La Bene Vita

Wednesday

Just to journal our progress, MTMS   l now has 87 (88 if you count Keith) students enrolled in private lessons and 33 students enrolled in classes. One day, when I'm writing my memoir, I'll appreciate having these little milestones logged away on a server somewhere in... wherever the heck WDC resides.

I feel like our enrollments have slowed a bit. We had a rockin' couple of weeks during October when I thought business was exploding, and now that we've "only" had like 10 new enrollments in the last couple weeks (our original business plan called for 10 per month), I feel a promotion coming on. I'm bouncing between a couple of ideas. I'm thinking of trying advertising just on-site, since we have so many drive-bys and walk-ins. We can hang a $100 sign in the window and get twenty times as much business as we see from the $300-$500 newspaper, magazine, and radio spots.

On a semi-related note, I discovered that our Office Manager, Chris, has a degree in English. This explains that growth attached to her right hand that looks suspiciously like a Kindle, but it doesn't give me much clue into her Quickbooks addiction. *shrug* I don't complain. I just go with it. Meanwhile, our business plan looks good, our break-even analysis looks good, and our cash flow pretty much kicks ass. I expect that we will raise Chris to full-time, hire a couple helpers, and (oh, hallelujah!) outsource our supply stocking and janitorial services very soon. I may have to do some minor price tweaking in 2011, but we even have a solid marketing plan for that roll-out.

On a completely unrelated note, I need to go to my house and get serving dishes, because we are apparently hosting Thanksgiving Dinner this year. But -snicker- somehow all the actual cooking has been delegated to family members, so Keith and I are basically just providing the oven, chairs, and a table. I did offer to prepare the peas and the olive, pickle, and cheese platter. And y'all thought I was an overachiever! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! I would invite you all over, but that might mean more work for me. Alas, I am too lazy. On the other hand, if you'd like to learn an instrument, I can quickly overcome my laziness, because I would be happy to take your $74 per month and teach you (or your child) to rock out like <insert your favorite musician here>. One day soon, I might actually earn an income off of your tuition. You know, after I pay the lease, utilities, Office Manager, teachers, computer lab attendants, receptionists, supply sourcing, and cleaning staff.