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Business Xcelerator Business of the Month - Mikes Lessons

By Sean Burrows

This month's Business Xcelerator business of the month was a real treat to interview.  Five years ago, Mike Johnston was a working touring musician with the likes of Filter (Warner Brothers Records) and Simon Says (Hollywood Records). Today he stays in one place for work and is earning a bigger, more consistent income. What is he doing differently? Not much, he is still playing drums and loving every minute of it. In fact, he loves it even more now than he did when he was playing in front of 20,000 people. "On tour I discovered I had more of a passion for teaching the other drummers than I did for being on stage!" But don't get the idea that Mr. Johnston settled for something less when he decided to make a life out of teaching music instead of performing it. Quite the contrary! Mike Johnston has invented a new way of sharing music education, and he has found it to be extremely rewarding.

Not only is it rewarding business, but Mike is truly an industry first. As an endorser for Aquarian Drum Heads, they saw what he was accomplishing, and saw him as a wave of the future. He became the first educator to have a full page magazine ad taken out on just him. "Aquarian ran these ads in both, Drum and Modern Drummer." I said, "What are you doing? I'm just a drum teacher! But the investment they made in me legitimized what I was doing THAT much more, and I was no longer a crack-up on YouTube just trying to get by, somehow that made things real."

BX: Performing on stage in front of massive crowds is a pretty big high, was it shocking to discover that you got an even bigger high out of teaching than performing?

MJ: Absolutely and that's why I thought like, hey man, this is a lot of people's dreams. Let me get out of this and help people get to this point since I already know how I got here. It wasn't my dream, but I know that it's a lot of people's dream so I wanted help these people get closer to achieving their dream.

BX: Touring rock star to online drumming guru is a big jump. How did you make that happen?

MJ: Well, on tour I would spend most of my time teaching the other drummers. It wasn't like I was saying, "I bet you can't do this." It was more like, "Hey, I was just on stage and while I was spacing out playing this song, I thought of something. What do you guys think of this?"

I was trying to contribute because I was on tour with Travis Barker from Blink 182, Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters, John Otto from Limp Bizkit, and Jon Wysocki from Staind. These drummers were great players so I wasn't trying to teach them like I was their superior. I just kind of realized, I was having more fun doing that than when I was on stage. I have more of a passion for creating parts and breaking them down to other drummers than I do actually playing the drums on stage and doing the rock star thing. I just got so much of a high out of that compared to being on stage in front of 20,000 people bored out of my mind, but as soon as I was teaching those other drummers something, I was in heaven. At that point it became obvious to me that I was meant more for teaching than I was for touring.

BX: Having downloaded a lot of your video lessons myself and sitting through the private lesson broadcast, it is obvious that you aren't self-taught; you know what you are doing. What kind of formal training background do you have?

MJ: I started taking private lessons when I was five. I was absolutely terrible for probably the first seven or eight years. Like bad enough that my teachers accused me of not practicing because I was so bad. They said well you couldn't possibly practice and be this bad. So I definitely wasn't a natural.

BX: You definitely have an x-factor to your teaching, and obviously a lot of your students/customers online value your teaching approach. What is it that sets YOU apart?

MJ: As a kid I was practicing three to four hours a day, every day and not improving at all but luckily I was so young. Eventually when I was thirteen, things finally started to click, and I started to understand myself as far as how I needed to break things down to learn them. My teacher would teach me something, I would nod my head and pretend I understood it and then I would go home and break it down for myself, and that's kind of how I developed my teaching style. I learned to teach by re-teaching myself what I had just learned.

This process helped me develop patience because every one of my students that struggled, I understand. I get it. I'm like I know what your body feel s like. I know how awkward this is and I'll walk you through it. Where a natural drummer that tries to teach will just look at a kid and go like, "Why aren't you doing it? Do better!" No kid wants to fail. No kid is trying to be bad. So it helps for me to have that great crystal clear memory of what my limbs felt like being awkward and it helps me break things down for people.

BX: How exactly did you transition from being a touring working musician to making a career out of teaching?

MJ: When I decided to start teaching full time, I knew that to do that I needed a big roster. So I worked tirelessly trying to build that up. My goal was to have 90 students per week, and I did everything I could think of. I knew how hard it is to get private students. I knew that I had no control over how much better other drummers than me. There's nothing I can do about that, but I also knew the one thing I could control was I could outwork somebody. I have that option to just stay up later, to promote harder, and to put more effort into building my brand. When you're an independent contractor your brand is you so I just was tireless and just relentless on building the brand, Mike Johnston. I went into every school in our area and told their band director, I will tune your snare drums once a month, and give all of your kids a free private clinic once a month if in turn; you refer all of your drummers to me. I did that at 20 different schools and then within a couple of months I had 90 private students studying with me per week. So once I built up to that, I opened the Drum Lab about three years ago.

BX: At this point you're teaching students like any other music teacher would, in a traditional one-on-one fashion. How did the online part happen?

MJ: Once I had the Drum Lab really going; it was myself and six other teachers under me, and things got really busy. I was still doing these two or three day mini tours, to the point where I had to miss somebody's lesson. So, I would pre-record it and put it up on YouTube, and send the link to my students. Before I knew it, a lesson I recorded for eight or nine students a week previous would have 6,000 views! It made me wonder, "Why would 6,000 people watch this? It's just a drum lesson." It didn't make any sense to me. From there one of my lessons had a 100,000 views and then 200,000 views. I was thinking, "I don't want to be selfish, but if I just had $0.99 for every one of these views, we'd be in business!"

So then I decided to look into building a website where I could sell products. I asked some companies and they gave me the big $10,000 quotes. I freaked out and wound up spending two months every night from 11PM to 4AM online learning how to build websites. At the time I'd never even emailed before and I couldn't afford to pay somebody to build a site so I had to do it myself. So I learned graphic design, I learned action script, I learned HTML and I learned JavaScript and I learned how to build everything by myself so my overhead remained zero besides my GoDaddy hosting team and that was it. Or at least that was the beginning of it.

To read the full version of this article visit the Business Xcelerator Online Magazine.

About the Author

Sean Burrows a serial entrepreneur with a background in financial services, private investing, and interactive marketing. After a foray as a financial planner, Mr. Burrows began acquiring small businesses and investing in non-conventional private offerings in 2005. In 2006, Mr. Burrows purchased a small web development firm which eventually became Enliven Group, LLC http://www.enlivengroup.com in 2008, a full service, an interactive media and Internet marketing consulting firm. Sean is also Editor in Chief of the Business Xcelerator Online Magazine http://www.thebusinessxcelerator.com

Who would have been better. Ronnie Lott or Sean Taylor in the NFL?

Who would have been better. Ronnie Lott or Sean Taylor in the NFL? If Sean Taylor didnt die do you think lott or taylor would have been a better saftey in the nfl.

Ronnie Lott, there is nobody playing the game that compares to him.

-10x Pro Bowl selection (1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991)
-9x All-Pro selection (1981, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991)
-NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team
-NFL 1980s All-Decade Team
-NFL 1990s All-Decade Team
-The Lott Trophy, recognizing college football's defensive impact player, is named in his honor.
-In 1999, he was ranked number 23 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. This makes him the highest-ranked safety, the second-ranked defensive back behind Night Train Lane.
-63 career INTs

Sean Taylor Pro Bowl Hit

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Sean Taylor (Footballer) $87.62 Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Sean Taylor (born 9 December 1985 in Wansbeck, Northumberland) is an English footballer who played as a midfielder in the Football League for Blackpool, on loan from Sunderland, for whom he did not make a firstteam appearance. He moved into nonLeague football with Ashington in January 2007. Sunderland Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear who currently play in the Premier League. Since its formation in 1879, the club has won six First Division titlesin 1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913, and 1936and the FA Cup twice, in 1937 and 1973. Author: Surhone, Lambert M./ Tennoe, Mariam T./ Henssonow, Susan F. Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 116 Publication Date: 2011/07/18 Language: English Dimensions: 9.02 x 5.98 x 0.28 inches

Sean Taylor Autographed Miami Hurricanes College Football 8x10 Photo $352.6 Sean Taylor Autographed Miami Hurricanes College Football 8x10 Photo Sean Taylor Autographed / Signed Miami Hurricanes College Football 8x10 Photo (JSA)

Sean Taylor Autographed Mini Helmet - University of Miami Hurricanes $458.38 Sean Taylor Autographed Mini Helmet - University of Miami Hurricanes Sean Taylor Autographed / Signed University of Miami Hurricanes Mini Helmet

Sean Taylor (Comic Book Writer) $100.37 Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Sean Taylor (born May 2, 1968) is an American comic book and short story writer, perhaps bestknown for his run on Gene Simmons Dominatrix published by IDW Publishing.Taylor grew up and lived all his life in the state of Georgia, U.S.A, and he has applied that sense of Southern magical realism to his writing. He began writing creating articles for trade magazines and stringing for his local paper The Alpharetta Revue. Author: Surhone, Lambert M./ Tennoe, Mariam T./ Henssonow, Susan F. Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 136 Publication Date: 2011/07/18 Language: English Dimensions: 9.02 x 5.98 x 0.32 inches

Sean Taylor Autographed Framed 8x10 w/ Unisgned Game Used Bandana Piece $493.64 Sean Taylor Autographed Framed 8x10 w/ Unisgned Game Used Bandana Piece Sean Taylor Autographed / Signed Framed 8x10 w/ Unisgned Game Used Bandana Piece

Sean Freeman $111.53 Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Sean Freeman, (born St Albans, England) is the current saxophonist of the British musical group Level 42. He joined the band in 2001, and participated in the recording of their most recent album, Retroglide. Freeman also makes vocal participations in some music of the band. Other collaborations of Freeman include: YCB, Sixth Sense, Fat Freddys Kat, Lewis Taylor, The Foundations, David Soul, Geri Halliwell, Martha Reeves, Jimmy Jones, Carl Douglas, Lulu, The Nolans, Hank Marvin and Kid Creole The Coconuts. Author: Surhone, Lambert M./ Tennoe, Mariam T./ Henssonow, Susan F. Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 168 Publication Date: 2011/07/07 Language: English Dimensions: 9.02 x 5.98 x 0.39 inches

Huck Runs Amuck By Taylor, Sean/ Reynolds, Peter (ILT) $22.13 The residents of North Skettykolk are no match for a visiting mountain goat with an enormous appetite for flowers. Author: Taylor, Sean/ Reynolds, Peter H. (ILT) Publication Date: 2011/04/19 Number of Pages: 48 Binding Type: School And Library Grade Level: 12 Language: English Depth: 0.50 Width: 8.25 Height: 11.00

Sean Taylor "Dominance" Photo Mint with 2 24KT Gold Coins $99.95 Sean Taylor "Dominance" Photo Mint with 2 24KT Gold Coins The Highland Mint “Dominanceâ€� line of Photo Mints is reserved for the players that dominate the game of football. Presented in a 13â€� x 16â€� frame with team colored double matting, Sean Taylor is featured on this custom 8x10 print in several different action poses and matted with a 24KT Gold overlay Washington Redskins coin and a 24KT Gold overlay NFL coin. A numbered certificate of authenticity is matted between both coins. This is a limited edition of 2500 and Officially Licensed by NFL

Autographed Sean Taylor Photo - Miami Hurricanes 8x10 PSADNA $255 Autographed Sean Taylor Photo - Miami Hurricanes 8x10 PSADNA This item was hand signed by the athlete and is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity from SportsMemorabilia.com. A tamper-evident hologram will be affixed to the item. Signed items are guaranteed to pass any third-party authentication with 100% Money Back Guarantee. Each signature is witnessed by a member of our staff or comes out of a private signing.

When a Monster Is Born By Taylor, Sean/ Sharratt, Nick (ILT) $11.86 With zany humor and bright colors, this lively book for youngsters explores the options available to a monster from the time it is born, such as becoming the scary monster under someones bed or playing on the school basketball team. Reprint. Author: Taylor, Sean/ Sharratt, Nick (ILT) Publication Date: 2011/08/16 Number of Pages: 32 Binding Type: Paperback Grade Level: 12 Language: English Depth: 0.25 Width: 7.25 Height: 10.25

The World Champion of Staying Awake By Taylor, Sean/ Liao, Jimmy (ILT) $20.06 At bedtime, Stella must find a way to make her toys fall asleep before she can go to sleep. Author: Taylor, Sean/ Liao, Jimmy (ILT) Publication Date: 2011/06/28 Number of Pages: 32 Binding Type: School And Library Grade Level: Preschool Language: English Depth: 0.50 Width: 11.00 Height: 10.00

Sean Taylor Dominance Framed 8 x 10 Photograph and Medallion Set from The Highland Mint $99.95 The Highland Mint "Dominance" line of Photo Mints is reserved for the players that dominate the game of football. Presented in a 13" x 16" frame with team colored double matting, Sean Taylor is featured on this custom 8" x 10" print in several different action poses and matted with a 24KT Gold Overlay Washington Redskins coin and a 24KT Gold Overlay NFL Shield coin. A numbered certificate of authenticity is matted between both coins. This is a limited edition of 2500 and Officially Licensed by NFL.

Washington Redskins Sean Taylor Dominance Photomint w/ 2 24KT Gold Coins $99.99 The Highland Mint �Dominance� line of Photo Mints is reserved for the players that dominate the game of football. Presented in a 13� x 16� frame with team colored double matting, Sean Taylor is featured on this custom 8x10 print in several different action poses and matted with a 24KT Gold overlay Washington Redskins coin and a 24KT Gold overlay NFL coin. A numbered certificate of authenticity is matted between both coins. This is a limited edition of 2500 and Officially Licensed by NFL

Highland Mint PHOTO1036K Sean Taylor Dominance Photo Mint with 2 24KT Gold Coins $129.94 The Highland Mint Dominance line of Photo Mints is reserved for the players that dominate the game of football. Presented in a 13 x 16 frame with team colored double matting Sean Taylor is featured on this custom 8x10 print in several different action poses and matted with a 24KT Gold overlay Washington Redskins coin and a 24KT Gold overlay NFL coin. A numbered certificate of authenticity is matted between both coins. This is a limited edition of 2500 and Officially Licensed by NFL. Team: Washington Redskins. Mintage 2500. Sport: Football

The Invisible Man By Wells, H. G./ Taylor, Sean (ADP)/ Ahluwalia, Bhupendra (ILT) $14.16 A graphic novel adaptation of the tale in which a quiet English country village is disturbed by the arrival of a mysterious stranger who keeps his face hidden and his back to everyone. Author: Wells, H. G./ Taylor, Sean (ADP)/ Ahluwalia, Bhupendra (ILT) Series Title: Campfire Publication Date: 2010/10/05 Number of Pages: 68 Binding Type: Paperback Grade Level: 46 Language: English Depth: 0.50 Width: 6.50 Height: 10.25

One Piece 31 By Eiichiro, Oda/ Forbes, Jake (ADP)/ Eagle, Taylor (TRN)/ Murashige, Yuki (EDT)/ Lee, Sean (CON) $14.16 Author: Eiichiro, Oda/ Forbes, Jake (ADP)/ Eagle, Taylor (TRN)/ Murashige, Yuki (EDT)/ Lee, Sean (CON) Series Title: One Piece Subtitle: Well Be Here Publication Date: 2010/02/02 Number of Pages: 192 Binding Type: Paperback Language: English Depth: 0.75 Width: 5.00 Height: 7.50

Big Sean $70 Big Sean

Sean Bean $6 Sean Bean

Sean O'Riordain $16.49 Sean O'Riordain

Sean's Blues $11.49 Sean's Blues

Sean Connery $7.99 Sean Connery - Photo

Sean Avery $39.99 Sean Avery - Photo

Sean Combs $7.99 Sean Combs - Photo

Sean Kanan $7.99 Sean Kanan - Photo

Sean Penn $19.99 Sean Penn - Photo

Sean Casey $39.99 Sean Casey - Photo

British Stars and Stardom : From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery $34.13 No Synopsis Available

Taylor $10 Taylor - Cutie

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