What are the requirements to teach on Play with a Pro?
Do I really need to use an ethernet cable?
How can students book lessons with me?
How can I arrange lessons with students?
How can I set my available times?
How do I receive payment for lessons?
What can I do to attract new students?
What happens if I need to cancel a lesson?
What if I temporarily travel or don't have time to teach?
How can I offer free or discounted lessons to some people?
How can I share sheet music or recordings?
What are the requirements to teach on Play with a Pro?
Teachers have the same technical requirements to be able to teach as students. Please read more here.
To maintain a high quality of our teacher roster, all teachers are vetted by us before being able to create a public profile and teach. If you are interested, we would love you to get in touch with us at hello@playwithapro.com
Do I really need to use an ethernet cable?
We strongly recommend to use an ethernet cable and switching off wifi to give the student the best experience possible.
Here is a comparison when using an ethernet cable vs. using WiFi.
How can students book lessons with me?
There are two ways students can book lessons with you:
1) You can enter your available time slots into your calendar of availability, under 'My Availability', like here:
Once you added availabilities, then students who go to your profile page and click 'Schedule lesson' will be able to see those in their local timezone and book a lesson with you.
2) Or, you can suggest lessons in the messaging conversation with the student. Once a student has sent you a message via our platform to introduce themselves, you can suggest and attach a few times directly in the conversation with them, and they can book the one that fits them. Of course, you can also make more times available in your calendar but remember to tell the student where to find and book those (from your profile 'Schedule lesson').
Here is how you suggest times in a conversation with the student (always suggest times in your local time, we take care of displaying them to the student in the student's local time):
Include a message and send the suggestion to the student. It will then look like this.
How can I arrange lessons with students?
You can send them a link to your profile where they can either schedule a lesson with you or send you a message. You can then reply and attach your lesson time suggestion(s). Students can then book the one that fits them and you will be notified via email.
How can I set my available times?
You can easily publish and unpublish your available time slots. Go to 'My Availability' and 'paint' your available time slots into the calendar.
Note: to give you enough time to respond to bookings, students will only see available times from 24 hours in the future.
When you hover over a time slot you will see an 'x' to delete it again. Note that as soon as someone booked a lesson with you on a time slot, you cannot remove it. Make sure that you have the right time zone set in your profile. Students will see your available times in their own time zone.
Alternatively, you can always suggest individual starting times to your students by attaching them to a message. See here.
How can I set my rates?
You can set our own rates for lessons in your profile. Go to 'Manage profile' and find the option to set your rates for 30min, 45min and 60min lessons. We highly encourage you to also offer free 15min introductions. Especially in the beginning, we also encourage you to offer lower rates than for your normal lessons to attract more students.
At the moment, all rates are set and displayed in USD to provide the easiest conversion currency for people.
You can see below how rates are entered and will display.
How do I receive payment for lessons?
As soon as a student books a lesson with you, we will hold that money and release it to you after a successful lesson – minus our service fee. Please also keep our cancellation policy in mind.
What can I do to attract new students?
We will help you promote your profile and attract students but especially in the beginning the following things will help:
- a good, professional and welcoming profile
- a short intro video helps a lot to show interested students what they can expect from you
- reviews from existing students are a great way to build up additional trust
- initially lower rates can encourage people to try out a lesson with you
Tips to turn first-time students into long-lasting student relations
You probably know how to do this in real life but sometimes the internet can work a bit differently. Some students might also just be looking for 1-2 lessons ahead of auditions or exams but many might look for more regular lessons.
Here are 3 tips:
- Make it easy to book a time: attach a concrete lesson suggestion date&time in your first reply and ask if it works for them.
Make sure they mean it - and avoid no shows on free introductions. Ask them to please let you know in good time if they cannot make the agreed/booked time since you will be there waiting.
- Confirm whether they really just wanted the short free introduction to get to know each other, or whether they want more time and a proper lesson. Again, already now attach a concrete lesson suggestion with your reply, so they can book it right away if they wanted the full lesson instead.
- Try to agree on the next date(s) in the end of the lesson. Then immediately afterwards send the lesson suggestion for them to confirm. You probably did a great job, so it's now they are motivated for more. You can also mention that they can get a discount (paid by us) when they pay for 5 or 10 lessons upfront.
How can I edit my profile?
You can edit your profile by going to 'Manage Profile' from the account dropdown in the upper-right corner.
Here you can set your photo, introduction text, list relevant experience and education and embed YouTube videos or SoundCloud clips for potential students to see.
What happens if I need to cancel a lesson?
To be respectful of each other's time, we would really ask you to stick to your lesson appointments and give students at least 24 hours notice before the lesson before cancelling it. However, these things do occur – you can cancel a lesson from your account page, or from within a conversation with a student. You are required to supply a message with the cancellation; this gives you an oppurtunity to apologise and set upcoming dates.
What if I temporarily travel or don't have time to teach?
Just get in touch with us and we can "hide" your profile.
Can I offer free or discounted lessons to some people?
Yes! For now, get in touch with us and we will equip you with a specific code your students can use.
How can I share sheet music or recordings?
You can use the built-in messaging system before, during (as a chat) and after your lesson.
By clicking the attach file icon, you can attach:
- PDFs or photos of sheet music
- files of audio or video recordings you have on your computer
- directly record video or audio files right there
Students have the same possibility, so you can ask them to send you little recordings of them exercising for example. Or why not try to record a little 1min pep-talk video in-between your lessons?