The Candid Ad - Philip Johnston

Your webvertisement allows you to paint your studio in any light you like, and the temptation is to only ever include positives and your finest moments.

But remember, prospective students are not looking for a teacher with the highest GPA from their music school. They're looking for a person. So you had better make sure that your ad makes you sound like one.

A person...but I am...aren't I?...

Yes, but if your ad has been sterilized of anything that makes you interesting or vulnerable, then you're making it very hard for prospective visitors to see anything except your qualifications. And I'll tell you right now - if your qualifications are your biggest asset, then your studio is in trouble.

Take the opportunity to be real. Admit things that go wrong. Confess to being less than SuperTeacher. It all starts with which questions you choose to answer in your webpage editor, and what those answers contain.

Strengths AND weaknesses

We've included in your "About Myself" page the option to include self-assessed strengths and weaknesses. It's not overly narcissistic to spend some time considering those answers carefully and honestly.

In my own information for prospective students, I make them aware that I'm an excellent teacher for some students, and an absolutely calamity for others. That my greatest strengths are also the source of my most crippling weaknesses.

Far from hurting my chances with the prospective student, the fact that I've been candid about my own shortcomings actually increases my credibility. So they leave the interview knowing some exciting things about the studio - but they also leave knowing some things that I tell them straight up that I don't do so well.

If a student then doesn't come aboard because they're put off by one of those shortcomings, then I was the wrong teacher for them in any case.

Candid photos too

Your photo album can be a collection of posed photographs from your last recital - but the whole thing can feel sterile. Like a wedding album where all the photos were staged.

So don't just have photos of smiling students acknowledging applause. Have a photo of Timothy pulling a funny face after a mistake at the last recital. Or Sally giggling when she was supposed to be taking her tune-up seriously. Or Michael looking almost comically deep in concentration while he's being a pageturner.

And if someone trips up the stairs, so much the better. Especially if that someone was you.

All these are real moments at your recitals - much more so than the posed smile next to the instrument. It gives prospective students the message that while you take things seriously, your students are not expected to be perfect all the time. In other words, this studio is a safe place to make mistakes.

Music Teachers have lives too

Because we're "music teachers", some students think that our idea of relaxation is to practice scales. The idea that you have life outside music helps make you more real and interesting to prospective students - and for some students, it will actually establish an immediate connection through a common interest.

So whatever your interests are - even it they feel completely irrelevant to your students - list them.

So while I'm a piano teacher, my students also know that I'm also I'm a passionate but talentless chess player, and if I have a few hours to spare, I like to have an xbox in front of me, and my kids by my side, ready to give them a whooping at whatever game they name. And that I'm not about to back off just because they're smaller and cuter than I am. They also know I'm a cricket fanatic, a taekwondo instructor, that I hate flying and would rather spend an hour in a fridge filled with live skunks than go on a roller coaster.

None of which has much bearing on my ability to teach piano - or write this article. But all of which helps remind students that I'm not obsessed with music all day and all night.

Your list of hobbies will surprise those who visit your site, and help them to realise that you're not just a music teacher - you're an interesting music teacher.

And in the battle to secure that first interview, I'd back an interesting and flawed music teacher over a bland but well qualified Stepford-teacher any day.

So when the opportunities arise in your webvertisement to tell more than just the sanitized postives-only music-only version, grab it. We don't need to hear about parking tickets, or that test you cheated on in Grade 4. But to show self-critical skills, self-awareness and the willingness to be vulnerable is a huge asset - after all, you're expecting the same thing of your students.

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