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Turning a Talent into a Successful Business: John Antone

John Antone's Story: John Antone became a music maker at a young age, and then a world-class guitarist. But great rock and jazz riffs aren’t all that satisfy him. John also has built a small chain of music academies – and now he believes he can turn the music teaching business upside down!

John got his music education at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, CA, became a highly paid studio musician in Southern California, and then headed back to his home state of Michigan with his savings in the mid-Nineties. He developed an instruction method that combined teaching core skills with creating enthusiasm by having fun.

“The method I came up with really works,” John says. “And to see all of my students smiling and laughing by the time they left just fired me up.” And soon, even at $50 an hour, John was teaching more than 55 students a week and had a humongous waiting list to boot.

At that point, John was just like many other music teachers: maxed out. He probably could sustain his business – but he couldn’t grow it significantly.

John’s Key Move: Turning a Talent into a Successful Business

John’s breakthrough was coming up with a strategy to grow his enterprise through savvy business innovation, not just his fantastic musical skills.

“I like creating things,” John explains. “I still play music every day, and that’s always been my passion. But business has become a passion equal to that.”

His business really took off once John realized two crucial things – first, that students of all ages really clamored for his unique approach to teaching; and second, that he could teach his approach to other instructors.

From there, John decided to establish his first Axis Music Academy, in Southfield, Michigan, a 400-square-foot studio. Business went so well that, within a year, he added on 1,500 square feet. By 2004, there also were Axis Music Academies in two other Detroit suburbs. And John worked with the Guitar Center chain of music stores to locate close to their outlets.

Because John had learned to think like an entrepreneur, he continued to figure out ways to push the envelope in his business, which tended to be very traditional. John accomplished three huge innovations in 2005 alone.

In April, John reached a deal with Mel Bay Publishing, the second largest print music publisher in the world, to standardize the entire curriculum that he had been developing over the course of a decade. For now, it’ll just be used at Axis Music Academies, but it is a business tool that John can use more broadly later on.

In July, Axis became “the very first certified music trade school in the state’s history,” as John tells it. He intends his program to be the music-teaching equivalent of the Specs Howard broadcasting program or of ITT’s technical programs. “We’re still at an infant stage,” he says.

And in November of that year, John launched a new division called Axis@Home, which certifies music teachers and sends them to teach in people’s homes. And he outsourced an arrangement with a call center to deal with customers and potential customers. “We’ve got endless scalability with this idea,” he says.

Not surprisingly for someone with as much entrepreneurial ability and verve as John, he’s got some other expansion ideas up his sleeve as well. One of the biggest is to take Axis Music Academy outside Michigan, perhaps eventually making a national chain out of his flair for instructional innovation and business execution.

Amazingly, Axis Music Academy already has grown to a $1.2-million business, and John projects sales of nearly $1.7 million for this year. The company has a full- and part-time staff of about 70 people.

“And we’ve funded all of our growth out of cash flow with no debt, while making money along the way,” John notes. “We’ve modernized, professionalized and standardized an industry that historically hasn’t worked well with those kinds of things. And there’s still a lot we can do.”

This guitar-player-turned teacher decided that he could have just as much fun in business as in the studio, by transforming his skill into a thriving company. And the rest of the story is just beautiful music.

John’s Bonus Insight

One of the smartest things he did, John says, is construct an advisory board early in his business – and keep listening to their advice.

John has populated his board with both friends and highly qualified professionals, some paid and some who show up for the group’s regular meetings just for the psychic satisfaction or because they like John. The board includes experts in legal, financial, real estate, business development and technology, but also people who belong just because they know the music business – a total of 15 advisory-board members in all.

“They’ve helped me put together the whole puzzle and make really good business decisions,” John says. “They’ve helped enforce stability, consistency and predictability in my business."