Matthew Rusk Student Entrepreneur in Residence

This week I’d like to talk a little about hiring. It’s been a very productive week for us at mgrmusic.com and we’ve hired 8 new teachers. Hiring is something that many small businesses struggle to fit into their already jam-packed schedules.

When we hire new teachers, we have a process that we like to follow.

First of all, we have to find teachers that I feel will be a good fit for what we do. We want to speak to individuals who are motivated and hungry to grow their business and we hire based on locational needs. When we’re building a new page for a new town, we then have to find a teacher to fill that space.

My usual process involves an initial outreach where we initiate contact to get the conversation going before scheduling a call. Once a teacher signs up via the online form we provide, we then schedule a follow up call to get them geared up for the next step which is getting into our systems and seeing how it all works.

Once we’ve hired a teacher, we spend time with them to be sure they know how to use the platform and perform all the admin tasks. This is similar to the training that you’d typically go through when starting any job. We schedule some phone calls/Skype calls to walk over everything that needs to be discussed and be sure that everything is in place for that teacher to start receiving lessons.

For anyone who runs a service based business, they know that on boarding clients correctly is a core part of the sales process – after all this is it the first time a new client (in our case teacher) interacts with your business/product, so you want to make a great impression. It is also a time where they are likely to have the most questions, so ensuring that the support is there to help them in those early days is so important in setting up a long lasting partnership.

Small business update this week, one of the newly onboard teachers has joined as a Piano Teacher in Bournemouth, named Alicia Sanchez. Alicia is originally from Madrid and moved to England in recent years to study a for a Masters in Health Psychology at Bournemouth University.

She runs her piano lessons business as a mobile teacher and works with students around the area to share her knowledge. Alicia specialises in Classical music and is very well educated in the works of Chopin, Bach, Beethoven and Liszt. She can also teach a wide range of other styles. We are delighted to have her onboard and really excited to have now opened a new music hub in Bournemouth for piano lessons.

Posted under mgrmusic.com, Music Teachers

On the weekend of the 21^st and 22^nd of September I travelled down to London to attend the UK Guitar Show. I had been planning to attend for a few months in order to facilitate some face to face relationships with companies I had already started speaking with but also just to catch up with people I already knew.

Events like this are wonderful for networking and getting to know the people behind the business. I spoke to a bunch of vendors from both big and small companies and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The show was so well organised, and everything was really easy to find.

Some of my favourite discussions happened with some great companies that manufacture guitar amplifiers such as Orange and Blackstar. Both companies make incredible amps and we often find teachers and students of mgrmusic.com singing the praises of small and large amps from both companies.

One really cool conversation was with the owner of a company called Chicken Picks. They produce high quality guitar picks using some unique design and manufacturing methods. We spoke at length not only about the product but about the ethos of the company and the people behind the brand. It was really interesting to find out how they make their picks and how they get them to market.

They engineer their picks from a thermosetting plastic which is harder and denser than standard guitar picks, therefore harder wearing and will last longer and more resistant to breaks and chips appearing with heavy use.

If that wasn’t cool enough, their manufacturing is based in Belgium and Germany where they actually give back to local communities. They employ staff from a company called Fivelingo which is a sheltered employment organization. Fivelingo prioritise employment opportunities for job seekers and they also provide income support to low income workers.

They offer workshops and opportunities for anyone to learn a skill and secure a great job. Sometimes we forget just how personal the supply chains of some smaller companies can be. We should do more to support companies like this.

We have recently brought onboard the amazing Greg Mudd as a bass teacher in Southampton. Greg is a highly respected player and has performed across the world in some fantastic venues. He has also taught bass at some incredibly prestigious institutions.

He is currently based at Portsmouth Naval Base where he works as the Professor of Bass Guitar for the Royal Marines Band Service and a lecturer of Developing the Musician at Southampton’s Solent University.

His list of qualifications is also impressive including a Masters Degree in Musicology, BA (hons) in Humanities and Music, Diploma in Music and more. We are excited to have Greg onboard and look forward to working with him in more detail.

Posted under mgrmusic.com