Meet Lauren Bateman of LB Music School in Middlesex

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Bateman.

Lauren, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Once I graduated college, it was time for me to grow up and get a ‘real job’. I had been working construction over the summers and decided to pursue that until I could find something I could do with my degrees. While I didn’t mind manual labor, working outside in the dead of winter during the frigid cold of January and February wasn’t on the top of my priority list in life. I took the first job offered to me along with a 40% pay cut and I was on my way.

After working for a number of years in cancer drug research, something close to my heart as a childhood cancer survivor, I learned that the typical 9-5 job wasn’t for me. So I did the next best thing a 27 year old with a degree in Biology and Archaeology could do.

I quit my job to become a musician.

If that’s not what you guessed, don’t worry, most people didn’t think it was logical at the time either. But music was my passion. While I hated piano when I was younger, I loved guitar and had taught myself how to play. After college, I took singing and drum lessons. It was something that had always stuck with me and something I truly enjoyed.

In spring of 2010, I opened up shop in a spare bedroom of my little apartment in Malden. Boy was that cramped. It tripled as a band practice room, an office and a lesson space and I was a pretty big slob at the time. Well, needless to say, people must have liked me because my student roster kept growing. About a year in, I moved to Medford to an apartment with a nice and spacious attic studio that I could dedicate solely to music and teaching.

After another year, my schedule started becoming very crowded and I found myself selling more and more of my most precious commodity – time. I didn’t quit my 9-5 job to become a slave to another job, so I decided to hire one of my students to come on board as my first teacher. I set him up on my front porch and started giving him all my extra students.

That worked great until the weather got cold. So I convinced my girlfriend to convert her office/study room into a second teaching room and I hired another teacher to work the days this other teacher wasn’t. We had an influx of people coming and going from the house. It was going great but not a good long term strategy.

One day, I went for a walk and noticed a for rent sign on a building near my house. I called the landlord, struck up a deal and next thing you knew I owned a music school. Boy was that scary. The majority of my income was going towards the overhead of the building and my girlfriend was going back to school full-time for nursing. Probably not the best timing, but, I knew I wasn’t going to let myself fail, so I pushed forward.

LB Music School opened in November of 2012 and grew strong through September 2014 when the something no business owners wants to happen happened.

At 4:30am, I got a call from my alarm company and then a call from my landlord. There was a car in my building. A woman have driven her car straight in the front of the building taking out my entire music school overnight. I was devastated. I immediately moved everything back to my apartment. We used every room in the house. We were even teaching lessons in my kitchen which was set up as the make-shift office. My girlfriend and I ended up having to move out of our apartment temporarily just to maintain sanity.

Not only that, you may remember the winter of 2015 as the year of Snowpocolypse. Not only did I not have a business location anymore, we barely had any spaces for the staff and customers to park. Not the best way to grow a business by any means. We were out of a space for 8 months before we could open a brand new location in Medford.

The fact that we survived I still find amazing today, but, I had the support of some amazing staff members and loyal customers. The business wouldn’t have survived without them and their belief in me and the company. I knew there were people counting on me and I didn’t want to let them down. When we opened our new location in June 2015 the business had grown 28% over the previous year. Yes, even without a space and through Snowpocalypse.

In 2016, I opened my second music school location in the town of Wakefield and have plans to open a third in the Middlesex area.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Oh absolutely not. I talked about some of the struggles in my last question but I think the biggest thing in the beginning was believing in myself. Knowing that I could do something like this and achieve the goals I wanted to.

Sometimes there were even challenges with money and capital. The insurance company took well over a year to payout and because my business had actually grown through the ordeal, they didn’t really want to pay me anything. I ended up footing most of the money for the build out of the new school with the savings I had in the business and a personal loan from myself until we could negotiate.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with LB Music School – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
LB Music School focuses on inspiring students of all ages through music. We want to build confidence, foster creativity and build life skills through the power of music education. Since music is my passion, I want to sincerely share it and make it accessible to as many people as possible because I know the benefits of learning an instrument. We specialize in teaching voice, piano and guitar lessons.

I am proud of the strong sense of community that we have built. Many of our students have created new friendships, something my adult students have told me is hard to do when you get older.

We genuinely and sincerely care about our students and want what’s best for them. I would never suggest something to someone that I wouldn’t do and I wouldn’t take anyone’s money unless I felt we could truly help them succeed. I think there are a lot of music providers out there that will just take your money whether or not they can help you. I truly care about the success of our students. That why the community we have built here is so important because it helps to boost confidence and encourage students to pursue their goals even through the challenging times.

Are students and parents feel like family, and growing up Italian, that’s very important to me.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We opened our second location in 2016 in Wakefield and that school has been growing over the past year. It’s really helped test my management style and has allowed me to give more responsibility to my higher level staff members. It has been very rewarding for me and I hope it has been rewarding for them to be part of something that is growing.

I do have plans to open a third location in the Middlesex area probably in 2018. Where exactly that will be I am not sure as I am still in the planning stages. I am really looking to turn this company into a 7-figure business and I and my stage are definitely on path to achieving that soon.

The biggest change for me has been removing myself from the teaching as well as the management of the individual locations. When I quit my job 7 years ago, it was to create freedom for myself and that is still part of the overall goal. While I love my work and work on my business 60-80 hours a week, I want to share my success with my staff so that they can create the life they want for themselves and their families while doing something they are passionate about.

Contact Info:

• Address: 243 Central Ave
  Medford, MA 02155
  74 Albion St
  Wakefeild, MA 01880
• Website: http://www.lbmusicschool.com
• Phone: 781-874-1813
• Email: lauren@lbmusicschool.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/lb_musicschool
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lbmusicschool
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lb-music-school-medford-2

Image Credit:
Professional Photo of Lauren Bateman with guitar – Brian Doherty

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