ve set you up with so you can read it to your family, and then Tyler, she also pings the teachers right? 

0:19:49.9 TM: No… Well, yes, she pings the teachers based on the goals and information that we’ve learned about that child along the way, so they get a very short and sweet three to five sentence paragraph of who they get to meet and start to work with, but otherwise as soon as they’re on the schedule and the auto-pay starts, which is all magic, it happens immediately wants they hit the schedule. The teachers are notified, congratulations, we customize it. You’ve got a brand new student at Los Rios and it says their name and what time, and so the teachers know exactly, and it’s kind of exciting ’cause we make it sound exciting, they’re getting notified real time when that kid hits the schedule, even if he doesn’t start till next week.

0:20:35.1 CB: And when they register, by the way, we not only get the teachers on notification to our staff, but we hooked it up to Zapier and we have a really fun… Throw a party, we just got a new student email that goes out.

0:20:48.8 TM: To all operations.

0:20:51.1 CB: Yep. To the operation staff, so it’s a way to make this like a celebration, so that’s convert… We can get into more detail, but that’s the bottom line with convert, so now we’ve got attract and convert both of those elements guys basically are creating… We’re trying to get to transform, and we’re trying to get to engagement that creates a long-term student that retains the more your students retain… What is your average retention… Right.

0:21:17.1 TM: Right. Right.

0:21:20.1 CB: And the industry and the learning. Business, the average retention is typically, I think about 13 months, and so in all of our goals…

0:21:22.3 TM: How many seniors did we have graduate last August show… Was it 14 seniors? 

0:21:34.3 CB: It’s usually about 12 to 15 seniors.

0:21:37.2 TM: Yeah, and so you guys… We looked at the average age of those that they started with our school, and the… I looked it up, and it was around 12 to 13 years old that those college seniors were leaving, and Decks even started when he was younger, Chris’s son was one of them. He was with us forever…

[overlapping conversation]

0:21:57.9 CB: Oh it was great on stage, Tyler you weren’t at that particular announcement, it was so cool what the announcement were those seniors… A lot of the seniors were there. I said, “Hey, how long have you guys been with us?” I screamed from the audience, and Drew is like eight years… Decks was like seven and a half. Six years, nine years. I was like what? They’ve all… Everybody had been with the us over five years. Yep.

0:22:24.7 TM: And that is all based on this framework, you guys, we’ve had a mission to make an impact for a long time, and it wouldn’t have survived if we didn’t start to change as individuals and learn that there’s a process that has… People wanna build more trust and grow with us, so these customers and these families, they trust us, they need to know that we have their back and that their kids or any student is protected, that’s our vision, and that’s why the framework works. So next one, we’ll be getting in to deliver the proof is in the pudding though Chris. You could have as much culture in your brain that you want, if you can’t deliver how you do it in an efficient manner that is fun and easy to digest, you’re dead in the water, so that’s gonna next…

0:23:15.8 CB: The next two are your business. You’re right, you’re dead in the water. The next two are your business, the first two are what keeps the business… It’s kinda like eating, if you don’t eat you don’t live, so it keeps the business healthy and alive, the last two are what you consider your business deliver, transform.

0:23:34.6 TM: If I can keep a $5000 year student for seven years, I’m just telling you, it starts to make things easier. [laughter] Why would I want them gone in six months? 

0:23:50.0 CB: And it’s how we’re able to retain some of our extraordinary team members, and…

0:23:54.1 TM: Oh, that’s a huge part of it, we’re gonna have to add that to the outline in the deliver because that team. Oh, this is gonna be the best team part, this is gonna be the best to team part…

0:24:02.0 CB: So stay tuned for next week we’ll get on The deliver part and our team that handles proving all the things we promised these folks to get them to become customers.

0:24:09.3 TM: Thanks again everybody for tuning in and go to teacherszone.com for more information about Chris and I, and podcasts and webinars and all that, and we just appreciate your listening and viewership if you see us right now… Hello and we’ll see you at the next episode on the flip side. Thanks a lot Chris.

0:24:28.0 TM: Thanks Ty.