Note: This Post Originally Written for our Portland School, Between The Lines Music.
Finding our Niche
When you're starting a business, especially one that is in a competitive market, one of the first things to figure out is: Where does my business fit? What do we offer that is different and awesome, that our competitors don't?
We thought about that a lot as we contemplated setting up yet another music school in the Portland area. They're everywhere! So how could we set ourselves apart?
First of all, our location in Downtown Portland is unusual for a music school. The building itself is cool and quirky, which can be a plus or a minus.
We decided to think of it as a big positive. It sets us apart, for a lot of really good reasons. We're not in a suburban strip mall, near families with young kids who want to take some lessons. That's ok... that market is well served by a great many wonderful music schools (some of whom we work for!). The market that seems to us to be underserved is... GROWNUPS!
When we all lived in British Columbia, we found that a large number of our students were adults! Some of them were already musicians who wanted to add to their skills (a guitarist who wanted to learn to sing harmonies, for example, or a classically trained music teacher who wanted to improve their understanding of jazz). But just as many were adult beginners, or adults who'd taken lessons as children and quit... and always regretted it. Those students didn't feel comfortable at a school where they were surrounded by little kids and their parents. So they came to us.
We want to encourage adults to take music lessons - it's fun, it's good for your brain as well as your soul, and it's important to take time out of your busy schedule to do something for yourself! Of course we also teach kids - we love that, too - but we understand that adult students have different schedules, and different needs from a teacher, and we're working hard to make Between the Lines Music School the number one call for grownups who want to play some music!
So join us at our downtown studio for a lunchtime or after-work lesson, (or inquire about our rates to have one of our instructors come to you) and...