Fair payment to teacher

[dancingirldancing]

Why do you have to rent at an expensive commercial place ?

As far as I know people will seek you out even to faraway places if your instruction is top class. Well, I will.

This studio I am talking about is owned by the owner (by mortgage) and at the back of a building. It is small and very basic. The place is not at a premium or highly visible. However, people from all walk of life came here and there is even a waiting list for instruction here.

Please keep in mind, social dancers will come and go. Sometimes when there are dancing show on TV or hot dancing movies people will flock by but then they get bored. This is not the case with competitive dancing. A couple can take up to 5 lesson a week.

My only question is why not provide quality instruction ? I have a very hard time finding a studio that goes beyond social dancing and even then they are always booked out. So there is clearly a demand there...

 

[Throwaway Overshare]

so please let me know how my system of reward can be improved??

Don't even try. It's an insulting and paternalistic mindset.

The minute you put the priority on business concerns by playing games with incentives, you reject the kinds of serious dancers who may be able to schedule 40 hours one week but only have 2 hours available the next, and need to earn what their time is worth in both cases. Those who make their lives in dancing have to worry about the money side of it, but it's their business how they do that. If you want to have any involvement with the best dancers, then you need to grant them the freedom to make ends meet in their own way, and not monkey around with their rates. Obviously, those who chose that freedom cannot excepct you to cary any overhead individually for them such as benefits. And equally you'll have trouble covering the rent each June after having had an empty studio for most of May, but that is the price of excellence.

If you attempt to run their careers and make their decisions for them, then you will get career teachers, but not be able to keep any career dancers.

 

[dancingirldancing]

Oh, please do not pay based on volume. Your teacher will become 'pushy' towards students and they will drive the students away.

I know at least 10 couples who 'ran away' from franchise studio because of pushy teacher.

How about pay based on their ability ?

 

[latingal]

Don't even try. It's an insulting and paternalistic mindset.

I disagree Throwaway Overshare. As a business owner myself, I know it is important to control my costs but incent the right behavior to grow the business (and to me, that doesn't always mean "volume", it means sustainable growth). The original poster here is talking about a pay scale for teachers who are on staff (employed by the studio) not independents, which most of your comments seemed to be geared for?

We also need to remember that many studios may specialize in something that may not need "involvement with the best dancers", some studios may target the beginning to intermediate social dancer.

 

[Throwaway Overshare]

As a business owner myself, I know it is important to control my costs but incent the right behavior to grow the business

And that's the problem: you are trying to force the "this is a business" mindset on dancing. Doing that will prevent you from working with the people for which it is dancing, and not a business. The professionals who see themselves as dancers primarily, and teachers in whatever time is left over.

The original poster here is talking about a pay scale for teachers who are on staff (employed by the studio) not independent, which most of your comments seemed to be geared for?

If the studio is going to have both, it has to find a way to not insult the employees by treating them as second class citizens, by for example monkey with their pay rates. Few studios offer staff teachers benefits anyway.

We also need to remember that many studios may specialize in something that may not need "involvement with the best dancers", some studios may target the beginning to intermediate social dancer.

And most studios that use this market aim as business justification for controlling their staff end up being actually incapable of hosting any teaching by more serious dancers, unless it is the owner themselves or a friend of theirs brought in as a specical guest with all of the usual policies waived. That ultimately limits not only which teachers will stay, but which students will as well.

 

[BestTeacher]

I thought about ability.... but i feel like....it gets so silly when one teacher finds out what the other makes and starts feeling contempt and all the silly stuff..

but i thought volume would be ideal, just because you can be a great beginner, social teacher ....and so what you are worth only $20?? maybe he teaches 35 lessons a week consistently.

then you have another teacher who is finalist in USA rising star let's say. So let's say he gets $27/lesson And he cannot keep his students, and the social people don't seem to respond to him... ...so he teaches maybe 20 lesssons/week consistently.
But makes more money than the other teacher.

Who is to say that the beginners teacher should be paid less than this finalist??

Besides, why does somebody's result in dance competition should reflect his ability to be a good teacher?

How do you judge ability?

 

[Throwaway Overshare]

I thought about ability.... but i feel like....it gets so silly when one teacher finds out what the other makes and starts feeling contempt and all the silly stuff..

That's why you should leave this decision up to the market and not try to make it yourself. Tell everyone what your floor charge is, let them each charge what they think they are worth, and those who are happy with the financial reality can stay while those who aren't can find another line of work.

 

[wooh]

Why do you have to rent at an expensive commercial place ?

Unless you put it in your basement, it's going to be an "expensive commercial place." It can be out of the way, but commercial rent is expensive. Even in a crummy location, commercial rent is expensive. And you need a space big enough for a at least a small floor. Which means, expensive. I know what one of the studios in town pays, granted it's in an "ok" location rather than a crummy location. But it's EXPENSIVE. Shockingly so to a person that had previously only been privy to what my apartments had cost me. Out of curiosity, I went to a commercial real estate website, saw what some of the rents in town were. Expensive!

 

[BestTeacher]

Actually, my whole idea was to give the teacher a choice!! between working for a studio and being and independent. its up to him.....just working for studio he makes a little less.

Maybe he doesn't want to be independent... maybe he wants me to book him all the lessons for him and for him not to have to worry about advertising and whatever.

So at the end its up the teacher of course.

 

[dancingirldancing]

Are you going to cater strictly to beginner social dancer ?

This is what I found is wrong with many studios. When you are competing or more advanced it is VERY hard to find classes and instructor.

How about you make a rating system as in beginner instructor teach beginner and bronze classes for example and competitive dancer teach gold star or competition couple. Then you can charge differently for these classes and then give higher portion to higher teaching staff.

Now, if beginner couple wants to be taught by these senior teacher they have to work their way up to a more advanced level. So no poaching student by the better teacher.

I hope I make sense.

 

[latingal]

And that's the problem: you are trying to force the "this is a business" mindset on dancing. Doing that will prevent you from working with the people for which it is dancing, and not a business.

And this is bad because? Some people are in the studio business and wish to stay in business. Sometimes that means concentrating on making ends meet to keep the place open. I personally know of one studio that was run as you suggested, let's just say that particular venture is no longer an on-going concern. And just how is that a benefit to the dancing community as a whole?

If the studio is going to have both, it has to find a way to not insult the employees by treating them as second class citizens

Agreed, but that does not mean they should not be incented to bring in viable on-going business.

And most studios that do this are incompatible with any participation by more serious dancers.

But not all studios are targeted to only an audience that needs "more serious dancers" as teachers.

Now back to the OP's thoughts on how to improve on his/her idea?

 

[reb]

between working for a studio and being and independent. its up to him

her?

 

[BestTeacher]

no...actually my srtudio is catered to advanced and beginners as well...

My argument is why should the person teaching higher levels get more... plus teachers have to teach all levels...

I teach open latin and i teach wedding couples sometimes....actually some weeks, I get about 10 lessons that consist of some beginners, and wedding couples which fills up my week for me... the rest are my serious pro/am studnets in silver levels up to open level.

So you have to be able to teach all levels if you work for a studio... and if u want to make a living off it

 

[latingal]

That's why you should leave this decision up to the market and not try to make it yourself. Tell everyone what your floor charge is, let them each charge what they think they are worth, and those who are happy with the financial reality can stay while those who aren't can find another line of work.

Once again this seems only be aimed at the independent teacher.

Exactly how would a staff teacher model work with this? It would be administrative nightmare to have to book each staff teacher at a different rate to the customer. Not to mention the liability to the studio reputation for possibly charging different rates to an unknowing consumer for teachers with the same backgrounds.

 

[DL]

I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who runs a famous city tour company. I heard there were two bonuses. One was a, "don't hit anybody," bonus, paid twice a year. If you drive the vehicle for six months free of collision (regardless of fault), you get something like $1000. The other bonus was a, "don't piss me off," bonus, paid either once or twice a year. Basically it's an up-front way for the owner to whimsically reward employees with another $1k-$2k or so. He wants to pay it, and only rarely withholds it; and the employees try not to cause him grief (not even indirectly, say through customer complaints).

In my line of work (software), significant bonuses are rare, but occasional smaller ones serve as tokens of appreciation for particularly hard work: "Thanks for the last few 80-hour weeks, dinner someplace *nice* is on us."

In sales jobs, revenue-based bonuses are integral parts of pay structure, and base pay is often quite low.

In private clubs, or even large condominium associations, especially those with no-tipping policies, there is often a voluntary holiday bonus fund for employees. Those who enjoy good service during the year are encouraged to volunteer money that gets pooled and then doled out to the employees who provide the service.

What's the right combination of base pay and bonuses for dance professionals? I feel totally ignorant, but please indulge a naive question:

I don't know if a bonus structure based on lessons taught is the right one. However, if it were a good model, would the measurement interval and the rate both need to be per-week? Is there no way to reward, "x lessons taught per week, measured over 3 months?" Weekly pay might be base rate, with a quarterly bonus for incentive-based pay (there are other solutions, too, I think). That would at least seem to address the problem of weeks impacted by sick days, vacations, comps, holidays, etc.