From France to Chicago – Thibaut Bannelier on Music Schools Across Cultures | Ep 24

David Martin (00:33.794)

Tebow, how are you today?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (00:35.851)

Hey David, I’m doing really good. How are you today?

 

David Martin (00:38.572)

Very good. I so much appreciate you joining me on the show today. You have such a fascinating story and I’m really excited to share your story or for you to share your story with our audience because I feel like you have a very unique perspective on this industry and just even different cultures. We’re really going to dive into that in this episode. But you started your music school very recently, like

 

like within the last couple years, a year and a half approximately, right?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (01:11.993)

That is correct. It’s been less than a year actually. We opened in February 2025 and we’re right now in April 2026. So yeah, it’s been really,

 

David Martin (01:19.852)

Yeah, just over a year. So really, really new, but you’re not really new to this industry. And that’s kind of what I want to get into as it relates to your experience and kind of, you know, how you’ve really been involved in the music, not just music world, but the music school world for a long time. And so I kind of want to go back and sort of take our listeners to the beginning, you know, when you were a kid, just kind of getting first introduced

 

to music. Can you talk a little bit about that?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (01:52.441)

Of course, the story is kind of fun. I grew up in France and my dad at age 40 did a huge life change, went from like selling car parts to opening his own music school. And he had his like midlife crisis, super, super standard. And he realized like, hey, I can’t find good music lessons for my kids in my neighborhood. So what am I going to do about it? And he decided, you know what, if I’m cannot be the only one to have this issue. So he decided to open a music school.

 

And this was a little bit over 20 years ago now. And I was a kid at the time, I was around 10. And I saw him open this music school and then open a second music school, move a couple of times. And I grew up in this environment. I was very involved in it. Obviously I played in other bands, but I also saw all those teacher evolve as person, as musicians. And I thought it was really a fascinating thing to see. And I loved the spirit around it, you know, just…

 

hearing the sound when you’re in the music school and you hear people learning music, having huge smiles on their faces. And yeah, this is how I grew up. I did get away from it though at some points. I started my own company a few years ago, ended up moving to North America to develop it here, ended up selling it, went to a corporate job that didn’t make me very happy that I have to work a lot for, but didn’t make me very happy. So was like, okay, I want to be an entrepreneur again. What can I do? And then I realized,

 

I had all this souvenir from growing up, from being in this music school, hearing those sounds. And I decided, you know what? I’m just going to open my own music school. So the story is kind of fun. I started just looking into like, hey, what would it look like to open a music school in the US? How is it different? How is it the same? And yeah, that’s the big line of the story.

 

David Martin (03:37.506)

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah. But I want to go back. you’re a kid, your dad opens this music school. Was he a musician himself?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (03:48.462)

Yeah, so he put his way through college by giving piano lessons. So he played a lot growing up and he is very musically inclined. But he is not a professional musician in any sense of the world, no.

 

David Martin (03:56.587)

Okay.

 

David Martin (04:01.432)

So he, so, but he wanted to open the music school because he didn’t feel like there were any other good alternatives at the time. So he, it just a piano school at the beginning or?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (04:09.261)

That’s correct.

 

No, he did all the instruments from the get-go. It was kind of interesting to understand, and that gets into the whole music school system, how it works in different countries. In France, there’s not a lot of private music school. Most of it are conservatory style and are completely financed by the government, basically. So they’re very cheap to enroll in, but they’re very academic in the sense of you’re here, you need to do lot of music reading before you even get to touch an instrument.

 

David Martin (04:20.909)

Right.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (04:42.969)

And there was not a lot of space for private music school that’s more centered about having fun, about discovering the joy of music before knowing is it something I want to do a career about. Most people that take music lessons, not because they want to become professional musicians right away. And it’s kind of an interesting observation he had. And he decided to do things a bit differently because people are very price sensitive in France. He decided to focus on small group lesson. So instead of doing one-on-ones that are a bit more pricey because there’s more labor involved.

 

They would have a group of like two to four students that co-learn together with one teacher. And they saw a lot of benefits from this. Some of them are like, if you see someone progressing faster than you are, then you’re going to want to try to go faster. If someone is going a bit slower than you are, then trying to pull them up is also going to help you understand what you’ve learned even better and progress yourself in an even better way. And this is like, was the whole history of the music school in France at the beginning. And this is still what they do most of the time.

 

It’s a huge majority of the business.

 

David Martin (05:42.254)

Wow, so I mean, it sounds like he’s quite a visionary, you know, seeing something that could be, because it doesn’t sound like there’s really anything like that in France now. Wow. Wow. And so his approach really is kind of like the alternative, or almost like the contrast, or the opposite of what the current conservatory option is in France. So if you want to just take lessons, have fun, and sort of a…

 

Thibaut Bannelier (05:52.089)

That is correct, there’s nothing like this at all.

 

David Martin (06:11.02)

very small group environment, that’s what he’s providing.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (06:15.267)

Correct. So, and that’s the interesting part that where we, where I learned a lot, it’s okay. I grew up in this school that is very about like creating its own space. And I moved to a different market in the U S where there is a market already where there is established practices. And that was a really interesting contrast for me to see.

 

David Martin (06:34.542)

Hmm, yeah, yeah. Well, no, 100%, and I wanna get to that. But I just think it’s fascinating, and I always love these stories of people that, you it’s like you look at a certain, like everybody’s doing it one way, and you just simply say, you know, what if we tried something different to actually solve a problem or a challenge that’s not, you know, nothing’s being offered in this particular area? So I love that, I think that’s really cool. And he’s been successful.

 

It’s not like he’s done this thing and just had 100 students or something like that. It’s a large school over there.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (07:09.771)

It’s a large school to have about 1200 students. They’ve been growing for many, many years and yeah, they’ve seen over 5,000 musicians over the years coming in and coming out eventually. And I think the team is about 30 teachers now. It is a really cool business overall.

 

David Martin (07:12.814)

It’s amazing. Wow.

 

David Martin (07:27.158)

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So, okay. So he’s got this school. Things are going well. You’re learning and you were involved in it too. Like did you actually teach at all or did you, were you just

 

Thibaut Bannelier (07:38.106)

Yeah. I did teach a tiny bit. was teaching some ukulele lessons sometimes, but mostly I was involved in helping to run the thing, not in like doing payroll or anything, but just seeing how things work, making sure I have organized the events, you know, all the concerts, we try to not say the word, the R word, the recitals, but all the concerts where we get to play together rather than just play one by one on stage, we’re trying to put little bands together.

 

David Martin (07:42.944)

Okay. Okay.

 

David Martin (07:57.654)

Okay.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (08:06.413)

So it made it so much more fun because I just, yeah, sorry.

 

David Martin (08:07.32)

So why, I like that you highlight that, R word. You don’t wanna call it a recital. Why not call it a recital? Why call it a concert?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (08:17.337)

So I think it stems from like taking those piano lessons before the school existed where it was like every kid one by one in this tiny church where it was kind of boring for the parents and they just come to really see your kid and that’s it and trying to make more of a community event around it more like okay I’m not going to see my kids I’m going to go see a show that’s put together by music students and that we always try to put together the piano student with the guitar students and we have like little improvised concept there’s

 

David Martin (08:38.115)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (08:47.105)

At the beginning, no rehearsal, it was chaotic, but in the best way. Because there was this experience of like, okay, what it is to be on stage and how well do we do when we’re prepared versus not prepared. And there’s this whole learning and community that grows from this. It’s even in the name of the school, it’s called Music and Company, right? The company is not for a business, it’s for company like being with other people or a music company.

 

David Martin (09:09.326)

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I agree. I’ve noticed that a lot of schools just even in the US, like there’s kind of a push more towards like showcases or concerts like you’re talking about and sort of going away from this sort of you know, static recital, you know, where it feels really kind of like, is it boring? You know, each kid plays one after the other.

 

And so, it seems like that’s a, I think that’s a good approach. I think it’s a good approach to it. Okay, so you’ve learned so much from your dad. And he’s obviously a very, he’s a visionary. What were some of the things that you would say, what were some of the big lessons that you learned from him?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (09:57.146)

I think some of the big one is if you want to do something, just try it out, see if it works out and push your vision as far as it will go. And I think one of the big lessons I got from this is yes, but to a certain extent, because then when you put it in reality and I don’t want to lead your own podcast, but it should be a great segue into like what I learned from doing it in the US too, is at some point you also need to follow.

 

data. You also need to follow what the actual market says because you need to understand there’s cultural differences between different places you operate in.

 

David Martin (10:32.886)

Yeah, yeah. No, I think you’re right about that. Okay, so at some point you came over to the US. How did that happen? What changed in your life?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (10:43.395)

So about six years ago, I had this company that was very successful in France. And I decided, you know what, I’m going to leave my business partner in France and go develop the North American market. And this thing worked pretty good too there. Got issues during the pandemic, like many people. Got screwed over by suppliers because you might know that 2020 things were complicated, especially when you were doing import and export of goods. So I ended up selling the company.

 

And this is why I ended up in North America because I just moved there, did this company thing, sold it, and then decided to know what the next chapter was for me.

 

David Martin (11:20.984)

So you sold the company, but your intent wasn’t to sell the company when you came to the US. Your intent was to expand it into the US.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (11:25.369)

Correct and we did to a certain point that’s why we could sell it also.

 

David Martin (11:32.108)

Yeah, yeah. that’s okay. So you sold it and then you kind of had this decision at that point. Like what am I going to do with my life? So why music schools?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (11:39.396)

Yeah. Well, to begin with, yeah, to begin with, I did sales for a little bit for like a tech company. was just, I don’t know what’s next for me. Let me do this for a little bit. There was this whole transition. That’s when I went and met my wife who grew up in Chicago where we’re located. So I had this kind of holding period. was like, okay, how do I settle here for real on the long-term without my company? What, who am I basically?

 

And when I finally settled here in Chicago, I was like, okay, what is the next chapter? And this is what I like to say is I was looking for my purpose and I was like, I want to be an entrepreneur again. And being an entrepreneur, I was not sure what it meant to me at the time. Was it do something very ambitious like I had done in my previous company? I was very cutting edge, very visionary or do something that’s a bit more typically mom and pop, something that is a replicable model that we’ve seen over and over again.

 

In France, we say like, open the next bakery shop, you know, like, you know how a bakery shop works. in France, like in for my thing, it’s like, okay, a music school is also a replicable business. And it was for me all about finding the right cursor between something that pushes the envelope and that I know has proven systems and can work. And the reason why music school came to mind, I think I said it a little bit earlier, but it’s because I really wanted to,

 

get back to something that made me happy and that I had experience into. What is my value coming here and opening a music school is, yeah, I’ve seen it done. I’ve seen it done in great ways in France. I’ve seen what works. I’ve seen what’s more difficult. And let me bring this experience here and try to bring my whole spirit and try to develop my music school here.

 

David Martin (13:27.95)

So you started the school. What were some of the expectations that you brought? Because I mean, your model was the school in France that your dad had built. So what were some of the things that you thought would work here that actually did not translate over?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (13:41.987)

That is correct.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (13:50.426)

Yeah, I mentioned about this whole small group model. I strongly believe in this model. I think there’s so much benefits. You get also more value because you can get more teacher time for the same price basically. And it kind of fell on its face here. When people ended up in it, they did really enjoy it, but it was very, very difficult to sell because people are a bit less price conscious in the US and they are more into like, I want something a bit premium. I want to feel very special.

 

David Martin (14:12.014)

Mm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (14:19.565)

And I think when they were like, it’s going to be a small group. feels less exclusive, less, okay. I’m the special person and I’m followed one-on-one and there is this breakdown in understanding of the value of doing a small group lesson versus doing it on one in one-on-one lessons.

 

David Martin (14:37.196)

That’s so interesting. we’ve had this conversation and we’ve talked through it before, but I’m so glad. wanted you to kind of bring that out because it is interesting. I think it’s a cultural thing. I think that maybe in the US, there’s this need for people to have things so custom and custom built for themselves. And I wonder if that’s part of

 

the challenge, right? Like it’s not like group lessons don’t work. I mean, they obviously do. There’s a lot of schools that do group lessons in the US and they’re successful, but there’s something uniquely, like your approach, this whole two to force like the small group ongoing thing, like you said, it was just hard to get people to commit to that, to sell it. And

 

Yeah, I just find that fascinating that, you know, because when then, you know, and like I said, we’ve talked about this, but then when you switched over and kind of focused on the one on one model, you’ve done really well. Like you’ve grown quite a bit.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (15:42.778)

That was actually, realized one of my biggest bottlenecks is believing so strongly in my vision. You know how I said, there was this vision thing that you need to stick to it. I believe so much into it that I kind of like put myself in the corner. And at some point I was like, okay, I need to like push harder and I just try something different. It was working for me, but there was two different main issues, organization in France. people sign up for lesson in September and take the same class until May all the time. And this is…

 

David Martin (15:55.182)

Hmm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (16:12.983)

You can’t really sign up during the year. You can, but there’s very, very few people that do. So it’s much more of a yearly model than a monthly model. And that obviously creates huge headaches in terms of organization. If you’re going to do a 45 minute lesson or an hour lesson and you want to pair the right people, if they keep coming in and out, it’s much harder. The interesting part is also you’re talking about the individuality, need of being very customized. I think it’s down to the way the culture works.

 

David Martin (16:22.467)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (16:42.871)

where we have in the US much more of an individualistic culture, right? Where in France, we have a bit more of a socialist culture and like, okay, no, I’m not that special. We all know we are special, but in our own way, like we understand like, okay, is like way to work. There is some like boxes that I can be into and it’s down to the culture. It’s down to our education. Where in France, our education is very box focused and we learn to fit in certain boxes. Where in the US,

 

David Martin (16:47.765)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (17:12.087)

We’re always told what’s special, we’re always told what’s different. And I think it’s really interesting the huge difference there is here.

 

David Martin (17:19.03)

And it’s not that group, like I said, there are schools that are doing group. think some of this has to do with the, you talked about a more affluent customer, you know, somebody that is willing to spend more. They’re not as price sensitive. That’s not every area in the U.S. There are areas in the U.S. where they’re much more price sensitive and they may be more open to a model like this. I, you know, I always try to approach it like, you know, let the demand dictate

 

the path forward for your business, right? Don’t force, don’t try to force demand when there just isn’t demand. If there isn’t demand, then just pivot. And that’s one of the things I’m really impressed by you, Thibaut, is you are willing to pivot. Not everyone’s willing to pivot. It’s like, is what, this is the vision I had, this is what I thought, and I just have to keep pushing until it works. And I think that’s a mistake. I think it’s smarter and less painful to let…

 

the demand dictate the path forward. So that’s so fascinating though. think that, I think you’re right about the individualistic difference between the US and the French culture.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (18:29.977)

And to give you a sense of like the order of the scale of like difference of prices, the lessons in France do not run 48 weeks a year, it’s 30, but we’re talking about $800 a year versus in the US, especially in my school, the price range like for 30 minute lesson starts at $200 a month. So we’re not in the same universe in terms of like spending. So yes, there is price sensitivity.

 

David Martin (18:57.538)

Wow.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (18:59.043)

but we’re not on the same order of magnitude. So I’m not talking about saving 10, 20%. I’m talking about dividing the price by two or three, right?

 

David Martin (19:08.12)

So it’s 30 weeks, 30 weeks of lessons. That’s it. And then you take the next, what would that be, 22 weeks off.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (19:11.415)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (19:17.527)

Yes, so the way it works is there’s 30 weeks, but in France they have two weeks off every six weeks, and then the summer they have two months off.

 

David Martin (19:26.158)

Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that’s wild. That’s wild. And you know, the breakdown on that $800 over 30 weeks is like 26 bucks a week. So that’s like a little over $100. So half of the revenue. Wow. That’s yeah, that is a big difference.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (19:36.568)

Mm-hmm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (19:41.71)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (19:45.325)

half of the revenue per hour, but a quarter or like a third of the revenue per year because there’s so much more we can, lessons we can actually give in the US too, right?

 

David Martin (19:57.44)

Now are you open, so in your current school, you, how many days are you open?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (20:01.869)

So open 48 weeks a year for now, five days a week. We’re adding Sundays starting this week, actually.

 

David Martin (20:10.36)

Sundays, not Saturdays.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (20:11.501)

Yeah, well, we are already open Saturdays. We’re open Tuesday through Saturday, and we’re adding this Sunday.

 

David Martin (20:18.056)

interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. But again, I’m assuming that’s based on demand. So that’s good. Yeah, wow. Okay, so you immediately noticed when you opened your school that there was a cultural difference between what you grew up knowing as a successful music school, which by any stretch of the imagination, your dad has built a very successful music school in France.

 

And so you brought those ideas and they just didn’t work. And so you had to pivot, you had to tweak your model on that. Was there anything else that you noticed just in terms of the differences?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (21:03.213)

So.

 

So there’s one little thing first. I don’t think we can say it didn’t work. It was just way more painful than doing the one-on-one. Because it’s kind of an important distinction. It’s just like there was an easier path. I think one of the other things I did learn is how people do not communicate the same way. If something is too expensive in French, people are going to tell you, hey, it’s too expensive. In the US, they’re going to tell you, I think about it.

 

David Martin (21:12.558)

Fair enough.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (21:35.641)

you know what? I think it’s very fairly priced, but I can’t afford it rather than just be direct with you. And it’s a bit harder to get a real customer sentiment from talking to them, at least in my observation.

 

David Martin (21:51.978)

Interesting. Yeah, so it’s a little bit more direct, your experience. Yeah. Yes, one of the big differences we have in France and the US is also the need for flexibility. The model in France is very yearly based. I said earlier, we start in September, we end in May. So it’s very easy to have groups because they do not change along the year. Whereas in the US, we do have those activities that’s changed during the year. So the schedule change and parents cannot make it. For the first year,

 

David Martin (00:30.338)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (00:48.626)

We had zero flexibility. It was just like, can’t make it to your class. Well, you’re going to get a video from your teacher, but this is it. And no one was complaining that much about it. I could see some people would like, be a little bit hesitant to sign up because of this policy, but I did not have anybody tell me, oh, I’m quitting because of this. And I decided, you know what, maybe I need to go poke a little bit deeper and understand, do I have a churn issue because of this? Do I have…

 

sign up issue because of this. So we just tried it out. We’re like, okay, let’s try this make a policy. And we used what Opus One does very well of like having the people self book and self cancel lessons. And we did see a big difference in both retention and in conversion. So it’s kind of an interesting data point that is very reflective of like how the culture is different in the US than in France, because in France people understand

 

David Martin (01:31.726)

Right.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (01:46.566)

Yeah, I don’t show up. It’s my fault. In the U S there is more like, yeah, I don’t show up. Well, I have an expectation of customer service. I should be able to reschedule my lesson.

 

David Martin (01:55.2)

And this and you know, this makeup issue is such a controversial topic on many levels because I tried so many different strategies with makeups. You’re right that just saying no makeup, I think it’s a mistake only because I think there’s a lot of people that have an expectation to at least get something. And, you know, so so many people have tried so many different things as it relates to this. It’s

 

But one of the things that you brought up, Opus, Opus One offers this, like there’s this, because there’s automation built into the booking and there’s scheduling, and the parents themselves can actually take care of the hassle or the administrative hassle of.

 

just doing their own makeup. And I think that’s one of the challenges of, you especially when you start to scale school where you’ve got 300, 500, a thousand students, it’s like, how in the world do you manage all these different makeups if you’re individually giving people makeup lessons every time they miss? And, and the answer is really automation. It’s, it’s putting the burden onto the fan, like the people that actually need to cancel and want to cancel. And then that expectation of, of being able to rebook. And so you’re, saying that you

 

you’ve kind of implemented that strategy in its work.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (03:20.656)

Yes, it has worked really well for me. also noticed, should I? Lost my train of thought. Sorry. Yes, we implemented this and I did see a big difference for our music school. I also learned a lot from this because again, we had no flexibility in France, but it was also because of the systems we had where they are still using Excel spreadsheets, Google Calendar, this kind of things, where we decided here in the US to have more of like a modern stack, we’re using Opus One.

 

David Martin (03:43.725)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (03:50.397)

to do all of this. And I can say that all those policies I have would not be possible with a stack like we have in France, where it’s much more Excel spreadsheet based that has a lot of merits of simplicity, but also have its limits in operational constraints and also in ease of having different admins. We have one admin per music school in France, and the rule is not really delegate table at all. You cannot pass it off to somebody else.

 

David Martin (04:18.072)

Well, and I think it’s a great point that you make, because it’s not just France. People in the US are also, their tech stack is just Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Google Dot, like the Google Suite, essentially, because it’s free and it’s easy. But you’re limited in what you’re able to offer your customers if you’re putting that level of archaic admin on your staff.

 

You’re limited, like case in point, like makeup lessons. You really can’t offer something as complex as an individualized makeup lesson where people can just make up as they go with their self-booking. You can’t do that if you have the Google suite.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (05:03.898)

Obviously the cost is not the same though. So at the beginning, when you come at it in an angle of I’m a music teacher who’s trying to expand just being just me with other people. It’s like kind of hard to justify when, if you don’t think a bit differently, like, okay, I’m a music school owner. My goal is to be organized to save my time, to send my admin staff. Then I realized, yeah, to do the same thing with Excel spreadsheet wouldn’t require me hiring one or two more person. I can tell you this would be way more expensive.

 

than paying a bit more on my tech systems.

 

David Martin (05:35.884)

No, that’s true. That’s true. But I tend to lean more towards the mindset shift, right? The growth mindset versus the, I’m a teacher and I have this small studio and so I need to keep my expenses as low as possible. Of course, if you’re small and that’s it, then definitely keep it simpler. But I just think that’s really interesting that you made some of those shifts and some of them worked, right?

 

you know, this idea of the small group lesson. People liked it, but it was hard to really sell. It was hard to get people to sign off on it. So when you did make that switch over to one-on-one, it actually converted more. I think that’s very interesting. But go ahead.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (06:20.336)

And about this, sorry, about this growth mindset, it’s kind of interesting because I had this, this, I did it kind of by necessity because when I started my music school, I kept my job for the first eight, nine months. And if you keep your job, obviously you cannot be always available and you need to be super organized. So it was by necessity that I had to be, to have this growth mindset. And I was not the one teaching, I was not in the studio. So.

 

If I wanted to delegate some of the work, some of the admin work, some of the front desk work, but I was forced to systematize and to systematize, you kind of have to have this mindset growth. So I suppose it’s kind of an interesting thing to know that some, is different ways to think of opening and growing a music school. can do it from a place of like, like teaching music and I want to give it to more people or Hey, I want to open a business that works. And for this, I need to systematize a lot of things.

 

David Martin (07:17.486)

Yeah, well, it’s a great point because everybody has their approach. And I would say most school owners started by teaching, having their own students, building their own personal studio, and then expanding out hiring teachers and scaling from there. This was not your path. Your path was you wanted to build a business. You had just had a successful business that you sold. So you already understood like the life cycle of a business, you know.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (07:36.69)

That’s not.

 

David Martin (07:47.026)

And so starting this business right out of the gate, and we’ve had conversations about this, I’ve always been impressed with your attitude and approach towards your business. You’ve always thought of the school as a business to scale as opposed to, and by the way, there’s nothing wrong with starting the business as a teacher, it’s how I did it. Started as a teacher, you have your students.

 

and you’re growing out more organically that way. But it definitely can be a slower path. And you will get to a certain point where you will definitely have to pivot your, like your mindset, which again, I, this is my road, right? Like my road was I started as a teacher. I taught all the students, I managed everything. And then I realized, I have to hire teachers because I don’t want to do this forever. So I figured out how to hire teachers.

 

And, you know, every single step for me of scaling, had to pivot my mindset. And that in and of itself is a challenge, right? Like pivoting your mindset is kind of a big deal, right? Like it’s like those aha moments where you’re like, like for you, you know, realizing I need to go to one-on-one lessons. That was a pivot for you. Like that was a, you know, it’s hard to do that because you have to come to the realization that maybe I don’t have this thing all figured out. Maybe I need to reach out and get some help.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (08:54.586)

It is.

 

David Martin (09:12.504)

maybe read some books, maybe get some coaching, whatever, and be guided a little bit. And that’s a humbling thing to realize. So it’s part of this whole process of learning and growing, but kind of come in full circle here on my whole point was just that you went and came into this business as already you’re wanting to build this thing from the ground up as a business.

 

So it definitely has served you well.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (09:44.083)

And you know, the, interesting thing about this is there is a whole also push and pull of like, I’m creating this business as a business and not as an accidental business. Like some people are once again, it’s not that it’s a better or worse path, but to myself, I had to justify, okay, am I still doing it out of passion too? Right. What is my real mission? And it’s easy to forget your core mission. If you don’t start from scratch, being a musician and growing it because you like transmitting music. And I had.

 

just for my own sanity, pick my values and why am I doing this very early on? Because it’s hard. So if you don’t do this, like you kind of lose track of why you’re doing this and is it even worth it? For me, those were twofold. Obviously, it’s sharing the joy of music with kids and how much it helps them grow, evolve their mentality, like help them be more curious, more creative. But there’s this other big thing where my teachers are musicians, most of them.

 

I know that every music school hire musicians, but for me, there is a real mission of like getting good job for musicians, a good baseline job. So instead of like busing tables or working at Walmart when they are not gigging, having this thing where they get to transmit their passion.

 

David Martin (10:57.6)

Yeah, yeah. I think that’s a great passion. That’s a great path. It’s like just the fact that you care about your teachers and you’re offering them employment. I want to pivot a little bit here to marketing. You do a really good job with this. You get a lot of leads. You have an understanding of kind of the lead process, generating leads and then converting them to students. So

 

What were some of the first marketing strategies that you put into place when you first opened your school?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (11:34.065)

It’s going to sound funny, but I think the first thing is accepting that I don’t know anything. Yes, I have some strategies, but I need to talk to the expert people that has done this before. So I have my background of like knowing how e-commerce works really well. And I worked with a ton of agencies on this and from my success and failure of employing different agencies, I realized, okay, I need to hire somebody who understands not e-commerce, but ideally understand music schools. And I realized.

 

David Martin (11:39.086)

Sure.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (12:03.772)

There’s a bunch of different people that specialize just in my niche, in our niche in this case. And I think this has a really big value because they have proven systems when you don’t, they don’t need to find a product market fit that we have in e-commerce because it’s a business other people have that works successfully. It’s all about applying learning from other music schools. So basically it’s stealing someone else’s work and okay, they figured out how it works. So instead of doing it myself and thinking, I know better.

 

hiring people that know better than I do on this and learning from them. And it doesn’t mean taking their word for gospel either because they don’t know what are my goals exactly. But I think this is one of the big things on marketing is accepting that yes, I have my ideas, but I should also steal other people’s ideas in a good way. Not in like, I’m going to steal it and, it takes away from you, but they just steal someone’s homework.

 

David Martin (12:51.331)

Right.

 

Yeah, there’s a famous marketer by the name of Bill Glazier and he’s written some fabulous marketing books. by the way, if you want to read a great marketing book, read one by him. But he has this phrase where he calls swipe and deploy. So swipe somebody else’s plan, strategy, marketing idea, whatever, and then just deploy it in your own business.

 

And that’s kind of what we do in the marketing world. We’re just always looking for new strategies and new ways. so swipe and deploy for sure. you know what? That’s a great point that you just brought up though. Like this idea that like, hey, I understand business, I may not, there may be a lot of things in this particular industry that I don’t understand. And so I want to go leverage somebody else’s knowledge.

 

that has already done it, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Like that’s a really smart thing to do, you know, for anybody in any industry. Like look for the person that’s already done it successfully. They’ve already established it, they know what works, what doesn’t. And then just copy what they’re doing. And you’re gonna have the fastest, most reliable and consistent result from that that you can get, right?

 

may not be foolproof, but it’s a whole lot more predictable than trying to figure things out on your own. So that’s actually, that’s a pretty cool answer. So, but specifically, what were some of the things that you did early on that really worked for you?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (14:33.842)

Sure. Yeah. So the biggest lead magnet for me, the reason why I’m where I’m at is online marketing, meta and Google, especially Google nowadays. Yes, word of mouth works. It is very useful, but you need to have a seed. You need to have enough people so the word of mouth can take and the machine can be going.

 

I had a lot of doubts opening my music school. Okay. How am going to get this original seat? It doesn’t exist. It’s impossible until I decided to accept that. Yeah. To create the seat, I’m going to have to invest a little bit. And then this was the real difference. It is understanding that if you invest a little bit, you’ll get your money back on the long run and you’ll get the machine going. It’s the cost of like getting, you know, cranking this engine and get it started. And for this it’s, I

 

used a marketing agency very early on and invested as much as my cash flow would allow, sometimes even a bit more than my cash flow would allow to get the machine started.

 

David Martin (15:38.968)

Yeah, yeah. So you’re saying then that Google and Meta or Facebook is those were your two primary ways that you regenerated lots of leads.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (15:50.963)

That is correct. What’s really interesting in the Google and meta space is analyzing like what’s the value of my leads. Obviously, if you know how much it costs you to get someone in the door and you can convert them, then you can say, yeah, it’s worth it or not worth it. If my customer lifetime value is, let’s say two years, I can spend three, $400 to get someone in the door. It makes sense. Or you know your budget and what you can put into this.

 

The part that I’m learning more and more, it’s to understand the value of your top of funnel, where it comes from. I’m realizing it’s much cheaper to get a lead from meta, and it’s much more expensive to get from Google. But at the end of the funnel, the Google lead are so much more valuable that, yes, they cut four times more than the meta lead, but they convert four times more. So at the end of the day, they are more valuable because they’re already looking for music lesson.

 

David Martin (16:44.109)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (16:48.05)

They have the intent, obviously.

 

David Martin (16:49.934)

So you’re talking about quality of lead, right? So Facebook, you’re finding that the leads you’re getting on Facebook don’t have the same efficacy that Google has. When a Google lead comes in, they’re much more likely to convert. That’s interesting, yeah, that’s interesting. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still go after the meta leads or the Facebook leads. It’s like those are still, you know, you’re still getting students from it. But it is an interesting distinction.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (16:52.22)

quality of lids correct.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (17:12.242)

Correct.

 

David Martin (17:18.446)

between the two. Yeah, it’s funny because I had a podcast with Cana Miller with Red Blind Media. Yeah, I know you’ve worked with him. So he was talking about this very thing, know, like when we talk about, we’re always looking for the next silver bullet, the next big winner, you know, the next marketing channel that’s going to beat all of the others. And now, of course, everyone’s looking at AI and Claude or chat GBT or whatever it is.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (17:24.654)

I know him very well.

 

David Martin (17:48.266)

And he’s like, you know, Google, it still is producing the best results. Like it’s, it’s, it’s kind of boring. It’s kind of like we’ve been doing it for so long, but it’s like, it’s still like, have to invest in generating leads through Google, like Google and, and Metta. They’re both still the best way for us as music school owners to be getting students in the door and,

 

And so it’s like, if it works, then why are we trying to reinvent something or go out and find something else? I just found that interesting because it kind of goes along with what you were just saying. That’s how you found the most traction at the beginning.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (18:31.346)

And actually it’s something I do not do very well. It’s outside of Google. I do not do enough. And we’ve been talking about this because David, I don’t think we mentioned it, but you’re also my coach and you keep telling me like, yes, it’s awesome to have the core of the onion. I’m putting your homework out for other people to listen to, the core of the onion has to be this ad buying. then don’t forget about the signage. Don’t forget the community events. Don’t forget marketing, obviously to your existing customer base.

 

But at the end of the day, still need to have a solid core of the onion.

 

David Martin (19:02.292)

Yeah, yeah, well that and also, which you’ve heard me talk about many times, but your three marketing lists that are so critical that so many people miss this. And you your prospects, your active students and your former students, those are like, that should be your main inflow of students, influx of students that you’re getting.

 

you know, converting your prospects and getting your actives to upgrade and then your formers to come back. Like that’s it. And those lists just get longer and longer. Like the more you stay in business. And so that just, that just means you’re going to get more and more, you should get more and more students from those three lists. And so, but yeah, there’s so many different things, you know, like I, I, I found that when it comes to marketing channels, you should have a minimum of 10, but ideally 30.

 

maybe 40 if you’re really dialed in and you’ve got a team helping you. So that’s, like if you want to see stratospheric growth and stability in your business, then do that. Anybody that does that and maintains it over a period of time will do very, very well in their school. But I just think it’s really cool to see just, you know,

 

implementing these strategies and really in real time seeing these things work. And you’re just such a great example of that. But tell me now, what are some of the challenges, right? Every school owner has challenges. Even if you’re growing super fast, then that creates new kinds of challenges. So let’s talk about some of your current challenges that you’re facing and where we’re at.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (20:45.873)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (20:53.106)

Ah, yeah, of course. Two things I can think of top of my head. The first one is very pragmatic is understanding my retention better for my students and getting my churn under control and understanding what is linked to having a new music school that’s growing very quickly. So my lifetime value is lower than I would like it to be, but I also, there’s a lot of those false start those like students that start and never really practice. So this first 90 days is so critical at the music school as a

 

as a new, sorry, those first 90 days are so important as a, a new customer that I’m realizing I need to be better at this at understanding how can I get people to stick past 90 days? Because if they stick past 90 days, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve been here forever. Basically all my churn come from people that are new students. so I think this is one of my big challenge I’m trying to work on.

 

And the other big challenge, I just want to present them both to you before we can dig into them is learning that I am the reason the business is where it’s at. And that goes both in the positive and negative way, right? It’s so far because I came so far, but it’s only so far because I didn’t go further either, right? I didn’t grow fast enough. And I think it’s interesting, this accountability thing of like both understanding how you should be like happy and content of where you are, but also accepting that

 

David Martin (22:01.11)

Mmm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (22:18.606)

You could go further without it being negative, without it affectively negatively, you did a way of thinking about yourself. And at the core of it, if you get this right, it’s so much easier to grow. and I think one of the biggest growth opportunity I had recently is learning to delegate better to my team. knowing that usually I’m the one in the way of things happening. Well, even though I have all those systems, like if it comes to me, I’d become a bottleneck because I have so many things going on at the same time. Right. So.

 

David Martin (22:37.175)

Hmm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (22:48.482)

If it has to come through me for every like, can I give this one exception to this kid who’s like absent one more time than plan and can I give him an extra credit? Well, then it needs to go all the way to me. Sometimes it’s going to take a bit longer to react and I don’t delegate the power and I don’t let the school live. It makes me the face of the school, but also the thing that’s in the way of the school.

 

David Martin (23:11.518)

I love that. That’s such a great, that’s a really good point. You’re the reason that you got to this point and you’re the reason why you’re not further along. That’s so true. And it’s like, that’s the point at which we can say, we can be humble, right? That’s where it’s like we were saying before, like sometimes you have to reach out and get help because you know that the limitations of your thinking is the limitation.

 

of where your school can go and where it is. And so, because that’s really all it is. It’s all up in your head. And so when you can expand that thinking, and oftentimes the only way to do that is by realizing that you need help. need somebody that’s a little further along. I absolutely love that, Thiebaud. That’s so good.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (24:02.524)

And, and by the way, this goes through like being in other communities of other music school owner, having a coach, but it also on our personal life, like speaking about our challenges to our friends and people around us, because it is very isolating to own a music school to be at the top, because at the end, no one understands really where you’re at. being, getting help doesn’t only come from expertise. It’s also come from this making sure you seek out for help in other ways, you know, whether it’s therapy, whether it’s like just.

 

speaking to your friends, to your parents, to people around you, I think it has a huge impact.

 

David Martin (24:35.712)

Yeah, yeah, well, I 100 % agree with that. So you’re saying, though, that in terms of challenge, that’s something that you’re thinking about, like you’re needing help kind of solving that or?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (24:52.514)

No, I don’t think it’s an image of challenge, something I’ve been working on. I think it’s an ongoing challenge that if you think you’re done, it means you stop trying kind of thing. So I think it should always be a challenge. But on the actual challenge part, think this 90-day retention issue is a really interesting subject to dive into because I’m not very good at this yet. And whether it is having better systems,

 

David Martin (25:10.072)

The retention.

 

David Martin (25:17.207)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (25:22.181)

or understanding better what are the reasons would be very helpful. And the truth is it takes the time it takes sometimes. And you have to be a bit impatient in the way if you have to look for the solutions, but sometimes like, well, you’re going to have a lot of new students because you’re a new music school. So you’re going to have a bit more churn and it’s, having challenged to accept what should be acceptable and what I have, what are the levels I can actually pull. I’m sometimes struggling to understand what those levels

 

David Martin (25:30.317)

Yeah.

 

David Martin (25:39.852)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (25:51.388)

can be.

 

David Martin (25:52.366)

Sure, yeah, no, that’s great. That’s really good. So, okay, well, let’s dive into this a little bit here. First off, I would say we need to get everybody on the same page when it comes to retention. Meaning, teachers need to understand how important it is to you. That was a big surprise to me. I remember talking with my teacher, like, realizing that I needed to get everybody on the same page. And when I talked to my teachers about it, like, it just wasn’t even really on their radar.

 

Because as soon as they would lose a student, there’s a new one on their schedule just pops up. it’s like, for them they didn’t really feel the pain as much as I did of like the cost of losing a student and then the cost of getting a new one to replace the old one. Like those were two costs. So I had to then make up for that. But the teacher didn’t have to make up for that. Because what did they lose? Like they just lost the ability to hang out with the…

 

their student that they had before and now they have a new one that they get to know. So the first step I would say, Debo, with this is get everybody on the same page, communicate to your teachers, and by the way, your staff too. The staff’s the same way. Again, doesn’t hurt them when a student drops. They don’t feel the pain in the same way you do. And I don’t think there’s any way to fully give them

 

that no one’s gonna fully be able to get into your mindset, but you can get them closer. You can get them closer, right? And so I think that’s the first step is getting them on the same page. Now, how do you get them on the same page? Go ahead, did you have some?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (27:32.305)

Yeah, at the, at the core of it, I know where my gap is on this one is I started delegating a lot, trusting people a lot. And I think it’s awesome. But what I haven’t done yet is the next step of like trusting, not but very frank, but having ways to, to, keep accountable. And I think that the next step would be to like, not only have the KPIs, but also communicate them and use them as coaching, coaching insights, basically for them. And this is the

 

David Martin (27:39.214)

Mm-hmm.

 

David Martin (28:00.045)

Yes.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (28:00.231)

big thing I’m trying and starting to work on is I was so focused on the KPIs of the top of the funnel, the conversion rate, et cetera, that I forgot that at the end of the day, I also need to make sure when they’re in, is still KPIs that need to be followed and they’re not the same because they’re not the one I’m used to in e-commerce, know, like the funnel, how it works, et cetera. I need to learn those KPIs and I have an intuition of like what those are and we’ve been talking about them for a little bit and I’m trying to put them in place, but

 

David Martin (28:02.882)

Yes.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (28:29.554)

At the end of the day, I need to hold everybody accountable on the lifetime values of the customer on their conversion rates and to not only get those metrics, but also use them at Accelerable Insight for them. Like, Hey, I’ve seen you lost, you have a 20 % chance of your students over two months. Like what can we do to change this? Because you’re costing me too much money when you do this. Like if you want to have your next pay raise, if you want to have your next extra day of teaching, well, I need to see those metrics improve because at the end of the day.

 

This is how it works. The Unity content needs to make sense for us and this is what it is.

 

David Martin (29:05.069)

Right, right. Yeah, and you know, there’s so many different ways to do that. You know, the way we did it was we tracked it. Instead of calling it retention, we called it drop rate. So we just inverted it. We flipped it to a drop rate percentage. And so that way it was just 5%. You can’t drop more than 5 % a month. If you do…

 

over three months in a row, then that would trigger a teacher meeting. And then we would sit with the teacher and we’d be like, hey, let’s strategize. Like, how can we improve things? How can we kind of clean things up? And we would look at all the students that dropped out of their studio in that meeting and we would talk about them. Like Susie, know, six-year-old Susie. They decided to drop because Susie said she wasn’t interested in lessons anymore. Well, so how are those lessons going? Let’s talk about Susie.

 

And the teacher would be like, well, you know, she had a hard time showing up. And when she did show up, she just wasn’t really engaged. And it’s like, OK. And so we would just kind of like go through that. And but what that just that one exercise act will communicate a lot because it communicates to the teacher like we’re paying attention. We’re paying attention to the students that are in your studio and the ones that are dropping out of your studio. Like we’re monitoring this. So by the time like you.

 

we had this in place for a number of years. But at a certain point, we’d schedule the teacher sit down and the teacher already knew, like, yeah, these are the list of students. They’re basically conducting the meeting for us. They’re like, apologize, I’m trying these different things. Our goal isn’t to beat them up. That’s not our goal. And then we make that very clear. Our goal is to like, let’s rally, let’s huddle, let’s…

 

Let’s find ways we can help you be more successful. But the current path that you’re on is not sustainable. It’s not sustainable. We can’t keep giving you students if you keep dropping this many students. And so what we would tell is Mr. Teacher, Mrs. Teacher, whatever, like, we’re gonna have to stop giving you students if you can’t control like this.

 

David Martin (31:20.852)

mass exodus out of your student. We need to give students to the teachers that are actually keeping the students. And it’s not because we like them better than you. That’s not what it is. It’s just simply because they’re demonstrating that they’re keeping the ones that we give them. And so it doesn’t cost us so much money. And it’s a very delicate conversation, but you kind of have to balance the business side of it, the money side of it, and the relationship side of it.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (31:43.889)

Mm-hmm.

 

David Martin (31:48.846)

And it’s really important that you don’t go too heavy handed on the numbers or that, you know, it’s really important because these are people, they have feelings, they have insecurities and emotions just like all the rest of us. And so we have to be very careful, but we do have to be firm. And just by having that, you almost don’t even have to do too much more than that, right? You don’t even really have to beat them up too much on like, well, 5 % and this and that, whatever. It’s like,

 

You don’t have to tell them about like, cost me $300 to get a new student and da da da da. You know, it’s like some people you might have to go there, but most teachers know, like they know, like they, can’t, you can’t drop this many students and make it make sense for us to continue giving you students. So let’s work on all these different strategies, you know, and oftentimes, so what I did is we got a little bit bigger, I created like a, a,

 

core group of, I called them my teacher leadership team, and they created content for the other teachers. And the content was like, how do you keep, it was all about student retention, right? Like how do you communicate with the parents? How do you make the lessons fun? You know, prizes, whatever. And that was then curated and put into a library, like just this little simple video library. And so I would use that and I would say, hey, we have this resource for you.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (32:52.196)

huh.

 

David Martin (33:14.402)

Go watch these videos. And so it’s like I could give them something. So anyway, feel like a lot of it is just simply, we’re not gonna have time to go through all the different student retention things, but I wanted to kind of hit on this one because I think it’s a really important one to get everybody on the same page, but do it in a way where people don’t just feel like they’re a number or they don’t feel like you’re just,

 

Thibaut Bannelier (33:29.298)

You

 

David Martin (33:44.542)

money grabbing or you’re viewing them as a liability. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (33:48.497)

As a unit of production. Yeah. Well, as a unit of production. And that’s interesting because we, feel like we’re going down this route where I went from the top of the funnel. Now I coach very actively my teachers on the trial lesson and how to convert it best. So now I’m going back to this part and I need to start to apply what we’re learning and who are doing on this on the next spot. But it also comes down to patience a little bit where I cannot do everything at the same time. And yes, it should be on the top of my priority list. but.

 

David Martin (34:03.307)

Mm-hmm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (34:17.682)

I do see how, like, feel like I have an intuition of where we’re going down this, but I still need to just execute on it. And there’s like something, there’s just nothing to it, but to do it, you know?

 

David Martin (34:24.546)

Yeah.

 

David Martin (34:27.852)

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s really, it’s a hard thing to do when you’re first implementing it because you have to learn how to communicate with these people and do it in a way to where you’re not, like I said, making them feel like they’re not good enough as people. Like that’s not what it is. They just have a strategy that they’re not

 

Maybe they’re not tapping into, maybe there’s some learning, just like we talked about earlier about being a business owner. Sometimes you have to reach out and get help from other people further along. This is no different than that, right? So it’s really, really important. And I think it’s as you grow, obviously you’re not the one that’s having these meetings. And so then you have to learn to train your manager or your

 

like, so for me, I created a corporate structure where it was, I had my, my director assistant director, and then I also had a teacher director. Like it was, this was a guy who was actually a teacher, but I sort of elevated him through the ranks where he became kind of our faculty director, where he would, he would kind of do these coaching sessions and help the teachers that had.

 

that were struggling with their retention. anyway, so it’s not something that you necessarily have to do forever, but you certainly gotta pave the way as the owner. You have to start this thing and then document it so that somebody else can eventually come in. And hopefully that person will be better even than you at the communication part of it. I know that was the case for me.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (36:13.936)

And, and it’s, and it comes down to like the whole, like, you need to like learn a job to like get yourself out of that job, right? That I keep saying like, my job is to get myself out of my jobs. Right. And, I that’s, we’ve talked about pivot a lot, like I’m starting to pivot from like, okay, I’m the front desk person at the beginning. Then I hired someone to do front desk. Then I was the music school owner.

 

David Martin (36:24.34)

Yeah, that’s right.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (36:41.668)

And like just the, like the manager and I was sorry to be more of an owner role where I’m having, make sure my people can actually run it. And I’m realizing more and more that most of my stuff is better at my, at me on many jobs, you know, just on like organizing the schedule. They’re better than I am because they’re in it every day and they like doing this stuff, which I don’t like to do at all. And right now the next steps I’m trying to learn to delegate are the one you just mentioned, the coaching and also the recruiting is a really interesting part where.

 

David Martin (36:46.339)

Mm-hmm.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (37:10.768)

I’m still a bottleneck on this side because I still do all of it and I’m in the process of documenting everything and starting to include my staff in the decisions here.

 

David Martin (37:21.166)

Right. And that’s great. That’s great. And that’s how you scale is by documenting and it’s time consuming, right? Because there’s lots of different things that you have to be thinking about. over the long term, if you document, document, document as you grow, then it’ll allow you to scale and continue to build the business out. I think that you’re on a great path to you, Bill. And one of the things that you’ll find too with retention is it ebbs and flows.

 

Like there are seasons where it’s just more painful than other seasons. Right now we’re in a pretty tough retention season because you you’re competing with sports and summer’s coming up and all that. And so it definitely is more challenging I think during this season, but this is when we’re, you know, it’s a trial by fire, right? Like we’re learning and we’re having to have those conversations. The other thing I was gonna mention about like a strategy, and there’s so many strategies, but again,

 

We’re limited by time here, another one is just simply getting your staff to try to save the drop. This is like one of the biggest frustrations that I had when a parent would call in or message in or whatever, and they would say, you know what, we have soccer, soccer’s starting, Johnny’s gonna have to quit lessons. It’s just not working on the calendar.

 

And my staff’s reply is, okay, I’ll get that processed for you. And it was just like, my blood would boil. Like, what? Don’t just take it, try to save them. Don’t just let them go, you know, try to save them. And it’s an awkward conversation for a staff because now it’s like they’re having to convince or sell or something, you know, and they don’t wanna do that. It’s easier to just be like, okay, I’ll take it and process it and da, da, da, and it’s done. And again, they don’t feel the pain.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (38:57.274)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (39:10.822)

Yeah, it’s…

 

David Martin (39:19.106)

Right? It comes back to that same thing. They don’t feel the pain. They’re not on the same page as you. And so getting your staff to save or try to save the student quitting or the family quitting, is that one thing will save more students. It sounds kind of funny, right? Well, we’ll just try, you know? But it’s true. If they just simply try. Now, how could you try?

 

Well, find out what the reason is. If the reason really is soccer is starting, maybe they just need to change days. Maybe they don’t realize you’re open on the weekends. Like maybe they need a new teacher. I don’t know, something, but try. And you’re not gonna save them all. You’re not gonna save most. But if you save a few, that’s more than what you would have saved if you didn’t try, right? Like just try, try to save some. Like that’s a big step in the right direction for any school owner.

 

that’s frustrated with student retention. Their staff probably isn’t trying at all. And if you think they are, listen to the calls. I’ll bet you there will be a bunch that they just took. They just processed it and they didn’t even try. yeah, yeah. So there’s a bunch there and there’s a bunch more we could jump into with that, but that just those two things right there will probably be your biggest needle movers.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (40:23.548)

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (40:34.246)

Yeah, that’s a good point.

 

David Martin (40:48.212)

If I’m being perfectly honest, you could, there’s a lot of other things you can do and you should do recitals, by the way, or concerts or showcases, whatever we want to call them. Those are big, big, retention needle movers. so those, those are great. You have to be doing those, how often to do them. Of course, that’s another conversation, but, but I would say just on the day-to-day operational side of things, everyone needs to get on the same page. And that’s the teachers.

 

and then that’s your staff. And if they don’t feel it when a student drops, they don’t feel the pain of a student dropping, then you’re gonna have a very hard time getting any difference, any change in your retention. So, does that make sense?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (41:32.956)

That makes a lot of sense. I feel it’s one of those situations where there’s nothing to it but to do it, you know, at some point. Yeah.

 

David Martin (41:39.714)

takes effort, yeah, it takes effort and work. And as you’re doing this and as you’re growing and scaling, again, I come back to that same thing of document, document, document. So scripts. So the staff says, well, what do I say? How am I supposed to try to save them? It’s like, okay, well, then let’s document it. Let’s write down some different potential things that you could say, you could offer them, right? The first thing is you wanna find out why.

 

A lot of times people won’t tell you the truth, right? And so, well, how do you get the truth? Okay, well, maybe just ask it a few different ways. Instead of just saying, why are you leaving? How are the lessons going? Maybe that’ll elicit a difference. the lessons are going great. He’s just, you know, he’s frustrated with his teacher. did you know that we have other teachers? You know, like, there’s so many different ways you can go, right? But maybe ask it a different way and think about how…

 

you might be able to, how they might be able to approach the conversation. But yeah, they have to at least try and save them. So yeah, no, very good stuff, Thibaut. I think what’s interesting about you and your story that I’m just so inspired by is just the cultural difference. You made certain assumptions and then you pivoted.

 

You pivoted to the model that you’re now currently doing. You’re experiencing growth. I mean, you’re even looking at, we’ve had this conversation, you’re looking at the next chapter, which is kind of my final question for you. So what is the next chapter for Teebo?

 

Thibaut Bannelier (43:18.332)

Yeah, I am.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (43:23.558)

Well, I’m looking into different avenues. My dream is to have more than one music school. When I started this one, was like, I want to have like two, three music schools. And now I have this one running kind of well. like, my dream is evolving a little bit. Like, hey, I’ve seen all those other people do different things. And maybe make all this more like 10 music schools, you know? Or maybe my goal is to, I’m actually trying to find what’s the way I’m going to do it. But,

 

David Martin (43:42.382)

Hahaha

 

Thibaut Bannelier (43:48.307)

I have two main paths I’m exploring right now. It’s opening a second location, not too far from mine to get a lot of synergies. Obviously the pain with this is starting from scratch is difficult because you need to acquire all the students again from zero. You need to rebuild the team from scratch. Okay, there’s a lot of learning. It’s a lot easier than the first one because I have already all the baggage of what I learned from the first one I opened here. But it takes long, it’s expensive.

 

And the other thing I’m looking into is acquiring another music school. Like we have so many music school owners that are retiring, that are just done with it. There’s many reasons for it. And I’m starting to look in my neighborhoods, what are options here? And the negative on this one is you inherit problems or the culture that was there before. So it’s a bit harder to set your own culture, but it might also be a good thing on the long run of seeing different things and how they’re done and seeing

 

or personally by doing it in real life, what actually happens when you do it. So yeah, those are two of the main paths I’m exploring. Obviously it’s also a bit cheaper, not in the way of like, yes, it’s more cash upfront, but it’s easier to finance. If you just have something that has like profits, you can go to the bank. So, it’s going to take four years to pay this off. it’s just a very different mindset of doing both ways. And the truth is, I don’t think it’s one way the other. I need to explore both until I find the right opportunity for me.

 

And that’s what I try to spend a lot of my time on. At the same time, not losing sight of, I still have a lot to do in the current music school, right? We spoke a lot about together, like splitting focus where if you split your focus, sometimes one plus one equals 1.5. And you don’t want this. You want one plus one to be equal to five. And that’s going to be the main push and pull here. But at the same time, the truth is the music school as it is right now with all the systems in place, if…

 

David Martin (45:25.272)

Mm-hmm.

 

David Martin (45:30.53)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (45:42.544)

I don’t try to make things better like I am right now. About an hour or two of work a week would be enough. It runs in many ways. It’s more the improvement that the input I can give to it is improvement. It’s not just the day to day. So it’s my main challenge. It’s my main next steps is finding what’s my next venture. Not obviously forgetting the old one, but what’s the next step for us?

 

David Martin (46:06.914)

Wow. Well, whatever you decide, I know that you’ll be successful. just have the right approach and a great perspective on it. So, Teebo, thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your story with our listeners. And again, I wish you the best, my friend.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (46:28.678)

Thanks so much David, I hope everybody got understood my weird French accent.

 

David Martin (46:33.393)

I know it was great.

 

Thibaut Bannelier (46:35.891)

All right, thanks a lot David.