Y'all, my heart is just overflowing right now and I gotta share/shoutout!
As many of you know, the KSM student base has long since grown beyond what I could handle myself. This meant that about a year and a half ago, I hired my first full time teacher, and since then even more.
And then around February of this year, I literally begged my husband, Clay Faris, to leave his day job and help me run the studio because it was more than I could successfully manage on my own. He came on in March and has jumped in with both feet!
These have been some big changes! First of all, I am a recovering control freak and LET ME TELL YOU trusting others with my business (I.E. with students and their families that are dear and important to me) is challenging! But I felt the pull to serve more people than I could on my own, so I had to figure it out! The magic trick is that I surrounded myself with an incredibly competent team that is also dear and important to me.
Clay is running the communication and tech side of everything and I gushed to him yesterday that things are running so smoothly that I don't even know what's going on in the background. I just see new students showing up all the time for their first lessons leaving excited, I see our existing student base getting their emails and phone calls answered faster, and at least once a day he is fixing something technological. It is so nice to know that my studio families have support from him - and so do I. He's even taken on a few bass students to share his extensive knowledge.
Kati has become my business bestie helping me with creativity and innovation. And holy moly if you want a gorgeous flier - she's your gal. Her banjo lesson blocks are almost full and I love knowing that teaching music has been a dream of hers for so long - now it's part of her day to day. That's incredible.
Paige has become irreplaceable in no time! She's only been teaching here for 2 months and already her students love her and gush to me about her energy and passion for teaching. She is sharing the knowledge she acquired from me during her two years of lessons, and also from other instructors along the way. Her student base is filling up too and I always hear laughter coming from her studio.
Caleb - my first big hire and one of the best choices I have ever made - inspires his students daily with his musicianship and dedication. He truly has the heart of a teacher, so much compassion and patience and knowledge. Also one of my favorite musicians to play with.
Leah seems able to bring just about anyone out of their shell in lessons and inspires them to confidence in her own, quiet way. I know music won't end up being her profession after college, but it's amazing to see her share the knowledge that she gained as my student of 10 years and work her way through her degree.
Rachel is, I'm sad to say, leaving us soon to dedicate more time to her huge side hustle (I don't know how you do it) and continue leading the BSO. But her cello expertise will be sorely missed.
And I'm excited to say we will probably be hiring another vocal and guitar instructor soon.
These days I am tapering down my own student base to focus on supporting my team, and leading us forward to offer more classes for kids and adults. There are workshops on songwriting that I want to create and lead. We're also getting a pre-K class going in the fall for tiny musicians and I CANNOT wait to see Ms. Paige teach that. I'm also beginning to create videos for my teaching team to help them understand and tackle issues that come up in lessons. This will likely be something I offer to the public at some point, as well as a how-to on creating your own music studio from scratch.
If you've read this far, thank you. I don't share this to be braggy-braggy. I share it because I'm marveling at how different my life is now from 13 years ago when I first started Kat Starr Music. I share this as a reminder to DREAM BIG and take steps toward it. You just don't know what you're capable of until you try.
Anyway, I'm so lucky to have all these people in my life and on my team. We're all passionate about meeting students where they are, sharing our love of music, and bringing out the musician in each individual.
xoxoxo,
Kat