What's Your Make-up Lesson Policy and How Strictly Do You Enforce It?

When I first started out as a musician I spent a few years teaching lessons. One of the most frustrating parts was establishing and enforcing a re-scheduling policy. It felt like scheduling the lessons sometimes took longer than actually teaching the lessons!

It was difficult to be tough with the parents because, first, tough isn't really my nature—especially not back then—and, second, I wanted to keep my clients happy.

I ran across an article today from an economist discussing the economics of make-up lessons. It's an article from several years back, but I thought it was interesting and I want to pass it on.

“Speaking now as an economist, I would claim that the reason is that items like clothing are “durable goods'—meaning, they can be returned and then resold at the original price—whereas music lessons are non-durable goods—meaning, once my Monday slot at 3:30 is gone, my son's teacher can't turn around and sell it again. The only way she would be able to give him a lesson later in the week would be if she were to give up time that she had scheduled for her own private life; and that seems pretty unreasonable."

Continue reading the article at Make-up Lessons From An Economist's Point of View.

She makes good points, but there was discussion among my friends today about how practical her argument really is. Yes, her points are certainly fair and valid, but the reality is that music teachers need to be flexible if we want to keep our studios, right? How flexible?

What's your make-up lesson policy and how strictly do you enforce it?