"Thank you so much for coming to my salon for an evening of music, culture, and philosophical discussion. And now, 'Chopsticks'." (Source)

Are you business-savvy, but have a soft spot for a concerto or two? What if we told you that those two loves could be combined if you decided to own your very own piano shop? You'd be living the dream: managing your own store, having your own team of employees, and selling enormous, thousand-dollar instruments to that seven-year-old kid who just learned how to play "Chopsticks."

"Chopsticks" aside, being a piano shop owner is a pretty sweet gig. You won't be on your feet all day, you'll be able to wear and sell what you want, and your salary will probably be around $55,000 a year (source). Probably. Unlike other jobs, where it's a safe bet that if you just stick it out, you can make around the national average, a piano shop owner has no guarantee of success. 

 

Everyone knows that being rich means mac 'n' cheese with fancier ingredients. (Source)

Your piano shop might just fail. It might stay open, but only bring in a measly $18,000 a year. On the other hand, you might do so well that you'll own multiple shops, pull in $150,000 a year (source), and season your gourmet mac 'n' cheese with gold flakes. It's equal parts luck and business skill. In other words, it's a gamble.

The cool thing about being the owner of a successful business, assuming you become successful (because we believe in you), is that you can hire people to do the tasks you don't want to do. When you're first starting out, you may need to be at the store seven days a week, morning to night, just to get the place up and running. 

Plus, you'll be the one filing all that boring paperwork and making sure that you're complying with insurance, licensing, and tax regulations. It'll be nothing but work, work, work for you—until the shop starts seeing success. Once things are all set up, you can be around as much or as little as you want.

You probably won't stop working at the shop altogether. After all, you'll want to be involved in how your shop is run. You're the king of the hill, and kings are leaders. You're the one who hires, trains, and supervises a team of employees. 

You're the liaison between the store and your suppliers, the one who handles the thousands of dollars the store makes with each sale, and the one who develops and executes business and marketing plans.

So yeah, it would be a good idea to have some business schoolin' under your belt. Technically, you don't need any qualifications other than a pocket full of cash, a storefront, and a couple pianos to sell to start a piano shop; but it will help you to stay open longer (until retirement, hopefully) if you know how to run a store. You should aim to get an associate's or bachelor's degree in business or marketing.

The training that you'll get in college will be especially useful because piano shops aren't exactly a booming business now that dubstep is the music du jour. Pianos are expensive, and people usually don't buy them by the dozen. It takes some serious hustle to get these things out of your shop and into the homes of people who will love and care for them.

This isn't a death sentence, though. You can still make a profit off of a piano shop…you just may want to add a little more to what you're selling. You can add a bunch of different instruments to your shop's collection (everybody loves a good woodwind), offer a repair and tuning service, and sell some cheaper, electronic versions of the instruments (a.k.a. keyboards). 

You can even offer piano lessons. But, hey, you're the marketing and business expert-to-be, not us. Get out there and make some music happen.

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