An Honest Review of the Successful Group Lessons Digital Course: Is the SGL Course Right for You?
Many of you follow me here on the blog, or on IG (@notyourmotherspianostudio), because of my content around group piano. In fact, most of the questions I receive in my DM’s are group piano related! However 8 months ago, I knew NOTHING about group piano. After reading and watching hours worth of content from different creators around group piano, I finally landed on a digital group piano course that I purchased and completed.
This article is a deep dive into my honest review of the Successful Group Lessons Course, and hopefully will give you some insight on whether this digital course is right for you.
General Overview of the Successful Group Lessons Digital Course
Successful Group Lessons is a digital course created by music marketing professional and CEO of Grow Your Music Studio, Daniel Patterson. Since 2015, Daniel has helped thousands of music studio’s scale in profitability, lesson quality, and retention. Rather than vague concepts that are difficult to successfully implement, he provides “professional systems and marketing frameworks that [he] personally uses in [his] studio” that are easy to personalize to you and your studio’s individual needs.
In the Successful Group Lessons Course, Daniel includes 5 sections of video training:
Getting Started (Introduction)
Logistics (Equipment, Group Procedures, Classroom Control)
Marketing (Strategies to Build/Convert to Group Piano, Email Templates, Scheduling)
Education (Curriculum and Principles)
Bonuses (Summer Camp & Q&A)
Each section consists of in-depth videos by Daniel–walking you through the initial ideation of your own group piano program, what it looks like to actually plan and launch your program, how to overcome common obstacles such as parent push-back, and every other step along the way.
He also includes recordings of his own group lessons in action to give you a REALISTIC depiction of what his systems look like in real-time:
The Successful Group Lessons course answered questions that I didn’t even know I had until it was addressed in the training.
What Makes the Successful Group Lessons Digital Course Different from other Group Piano Digital Courses?
Successful Group Lessons was not the only group piano training I had completed. Previous to SGL, I enrolled in other valuable group piano courses by amazing music teaching professionals. So, what makes SGL different?
Multi-Level Curriculum
An overwhelming number of group piano courses teach that all students have to be at the SAME level in order for the curriculum to work. You obviously can’t have advanced students progress with students who don't even know how to note-read yet, right?
This is where the Successful Group Lessons course stands out the most against other generic group courses. Instead of struggling to schedule ALL students of a similar age and level at the same exact time, on the same exact day, Daniel offers a completely different approach. By utilizing extra equipment such as headphones and colored cards, Successful Group Lessons makes it possible to teach students that are completely different in level and maturity WITHOUT hindering student progression.
No Membership or License Required
This feature was a seller for me. Like many music teachers, I struggle with spending money on myself or my business. For this reason, I completely avoid recurring costs such as memberships or license renewals. The Successful Group Lessons digital course was an up-front, one-time fee. No fine print or hidden fees–complete transparency.
So was it a no-brainer for me to spend the money? Absolutely not. In fact, I originally pushed back on Daniel and told him it was not financially feasible for me (which is a valid argument). But the truth behind this familiar excuse for me and many other piano teachers is that we actually DO have the money–we just don’t see the value of spending what we perceive as too much on our business.
Daniel debunked that for me.
He invited me to reframe my mindset around spending on my business, encouraging me to see growth opportunities as investments with a sizable financial return. And he was right. Within 3 months of launching my group program, I was able to completely pay back my investment for the course AND start profiting.
It Really Does Have it All
Although I found useful content in other group piano courses, Successful Group Lessons is the only course that had it all. But what do I mean by “had it all?”
Daniel takes you through every detail and stage of the planning process. The training not only provides you a list of what equipment you will need, it presents a list of THE MOST recommended equipment brands and models. The training not only advises you on how many students this approach works well with, it shows you the MOST EFFECTIVE layout of how your room and its equipment should be arranged and practical strategies of HOW to manage a classroom of that size.
Once the practicalities are sorted for your program, the marketing training equips you with tools that ACTUALLY work to build and/or convert your private studio to a group piano program. With customizable email templates, sales pitches, and Daniel’s personal scheduling strategies, the training strips the marketing process down to down-right simplicity.
In addition to encouraging a NEW multi-level teaching approach, Successful Group Lessons reveals 6 educational principles to help you run your multi-level groups successfully AND several teaching call Q&A’s where Daniel personally addresses REAL questions by REAL teachers:
The One Pitfall with the Successful Group Lessons Approach
Throughout the training, I only had one area that I struggled to fully get behind–isolating students using headphones. I felt like this took away the community aspect that made group lessons so valuable. I wanted my students to form relationships with their music peers and use that relationship as a source of motivation and accountability. I wanted my students to have more opportunities to perform in front of one another and dispel that all too familiar performance anxiety.
And by the same token, this pitfall is also where I realized that the Successful Group Lessons course was the perfect customizable framework. It provided all of the detail to follow their system and approach, but still left enough room for me to break away and strategize to meet my own studio’s needs.
In order to take all that I had learned and make it my own, I decided to marry Daniel’s approach with the 20-20-20 framework. The first and last time blocks are exactly the way that Daniel designed, but the middle time block is MY community twist! This is where my students play games, get silly, and get off the bench for some fun. In fact, I created an entire PDF download of easy, no-prep piano games for group lessons.
Is the Successful Group Lessons Digital Course Right for Me?
This is the ultimate question, isn’t it? You’re reading this article because you’re already in the market for help with your own group piano program. So is SGL the right move for you and your studio?
So let me break it down for you.
The Successful Group Lessons course IS RIGHT for you if…
You are overworked and burning out from teaching consecutive back-to-back private lessons, and are looking for a solution.
You are ready to scale your income within your private lesson studio, without adding more teaching hours.
You haven’t made the transition yet to group piano, but you have plans to.
You are trying to make the transition to group piano, but you’re experiencing frustrations along the way.
You have already made the transition to group piano, but your groups aren’t running as smoothly as you would like.
The Successful Group Lessons course IS NOT for you if…
You have no desire to teach multiple students at a time.
You easily become overwhelmed with multi-tasking, or it is overstimulating for you.
The majority of your students are under the age of 6.
The majority of your students have special needs that require extra personalized attention (Daniel’s framework works best for students that can function independently).
I hope you found this helpful! Coming SOON in 2024, Not Your Mother’s Piano Studio will be LIVE LAUNCHING the Successful Group Lessons digital course with Daniel. If you aren’t already on my GROUP PIANO SIGN-UP, join now so you don’t miss the extra bonuses and important dates for when doors open to this valuable program!
As always, stay tuned!
(pun unapologetically intended)
