Today’s video is partly tongue-in-cheek and partly dead serious.
Because whenever I encounter stigma for something, my reaction is to drag it out into the light of day. Either we should be doing it, in which case let’s shine some light on the stigma itself - let’s unpack the arguments against it and see if it really makes sense - or let’s stop doing it immediately.
It’s with such an eye that today I take a detached view of the very coaching program I’m co-running with Jacob Evans, and its low-four-figure price tag. That’s a non-trivial amount of money.
And I’ve gotten some pushback on some of the ads I’ve been running.
At the risk of “feeding the trolls”, I decided to address the subject once-and-for all, so I can go back to ignoring any such feedback. The reason I decided it needed the spotlight, though, was that the same week as I caught criticism for charging money in any form for my own teaching…
…I was also receiving comments about how tough it is to be a music teacher, how music teachers need to be paid more, how we need more affordable housing in urban areas because it’s pushing out the musicians and music teachers, etc.
All stuff I agree with.
But you know one way to get paid more as a music teacher? Charge more.
Which leads us to good and bad reasons to charge a lot of money for your services. Should you charge $100 for a bottle of water? Probably not, but people simply won’t buy, because they have a lot of other options, and bottled water is a commodity.
Should you charge $20,000 for an airplane seat? Sure, it’s “rich people wasting their money cringe gold”, but I think most people would agree there are enough affordable options around to get from A to B (and the credit card miles game for those who want to nerd out and play it) that “go nuts”.
But there are legitimately skeezy ways of earning money, like pyramid schemes, false promises, and profiteering. What are those? Are music teachers in danger of running afoul of any of them?
Finally, if there are no ethical hurdles to charging premium prices for music instruction under the right conditions, where does the actual stigma come from? Let’s break down the best arguments against charging a lot of money - nay, charging at all - for music coaching - and see if they hold water.
That’s all in the video.
P.S. Finally, to go completely meta, if you’d like a look inside the rather-expensive coaching program that all the fuss is about, our open enrollment is for the upcoming quarter is open for a few more days. (We’ll probably close it Monday night.) Is it for everybody? No. I’ve got free materials, and cheaper “self-directed” courses I think are great. But if you’d like a peak at what intensive, live group coaching with personal feedback can be like, you can learn more below, and book a free, no-commitment consult call to learn more about the program and get an audit of everything you’re doing in the shed, so that even if you don’t end up signing up, you’ll still get value. Check it out below.