Music Academy Success® During COVID - Tim Benson - Music Academy of Acadiana

On this edition of the Music Academy Success® podcast, we feature Tim Benson, Director of the Music Academy of Acadiana in Lafayette, Louisiana. Tim is also the CEO of two marketing service companies Phone Score which offers mystery shopping services and Net Secore which helps businesses with their SEO and online marketing. Tune in to hear how Tim navigated his school successfully through COVID and how you can do the same. Tim is candid and tells his story of taking guitar lessons as a child, going to college, his first teaching job and the founding of his school which now has over 500 students.

More about Tim Benson

TIM BENSON IS A MUSICIAN, ENTREPRENEUR, MARKETING CONSULTANT AND PHONE SALES ADVISOR.

Tim received a B.M in guitar performance from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was the college of the arts graduate of the year in 2000. Tim has gone on to tour with several music groups and shared the stage with various major label artists from all over the U.S.

In addition to his musical projects he owns and operates one of the largest music schools in South Louisiana; The Music Academy of Acadiana, which specializes in private music lessons for piano, guitar, voice, drums, violin, brass and woodwinds. The school was awarded the Music Academy Success System™ national school of the year award in 2014 and has been a top finalist in the local best music school competition since 2015.

Tim also launched PhoneScore in 2018 which specializes in business secret shop “mystery” phone calls that helps business owners audit their incoming customer calls. Through this service, businesses all over the U.S. have been able to monitor their front desk staff phone etiquette, improve their salesmanship and also can role-play with PhoneScore to achieve better call results.

Another venture that Tim has launched is called NetScore which focuses on digital marketing for small businesses; website creation, social media advertising, Google search ranking and graphic design.  Founded in 2019, it has quickly become the go-to company for small businesses looking to improve their online marketing visibility. 

Tim is also a diamond level coach in the internationally acclaimed music coaching program, the Music Academy Success System™ (MASS). Through this system, Tim has been able to implement and improve his own businesses while being a coach / mentor to other music schools business owners across the world. 

Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to another edition of the Music Academy Success Podcast. Music Academy Success® is the largest and number 1 program for music school owners. Since 2008, master business coach Marty Fort has worked with school owners and teachers in 44 states and on 6 continents. On the Music Academy Success® Podcast, you’ll hear interviews with music lesson industry leaders so you can learn how to better your business by getting more students, keeping students longer, and building the music school and lifestyle of your dreams. And now, here’s your host for the podcast, CEO of Music Academy Success®, Mister Marty Fort.

Marty Fort: Welcome to the Music Academy Success® Podcast. This is Marty Fort here with you. I’m the CEO and coach of the Music Academy Success® Program, and so excited today, we’ve got our special guest, Tim Benson, Music Academy Success®. Since 2008, is the largest and leading coaching organization for music school owners. We work with teachers that teach out of their homes. We work with teachers that drive to student’s homes. Work with small to medium sized schools from, anywhere from 50 to 300 students to large schools, 500; 1,000. We’ve even got members with 4,000 students. And what we do is we help them to grow their business, grow their enrollment, have less stress, improve their retention, improve every facet of their business. And we’ve got a really jam packed year coming up.

 Some housekeeping before we dive in with Mister Benson, our guest today. We’ve got our event in Walt Disney World coming up with our Advanced Academy for our Titanium Members. We’re going to be there. Our special guest is Dan Kennedy. He’s going to be coming in, spending 2 and a half hours with us on Zoom talking about different Disney topics. It’s going to be awesome, and we’ve already got a sold out group for that. That’s kind of our annual pilgrimage to Disney we take every year with our members. 

We’re going to be in Nashville, Tennessee in April. I’m so excited to have the annual Music Academy Success® Convention in Nashville. Our keynote speaker this year, and we’ve always had amazing keynote speakers. We’ve had Randi Zuckerberg who is the CEO of Zuckerberg Media. She’s also the inventor of Facebook Live. She did an amazing keynote presentation for us in Dallas, Texas and if you haven’t read her book, it’s called Pick 3. It’s a New York Times best seller. I highly recommend it. Pick 3 by Randi Zuckerberg. This April, we’re featuring another New York Times best selling author that’s Dave Kerpen and he is the CEO of Likable. He’s going to be talking about digital marketing, online marketing trends, also mental health issues for musicians, and just how to improve our schools and get more students. I’m very excited to have Mister Dave Kerpen there, along with our annual competition, which we’re doing something new this year. 

We’re doing a clash of the Titans contest and Tim was one of our School of the Year winners. He won in 2014 and I flew to his school. The mayor came out. We spent some time together. But this year is going to be a unique competition. We’re going to feature our members that have thrived during COVID or done well during the pandemic, held their own. Even some of our alumni from past competitions. It’s going to be a really great combination of people there for the 1st time competing, showing all the great stuff they’ve done and people that have done the contest before because even though, I got a letter from the FBA about 2 weeks ago and they’ve classified our industry as hard hit. We are officially classified as a hard hit industry. And I know that to be true because a lot of schools have closed or are not doing well. 

But as you know, MASS®, we call Music Academy Success® MASS® for short, we are kind of in a bubble unto ourselves. And my schools, we didn’t qualify for the 2nd round of PPP because our sales were up. And to be very specific with you, February of last year, our gross sales were 161,000 for all 3 locations. Fast forward to this year, we’ve already, still got more time to go and 183,000 dollars. We’re 8 students away from 1,500 and we’re doing just amazing. So, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the call today, is to talk about your journey and what you’ve done and how things are going for you from COVID. So, let’s welcome you to the call Tim. Tell us 1st about, who is Tim Benson? Who are you? What do you do? Tell us about your school and let’s just kind of break the ice for people that don’t know your story and welcome to the podcast Mister Tim Benson.

Tim Benson: Well, thank you, Mister Fort. I appreciate the introduction there. My name is Tim Benson and I own a music school in Lafayette, Louisiana called the Music Academy of Acadiana. We actually started very similar to your story talking about a guitar teacher. I went to school for guitar. I’ve been a guitar player most of my life. Went to college and essentially decided, you know? I did this band thing for a while. And I decided I liked doing the band stuff, but I really wanted to kind of focus in on growing a business of some sort. Got into teaching. Taught a private student here and there and then slowly grew over time. And then, in 2010 decided, you know what? I want to open up an official school with a bunch of rooms, get some more teachers and we started that in 2010. And we’ve been growing ever since. We actually joined the MASS® Program in 2011. We kind of hit a plateau before your program because I’m a guitar player. I’m a musician, but I really didn’t know how to run a business. And your products came in really at the right time for me. It really trained me on how to think like a business owner. Ever since we’ve grown and now, we’re here in 2021, well over 500 students. I’ve owned the building that I’m in. We’ve got about 38 teachers, 4 office staff and I’m able to now grow other businesses. And it’s just been great. It really fulfills me as an entrepreneur. So, thanks again to the MASS® system. I could not have done it without your guidance and with also the peers in the MASS® group and just all the training. So, here we are.

Marty Fort: So, Tim, let’s go back in time. You say you play guitar. Tell us more about that. Tell us more about your musicianship, musical journey as a student, as an artist and also, what lessons did you have as a kid?

Tim Benson: Okay. Well, here in Lafayette, we’re in south Louisiana. I got interested in playing music right around when I was 11 or 12 years old. And I remember having this conversation with my mother after trying to diddle around on the guitar. How do I play this thing? I asked her. Is there such thing as a guitar teacher? I didn’t even think that was a thing. You know? I thought, yeah. You can maybe learn a band instrument in high school or middle school, but I didn’t really see anything for a guitar player. And so, I didn’t know what was out there in the world. I asked her here in our city, do they have anybody that does that? Honestly, and this was like, early 90’s, Marty, we couldn’t find anybody. It was hard, right? We didn’t have internet. Even the Yellow Pages, there wasn’t guitar teacher in Yellow Pages even then. 

So, we luckily found somebody that was a friend of my mothers. Her son taught guitar. He was in college. And that was my 1st introduction into how to learn this thing. Fast forward a few years later, I went to the local college here for music. And it was awesome because I started to feel like I know what’s possible with this instrument. Such as yourself too, I think we both studied classical guitar, but as you know, that’s a very limited industry in some ways. May not be as high as it was back in the Segovia days, right? 

And you know, I always felt like I wanted to strive for more. We then created a band. We went on tour. I did the music industry thing very similar to your story. But even the music industry has changed over the years. I just fell in love with actually starting a business of some sort. And that’s been my journey and it’s really been cool. I really appreciate having a mentor and that’s the one thing I’ve realized on reflection is having a guitar teacher. They showed me the right scales, having a college professor. They showed me the right theory. But having a business coach, they showed me how to run the business. And like a producer for a band, which we had too, it’s all about coaching the group to become the best you can be. And I feel like in business mentorship, it’s the same thing. It’s learning the skills to be the best you can be at what you do.

Marty Fort: Absolutely. So, you talked about how you found your 1st guitar teacher. You talked about going to college. And yeah, like you, I went to Governor School for the Arts, studied with Christopher Berg in 1992 and he actually studied with Segovia at the University of Southern California master classes. The funny story with that he always tells us is he had a 7 string guitar and Segovia always gave him a hard time every day he was playing. He made fun of him literally every day. Finally, I think it was the 3rd or 4th time because they had consecutive days for the classes and Segovia stopped him. He said, where’s your string? And Burg pulled it out of his pocket. He had taken it off just to get him to stop. He pulled it out and the whole audience erupted in laughter. Christopher Berg, major influence on me.

Tim Benson: Yep.

Marty Fort: I went to North Carolina School of the Arts. I was there the last 2 years, Aaron Scheer was running the program, which Aaron Scheer, as you all know in the classical guitar space.

Tim Benson: Big name.

Marty Fort: Yeah. Founded the 1st college programs for classical guitar in the US in the 60’s. I studied privately with Gerald Glickstein but was able to have master class with Scheer for 2 years twice a week, which was awesome to play for him and some pedagogy classes and stuff. And then, I got my Masters at USC with Burg. And then I taught at USC Upstate for 6 years. So, for you, how did you make the transition from college student to gigging musician to teacher? How long ago did you start teaching guitar, Tim?

Tim Benson: So, when we were touring, after I graduated college, I really was invested in the band that I was working with and we had some, you know? We played all the time. I finally had the time to do it after I graduated. And on the side, after we kind of got our tour schedule sort of stabilized, people would ask me. Tim, you seem to be really good at explaining things. You should maybe try teaching. I would just have friends of friends that would want to study. So, we’d meet up with them. They’d come over to my apartment at the time and we’d work on scales and songs and everything. And really, Marty, it just built from there. It was interesting. I did work a few other jobs on the side too during that time, but the one thing that was interesting is that I could never walk away completely from music. Something would always bring me back in. And I remember I used to work for a guitar manufacturer here in the mid 2000’s as one of their sales guys. And I remember saying this might be a really good career. But even then, I still had people contacting me. Hey Tim, can you teach me on the Saturdays or the Sundays when I was off? And so, there was something that always compelled me to stay with teaching. Fast forward a few years later. I think that business mindset somewhere resonated with me and again, like I mentioned earlier, it just, there’s something in the voice that said, Tim, you could do this. You could really do this on your own. And that’s what catapulted me to take the leap into, then I found a local music store. I rented out a space. I built my students. And then, from there, found a space luckily in Lafayette and that’s in 2010. Started with 40 students, a hope, and a dream. But I just kept at it. I kept trying to get word of mouth out. I didn’t know how to market at the time. It was just basically just, hey, student. If you have a friend that wants to take lessons, tell him about me. And I didn’t even have a business card at the time. That tells you how organized I was. But over time, I did develop those things. That’s really sort of the genesis of how this all started.

Marty Fort: And that segues into my next question. So, take us further there. That was the point of the genesis of Guitar Academy Arcadia.

Tim Benson: Yep.

Marty Fort: What was that time in your life like? I mean, how many students did you have? What was it like growing that? And then, you mentioned, I think earlier, you kind of hit a plateau. So, let’s go back in time Tim Benson, guitar teacher guy and the beginnings and the evolution of Guitar Academy of Acadiana.

Tim Benson: Yeah. So, 3 rooms that we rented in this place. It was actually, funny story. It was me and 2 other guitar teachers and that was it. And for the 1st, I would say 6 months, we just wanted guitar students because in my world, it’s guitar because I’m a guitar player. Because again, that’s what we do. And it was a mixture of, I would walk into the building and I have my schedule of students. Three or 4 or 5 for the day. And the rest of the time, I’m think, how do I get more students? You know? And if the phone rang while I was teaching, the old routine of, hang on 1 second Mister Student. Let me just take a quick message and then I’ll tell them I’ll call them back, and then, back to the lesson. So, it was a lot of juggling. I didn’t have really an office helper at the time. 

We repeated that process for a good 6 to 8 months. Got to about a hundred students, me and my 2 other compadres teaching guitar. Pretty good. We had 25, 30 students each. It was good. And then, we came up with a bright idea of, you know? We could probably add more instruments. And it was sort of this epiphany. Like, is that really possible? And Marty, you’ve got to understand, I was very fearful about that too because I knew how to teach guitar, but I was worried that okay - So, how do I structure a lesson offering for piano if I’ve never personally taught it? Okay. So, we’ll hire a piano teacher. But what if we don’t jive with them? You know? There’s just a lot of doubt, right? 

Luckily though, we had a good friend of ours that was looking for, she was a piano player, and she was looking for more teaching opportunities. And we tried it out, and it happened to work for a little while. But what it taught me, that was my 1st instance of really starting to get outside of my comfort zone and manage other types of instruments and teachers that I just hadn’t had the experience of doing. And what it made me realize is that actually, this is all the same. It’s just a different instrument, but the structure’s the same. And that was a huge epiphany for me. So, from that point, we added on a voice teacher and I think we had a drum. One of my good friends was going to do drums. So, it started to evolve from there. And then, we sort of hit a plateau. It was like, a hundred students. We couldn’t break through it. 

And I get a postcard from a Mister Fort from the MASS® system. One of the things was, literally, I believe the postcard said, do you feel that you have plateaued? I’m like, this guy’s reading my mind. How is this possible, right? And I remember, I said, you know what? I’m going to try this program. I was a little hesitant at 1st. I didn’t know who you were or what to expect. And I remember the very 1st thing you told me on our call as soon as I signed up was, ‘Tim, you have to change the name.’ And I think I resisted that because that was just such a new thing for me, right? And the thing you said, I still remember this to this day. ‘Tim, do you want to grow your business?’ I said yes. ‘Do you want only guitar students?’ I said no. ‘Then, why are you called Guitar Academy of Acadiana, you know?’ And I couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t get piano and voice students. And you’re like, Tim, it’s because your name. Nobody knows that you teach that stuff. So, that was an interesting and funny story from back in that time.

Marty Fort: Well, the thing I always tell people when I’m coaching them on that is this. It’s like, okay. If you run a Chinese restaurant serving Chinese food and you offer pizza on the menu, that’s a pretty hard sell.

Tim Benson: Yeah.

Marty Fort: Because the branding and the concept is Chinese food. You don’t really want the pizza there or vice versa. You wouldn’t go to an Italian restaurant and then order the Chinese egg rolls. It doesn’t make any sense. So, that is definitely a path. And the problem with coaching is people have to be ready for it. They have to be ready to change. 

You’ve actually transitioned. You’re one of our coaches now. You coach with us. You do a monthly breaking through call. What’s unique about the Music Academy Success® Program, Tim, as you know, we have you, we have Zeljko Pavlovic. You guys are part of our coaching team. So, it’s not only coaching with me. One of the things that’s really cool that you do with our program is, not only does everybody get monthly calls with me, which really during COVID, we’ll talk about that in a second, we’ve got our weekly calls to support our members. You do a monthly breaking through call. Can you kind of talk to them about, what is the breaking through call and what is the format? Who is it for and what is the format? And I’ve got to tell you, Tim, I just talked to one of the people that’s a regular on those calls and man, she grew her business by a thousand percent. She took her business from 20 to 200 students I want to say less than 18 months. We won’t mention her name out of privacy. She’s one of our members.

Tim Benson: Amazing.

Marty Fort: And maybe she’ll be kind enough to come on and do the podcast, but you’re very familiar with her because you do have your core group, and it’s really for people that a lot of them are smaller. They have those challenges, but that’s a powerful advantage we have in MASS®. Tell everybody who has never been on one of those calls with you. What is our Music Academy Success® breakthrough call? How does it work?

Tim Benson: So, it’s a great call. It’s once a month. It’s an open format. It’s not recorded. Members of the MASS® system that just feel like they are at a plateau, I’ll use that word again. They may be stuck somewhere. It’s a great question and answer format where they can ask me specifically. ‘Tim, here’s what’s going on. What do I need to do? I have all these MASS®  blueprints and the system, but I feel like I just need a little bit of guidance as to what should I do next, kind of thing.’ So, it’s really for members that have a roadblock somewhere and they can’t quite figure it out. It’s all about just getting a perspective from you and even from me to kind of show them the forest through the trees. I feel like that’s where a lot of these members get caught up. I was caught up too because we can worry about a million things in our business and a lot of times, it’s just 1 or 2 mindset adjustments that makes and allows for exponential growth down the road. You mentioned the member that’s grown her business. That happens a lot I’ve noticed on these calls. It’s 1 or 2 things that, in their mind, they may not have worked out quite yet and when they come on the call and they ask me the question and then, I say okay, great. So, here’s what I would do and here’s why I think this is the best way to do it. It makes them reevaluate. ‘You’re right. That does make sense. Let me do that. I didn’t think of it like that. Okay. This is good.’

 You know what’s interesting too Marty is I feel those calls, I feel like they are ready to make some of these steps, but they just need a little bit of reaffirmation that that is the right step. And a lot of times, when they do implement the items that they should be doing and they just need a little reinforcement, it makes all the difference in the world. Self doubt is a real thing in entrepreneurship. We self doubt all the time. That’s really one of the biggest components of having a coach. It’s not just for the knowledge, but the reinforcement and the encouragement. So, those calls not only serve for a mindset shift, but I really feel like it’s a, ‘okay. I’ve got the backing of my coach, of somebody that’s got the knowledge and the space. I feel like I can do this move and it’s not too risky for me.’ Even just that slight nudge of encouragement, it’s sometimes all these folks need. And I needed it too and I still need it sometimes. So, that’s how the calls work. So, once a month. They can ask a question. We have, I mean the last 6 months, the calls have been jam packed, which is awesome. And we normally talk about marketing things, what’s coming up in the market, how to structure some of their systems, their office, how they respond to a phone call. So, it’s a lot of just small things like that, but put it together and it really does solve a lot of pictures, a lot of things in their mind that they’re still a little fuzzy with.

Marty Fort: Absolutely. So, what’s on everybody’s mind during this very difficult period that, thank God, we’re coming out of - The numbers are coming down. The vaccines are going out. The numbers are coming down a lot. 

Tim Benson: Yeah.

Marty Fort: I agree with a newscaster I listened to this morning. COVID is winding down. We’ve got to be optimistic. 

Tim Benson: Yes.

Marty Fort: So, let’s go back in time. March 2020. What happened with you, your school, and COVID?

Tim Benson: Okay. So, it was not fun and I’m being honest. It was not fun. We got panicked, our community, of course. This new thing comes out, pandemic. It hits everybody. It really does. So, we lost, I think in the span of 1 or 2 weeks, we lost almost close to 28 percent of our clients and mainly because they were unsure of the future. And I understand that. They’re unsure about their work situation. They’re unsure about the health concerns. They’re not quite sure about this online thing yet, this Zoom thing. So, there’s a lot of uncertainty. So, it was pretty rough. 

Now, what helped us was number 1, we just took a list of everybody that was cutting back for a little while and we made sure to keep in contact with them because we wanted to make sure that our students knew that we’re there for them and that we understand the situation and we’re just a phone call away. The 2nd thing, which I thought was really cool was that you guys and MASS® immediately jumped into action. ‘Let’s do some extra, just reinforcement’. And like I said about the breaking through call, just having that voice to help encourage each other. I cannot tell you how valuable that is. In a time of uncertainty, you’ve got to lean on each other and just some of the things, ideas that you had to keep everybody’s morale high, keep your schools’ morale high was awesome. It took us about 6 weeks to kind of come of that a little bit. We converted completely to Zoom for about 6 weeks, so no in person lessons. I mean, it was crazy. It was sort of like mass adoption of this online thing in an instant. But thankfully, through the MASS® system, you had a game plan that you showed us that worked. We adopted it. Our teachers were, they felt safe. They were ready to go with online. And then, luckily for us here in Louisiana, right around the May timeframe, we were able to start bringing people back in and the comfort level with bringing people back in has been increasing ever since. So, I’m happy to announce that we are back to our pre COVID enrollment. So, we’re back on track and actually, we’re in the plus now. So, less than a year, we’re already here.

Marty Fort: Awesome job, Tim. Kudos to you and your work ethic and your talent and also, we’re very proud that a lot of your peers and a lot of people you coach with us are doing the same. It’s just awesome. 

Tim Benson: Thank you. 

Marty Fort: I’ve got some tips for people listening on the podcast today. I mean, one of the things that helped me, we, like you, when we got locked down in March last year, we dropped a hundred students in 30 days. 

Tim Benson: Yeah.

Marty Fort: And it was terrifying. We reopened May 18th. As of today, we’re probably about 75, 80 percent back in person, 20 percent Zoom. And we’re still not out of the woods on this. This is going to be going on for a while. So, anybody listening that would like to take some action and get their students back and also get more students, I definitely recommend that you go to columbiaartsacademy.com. That’s Columbia A R T S, plural, Academy dot com. They can see 2 videos that I did that were very helpful for us to get through COVID. One is our original safety video, which goes through our safety protocols, which are extensive. And we really did everything under the sun, from additional air filtration to free masks to hand sanitizer to distancing to plexiglass to having the parents Zoom in. It’s a long list. It’s all in there. It’s about a 5 minute video. But you guys are welcome to model that for you schools. And also, I did a recent one about 3 weeks ago, which is an update video. We’ve actually just installed, Tim, in our HVAC system, Ultravation Solaris, which is high tech UV. So, we’re doing double air filtration improvement. And we’re also blessed in my 3 schools. We are able to have lessons outside. And it’s a great time this year to buy. There’s going to be a commercial real estate downturn and if you haven’t already and I’ve been to his seminars, Sam Beckford is in Canada. He’s like the king of commercial real estate for music schools. So, if anybody’s looking to buy a building, definitely recommend reaching out to him at sambeckford.com. I know he’s been working with some MASS® members recently and nobody knows more about commercial real estate than he does. And there’s going to be a commercial real estate crash coming this year. So, it’s an excellent opportunity. There’s a lot of people that are doing SBA loans, buying buildings because the SBA, Tim, loves owner financing. And what I mean by that, excuse me, not owner financing. I take that back. They love owner occupancy. They love owner occupied properties. Not owner financing. It’s SBA financing. 

Tim Benson: Yeah.

Marty Fort: But what that means is they want to finance people that are actually in the building. They don’t want to really finance people that have dreams of doing a strip mall. They want to finance guys like you and me who they know are actually going to be on the ground level, are going to own the property, own and occupy the property. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Tim Benson: Absolutely.

Marty Fort: A lot of O’s in there. It was tripping me up. Now, you, like a lot of my guys, have expanded into other businesses, which I think is fantastic. We have a lot of people here, long time clients of mine. Some of them have been with me 10 years, who are doing all kinds of things, that are doing a lot of different ways to make income. And you’ve expanded into 2 other businesses, Net Score and Phone Score. And we’ve got to kind of watch the clock because I’ve got a lot more questions for you, but let’s go through. Tell them 1st about Net Score.

Tim Benson: So, Net Score really was birthed in July of 2019 and through learning how to market through the MASS® system, how to create websites, social media campaigns, we decided that I’d like to offer this as a service and really just starting with the music schools that are in our program. And thanks to you for nudging me in that direction, too. Big thank you for that. So, yeah. Net Score, what we do, we help create a new site if your business needs a new website. If you need to get on social media, if you need to run some advertising. And then, really, if you need to get found on Google, that’s probably one of the biggest changes in our era is getting on top of page 1 on Google. If you’re not there, your business really isn’t visible, and it’s really a big weakness for you that needs to be remedied. So, that’s where we come in. You can check out our website at netscorepro.com. I’ll show you everything that we’ve done. We’ve even have a portfolio of some of our websites and clients that we’ve worked with so people can see exactly what we’ve done and yeah. Get in touch with us. We’d love to help.

Marty Fort: And you have another one, the one called Phone Score.

Tim Benson: Yeah. So, it’s like the sister company of Net Score. And what I like to say is, think of both companies really as the same type of entity, but just at different points of the customer journey. So, Net Score, we help businesses bring in, ideally new prospective clients and customers. In Phone Score, once we have that traffic coming in, well how well are you answering your phones? How well are you delivering your phone script? So, businesses really need to have a good observation of that, especially when they’re not around. For business owners not there, not answering the phone, they need to have the confidence that their staff is answering correctly and consistently and doing the steps to follow up with their prospects converting into customers. What Phone Score does is we have a whole team dedicated of secret call shoppers that will pretend that they’re a customer. We have a score card. We send a recording and a score card at the end of each month to the business owner and we actually have options where they can role play with us if they have certain weaknesses that they want to work on with an office staff member. It’s a great way for a business owner to keep a good eye on their front desk, their customer relations, because it’s great to get all this traffic. But if your staff is not being consistent and doing the right things, it doesn’t really matter because they’re not converting into a customer. So, Phone Score helps with that. Phonescorepro.com and you can learn more about our service. And we work with the MASS® system for music schools exclusively. 

Marty Fort: And so, as I said, the SBA, Small Business Administration has classified our industry as hard hit. They’re going to be funding for the 2nd time half of our mortgage for 5 months. And we’re blessed and thankful for that. But let’s talk about our bubble that is Music Academy Success®. How have your fellow MASS® members faired during COVID Tim? What have you seen?

Tim Benson: I’ve seen a huge uptick in success stories, believe it or not. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I go onto the Facebook group and see I’ve hit record enrollment or I’ve seen we’ve beat our pre COVID numbers. We’re back like you are. We’ve had a lot of success stories of parents from other schools telling those schools how much they appreciated their efforts throughout this past year. It’s been nothing but success. It’s crazy because I’ve even had people in my local community. I remember a lady, she come up to me and she teaches piano far away from here. She contacted me and she said, ‘Tim, how on Earth are you guys able to recover so fast? It seems like your business didn’t miss a beat.’ You know why that is? It’s because we have a strong community here that leans on each other and the vibe has been nothing but positive. You know? Yeah, we recognize it’s been a tough year, but I feel like the spirit of this group, that doesn’t get us down at all. If anything, that’s sort of like a challenge. You know? It’s been overwhelmingly positive. It’s just great to see. And it surprised me. I was kind of expecting to see, okay. We’re going to see some, it’s going to be iffy, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of that. It’s been great.

Marty Fort: You know, everybody on this podcast today is most likely a musician and they’ve had music teachers throughout their lives that got them to where they are. And I mentioned the many that got me to where I am today. I’ve always seen the business coaching industry, and deservedly so Tim, gets a bad rap. There’s a lot of unethical coaches, not legitimate coaches, not legitimate coaches, and that kind of thing. But there are also a lot of great coaches out there. And there is a direct parallel between, in my mind, music mentorship, taking music lessons with a teacher and that path that got you and I to where we are as guitar players and business mentorship. What do you see are the comparable? What’s the similarity between music mentorship and business mentorship? 

Tim Benson: So, I think there’s an extremely easy comparison there. When we learn our instrument, we are learning the mechanics. We’re learning the fundamentals of physically how to hold the instrument, how to play scales, how to perform and a lot of these are just a matter of repetition and execution and outward observation from our mentor correcting our mistakes as we go through this process, right? And over time, we get better at playing our instrument. Well, that directly correlates to running a business. Now, the skills might be slightly different, but the fact that you’re refining your skills through repetition and execution and having an outward observer that’s got more experience than you telling you where you need to adjust, it’s the same thing. So, I feel like musicians, in a way, have a leg up on that because they’re already used to receiving feedback about how to improve. I think it’s a direct correlation. It’s just different skills, but the process is the same. It’s about refining, observation, get better at the mechanics. Same thing.

Marty Fort: So, Tim, I agree with everything you said. Even though that’s all true, a lot of musicians resist getting help. They resist getting coaching. Why do you think that’s so? 

Tim Benson: So, I have a theory that I’ve held for a long time. I feel like I can say this because I am an artist and a musician too. I get that world. I know that as an artist, we’ve put in the grind work to get good at our instrument. And so, we come to a point where we want success to happen on our terms, not what the world’s is. So, we want it to be our way. So, I think what happens is, as I go back to the analogy earlier, if we’re a musician running a business, we are starting to execute some of these steps to get better. I think what ends up happening is some musicians, artists, there is a sort of part of our brains that says, we want to be a huge thing. But we want it in the way we picture it should be. So, there’s always this battle of, here is how things should be versus how things are. And I think artists do kind of struggle with this at times. 

As a business owner gets better, I think you come to the realization that you just have to play the cards that you’re dealt and make the best of it. We all want the winning hand all the time. We all want the Royal Flush. We all want to play the flawless Beethoven concerto on the piano. Sometimes, we just have to roll with what we’ve got, right? So, I think artists that are running businesses sometimes struggle with that because they envision, they want their school to be this on their terms and they don’t realize that if they just maybe evolve and be okay with accepting feedback. Not even criticism, just feedback. Maybe change a few things. It’ll be exponentially better. So, I think it’s just something that artists struggle with because we kind of feel like we are the artist. We have this, we have all of the answers. But you have to be open to feedback.

Marty Fort: Absolutely. So, Music Academy Success® program got a big year planned. You’re coming to our events. You’re actually speaking at some of them. As I said, we’re going to be in Nashville in April. August, I’m very excited. We’re going to be at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. My students are going to be performing. I’m going to be performing. I’m doing a Midwest Mastermind meeting for people, really any of our members, mainly people that are in the Midwest are coming. That’s going to be in Cleveland in early August. We’ve got a training camp for new members that are in 18 months or less. That’s going to be in October. And then, November, we’ve got 2 events. We’ve got our annual office staff training. I think this is the 6th or 7th year we’ve done that where people send in their office staff and we train them on our processes and how they can run that better in their school. And we also got our Titanium member retreat where you guys are going to come hang out at my schools, be a fly on the wall. So, a lot going on at Music Academy Success. And for those of you that don’t know, basically, what we do in MASS® is we have a variety of things. We have the original Music Academy Success® blueprints. We are the original authors of that product, copywritten product. And we send that out. It’s got almost 500 pages of all of our processes, all of our marketing. We also have over a hundred audio trainings. We’ve got our new video university training program coming out. We have our closed Facebook group. We have our live events. We have our tele coaching. We have 1 on 1 coaching. So, we really hit all the different ways people learn and the bottom line is, we help people to grow. Because the thing that’s interesting about MAS Tim, as you know, is still to this day, we are the only program in business for over 10 years that gives a 100 percent money back guarantee for 12 months. And either people grow and they’re happy or they get every penny back and it really is that simple. For those of you that are listening and saying man, ‘I’d like to be like Tim Benson. I’d like to get through COVID. I’d like to be hitting record highs and hitting numbers like mine, going from 160K in a month to 180K a month, which is about 2 point 2 million annually.’ But what they’re saying sounds too good to be true. Tim, what would you say to them?

Tim Benson: Well, I would say already, you’re limiting yourself with that mindset. I mean, anything’s possible. That’s number 1. Just open your mind. Anything’s possible. And it is possible and it’s been proven. Not only is it possible. It’s proven many times, many times, many times over in the MASS® system. So, that’s number 1. And really number 2, I don’t know of many coaching, really any other coaching program that literally is as low risk as this one because either 1 or 2 things are going to happen. You’re going to be successful and you’re going to make your money back in spades. Or it’s not for you and you get a refund. And I mean, I don’t see a whole lot of refunds happening in the system. You know? I see more success stories than anything. So, that should give you a lot of confidence that this is a proven system. It’s been proven thousands of times at this point. So, the risk is just on you to implement. Can you do it? Do you have it in yourself? These are the keys. This is the door to open. You have to walk through it.

Marty Fort: Absolutely. The other thing that’s interesting about MASS® is not only do I still own and operate all 3 of my schools, but you own and operate yours, and Zeljko owns and operates his 4. A lot of coaches have sold their schools, Tim, during COVID. So, people that are looking at a coaching program, the 1st question I tell them to ask the coaching organization is, does the coach actually still own and operate their school? If they sold it, they’re at a serious disadvantage compared to the 3 of us who are actively in this game daily working in our schools. You know, there is a cost to join MASS® like there is any program, like there should be a cost to take guitar lessons. We’re not in the free guitar lesson game and we’re not in the free coaching business either. Were you concerned about the price?

Tim Benson: You know, I was because at the time, I was an up and coming teacher, business owner and I had to mentally kind of just realize, look. This is an investment. So, I removed the word cost. I said this is an investment. So, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to give it my effort. And you know, look. I talked to my wife about it and I said, this program looks very interesting. Here is the cost. But I really think this is going to be the right move. And she told me. She said, well, listen Tim. Just sleep on it. And I remember I think that next day after I got the postcard, watched the video, I said, look. I’m going to just do this. I’m just going to do it because I really feel like this is what I need to do. I see the up side. It’s tremendous. And I know me. If I have the knowledge, I’m going to implement it. So, that was a personal decision I made and the best decision I made in my life.

Marty Fort: Well, thank you, Tim. I mean, if you had to guess, I mean, how much money have you made with MASS®?

Tim Benson: Oh, my goodness, 8, 9 million. Maybe more.

Marty Fort: Awesome.

Tim Benson: I mean, that’s off the top of my head, Marty. Over the course, probably more, actually.

Marty Fort: Well, yeah. And then, you’ve also got the Net Score money and the Phone Score money. Because remember guys, we just had a training yesterday on an additional way to make money that is not in the music lesson space. So, there’s a lot going on in MASS® entrepreneurially with different options for people outside of just the music school thing. We’ve got people that have written books, people that are doing side businesses, people that do all kinds of stuff. We’ve got to go quick over these last few. We’re up against the clock. But, Tim, a lot of my memories this year are celebrating 10 plus years with me. You’re darn close to that mark. Why do you stay? Why do you stay with MASS®?

Tim Benson: Well, I mean, number 1, I think the coaching is top notch. Number 2, the game is always evolving. So, you use this analogy a lot. If I’m a pro quarterback on an NFL team, does the quarterback ever say, you know what? I don’t need a coach anymore? No. That doesn’t happen. It’s always about refining and number 3, I just want to stay plugged into this community because I feed off not only the knowledge but just the energy. And that helps keep me going in good and bad times. So, there is no need for me to leave because I feel like this is a lifelong journey and I’m here for the long run. I just feel like I get something out of it every day.

Marty Fort: Well, you’re doing amazing work. It’s been great to see your stars align. You’ve come a long way from Guitar Academy of Acadiana to the music empire you run now and also your other additional businesses, which are thriving and growing. So, do you have any closing comments? If somebody wants to reach out and contact you Tim, how can they do so?

Tim Benson: So, closing comments would be this. If you are considering joining MASS®, if you are really wanting to grow your music school, I believe this is the best opportunity for you to do so. I’ve been in other coaching programs not music school related, but marketing and I just don’t see this level of effort and expertise in other businesses as I do here. So, this is top notch, A plus. If you’re serious about growing, this is the place to do it. If you need help with your website, give us a shout, info@netscorepro.com. That’s N E T S C O R E P R O dot com. Same thing with Phone Score. If you want us to help monitor your front desk, secret shopping via phone calls, Phone Score Pro and you can send us an email at info@phonescorepro.com. It’s very simple. We’d love to help you out.

Marty Fort: Tim, thanks for taking the time today. It’s always great to talk to you, and you and I will be talking very soon. We’ve got a very busy year ahead of you and I, my friend. And I’m going to be seeing you at Walt Disney World.

Tim Benson: Yep.

Marty Fort: For the training there with advanced academy. So, can’t wait. It’s going to be awesome. We’ll be putting out the pictures and video from that. We’ll do another podcast after that event. We’ve got other podcasts lines up. So, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and get notifications. And listen, it’s very simple. We encourage anybody that’s ready to grow their enrollment, get their numbers back, it doesn’t matter if you’re teaching in your home. It doesn’t matter if you have 3,000 students. Give Music Academy Success® a shot. It’s very easy. You come on board and you grow or you get a full 12 months to try us out. And if you’re not happy for whatever reason, we give you every penny back. Tim, we looked the other day. I think we were up to 67 5-star Google reviews. 

Tim Benson: Well deserved.

Marty Fort: Thank you. On Facebook, all 5 star reviews. Better Business Bureau, pristine. Over 10 years, everything on Google is pristine and positive because we stand by what we do. And part of that is, as you know, we actually have live office staff. Alexis and Marissa are full time. They are in the office Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 PM Eastern. So, guys, give them a call. They’d love to chat with you about your school, hear about what you do, hear about your challenges. 803-917-1434. 803-917-1434. You can call or text that number and email is office@musicacademysuccess.com. But if you’re ready to get started and you’re ready to go ahead and work with people like myself and Tim, and you’re ready to get your business back to where you need it to be or break through a plateau like Tim did, it’s simple. Go to musicacademysuccess.com/apply, musicacademysuccess.com/apply, fill out the application. As long as you’re not blocked and you’re approved, we can get you on our online community tonight and got your boxed materials in the mail. And you’ll be on a fast track call with me very soon. Because that’s the 1st thing we do as new members, as you know, Tim. Both of us spend time with all new members. We go through their website. We go through their social media. We go through their history. They fill out a questionnaire and we spend time with them. We don’t just say hey, here’s the stuff, good luck. We actually spend time with all new members on our fast track call. So, if you’re ready, musicacademysuccess.com/apply. Mister Benson, keep kicking MASS®, as we say and great work, my friend.

Tim Benson: Thank you. I really appreciate you having me on, Marty, and thank you again for everything you’ve done for me. Thank you.

Marty Fort: You’re welcome. Best is yet to come. Everybody, have a great day. Here’s to your Music Academy Success®.